Leadership and Top Management Influence on Total Quality Management Implementation in the Ghanaian Construction Industry

This study aims to determine the key and underlying Leadership and Top Management (LTM) factors that have a significant impact on sustaining the implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) within the construction industry in Ghana. The research methodology employed in this study was a quantitative technique. Questionnaires were distributed to 641 participants within construction industry in Ghana. Questionnaires retrieved for the analysis were 536. Three steps approached were used for the data analysis. These include Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis. After conducting the EFA and CFA, SEM was also used to analyze the construct validity. The SEM analysis helps to determine four key indicator variables for the leadership and top management construct. These include Leadership/Top Management approach to employees’ management, Leadership/Top Management understanding of TQM, Leadership/Top Management empowerment of employees to resolve quality issues, and Leadership/Top Management endorsement of TQM. All the four indicator variables were found to be good of fit and closely associated with the dependent variable. The study adds to the body of knowledge by using EFA, CFA and SEM techniques to establish key leadership and top management factors affecting TQM implementation in Ghana’s construction industry. The findings in general suggested that leadership and top Management factors identified have a direct positive impact on sustaining TQM implementation in the Ghanaian construction industry. Consequently, the leadership and top management factors identified in this study can help improve TQM in the Ghanaian construction industry.

Strategies for Sustainable Environmental Management of Construction Activities in Ghana

The Ghanaian construction industry continues to improve by the recent intensification of infrastructure development by government and the private sector. Nonetheless, this is happening with a strong focus on economic development to the detriment of the environment these activities affect. This paper focuses on identifying the strategies by which sustainable environmental management could be structured to mitigate the impact of construction activities in Ghana. A mixed-method research approach was adopted. Quantitative data were collected from 83 practitioners in the construction industry, while qualitative data were elicited from 18 Construction and Environmental Management practitioners. The mean scores indicated that all the 20 strategies for integrating environmental concerns into construction activities in Ghana were considered significant by the respondents. The empirical findings of the study indicate that for environmental concerns to be effectively integrated into construction activities in Ghana, a concerted effort will be required from the various actors within the construction industry. These include the role of clients in selecting environmentally conscious service providers, designers focusing on environmentally friendly construction materials and methods, reduce, recycling and reuse of waste materials, the commitment of government towards sustainable development, and well-structured educational campaigns to promote environmentally sustainable construction activities.

Motivational Strategies to Improve Artisan’s Productivity in the Construction Industry in Ghana

Motivation is a strategy adopted by organisational managers to improve organisational performance. Most researchers have found different factors that affect the motivation on a different level. The aim of the survey was to examine the motivational strategies for improving productivity among artisans in the construction companies in the Eastern Region and the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional research design utilising the quantitative approach. A purposive random sampling technique was employed to choose 90 workers to participate in the study. A structured questionnaire was utilised to gather information from respondents. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) were used to analyse the data collected. Results from the survey showed that artisans see motivation as very significant in their workplace. The study found that empowerment, quality of life, and monetary incentive have significant relation with motivation and effective use of such strategies could assist construction industry practitioners to enhance craftsmen performance. The study contributes to a few pieces of literature existing in construction motivational strategies. The findings point to the fact that industrial players should pay more attention to the motivational strategies to assist artisans’ function effectively in their work environment.

The Use of Ripe Plantain (<i>Musa spp</i>.) and Peppercorns for Beverage Processing as a Pro-Vitamin A Carotenoid and Nutrition Catalyst

Plantain (Musa spp.) constitutes an essential food crop in both tropical and subtropical areas. The staple’s nutritional value and provitamin A carotenoid potential has attracted more interest and usage. Plantain (Musa spp.) optimization into food recipes has been identified to increase patronage and minimises food wastage, due to the fruit’s (pulp) high perishability nature. In this study, local over ripe plantain (Musa spp.) was sampled and used in a beverage production. The beverage was processed from pureed ripe plantain, by three days fermentation of the pureed plantain mixture, boiling, and spicing, preservation with syrup, storage, and usage. The product’s processing was followed with a sensory evaluation of the new beverage on taste, appearance, color, flavour, and overall acceptability. Majority of the respondents indicated the new product was good and was well accepted. The research sought to create food diversity, encourage more usage of the crop and to highlight the nutritional values of plantain (Musa spp.) which is particularly high in provitamin A carotenoid to address Vitamin A deficiency in low resource setting communities.

Examining the Impact of Welfare Facilities on Building Construction Employee’s Performance in the Eastern Region of Ghana

Building Construction employees essentially required sufficient welfare facilities such as a place for washing, shower, change over, eat and drink, a place to store and hang clothing. Yet, these fundamental necessities are regularly disregarded. Decent welfare facilities can absolutely promote health and well-being and can aid to avert contracting diseases at building construction site. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of welfare facilities on building construction workers performance in the Eastern Region Ghana. The objectives were to identify welfare facilities provided by building construction firms, evaluate the satisfaction level of building construction firms’ employees with welfare facilities in Eastern Region, and determine the relationship between provision of welfare facilities and employee’s performance. The study employed convenient sample to investigate 80 building construction employees through questionnaires administration. Data generated from the survey was further analyzed using SPSS, weighted mean formula was used to determine the mean ranking, and descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean score, percentages, frequencies and chi square were used. The study reveals that the extent of welfare facilities at various construction sites was almost unavailability of sanitary and toilet facilities, unavailability of washing facilities, and unavailability of changing room, whiles drinking water and locker facilities were available but not sufficient. The study further finds that construction employees are dissatisfied with the condition of welfare facilities provided at their various work places. The study finally concludes that if workers are provided with decent welfare facilities at various building construction sites, it will motivate them to improve performance. The study recommends that metropolitan, municipal and district authority (MMDAs) should set a task force to check the implementation of welfare facilities at construction site as the results are pointing woeful insufficiency of welfare facilities at Eastern Region construction firms in Ghana.

Parallel Key Insulated ID-Based Public Key Cryptographic Primitive with Outsourced Equality Test

Parallel key-insulation allows the use of multiple helper keys to protect private decryption keys during secret decryption key updates. This approach prevents decryption key leakage or exposure in insecure environment. We combined parallel key-insulated encryption (PKIE) with multiple helper keys and identity-based encryption with the equality test (IBE-ET) to obtain parallel key insulated ID-based public key encryption with outsourced equivalent test (PKI-IBPKE-ET). The scheme inherits the advantages of identity-based encryption (IBE), which simplifies certificate management for public key encryption. Furthermore, the parallel key-insulation with multiple helper mechanism was introduced in our scheme, which perfectly reduced the possibility of helper key exposure. Our scheme will enable the protection and periodic update of decryption keys in insecure environment. Our scheme achieves a weak indistinguishable identity chosen ciphertext (W-IND-ID-CCA) security in the random oracle model. Ultimately, it is observed that our scheme is feasible and practical through the experimental simulation and theoretical analysis.

Evaluating the Stability of Indigenous Akwadum Soil with Cassava Peel Ash and Quarry Dust

Cassava peels are produced as a waste from cassava, which are disposed into landfills. These become an environmental problem;therefore the use of cassava peel ash (CPA) as a soil stabilizer must be encouraged. This study investigates the effects of CPA and quarry dust (QD) on the engineering properties of Akwadum soil behavior, using compaction test, Atterberg limit, and California bearing ratio (CBR). These properties were compared with those of unstabilized soil (original) and soil stabilized with CPA and QD. The natural soil was obtained from a borrowed pit at Akwadum near Koforidua at an average depth of 0.8 m which is meant for road works. This soil sample was stabilized with CPA and QD at 5%, 10% and 20% respectively. The compaction, California bearing ratio and Atterberg limit test were performed on the stabilized soils to thoroughly evaluate them. The results indicate that increasing the percentage of CPA to the natural soil decreases the maximum dry density at increasing optimum water content. The addition of QD at higher percentage increases the maximum dry density at decreasing optimum water content. The results reveal that both QD and CPA improve the engineering properties of the soil with QD providing better results.

Barriers to the Growth of Small and Medium Scale Construction Enterprises in Ghana

The construction industry in most developing economies is dominated heavily by small and medium scale enterprises. These construction enterprises need to thrive in an extremely competitive business environment. Conversely, most of these small and medium scale construction enterprises (SMSCE) are fraught with a plethora of barriers that inhibit and threaten their growth and survival. This research sought to evaluate the critical barriers that affect the growth of SMSCEs in the Ghanaian Construction Industry. The quantitative research method was adopted using a structured questionnaire with variables that were identified through a comprehensive literature review. The survey questionnaire was administered to 400 respondents comprising 250 SMSCEs, 100 Local Authority Engineers, and 50 Consultants to elicit data based on the identified variables. The major findings established by the study as barriers to the growth of SMSCEs in Ghana are largely structured as financial/fiscal barriers, business development barriers, technical/technological barriers, corruption barriers, knowledge management barriers, project acquisition barriers. A guiding framework should be developed based on the barriers identified to aid the growth and survival of SMSCEs in Ghana.

Some Applications of the First Sylow Theorem

In this research,numerical examples of the first Sylow theorem are discussed.Groups,subgroups,cyclic groups,p-group,Sylow p-subgroup and,Cauchy’s theorem were used to illustrate the results.

Review of air disturbance technology for plant frost protection

Confronted with severe frost damage to plants,methods,technologies and equipment have been developed and applied during the past century.The paper presents a comprehensive review on the most effective and active technology to protect plants from radiation frost based on air disturbance technology.The working principle of the technology was elaborated with frost protection mechanism,structures and applicability of three types of working patterns:conventional wind machines,selective inverted sink and portable vertical blowing.As an automatic mechanized technology,control strategy,applicable occasion and proper parameters are introduced for each type of working pattern.The operation of the technology and equipment depends on plant critical temperature,prevailing climatic conditions,thermal inversions strength,as well as costs.The frost protection performance and effectiveness of conventional horizontal wind machines,selective inverted sinks and helicopters are discussed and compared from the cost-effectiveness and application aspects,and the feasibility of selective inverted sinks is still controversial.Therefore,conventional wind machines are the best choice for plant frost protection and consequently are widely used in temperate and subtropical areas throughout the world.The frost protection application with helicopters is not easy to use during the frost nights with high cost.The paper also provides researchers with some perspectives on improving air disturbance technology and its equipment,and some practice recommendations for growers.

Detection and assessment of nitrogen effect on cold tolerance for tea by hyperspectral reflectance with PLSR, PCR, and LM models

Knowledge of nutrients effect on freezing tolerance is vital for protecting tea plants against cold injury(CI).Freezing injury treatments on tea leaves with different low temperature and nitrogen(N)concentration was evaluated by hyperspectral imaging based on the reflectance as potential analytical tool.Subsequently,quantitative evaluation of the CI was improved by comparing analyzed results using partial least squares regression(PLSR),principle component regression(PCR)and linear model(LM)models.Reflectance of the CI was obtained by hyperspectral imaging system in the band between 871 and 1766 nm.The results showed that average reflectance increases with the rise of N concentration.A substantial portion of the leaf from the plant with 100%N dosage had the darkest image and resulted in the highest reflectance because the N weakened the negative effect of freezing stress.Out of the five spectral domains tested,the best predictive accuracy for the CI of the tea leaf was achieved by PCR(R^(2)=0.9971,RMSE=0.0609)in 1410–1766 nm wavelength,followed by LM(R^(2)=0.9999,RMSE=0.0805)in 871–1000 nm.The whole interval had the worse prediction accuracy which could be caused by large variations in the data for a specific treatment and high absorption peak occurring around 1450 nm in the reflectance curve.The averages,R^(2) and RMSE for all the three statistical models showed that the worse prediction accuracy occurred in 1410–1766 nm,followed by the whole interval 871–1766 nm.The prediction accuracy was low which could be due to the strong water absorption peaks that appeared in both range of wavelengths.The models without absorption bands had improved correlation coefficient and reduced RMSE values between the measured and the predicted CI(R^(2)=0.9676;RMSE=0.3067)compared to the model developed with the reflectance values in the entire waveband(R^(2)=0.9504;RMSE=0.6629).The reflectance values where absorption bands occurred had detrimental effect on the model performance,which resulted in the lower correlation values and larger errors.This study has demonstrated that the wavelength at which absorption bands occur can influence model performance significantly which is a step towards real-time implementation of the technique.

The intention of banks to adopt green banking in an emerging market:the employees’perspective

Green banking is a comparatively new development in the financial world.It is a form of banking that considers the social and environmental impacts of banking activities.Most studies on green banking focussed on customers,management,and other stakeholders without considering the perspective of employees,whose daily work is normally affected.To fill in the gap,the primary aim of this study is to assess factors affecting the intention of banks to adopt green banking from the perspective of employees.A questionnaire was used to collect data from 94 employees at selected banks in Koforidua,the eastern region of Ghana.Multiple regression was used to analyse the data.The study finds a significantly positive relationship between management support and intention of banks to adopt green banking.However,pressures from competitors and customers are found not to have a significant impact on banks’intention to adopt green banking.While these results are unexpected and disappointing,they provide important insights in the context that changing initiatives from the perspective of common employees are internally driven instead of externally driven.This suggests the importance of management’s role in facilitating green banking initiatives.