Search results for: pasting behavior

Authors: Maham Malik, Amjad Ali, Muhammad Asif

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Current study aims to examine the relationship of emotional labor strategies - deep acting and surface acting - with employees' job satisfaction, organizational commitment and intentions to quit. The study also examines the mediating role of job satisfaction and organizational commitment for relationship of emotional labor strategies with intentions to quit. Data were conveniently collected from 307 nurses by using self-administered questionnaire. Linear regression test was applied to find the relationship between the variables. Mediation was checked through Baron and Kenny Model and Sobel test. Results prove the existence of partial mediation of job satisfaction between the emotional labor strategies and quitting intentions. The study recommends that deep acting should be promoted because it is positively associated with quality of work life, work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior of employees.

Keywords: emotional labor strategies, intentions to quit, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, nursing

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Authors: Abdoullah Namdar, Fadzil Mat Yahaya

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The waste agriculture materials cause environment pollution, recycle of these materials help sustainable development. This study focused on the impact of used oil palm shell ash on the compressive and flexural strengths of cement mortar. Two different cement mortar mixes have been designed to investigate the impact of oil palm shell ash on strengths of cement mortar. Quantity of 4% oil palm shell ash has been replaced in cement mortar. The main objective of this paper is, to modify mechanical properties of cement mortar by replacement of oil palm ash in it at early age of seven days. The results have been revealed optimum quantity of oil palm ash for replacement in cement mortar. The deflection, load to failure, time to failure of compressive strength and flexural strength of all specimens have significantly been improved. The stress-strain behavior has been indicated ability of modified cement mortar in control stress path and strain. The micro property of cement paste has not been investigated.

Keywords: minerals, additive, flexural strength, compressive strength, modulus of elasticity

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Authors: Ihsan Al-Abboodi, Tahsin Toma-Sabbagh

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Laboratory tests have been carried out to investigate the response of 2x2 pile group subjected to triangular soil movement. The pile group was instrumented with displacement and tilting devices at the pile cap and strain gauges on two piles of the group. In this paper, results from four model tests were presented to study the effects of axial loads and soil density on the lateral behavior of piles. The responses in terms of bending moment, shear force, soil pressure, deflection, and rotation of piles were compared. Test results indicate that increasing the soil strength could increase the measured moment, shear, soil pressure, and pile deformations. Most importantly, adding loads to the pile cap induces additional moment to the head of front-pile row unlike the back-pile row which was influenced insignificantly.

Keywords: pile group, passive piles, lateral soil movement, soil density, axial loads

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Authors: Mustafa Hasan Omar

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The destruction effect of hydrocarbon solutions on concrete besides its high permeability have led researchers to try to improve the performance of concrete exposed to these solutions, hence improving the durability and usability of oil concrete structures. Recently, polymer concrete is considered one of the most important types of concrete, and its behavior after exposure to oil products is still unknown. In the present work, an experimental study has been carried out, in which the prepared epoxy polymer concrete immersed in different types of hydrocarbon exposure solutions (gasoline, kerosene, and gas oil) for 120 days and compared with the reference concrete left in the air. The results for outdoor specimens indicate that the mechanical properties are increased after 120 days, but the specimens that were immersed in gasoline, kerosene, and gas oil for the same period show a reduction in compressive strength by -21%, -27% and -23%, whereas in splitting tensile strength by -19%, -24% and -20%, respectively. The reductions in ultrasonic pulse velocity for cubic specimens are -17%, -22% and -19% and in cylindrical specimens are -20%, -25% and -22%, respectively.

Keywords: epoxy resin, hydrocarbon solutions, mechanical properties, polymer concrete, ultrasonic pulse velocity

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Authors: Yassir AbdelRazig

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Evolutionary optimization methods such as genetic algorithms have been used extensively for the construction site layout problem. More recently, ant colony optimization algorithms, which are evolutionary methods based on the foraging behavior of ants, have been successfully applied to benchmark combinatorial optimization problems. This paper proposes a formulation of the site layout problem in terms of a sequencing problem that is suitable for solution using an ant colony optimization algorithm. In the construction industry, site layout is a very important planning problem. The objective of site layout is to position temporary facilities both geographically and at the correct time such that the construction work can be performed satisfactorily with minimal costs and improved safety and working environment. During the last decade, evolutionary methods such as genetic algorithms have been used extensively for the construction site layout problem. This paper proposes an ant colony optimization model for construction site layout. A simple case study for a highway project is utilized to illustrate the application of the model.

Keywords: ant colony, construction site layout, optimization, genetic algorithms

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Authors: Chanyuan Gu, Shouming Zhong

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Synchronization is a fundamental phenomenon that enables coherent behavior in networks as a result of interactions. The purpose of this research had been to investigate the problem of anti-phase synchronization for complex delayed dynamical networks with output coupling. The coupling configuration is general, with the coupling matrix not assumed to be symmetric or irreducible. The amount of the coupling variables between two connected nodes is flexible, the nodes in the drive and response systems need not to be identical and there is not any extra constraint on the coupling matrix. Some pinning controllers are designed to make the drive-response system achieve the anti-phase synchronization. For the convenience of description, we applied the matrix Kronecker product. Some new criteria are proposed based on the Lyapunov stability theory, linear matrix inequalities (LMI) and Schur complement. Lastly, some simulation examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed conditions.

Keywords: anti-phase synchronization, complex networks, output coupling, pinning control

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Authors: Caroline Lindlar, Eva Jakob

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Female entrepreneurs often face significant barriers in accessing funding due to biases from business angels, venture capitalists, and financial institutions, which tend to favor male entrepreneurs. These biases contribute to persistent funding disparities, with female entrepreneurs receiving less financial support than their male counterparts. The situation worsens when female entrepreneurs have prior experiences with venture failure, which diminishes their attractiveness to traditional investors. Venture failure, defined as the cessation of operations due to declining revenues, rising costs, or ownership changes, plays a substantial role in shaping funding opportunities. In response, female entrepreneurs frequently turn to alternative funding sources such as crowdlending, where gender biases are often reversed in favor of women, particularly when their ventures emphasize social value creation. While existing research highlights the positive impact of gender on crowdfunding success, it remains unclear how venture failure, known to negatively bias female entrepreneurs in traditional funding contexts, interacts with the positive effects of gender in crowdlending. This interaction is particularly relevant because crowdlending often involves non-professional funders who make repeated investment decisions under uncertainty, based on limited information and past experiences. Given that approximately one-third of ventures fail to deliver promised returns, the role of gender bias after failure in crowdlending is an important area of investigation. This study addresses How failure affects crowd funders’ gender bias in future funding decisions? Drawing on social role and role congruity theory, we posit that societal perceptions of women as more communal conflict with the agentic qualities traditionally associated with entrepreneurship. This incongruence may result in reduced confidence in the success of female entrepreneurs after failure, limiting their access to future funding. However, we also hypothesize that social framing may mitigate this bias by aligning perceptions of female entrepreneurs with traits such as warmth and caring, enhancing their appeal after failure. To test these assertions, it conducted a between-subject audio vignette experiment with 155 participants who listened to entrepreneur pitches manipulated by gender (male vs. female) and venture framing (social vs. commercial). Participants made initial investment decisions, received failure-related news about the venture, and then made subsequent investment decisions. Pre-tests with 159 participants ensured the validity and reliability of the experimental manipulations. Moreover, we did a metric conjoint analysis with 100 participants, and they had to decide between different crowdfunding campaigns based on the attributes of previous failure, gender, and venture mission. it findings reveal that failure activates gender biases in crowdlending. Female-led ventures receive significantly less funding after failure compared to male-led ventures, suggesting the positive bias toward female entrepreneurs in the pre-funding phase does not persist post-failure. Moreover, framing a venture as socially oriented exacerbates the negative effect of failure for female entrepreneurs, as they secure fewer funds after failure compared to male entrepreneurs leading similar social ventures. This indicates that role-congruent framing does not mitigate gender bias after failure. This study contributes to research on gender in entrepreneurship by exploring how failure impacts future funding for female entrepreneurs. It also expands social crowdfunding literature by examining social value framing and adds to the entrepreneurial failure literature by focusing on crowd funders’ post-failure behavior.

Keywords: gender bias, crowdfunding, investment failure, investment behavior, social entrepreneurship

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Authors: Miju Choi

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Shopping tourism is an emerging concept in tourism research, thus contradicting the notion that shopping is not a novel idea. Tourists have long been performing shopping activities, such as purchasing authentic handicrafts and souvenirs, to benefit from a pleasant tourism experience. Some scholars regarded shopping as one of the oldest tourist activities and stressed that a trip is incomplete without shopping. Others then asserted that shopping is inseparable from other activities in tourist destinations and may in fact be considered a main purpose for travel. In other words, shopping is regarded as an incidental tourist activity, thereby indicating its potential as a primary travel motivation. The current study investigates the personal values of shopping tourists and their satisfaction levels. Via convenience sampling, 230 samples were collected. The software packages SPSS Statistics 20.0 and AMOS 20.0 were used for statistical analysis. Findings showed that both hedonic and utilitarian values positively influence tourist satisfaction and positive word of mouth. Therefore, this research deepens understanding regarding tourist behavior in the context of shopping tourism research.

Keywords: shopping tourism, hedonic value, utilitarian value, tourist satisfaction

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Authors: Abdennour Benmakhlouf, Abdelouahab Bentabet

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In this paper, we investigated the athermal pressure behavior of the structural and elastic properties of scheelite BaWO4 phase up to 7 GPa using the ab initio pseudo-potential method. The calculated lattice parameters pressure relation have been compared with the experimental values and found to be in good agreement with these results. Moreover, we present for the first time the investigation of the elastic properties of this compound using the density functional perturbation theory (DFPT). It is shown that this phase is mechanically stable up to 7 GPa after analyzing the calculated elastic constants. Other relevant quantities such as bulk modulus, pressure derivative of bulk modulus, shear modulus; Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, anisotropy factors, Debye temperature and sound velocity have been calculated. The obtained results, which are reported for the first time to the best of the author’s knowledge, can facilitate assessment of possible applications of the title material.

Keywords: pseudo-potential method, pressure, structural and elastic properties, scheelite BaWO4 phase

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Authors: Mohamed E. Eleshaky

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This paper investigates the dynamic behavior of laminar water flows inside superhydrophobic micro-pipes patterned with square micro-posts features under different operating conditions. It also investigates the effects of air fraction and Reynolds number on the frictional performance of these pipes. Rather than modeling the air-water interfaces of superhydrophobic as a flat inflexible surface, a transient, incompressible, three-dimensional, volume-of-fluid (VOF) methodology has been employed to continuously track the air–water interface shape inside micro-pipes. Also, the entrance effects on the flow field have been taken into consideration. The results revealed the strong dependency of the frictional performance on the air fractions and Reynolds number. The frictional resistance reduction becomes increasingly more significant at large air fractions and low Reynolds numbers. Increasing Reynolds number has an adverse effect on the frictional resistance reduction.

Keywords: drag reduction, laminar flow in micropipes, numerical simulation, superhyrophobic surfaces, microposts

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Authors: Roxana Maria Angelescu, Raluca Ion, Anişoara Cîmpean, Doina Răducanu, Mariana Lucia Angelescu

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In an attempt to find titanium alloys that fulfill the requirements for mechanical and biological compatibility, laboratory and material related tests were performed during the years, as well as preclinical and clinical trials. The multidisciplinary scientific research facilitates the global evaluation of biocompatibility and osseointegration regarding the dental implant alloys. The aim of this study was to determine the in vitro biocompatibility of three modern titanium alloys: Ti-31.7Nb-6.21Zr-1.4Fe-0.16O (wt%), Ti-36.5Nb-4.5Zr-3Ta-0.16O (wt%) and Ti-20Nb-5Ta (wt%), in order to establish whether the use of these titanium alloys can have any toxic or injurious effects on biological systems. The commonly used Ti-6Al-4V alloy was investigated as a reference material. The behavior of MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblasts on all these four metallic surfaces was evaluated. The tests of immunofluorescence, cytotoxicity and cellular proliferation lead to the conclusion that the newly-developed titanium alloys elicit a good cellular response in terms of cellular survival, adhesion, morphology and proliferative potential as well.

Keywords: biocompatibility tests, dental implants, titanium alloys, biomedical engineering

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Authors: K. Shahril, A. Nizam, M. Sabri, A. Siti Rohana, H. Salmah

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Chemical modifier (Acrylic Acid) is used as filler treatment to improve mechanical properties and swelling behavior of polypropylene/coconut fiber (PP/CF) composites by creating more adherent bonding between CF filler and PP Matrix. Treated (with chemical modifier) and untreated (without chemical modifier) composites were prepared in the formulation of 10 wt%, 20 wt%, 30 wt%, and 40 wt%. The mechanical testing indicates that composite with 10 wt% of untreated composite has the optimum value of tensile strength, and the composite with chemical modifier shows the tensile strength was increased. By increasing of filler loading, elastic modulus was increased while the elongation at brake was decreased. Meanwhile, the swelling test discerned that the increase of filler loading increased the water absorption of composites and the presence of chemical modifier reduced the equilibrium water absorption percentage.

Keywords: coconut fiber, polypropylene, acid acrylic, ethanol, chemical modifier, composites

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Authors: Gelacio Juárez-Luna, Gustavo Ayala, Jaime Retama-Velasco

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This paper shows the advantages of the material failure process simulation by improve finite elements with embedded discontinuities, using a new definition of traction vector, dependent on the discontinuity length and the angle. Particularly, two families of this kind of elements are compared: kinematically optimal symmetric and statically and kinematically optimal non-symmetric. The constitutive model to describe the behavior of the material in the symmetric formulation is a traction-displacement jump relationship equipped with softening after reaching the failure surface. To show the validity of this symmetric formulation, representative numerical examples illustrating the performance of the proposed formulation are presented. It is shown that the non-symmetric family may over or underestimate the energy required to create a discontinuity, as this effect is related with the total length of the discontinuity, fact that is not noticed when the discontinuity path is a straight line.

Keywords: variational formulation, strong discontinuity, embedded discontinuities, strain localization

Procedia PDF Downloads 779

Authors: Ling Dai

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Surface-sensing devices such as atomic force microscope have been widely used to characterize the surface structure and properties of nanoscale polymer films. However, using molecular dynamics simulations, we show that there is intrinsic and unavoidable inelastic deformation at polymer surfaces induced by the sensing tip. For linear chain polymers like perfluoropolyether, such tip-induced deformation derives from the differences in the atomic interactions which are atomic specie-based Van der Waals interactions, and resulting in atomic shuffling and causing inelastic alternation in both molecular structures and mechanical properties at the regions of the polymer surface. For those aromatic chain polymers like epoxy, the intrinsic deformation is depicted as the intra-chain rotation of aromatic rings and kinking of linear atomic connections. The present work highlights the need to reinterpret the data obtained from surface-sensing tests by considering this intrinsic inelastic deformation occurring at polymer surfaces.

Keywords: polymer, surface, nano, molecular dynamics

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Authors: Rosli Mohd Yunus, Zianor Azrina Zianon Abdin, Mohammad Dalour Hossen Beg, Ridzuan Ramli

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Recently, nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) has gained considerable interest as a promising biomaterial due to their outstanding properties such as high surface area, high mechanical properties, hydrophilicity, biocompatibility and biodegradability. The NCC also has good stability in water which is compatible for mixing of water based polymer solution or emulsions with NCC. Oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) contained different amount of lignocellulosic materials such as lignin, hemicellulose and cellulose. Cellulose is the most significant materials that can be extracted from EFB as nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC). In this work the nanocrystalline cellulose were produced through acid hydrolysis together with ultrasound technique. The morphology of NCC was characterized by TEM, thermal behavior has been studied with DSC, TGA analysis. Structural properties were illustrated X-Ray diffraction as well as FTIR. The hydrogel was produced using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with different concentration of NCC. The hydrogel composite was characterized by swelling ratio, crosslinking density, mechanical properties and morphology.

Keywords: nanocellulose, oil palm, hydrogel, water treatment

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Authors: M. Naderi, N. Iyyer, K. Goel, N. Phan

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A micromechanical analysis of the influence of fiber-matrix interface fracture properties on the transverse tensile response of fiber-reinforced composite is investigated. Augmented finite element method (AFEM) is used to provide high-fidelity damage initiation and propagation along the micromechanical analysis. Effects of fiber volume fraction and fiber shapes are also studies in representative volume elements (RVE) to capture the stochastic behavior of the composite under loading. In addition, defects and voids influence on the composite response are investigated in micromechanical analysis. The results reveal that the response of RVE with constant interface properties overestimates the composite transverse strength. It is also seen that the damage initiation and propagation locations are controlled by the distributions of fracture properties, fibers’ shapes, and defects.

Keywords: cohesive model, fracture, computational mechanics, micromechanics

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Authors: Fares Jnaid, Riyad Aboutaha

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In this paper, a nonlinear Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was carried out using ANSYS software to build a model able of predicting the behavior of Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams with unbonded reinforcement. The FEA model was compared to existing experimental data by other researchers. The existing experimental data consisted of 16 beams that varied from structurally sound beams to beams with unbonded reinforcement with different unbonded lengths and reinforcement ratios. The model was able to predict the ultimate flexural strength, load-deflection curve, and crack pattern of concrete beams with unbonded reinforcement. It was concluded that when the when the unbonded length is less than 45% of the span, there will be no decrease in the ultimate flexural strength due to the loss of bond between the steel reinforcement and the surrounding concrete regardless of the reinforcement ratio. Moreover, when the reinforcement ratio is relatively low, there will be no decrease in ultimate flexural strength regardless of the length of unbond.

Keywords: FEA, ANSYS, unbond, strain

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Authors: Zhandos Tauanov, Dhawal Shah, Grigorios Itskos, Vasileios Inglezakis

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Removal of mercury (II) from aqueous phase is of utmost importance, as it is highly toxic and hazardous to the environment and human health. One way of removal of mercury (II) ions from aqueous solutions is by using adsorbents derived from coal fly ash (CFA), such as synthetic zeolites. In this work, we present the hydrothermal production of synthetic zeolites from CFA with conversion rate of 75%. In order to produce silver containing nanocomposites, synthetic zeolites are subsequently impregnated with various amounts of silver nanoparticles, from 0.2 to 2wt.%. All produced zeolites and parent materials are characterized by XRD, XRF, BET, SEM, and TEM to obtain morphological and microstructural data. Moreover, mercury (II) ions removal from aqueous solutions with initial concentration of 10 ppm is studied. According to results, zeolites and Ag-nanocomposites demonstrate much higher removal than parent CFA (up to 98%). In addition to this, we could observe a distinct adsorption behavior depending on the loading of Ag NPs in nanocomposites. A possible reaction mechanism for both zeolites and Ag-nanocomposites is discussed.

Keywords: coal fly ash, mercury (II) removal, nanocomposites, silver nanoparticles, synthetic zeolite

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Authors: M. Shaban, A. Alibeigloo

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This paper studies free vibration behavior of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) embedded on elastic medium based on three-dimensional theory of elasticity. To accounting the size effect of carbon nanotubes, nonlocal theory is adopted to shell model. The nonlocal parameter is incorporated into all constitutive equations in three dimensions. The surrounding medium is modeled as two-parameter elastic foundation. By using Fourier series expansion in axial and circumferential direction, the set of coupled governing equations are reduced to the ordinary differential equations in thickness direction. Then, the state-space method as an efficient and accurate method is used to solve the resulting equations analytically. Comprehensive parametric studies are carried out to show the influences of the nonlocal parameter, radial and shear elastic stiffness, thickness-to-radius ratio and radius-to-length ratio.

Keywords: carbon nanotubes, embedded, nonlocal, free vibration

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Authors: M. Alsaadi, A. Erkliğ, M. Bulut

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This paper experimentally investigates the flexural and tensile properties of the industrial wastes sewage sludge ash (SSA) and fly ash (FA), and conventional ceramic powder silicon carbide (SiC) filled polyester composites. Four weight fractions (5, 10, 15 and 20 wt%) for each micro filler were used for production of composites. Then, test samples were produced according to ASTM. The resulting degree of particle dispersion in the polymer matrix was visualized by using scanning electron microscope (SEM). Results from this study showed that the tensile strength increased up to its maximum value at filler content 5 wt% of SSA, FA and SiC. Flexural strength increased with addition of particulate filler up to its maximum value at filler content 5 wt% of SSA and FA while for SiC decreased for all weight fractions gradually. The addition of SSA, FA and SiC fillers resulted in increase of tensile and flexural modulus for all the particulate composites. Industrial waste SSA can be used as an additive with polymer to produce composite materials.

Keywords: particle-reinforcement, sewage sludge ash, polymer matrix composites, mechanical properties

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Authors: S. O. Oyamakin, A. U. Chukwu

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Richard's growth equation being a generalized logistic growth equation was improved upon by introducing an allometric parameter using the hyperbolic sine function. The integral solution to this was called hyperbolic Richard's growth model having transformed the solution from deterministic to a stochastic growth model. Its ability in model prediction was compared with the classical Richard's growth model an approach which mimicked the natural variability of heights/diameter increment with respect to age and therefore provides a more realistic height/diameter predictions using the coefficient of determination (R2), Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Mean Square Error (MSE) results. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and Shapiro-Wilk test was also used to test the behavior of the error term for possible violations. The mean function of top height/Dbh over age using the two models under study predicted closely the observed values of top height/Dbh in the hyperbolic Richard's nonlinear growth models better than the classical Richard's growth model.

Keywords: height, Dbh, forest, Pinus caribaea, hyperbolic, Richard's, stochastic

Procedia PDF Downloads 478

Authors: W. H. Wan Zakiyatussariroh, A. A. Nasuhar, W. Y. Wan Fairos, Z. A. Nazatul Shahreen

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Forecasting dengue incidence in a population can provide useful information to facilitate the planning of the public health intervention. Many studies on dengue cases in Malaysia were conducted but are limited in modeling the outbreak and forecasting incidence. This article attempts to propose the most appropriate time series model to explain the behavior of dengue incidence in Malaysia for the purpose of forecasting future dengue outbreaks. Several seasonal auto-regressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) models were developed to model Malaysia’s number of dengue incidence on weekly data collected from January 2001 to December 2011. SARIMA (2,1,1)(1,1,1)52 model was found to be the most suitable model for Malaysia’s dengue incidence with the least value of Akaike information criteria (AIC) and Bayesian information criteria (BIC) for in-sample fitting. The models further evaluate out-sample forecast accuracy using four different accuracy measures. The results indicate that SARIMA (2,1,1)(1,1,1)52 performed well for both in-sample fitting and out-sample evaluation.

Keywords: time series modeling, Box-Jenkins, SARIMA, forecasting

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Authors: A. Paz, M. Khadka, N. Veeramisti, B. Morris

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There is a continuous large number of crashes involving pedestrians in Nevada despite the numerous safety mechanisms currently used at roadway crossings. Hence, additional as well as more effective mechanisms are required to reduce crashes in Las Vegas, in particular, and Nevada in general. A potential mechanism to reduce conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles is a High-intensity Activated crossWalK (HAWK) signal. This study evaluates the effects of such signals at a particular site in Las Vegas. Video data were collected using two cameras, facing the eastbound and westbound traffic. One week of video data before and after the deployment of the signal were collected to capture the behavior of both pedestrians and drivers. T-test analyses of pedestrian waiting time at the curb, curb-to-curb crossing time, total crossing time, jaywalking events, and near-crash events show that the HAWK system provides significant benefits.

Keywords: pedestrian crashes, HAWK signal, traffic safety, pedestrian danger index

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Authors: Negar Mesgara, Laleh Maleknia

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In this paper, electrospun CdTe quantum dot / nylon-6 nanofiber mats were successfully prepared. The nanofiber mats were characterized by FE-SEM, XRD and EDX analyses. The results revealed that fibers in different distinct sizes (nano and subnano scale) were obtained with the electrospinning parameters. The phenomenon of ‘on ‘ and ‘off ‘ luminescence intermittency (blinking) of CdTe QDs in nylon-6 was investigated by single-molecule optical microscopy, and we identified that the intermittencies of single QDs were correlated with the interaction of water molecules absorbed on the QD surface. The ‘off’ times, the interval between adjacent ‘on’ states, remained essentially unaffected with an increase in excitation intensity. In the case of ‘on’ time distribution, power law behavior with an exponential cutoff tail is observed at longer time scales. These observations indicate that the luminescence blinking statistics of water-soluble single CdTe QDs is significantly dependent on the aqueous environment, which is interpreted in terms of passivation of the surface trap states of QDs.

Keywords: electrospinning, CdTe quantum dots, Nylon-6, Nanocomposite

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Authors: Aitor Barbero-López, Soumaya Chibily, Gerhard Scheepers, Thomas Grahn, Martti Venäläinen, Antti Haapala

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Wood decay is addressed continuously within the wood industry through use and development of wood preservatives. The increasing awareness on the negative effects of many chemicals towards the environment is causing political restrictions in their use and creating more urgent need for research on green alternatives. This paper discusses some of the possible natural extracts for wood preserving applications and compares the analytical methods available for testing their behavior and efficiency against decay fungi. The results indicate that natural extracts have interesting chemical constituents that delay fungal growth but vary in efficiency depending on the chemical concentration and substrate used. Results also suggest that presence and redistribution of preservatives in wood during exposure trials can be assessed by spectral imaging methods although standardized methods are not available. This study concludes that, in addition to the many standard methods available, there is a need to develop new faster methods for screening potential preservative formulation while maintaining the comparability and relevance of results.

Keywords: analytics, methods, preservatives, wood decay

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Authors: Cesar Hernández, Diego Giral, Fernando Santa

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The spectral handoff is important in cognitive wireless networks to ensure an adequate quality of service and performance for secondary user communications. This work proposes a benchmarking of performance of the three spectrum handoff models: VIKOR, SAW and MEW. Four evaluation metrics are used. These metrics are, accumulative average of failed handoffs, accumulative average of handoffs performed, accumulative average of transmission bandwidth and, accumulative average of the transmission delay. As a difference with related work, the performance of the three spectrum handoff models was validated with captured data of spectral occupancy in experiments realized at the GSM frequency band (824 MHz-849 MHz). These data represent the actual behavior of the licensed users for this wireless frequency band. The results of the comparative show that VIKOR Algorithm provides 15.8% performance improvement compared to a SAW Algorithm and, 12.1% better than the MEW Algorithm.

Keywords: cognitive radio, decision making, MEW, SAW, spectrum handoff, VIKOR

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Authors: Samaneh Nadali, Masrah Azrifah Azmi Murad

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As a result of the growth of the web, people are able to express their views and opinions. They can now post reviews of products at merchant sites and express their views on almost anything in internet forums, discussion groups, and blogs. Therefore, the number of product reviews has grown rapidly. The large numbers of reviews make it difficult for manufacturers or businesses to automatically classify them into different semantic orientations (positive, negative, and neutral). For sentiment classification, most existing methods utilize a list of opinion words whereas this paper proposes a fuzzy approach for evaluating sentiments expressed in customer product reviews, to predict the strength levels (e.g. very weak, weak, moderate, strong and very strong) of customer product reviews by combinations of adjective, adverb and verb. The proposed fuzzy approach has been tested on eight benchmark datasets and obtained 74% accuracy, which leads to help the organization with a more clear understanding of customer's behavior in support of business planning process.

Keywords: fuzzy logic, customer product review, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Shubhangi Roy

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Relational Contracts (informal understandings not enforceable by law) are a common feature of most economies. However, their dominance is higher in developing countries. Such informality of economic sectors is often co-related to lower economic growth. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether informal arrangements i.e. relational contracts are a cause or symptom of lower levels of economic and/or institutional development. The methodology followed involves an initial survey of 150 test subjects in Northern India. The subjects are all members of occupations where they frequently transact ensuring uniformity in transaction volume. However, the subjects are from varied socio-economic backgrounds to ensure sufficient variance in transaction values allowing us to understand the relationship between the amount of money involved to the method of transaction used, if any. Questions asked are quantitative and qualitative with an aim to observe both the behavior and motivation behind such behavior. An overarching similarity observed during the survey across all subjects’ responses is that in an economy like India with pervasive corruption and delayed litigation, economy participants have created alternative social sanctions to deal with non-performers. In a society that functions predominantly on caste, class and gender classifications, these sanctions could, in fact, be more cumbersome for a potential rule-breaker than the legal ramifications. It, therefore, is a symptom of weak formal regulatory enforcement and dispute settlement mechanism. Additionally, the study bifurcates such informal arrangements into two separate systems - a) when it exists in addition to and augments a legal framework creating an efficient socio-legal equilibrium or; b) in conflict with the legal system in place. This categorization is an important step in regulating informal arrangements. Instead of considering the entire gamut of such arrangements as counter-development, it helps decision-makers understand when to dismantle (latter) and when to pivot around existing informal systems (former). The paper hypothesizes that those social arrangements that support the formal legal frameworks allow for cheaper enforcement of regulations with lower enforcement costs burden on the state mechanism. On the other hand, norms which contradict legal rules will undermine the formal framework. Law infringement, in presence of these norms, will have no impact on the reputation of the business or individual outside of the punishment imposed under the law. It is especially exacerbated in the Indian legal system where enforcement of penalties for non-performance of contracts is low. In such a situation, the social norm will be adhered to more strictly by the individuals rather than the legal norms. This greatly undermines the role of regulations. The paper concludes with recommendations that allow policy-makers and legal systems to encourage the former category of informal arrangements while discouraging norms that undermine legitimate policy objectives. Through this investigation, we will be able to expand our understanding of tools of market development beyond regulations. This will allow academics and policymakers to harness social norms for less disruptive and more lasting growth.

Keywords: distribution of income, emerging economies, relational contracts, sample survey, social norms

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Authors: Maximilian Engelhardt, Stephan Seeck

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the already growing field of e-commerce. The resulting urban freight transport volume leads to traffic and negative environmental impact. Furthermore, the service level of parcel logistics service provider is lacking far behind the expectations of consumer. These challenges can be solved by radically reorganize the urban last mile distribution structure: parcels could be consolidated in a micro hub within the inner city and delivered within time windows by cargo bike. This approach leads to a significant improvement of consumer satisfaction with their overall delivery experience. However, this approach also leads to significantly increased costs per parcel. While there is a relevant share of online shoppers that are willing to pay for such a delivery service there are no deeper insights about this target group available in the literature. Being aware of the importance of knowing target groups for businesses, the aim of this paper is to elaborate the most important factors that determine the willingness to pay for sustainable and service-oriented parcel delivery (factor analysis) and to derive customer segments (cluster analysis). In order to answer those questions, a data set is analyzed using quantitative methods of multivariate statistics. The data set was generated via an online survey in September and October 2020 within the five largest cities in Germany (n = 1.071). The data set contains socio-demographic, living-related and value-related variables, e.g. age, income, city, living situation and willingness to pay. In a prior work of the author, the data was analyzed applying descriptive and inference statistical methods that only provided limited insights regarding the above-mentioned research questions. The analysis in an exploratory way using factor and cluster analysis promise deeper insights of relevant influencing factors and segments for user behavior of the mentioned parcel delivery concept. The analysis model is built and implemented with help of the statistical software language R. The data analysis is currently performed and will be completed in December 2021. It is expected that the results will show the most relevant factors that are determining user behavior of sustainable and service-oriented parcel deliveries (e.g. age, current service experience, willingness to pay) and give deeper insights in characteristics that describe the segments that are more or less willing to pay for a better parcel delivery service. Based on the expected results, relevant implications and conclusions can be derived for startups that are about to change the way parcels are delivered: more customer-orientated by time window-delivery and parcel consolidation, more environmental-friendly by cargo bike. The results will give detailed insights regarding their target groups of parcel recipients. Further research can be conducted by exploring alternative revenue models (beyond the parcel recipient) that could compensate the additional costs, e.g. online-shops that increase their service-level or municipalities that reduce traffic on their streets.

Keywords: customer segmentation, e-commerce, last mile delivery, parcel service, urban logistics, willingness-to-pay

Procedia PDF Downloads 106

Authors: J. Pantoja Enríquez, G. P. Hernández, G. I. Duharte, X. Mathew, J. Moreira, P. J. Sebastian

Abstract:

Cadmium sulfide films were deposited onto glass substrates by chemical bath deposition (CBD) from a bath containing cadmium acetate, ammonium acetate, thiourea, and ammonium hydroxide. The CdS thin films were annealed in air, argon, hydrogen and nitrogen for 1 h at various temperatures (300, 350, 400, 450 and 500 °C). The changes in optical and electrical properties of annealed treated CdS thin films were analyzed. The results showed that, the band-gap and resistivity depend on the post-deposition annealing atmosphere and temperatures. Thus, it was found that these properties of the films, were found to be affected by various processes with opposite effects, some beneficial and others unfavorable. The energy gap and resistivity for different annealing atmospheres was seen to oscillate by thermal annealing. Recrystallization, oxidation, surface passivation, sublimation and materials evaporation were found the main factors of the heat-treatment process responsible for this oscillating behavior. Annealing over 400 °C was seen to degrade the optical and electrical properties of the film.

Keywords: cds, thin films, annealing, optical, electrical properties

Procedia PDF Downloads 509