Human resources have been regarded as the most important asset for any organization because of its essential part in achieving the sustainable competitive advantage and survival. Managing human resources is very challenging and requires an effective bundle of practices that contribute to attaining the organizational goals. This study tries to confirm the importance of HRM practices in small businesses which came to play a vital role in the economies of the world, through clarifying the influence of HRM practices on the organizational performance, using a mediating variable (employees’ outcomes). Also the study attempts to highlight the key role of governmental support from view point of small businesses, through verifying the significant relationship between governmental support and the organizational performance. It was hypothesized that HRM practices will be positively related to the organizational performance (financial & operational), and that employees’ outcomes would serve as a mediator in the relationship between HRM practices and performance. Also it was hypothesized that the governmental support will be positively related to organizational performance. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with Amos has been applied in this research. The research sample consist (265) small manufacturing businesses in Malaysia. The statistical results showed significant relationships in direct and indirect models of study, and partially mediated in mediation models. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n1p97
Heat is one of the most energy forms emitted to atmosphere by industrial processes. Water is considered to be the best material to reduce heat energy since its available in nature in abundance and has the ability to absorb heat efficiently. Cooling towers are ideal alternatives to re-cool hot water instead of throwing it especially in places that lack natural water resources or when there are environmental precautions because water with high temperature would be harmful to the ecosystem when it recycled to natural resources such as rivers and lakes. Also, cooling towers considered economically feasible when using west water. This paper interests with hydraulic characteristics of a counter flow wet cooling tower which was investigated experi
... Show MorePhotonic Crystal Fiber Interferometers (PCFIs) are greatly used
for sensing applications. This work presents the fabrication and
characterization of a relative humidity sensor based on Mach-
Zehnder Interferometer (MZI), which operates in reflection mode.
The humidity sensor operation based on the adsorption and
desorption of water vapour at the silica-air interface within the PCF.
The fabrication of this sensor is simple, it only includes splicing and
cleaving the PCF with SMF.PCF (LMA-10) with a certain length
spliced to SMF (Corning-28).
The spectrum of PCFI exhibits good sensitivity to humidity
variations. The PCFI response is observed for a range of humidity
values from (27% RH to 85% RH), the positi
In this study, industrial fiber and polymer mixtures were used for high-speed impact (ballistic) applications where the effects of polymer (epoxy), polymeric
mixture (epoxy + unsaturated polyester), synthetic rubber (polyurethane), Kevlar fiber, polyethylene fiber (ultra High molecular weight) and carbon fiber.
Four successive systems of samples were prepared. the first system component made of (epoxy and 2% graphene and 20 layer of fiber), then ballistic test was
applied, the sample was successful in the test from a distance of 7 m. or more than, by using a pistol personally Glock, Caliber of 9 * 19 mm. The second
system was consisting of (epoxy, 2% graphene, 36 layers of fiber and one layer of hard rubber), it was succeeded
The rate of gas induction was measured in gas-inducing type mechanically agitated contactors provided with two impellers. A reactor of 0.5 m i.d. was used with a working capacity of 60 liters of liquid. Tap water was used as the liquid phase, and air was used as the gas phase. The bioreactor mixing system consists of two equal diameter stirrers; the top impeller is shrouded-disk/curved-blade turbine with six evacuated bending blades, while the bottom impeller was disk turbine. The impeller speed was varied in the range of 50 to 800 rpm. The ratio of impeller diameter to tank diameter (D/T) and the submergence (S) of upper impeller from the top were varied. The effects of clearance of lower impeller from the tank bottom (C2) an
... Show MoreA new two-way nesting technique is presented for a multiple nested-grid ocean modelling system. The new technique uses explicit center finite difference and leapfrog schemes to exchange information between the different subcomponents of the nested-grid system. The performance of the different nesting techniques is compared, using two independent nested-grid modelling systems. In this paper, a new nesting algorithm is described and some preliminary results are demonstrated. The validity of the nesting method is shown in some problems for the depth averaged of 2D linear shallow water equation.
This research estimates the effect of independent factors like filler (3%, 6%, 9%, 11% weight fraction), normal load (5N, 10N, 15N), and time sliding (5,7 , 9 minutes) on wear behavior of unsaturated polyester resin reinforced with jute fiber and waste eggshell and, rice husk powder composites by utilizing a statistical approach. The specimens polymeric composite prepared from resin unsaturated polyester filled with (4% weight fraction) jute fiber, and (3%, 6%, 9%, 11% weight fraction) eggshell, and rice husk by utilizing (hand lay-up) molding. Dry sliding wear experiments were carried utilizing a standard (pin on disc test setup) following a well designed empirical schedule that depends on Taguchi’s experimental design L9 (MINIT
... Show MoreArtificial roughness applied to a Solar Air Heater (SAH) absorber plate is a popular technique for increasing its total thermal efficiency (ηt−th). In this paper, the influence of geometrical parameters of V-down ribs attached below the corrugated absorbing plate of a SAH on the ηt−th was examined. The impacts of key roughness parameters, including relative pitch p/e (6–12), relative height e/D (0.019–0.043), angles of attack α (30–75°), and Re (1000–20,000), were examined under real weather conditions. The SAH ηt−th roughened by V-down ribs was predicted using an in-house developed conjugate heat-transfer numerical model. The maximum SAH ηt−th was shown to be 78.8% as predicted under the steady-state condition
... Show More
The present investigation deals with experimental study of three-phase direct-contact heat exchanger, for water-Freon R11 system, where water is the continuous phase (liquid) and Freon R11 (liquid-gas) is the dispersed phase. The test section consisted of a cylindrical Perspex column with inner diameter 8cm and 1.2m long, in which, water was to be confined. Liquid Freon R11 drops were injected into the hot water filled column, through a special design of distributors at the bottom of the column. The liquid Freon R11 drops rose on their way up and evaporated into two-phase bubbles at atmospheric pressure. The study was devoted to express the effect of process variables such as c
... Show MoreThe efficiency of internal combustion engines (ICE) is usually about thirty percent of the total energy of the fuel. The residual energy is lost in the exhaust gas, the lubrication, and the cooling water in the radiators. Recently much of the researcher’s efforts have focused on taking advantage of wasted energy of the exhaust gas. Using a thermoelectric generator (TEG) is one of the promising ways. However, TEG depends entirely on the temperature difference, which may be offered by the exhaust muffler. An experimental test has been conducted to study the thermal performance of a different muffler internal design. The researchers resort to the use of lost energy in an ICE using TEG, which is one of the ways to take adv
... Show More