Social media usage and organizational performance: Reflections of Malaysian social media managers

Social media usage among organizations is growing tremendously. Organizations are now building and maintaining social media public pages to improve their social network salience, enhance interest in their organizations, and build relationships with the online public. The majority of the studies on social media usage are based on the individual perspective while some are from the organizational perspective. However, not many studies have investigated the actual impact of social media usage on organizational performance. Therefore, using the qualitative approach, this study investigates the various purposes of social media usage and its impact on organizational performance. This study however, focuses only on the social media managers’ views. The senior managers of six organizations that are using social media are interviewed from which we find that social media is used for various purposes in organizations, such as advertising and promotion, branding, information search, building customer relations and many more. The results also show that social media has a greater impact on the performance of organizations in terms of enhancement in customer relations and customer service activities, improvement in information accessibility and cost reduction in terms of marketing and customer service.     

Ant-based routing and QoS-effective data collection for mobile wireless sensor network

Mobility management in mobile wireless sensor networks (MWSNs) is a complex problem that must be taken into account. In MWSN, nodes move in and out of the network randomly. Hence, a path formed between two distant nodes is highly susceptible to changes due to unpredictable node movement. Also, due to the limited resources in WSN, the paths used for data transmission must be tested for the link quality and time consumed for data forwarding. In order to solve these issues, in this paper, an ant-based routing protocol with QoS-effective data collection mechanism is proposed. In this protocol, the link quality and link delay are estimated for each pair of nodes. Link quality is estimated in terms of packet reception rate, received signal strength indicator, and link quality index. A reliable path is chosen from the source to the destination based on the paths traversed by forward ants and backward ants. Then, if the link is found to be defective during data transmission, a link reinforcement technique is used to deliver the data packet at the destination successfully. The mobile robots collect the information with high data utility. In addition, each mobile robot is equipped with multiple antennas, and space division multiple access technique is then applied for effective data collection from multiple mobile robots. Simulation results show that the proposed routing protocol provides reliability by reducing the packet drop and end-to-end delay when compared to the existing protocols.     

Effect of Fe-doping on the structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films prepared by spray pyrolysis

Fe-doped ZnO thin films have been prepared by spray pyrolysis on glass substrates and the influence of Fe-doping concentration on the structural and optical properties of the films has been studied.The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis shows that Fe doping has a significant effect on crystalline quality,grain size and strain in the thin films.The best crystalline structure is obtained for 3 at%Fe doping as observed from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and XRD.However,lower or higher Fe-doping degrades the crystalline quality in turn.Moreover,UV spectroscopy demonstrates the influence of Fe-incorporation on visible range transmittance of ZnO where the best transmittance is obtained for 3 at%doping.The results have been illustrated simultaneously focusing previous results obtained from literature.     

Development of Optical Code Division Multiple Access Based System Using Spectral Amplitude Coding via Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs)

Wireless Personal Communications - The multiple user’s based transmission systems are developed in the past using various multiple access techniques for fibre optic communications. Among...     

Profiling hot isostatically pressed canister–wasteform interaction for Pu-bearing zirconolite-rich wasteforms

Zirconolite-rich full ceramic wasteforms designed to immobilize Pu-bearing wastes were produced via hot isostatic pressing (HIP) using stainless steel (SS) and nickel (Ni) HIP canisters. A detailed profiling of the elemental compositions of the major and minor phases over the canister–wasteform interaction zone was performed using scanning electron microscopy combined with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) characterization. Bulk sample analyses from regions near the center of the HIP canister were also conducted for both samples using X-ray diffraction and SEM-EDS. The sample with the Ni HIP canister showed almost no interaction zone with only minor diffusion of Ni from the inner wall of the canister into the near-surface region of the wasteform. The sample with the SS HIP canister showed ∼100–120 μm of interaction zone dominated by high-temperature Cr diffusion from canister materials to the wasteform with the Cr predominantly incorporated into the durable zirconolite phase. We also examined, for the first time, changes to the HIP canister wall thickness caused by HIPing and demonstrated that no canister wall thinning occurred. Instead, in the areas examined, the canister wall thickness was observed to increase (up to ∼20%) due to the compression occurring during the HIP cycle. Further, only sparse formation of (Cr, Mn)-rich oxide particles were noted within the HIP canister inner wall area immediately adjacent to the ceramic material, with no evidence for reverse diffusion of ceramic materials. Though the HIP canister–wasteform interaction extends to ∼120 μm when using an SS HIP canister for the system investigated, this translates to <<1 vol.% for an industrial scale HIPed wasteform. Importantly, the HIP canister–wasteform interactions did not produce any obviously less durable phases in the wasteform or had any detrimental impact on the HIP canister properties.     

Antioxidant activity of ginger extract in sunflower oil

The antioxidant activity of dichloromethane extract from ginger was evaluated during 6 months of storage of refined sunflower oil at 25 and 45 °C. Free fatty acid (FFA) content, peroxide value (POV) and iodine value (IV) were used as criteria to assess ginger extract as an antioxidant. After 6 months of storage at 45 °C, sunflower oil containing 1600 and 2400 ppm ginger extract showed lower FFA contents (0.083 and 0.080%) and POVs (24.5 and 24.0 meq kg^?1) than the control sample (FFA contents 0.380%, POV 198.0 meq kg^?1). Sunflower oil containing 200 ppm butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) showed FFA contents of 0.089 and 0.072% and POVs of 26.5 and 24.7 meq kg^?1 respectively after 6 months of storage at 45 °C. Similarly, after 6 months of storage at 45 °C, IVs of sunflower oil containing 1600 and 2400 ppm ginger extract were 80 and 92 respectively, higher than that of the control sample (53). However, IVs of sunflower oil treated with 200 ppm BHA and BHT were 94 and 96 respectively after 6 months of storage at 45 °C. These results illustrate that ginger extract at various concentrations exhibited very strong antioxidant activity, almost equal to that of synthetic antioxidants (BHA and BHT). Ginger extract also showed good thermal stability and exhibited 85.2% inhibition of peroxidation of linoleic acid when heated at 185 °C for 120 min. Therefore the use of ginger extract in foods is recommended as a natural antioxidant to suppress lipid oxidation. © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry     

Effect of fortification on physico-chemical and microbiological stability of whole wheat flour

Stability of fortified whole wheat flour (WWF) was evaluated using NaFeEDTA, elemental iron, ZnSO₄ and ZnO as fortificants. Fortified WWF was stored in tin boxes and polypropylene bags for 60 days under ambient storage condition (ASC) and controlled storage condition (CSC). Fortification significantly (p ? 0.05) decreased moisture and protein content and increased ash content to 5.44%, 6% and 23%, as compared to control. Fortified WWF, assayed periodically for mould contamination manifested a significant inhibition (∼1 log reduction) in flours containing elemental iron. Low storage temperature and relative humidity (RH) indicated lower level of mould count during extended storage time. Tin boxes, as storage material, exhibited a better protection against mould attack, acting as an effective barrier for moisture. Fortificants exerted a slight deteriorative effect on texture characteristics of the chapattis made of these flours but chapattis were still accepted by the judges. Zinc fortificants seemed like having little or no effect on the quality of the flours and chapattis, made of such flours. Shelf life of fortified flour may be extended by using elemental iron as fortificant and storing the product in tin boxes under relatively low temperature and RH.     

Single‐cell protein production through microbial conversion of lignocellulosic residue (wheat bran) for animal feed

Agricultural residue (wheat bran) rich in carbohydrates was utilized in the fermentation process to produce microbial biomass. Single‐cell biomass consists of the dried cells of microorganisms, which are used as protein supplements in human food and in animal feed. In the present study, two different microorganisms (Candida utilis and Rhizopus oligosporus) were studied for biomass production. To enhance the nutritional contents of wheat bran, a number of different fermentation parameters (effect of inoculum size, age of inoculum, incubation period, moisture to substrate ratio and incubation temperature) were optimized. Maximum yield was obtained at an inoculum size of 10% (v/w), with the age of the inoculum being a 48 h old culture. A fermentation period of 48 h was found to give the maximum protein yield and viable counts of yeast cells and mould hyphae. The microorganisms showed good growth at 30 °C. After complete optimization of the fermentation parameters, a batch of wheat bran was fermented with C. utilis and R. oligosporus under the optimized conditions, resulting in a maximum crude protein yield of 41.02% compared with the 4.21% crude protein of the non‐fermented wheat bran. Copyright © 2015 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling     

Antidiarrheal Effect of Food Fermented by Various Strains of Lactobacillus

Various Lactobacillus species possess antidiarrheal properties due to their probiotic effects and could be utilized in the form of fermented foods for the treatment of diarrheal disease. Diarrhea is the condition of having 3 or more loose or watery bowel movements per day. This disease is a global problem causing several million deaths each year, and the major victims are children. So its prevention and control is crucial. For the treatment of diarrheal disease, antibiotics and oral rehydration solutions are used, but these therapies are not always effective to reduce the duration and frequency of diarrhea and of increase consistency. Recent studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of the natural mode (fermented food) of disease management because of its easy availability, low cost, and efficacy against diarrhea.     

A systematic mapping of semi-formal and formal methods in requirements engineering of industrial Cyber-Physical systems

Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing - The requirements engineering of Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems is extremely challenging due to large system sizes, component heterogeneity, involvement of...