Investigating the antecedents to the adoption of SCRM technologies by start-up companies

Despite their fairly recent emergence, start-up companies now play an important role in the economic development of countries around the globe. These companies have fewer tangible assets and capital, and therefore, the efficient delivery of services and products is a key business priority for them. Customer relationship management (CRM) technologies, which are designed to facilitate customer engagement during the design, development and delivery of services and products may play a significant role in the success or failure of start-up companies. Developments in new communication technologies have transformed traditional CRM into electronic CRM (eCRM), mobile CRM (mCRM); and more recently, social CRM (SCRM). However, there remains very little understanding of the factors affecting SCRM adoption in start-up businesses. The relative newness of SCRM technologies, coupled with the swiftly evolving nature of start-up companies: which has made them difficult cases to study – has limited the amount of research undertaken in this area. This paper aims to close this gap by proposing a framework that depicts the factors affecting start-up companies’ intention to adopt SCRM applications, and explores the relative importance of these factors. Inspired by an extended Technological, Organisational and Environmental (TOE) framework, this paper investigates effects of technological characteristics (TC), organisational characteristics (OC), environmental characteristics (EC) and managerial characteristics (MC) on start-up companies’ intentions to adopt SCRM applications. The results outlined in this research indicate that the observability, compatibility and trialability of SCRM solutions positively affect SCRM adoption in start-up businesses. Moreover, the availability of internal financial resources has a similarly positive effect. When considering environmental characteristics, it was found that support from venture capitalists, crowd funding support, governmental support, business angels support and external pressure all positively affect the intention to adopt SCRM applications within start-up businesses

Thermodynamics of Modified Chaplygin Gas and Tachyonic Field

Here we generalize the results of the work of ref. [10] in modified Chaplygin gas model and tachyonic field model. Here we have studied the thermodynamical behaviour and the equation of state in terms of volume and temperature for both models. We have used the solution and the corresponding equation of state of our previous work [12] for tachyonic field model. We have also studied the thermodynamical stability using thermal equation of state for the tachyonic field model and have shown that there is no critical points during thermodynamical expansion. The determination of $T_{*}$ due to expansion for the tachyonic field have been discussed by assuming some initial conditions. Here, the thermal quantities have been investigated using some reduced parameters.Comment: 10 page

Possibility of cyclic Turnarounds In Brane-world Scenario: Phantom Energy Accretion onto Black Holes and its consequences

A universe described by braneworlds is studied in a cyclic scenario. As expected such an oscillating universe will undergo turnarounds, whenever the phantom energy density reaches a critical value from either side. It is found that a universe described by RSII brane model will readily undergo oscillations if, either the brane tension, \lambda, or the bulk cosmological constant, \Lambda_{4}, is negative. The DGP brane model does not readily undergo cyclic turnarounds. Hence for this model a modified equation is proposed to incorporate the cyclic nature. It is found that there is always a remanent mass of a black hole at the verge of a turnaround. Hence contrary to known results in literature, it is found that the destruction of black holes at the turnaround is completely out of question. Finally to alleviate, if not solve, the problem posed by the black holes, it is argued that the remanent masses of the black holes do not act as a serious defect of the model because of Hawking evaporation.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures; International Journal of Theoretical Physics (2012

Cylindrical Solutions in Modified f(T) Gravity

We investigate static cylindrically symmetric vacuum solutions in Weyl coordinates in the framework of f(T) theories of gravity, where T is the torsion scalar. The set of modified Einstein equations is presented and the fourth coming equations are established. Specific physical expressions are assumed for the algebraic function f(T) and solutions are obtained. Moreover, general solution is obtained with finite values of u(r) on the axis r = 0, and this leads to a constant torsion scalar. Also, cosmological constant is introduced and its relation to Linet-Tian solution in GR is commented.Comment: 13 pages; Accepted for publication in International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD

Kadar Pengenapan dan Kepekatan Beberapa Logam Berat pada Permukaan Sedimen di Hutan Paya Bakau Bebar, Pahang

Sampel permukaan yang dikutip dari 3 transet (54 stesen pensampelan) di hutan paya bakau Bebar telah diukur kadar pemendapan, ciri-ciri sedimen dan kepekatan beberapa logam. Dalam kajian ini, kadar sedimentasi diukur dengan menggunakan kaedah penunjuk tiruan mendatar di mana purata pemendapan sebanyak 0.52 cm.thn·' telah diperoleh. Min saiz partikel sedimen permukaan didapati beljulat di antara dari pasir halus (5.151/» hingga kelodak halus (6.911/». Min saiz partikel menunjukkan hubungan signifikan (P<0.05) terhadap perubahan musim dengan penurunan nilainya ketika musim monsun. Bagi logam Cr, Cu, Pb dan Zn didapati menunjukkan perubahan mengikut jarak dengan purata kepekatan yang rendah di kawasan muara dan tinggi secara relatif di kawasan yang lebih jauh dari muara

Constraints on coupling constant between dark energy and dark matter

We have investigated constraints on the coupling between dark matter and the interacting Chaplygin gas. Our results indicate that the coupling constant $c$ between these two entities can take arbitrary values, which can be either positive or negative, thus giving arbitrary freedom to the inter-conversion between Chaplygin gas and dark matter. Thus our results indicate that the restriction $0<c<1$ on the coupling constant occurs as a very special case. Our analysis also supports the existence of phantom energy under certain conditions on the coupling constant.Comment: 16 Pages, 3 figure

Teleparallel Killing Vectors of the Einstein Universe

In this short paper we establish the definition of the Lie derivative of a second rank tensor in the context of teleparallel theory of gravity and also extend it for a general tensor of rank $p+q$. This definition is then used to find Killing vectors of the Einstein universe. It turns out that Killing vectors of the Einstein universe in the teleparallel theory are the same as in General Relativity.Comment: 9 pages, accepted for publication in Mod. Phys. Lett.

Iraqi Nurses' Perspectives on Safety Issues in Maternity Services

Background: Studies introduce maternal and neonatal safety phenomena as important challenges to the public health, particularly in low-income countries. However, few researches are conducted on the identification of safety issues in maternity hospitals in Iraq. It was the first study on nurses’ perspectives on safety issues in Kurdistan, Iraq. Objectives: The current study aimed to describe nurses’ perspectives on what constitutes a safe maternity service in Kurdistan, Iraq. Patients and Methods: A qualitative design, based on a content analysis approach, was used. Ten Kurdish nurses who worked in the delivery room of Kurdistan, Iraq maternity hospital were recruited through purposive sampling. Semi-structured interviews were performed to collect data. All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Sampling continued to the level of data saturation. Data analysis was performed based on the steps suggested by Graneheim and Lundman. Results: Thematic analysis led to the identification of six main categories including stressful job, lack of schedule and job description, providing care with limited resources, professional unaccountability, regional sociopolitical factors, and inadequate training. Conclusions: Iraqi nurses identified factors such as limited health resources, lack of job description, and professional unaccountability as major safety issues in maternity services. These findings alarm the need to ensure the provision of females and neonates with appropriate care. This, however, would require coordination between Iraqi Kurdistan health authorities to provide midwifery care facilities, high-quality and relevant staff training, and an effective healthcare system in the maternity units