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1 – 10 of 633Mahmoud Sabry Shided Keniwe, Ali Hassan Ali, Mostafa Ali Abdelaal, Ahmed Mohamed Yassin, Ahmed Farouk Kineber, Ibrahim Abdel-Rashid Nosier, Ola Diaa El Monayeri and Mohamed Ashraf Elsayad
This study focused on exploring the performance factors (PFs) that impact Infrastructure Sanitation Projects (ISSPs) in the construction sector. The aim was twofold: firstly, to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study focused on exploring the performance factors (PFs) that impact Infrastructure Sanitation Projects (ISSPs) in the construction sector. The aim was twofold: firstly, to identify these crucial PFs and secondly, to develop a robust performance model capable of effectively measuring and assessing the intricate interdependencies and correlations within ISSPs. By achieving these objectives, the study aimed to provide valuable insights into and tools for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of sanitation projects in the construction industry.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve the study's aim, the methodology for identifying the PFs for ISSPs involved several steps: extensive literature review, interviews with Egyptian industry experts, a questionnaire survey targeting industry practitioners and an analysis using the Relative Importance Index (RII), Pareto principle and analytic network process (ANP). The RII ranked factor importance, and Pareto identified the top 20% for ANP, which determined connections and interdependencies among these factors.
Findings
The literature review identified 36 PFs, and an additional 13 were uncovered during interviews. The highest-ranked PF is PF5, while PF19 is the lowest-ranked. Pareto principle selected 11 PFs, representing the top 20% of factors. The ANP model produced an application for measuring ISSP effectiveness, validated through two case studies. Application results were 92.25% and 91.48%, compared to actual results of 95.77% and 97.37%, indicating its effectiveness and accuracy, respectively.
Originality/value
This study addresses a significant knowledge gap by identifying the critical PFs that influence ISSPs within the construction industry. Subsequently, it constructs a novel performance model, resulting in the development of a practical computer application aimed at measuring and evaluating the performance of these projects.
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The purpose of the paper is to showcase the significant achievements of Egypt's scientists in the 20th century across various fields of study such as medicine, physics, chemistry…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to showcase the significant achievements of Egypt's scientists in the 20th century across various fields of study such as medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, math, geology, astronomy and engineering. The paper highlights the struggles and successes of these scientists, as well as the cultural, social and political factors that influenced their lives and work. The aim is to inspire young people to pursue careers in science and make their own contributions to society by presenting these scientists as role models for hard work and dedication. Ultimately, the paper seeks to promote the importance of science and its impact on society.
Design/methodology/approach
The purpose of this review is to present the scientific biographies of Egypt's most distinguished scientists, primarily in the field of Natural Sciences, in a balanced and comprehensive manner. The work is objective, honest and abstract, avoiding any bias or exaggeration. The author provides a clear and concise methodology, including a brief introduction to the scientist and their field of study, an explanation of their major contributions, the impact of their work on society, any challenges or obstacles faced during their career and their lasting legacy. The aim is to showcase the important achievements of these scientists, their impact on their respective fields and to inspire future generations to pursue scientific careers.
Findings
The group of outstanding scientists in 20th century Egypt were shaped by various factors, including familial upbringing, education, society, political and cultural atmosphere and state support for scientific research. These scientists made significant contributions to various academic disciplines, including medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and engineering. Their impact on their communities and cultures has received international acclaim, making them role models for future generations of scientists and researchers. The history of these scientists highlights the importance of educational investments and supporting scientific research to foster innovation and social progress. The encyclopedia serves as a useful tool for students, instructors and education professionals, preserving Egypt's scientific heritage and honouring the scientists' outstanding accomplishments.
Research limitations/implications
The encyclopedia preserves Egypt's scientific heritage, which has been overlooked for political or other reasons. It is a useful tool for a variety of readers, including students, instructors and education professionals, and it offers insights into universally relevant scientific success factors as well as scientific research methodologies. The encyclopedia honours the outstanding scientific accomplishments of Egyptian researchers and their contributions to the world's scientific community.
Practical implications
The practical implications of this paper are several. First, it highlights the importance of education, family upbringing and societal support for scientific research in fostering innovation and social progress. Second, it underscores the need for continued funding and support for scientific research to maintain and build upon the accomplishments of past generations of scientists. Third, it encourages young people to pursue scientific careers and make their own contributions to society. Fourth, it preserves the scientific heritage of Egypt and honors the contributions of its outstanding scientists. Finally, it serves as a useful tool for students, instructors and education professionals seeking to understand the factors underlying scientific success and research methodologies.
Social implications
The social implications of the paper include promoting national pride and cultural identity, raising awareness of the importance of education and scientific research in driving social progress, inspiring future generations of scientists and researchers, reducing socioeconomic disparities and emphasizing the role of society, politics and culture in shaping scientific researchers' personalities and interests.
Originality/value
The paper's originality/value lies in its comprehensive documentation of the scientific biographies of Egypt's most prominent scientists in the 20th century, providing unique insights into the factors that contributed to their development and their impact across various academic disciplines. It preserves Egypt's scientific heritage and inspires future generations of scientists and researchers through the promotion of educational investments and scientific research. The encyclopedia serves as a useful tool for education professionals seeking to understand scientific success factors and research methodologies, emphasizing the importance of supportive and inclusive environments for scientific development.
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Mahmoud Farajmandi, Mostafa Ali, Rick Hermann and Simaan AbouRizk
Properly planned module installation on an industrial site is a critical factor in delivering a project safely, on time and within budget. Different sizes of heavy-duty mobile…
Abstract
Purpose
Properly planned module installation on an industrial site is a critical factor in delivering a project safely, on time and within budget. Different sizes of heavy-duty mobile cranes are used to pick, swing and place the modules. Crane selection depends on module size and weight, as well as crane availability, location and configuration. Weeks can be spent in trial and error to prepare and improve module installation plans due to the large number of ways to install the modules on site, high crane operating costs and other crane-module constraints. A tool to automatically generate module installation plans is essential.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a novel heuristic-based methodology for planning and sequencing module installation on industrial construction sites that takes into account proposed technological constraints.
Findings
Case studies are presented to demonstrate the ease and effectiveness of the developed methodology in planning module installations.
Originality/value
On a complex project, the tool can save time in preparing the installation plan, while also reducing the amount of crane supporting tasks (foundation preparation and crane movement).
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Amira Mohamed Emara and Nashwa Mostafa Ali Mohamed
This paper aims to investigate the relationship between global economic fluctuations and human development through four transmission channels (foreign direct investment (FDI)…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the relationship between global economic fluctuations and human development through four transmission channels (foreign direct investment (FDI), official development aid (ODA), remittances and export earnings) in Egypt as an open developing economy, in the period 1990–2015.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a vector autoregressive model, which implies examining the impulse response functions and variance decompositions.
Findings
The results indicate that human development is negatively affected by global economic fluctuations through the four channels, namely, ODA, FDI, export earnings and remittances. In addition, the most effective transmission channels are FDI in the short run and export earnings in the long run.
Originality/value
While a large body of literature addresses the direct impact of business cycles and economic shocks on human development, only some studies focus on the indirect impact. The contribution is to identify the indirect impact of global economic fluctuations on human development in a developing economy, considering four transmission channels and to determine the most important of these channels. Moreover, using the human development index is an addition in this paper as most previous literature depends on other human development indicators such as children’s health, employment and schooling.
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Recent studies on the securities market's differential pricing of earnings components indicate that cash flows from operations are valued more highly than extreme total accruals…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent studies on the securities market's differential pricing of earnings components indicate that cash flows from operations are valued more highly than extreme total accruals. However, no previous study has examined whether cash flows from operations have a higher valuation than moderate total accruals. Therefore, this study examines the securities market's differential pricing of cash flows from operations and both moderate and extreme total accruals.
Design/methodology/approach
The study's sample is divided into two sub-samples: a moderate total accruals sub-sample; and an extreme total accruals sub-sample. To evaluate whether cash flows have a higher valuation when compared to total accruals, for the entire sample and for each of the two sub-samples, the study examines the statistical significance of the difference between slope coefficients of cash flows and total accruals for regression of returns on both unexpected cash flows from operations and unexpected total accruals.
Findings
Consistent with prior research, results from the entire sample show a differential higher valuation of cash flows when compared to total accruals. Another finding, consistent with recent studies, is that cash flows from operations have a higher valuation when compared to extreme total accruals. However, there is no higher differential valuation of cash flows over moderate total accruals. These findings support the decomposition of earnings into the components of cash flows from operations and total accruals only when total accruals are extreme (rather than moderate).
Practical implications
A possible explanation for these results is that since accruals predict cash flows, total accruals – when moderate (i.e. not extreme) – are priced similarly to cash flows. These results reveal that when total accruals are moderate, earnings are a better proxy for the underlying cash flows (over the entire future horizon, not just the current period) than is cash flows. However, since total accruals are unlikely to persist in a permanent way over the years, these results indicate that the decomposition of earnings into the components of cash flows from operations and total accruals is consistent with the information set used to value equity securities. Therefore, separate disclosure of cash flows is value relevant. In addition, users of financial statements certainly need the cash flows information as an ex-post validation of the prior earnings.
Originality/value
This study's contribution stems from its determination of the preferred level of disaggregation of earnings components (i.e. operating cash flows and total accruals). This is expected to help investors in their attempt to enhance the outcome of their informed investment and credit decisions.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the multi-dimensionality of women managers’ turnover in the United Arab Emirates. The study argues that several factors besides public…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the multi-dimensionality of women managers’ turnover in the United Arab Emirates. The study argues that several factors besides public policy influence turnover.
Design/methodology/approach
A special survey was developed and administered to a convenience sample of 298 local women managers in both sectors. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson and multiple regression analyses were used.
Findings
The empirical analyses provided support to the multidimensionality of turnover. In addition, turnover was predicted by a model of eight factors (adjusted R2 = 0.456), namely, economic needs, quality of work life, leadership type and practices, social needs, marital status, organisational satisfaction, organisational commitment and public policy.
Research limitations/implications
The study was rich, empirical data were gathered and analysed along with qualitative literature. Gender remains salient in organisations as human resource policies alone are incapable of retaining women in leadership. Limited sample size and convenience sampling method may limit the generalizability of the findings.
Practical implications
Workplace conditions complement human resource policies; hence, the success of the latter relies on the success of the former. Economic incentives remain significant to motivating managers and retaining women in leadership jobs.
Social implications
Human resource management policies, such as Emiratisation, cannot be successful without empowering women.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper is drawn from using first-hand data to examine the multi-dimensionality argument of turnover in addition to the advancement of gender studies in leadership and management. The study also provided evidence that rationality (i.e. economic means) remains important to retain women managers.
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Robert G. Reynolds, Xiangdong Che and Mostafa Ali
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of cultural algorithms (CAs) over a complete range of optimization problem complexities, from fixed to chaotic and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of cultural algorithms (CAs) over a complete range of optimization problem complexities, from fixed to chaotic and specifically observing whether there is a given homogeneous agent topology within a culture which can dominate across all complexities.
Design/methodology/approach
In order to apply the CA overall complexity classes it was necessary to generalize on its co‐evolutionary nature to keep the variation in the population across all complexities. First, previous CA approaches were reviewed. Based on this the existing implementation was extended to produce a more general one that could be applied across all complexity classes. As a result a new version of the cultural algorithms toolkit, CAT 2.0, was produced, which supported a variety of co‐evolutionary features at both the knowledge and population levels. The system was applied to the solution of a 150 randomly generated problems ranging from simple to chaotic complexity classes.
Findings
No homogeneous social fabric tested was dominant over all categories of problem complexity; as the complexity of problems increased so did the complexity of the social fabric that was need to deal with it efficiently. A social fabric that was good for fixed problems might be less adequate for periodic problems, and chaotic ones.
Originality/value
The paper presents experimental evidence that social structure of a cultural system can be related to the frequency and complexity type of the problems that presented to a cultural system.
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Ali Asghar Pourezzat, Mostafa Nejati and Abdolazim Mollaee
The purpose of this paper is to provide a system based on the data flow diagram (DFD), which can be used to help urban policy makers reduce the consequences of natural disasters.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a system based on the data flow diagram (DFD), which can be used to help urban policy makers reduce the consequences of natural disasters.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper considers the socio‐technical perspective of government information systems and management, and draws on the collection and analysis of several public reports, media papers, and expert opinions published in the aftermath of the earthquake in Bam, Iran in December 2003, as one of the most destructive urban disasters in Iran and worldwide.
Findings
Considering the rescue and disaster management activities after Bam earthquake, the paper examines and discusses how important a clear DFD‐based system for managing urban disasters is. Moreover, the DFD model is suggested as an expert system to better handle and manage operations and different organizations involved in the rescue process.
Research limitations/implications
The paper requires a practical pilot implementation of DFD‐based system.
Practical implications
The authors believe that the research outcomes and results can assist governments and public managers in preparing and developing a disaster management system in controlling the consequences of urban disasters such as earthquake.
Originality/value
This research reveals the importance and necessity of having a comprehensive and well‐planned system to be prepared for controlling and managing urban disasters and their consequences. Moreover, the results are based on the observations and interviews made in the city of Bam, right after the earthquake, so it provides an invaluable understanding about the specific conditions of the city after that deadly disaster.
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