Search results for: performance standard

Authors: Inayat Ur Rehman, Georgia Sakellari

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Cloud computing has evolved into a vital technology for businesses, offering scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness. However, maintaining high availability and optimal performance in the cloud is crucial for reliable services. This paper explores the significance of cloud monitoring and performance optimization in sustaining the high availability of cloud-based systems. It discusses diverse monitoring tools, techniques, and best practices for continually assessing the health and performance of cloud resources. The paper also delves into performance optimization strategies, including resource allocation, load balancing, and auto-scaling, to ensure efficient resource utilization and responsiveness. Addressing potential challenges in cloud monitoring and optimization, the paper offers insights into data security and privacy considerations. Through this thorough analysis, the paper aims to underscore the importance of cloud monitoring and performance optimization for ensuring a seamless and highly available cloud computing environment.

Keywords: cloud computing, cloud monitoring, performance optimization, high availability

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Authors: Ahmad Badawi Saluy, Novawiguna Kemalasari

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This study aims to examine and analyze the influence of organizational culture, organizational commitment, and transformational leadership style on employee performance. This study used descriptive survey method with quantitative approach, and questionnaires as a tool used for basic data collection. The sampling technique used is proportionate stratified random sampling technique; all respondents in this study were 70 respondents. The analytical method used in this research is multiple linear regressions. The result of determination coefficient of 52.3% indicates that organizational culture, organizational commitment, and transformational leadership style simultaneously have a significant influence on the performance of employees, while the remaining 47.7% is explained by other factors outside the research variables. Partially, organization culture has strong and positive influence on employee performance, organizational commitment has a moderate and positive effect on employee performance, while the transformational leadership style has a strong and positive influence on employee performance and this is also the variable that has the most impact on employee performance.

Keywords: organizational culture, organizational commitment, transformational leadership style, employee performance

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Authors: L. Todorovska, E. Sivevska, B. Dejanova, J. Pluncevic, S. Petrovska, V. Antevska, S. Mancevska, I. Karadjozova

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Objective: The aim of this longitudinal study was to describe anthropometric and performance characteristics and to explore their differences between senior football (F) and basketball (B) players. Subjects and methods: 25 F (aged 23±2.5 y) and 25 B (aged 22±4.2 y) from Macedonian national teams and elite sport clubs were annually tested during 2 consecutive years. Full anthropometric profiles (stature, weight, five circumferences, four bone diameters, seven skin-folds and nine calculated parameters with standard formulas) were collected. Body composition was determined with InBody720 System. Physical capacity was tested with ergo metric test of Bruce (Custo med GmbH, Germany). Results: B were taller (p<0.001) and heavier (p<0.01), but leaner (p<0.001). F had higher percentage of muscle mass (p<0.01) and body fat (p< 0.001). F had higher VO2max (p<0.05) and lower hard rate (p<0.01). The differences in physical performance were not significant (p>0.05) within the groups during the 2-years period. Conclusions: These results suggest that there are distinct differences in anthropometric profile between Macedonian senior football and basketball players during the two competitive seasons.

Keywords: anthropometry, basketball players, football players, Macedonia

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Authors: V. Naciti, L. Pulejo, F. Cesaroni

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This study empirically analyzes whether the composition of the board of directors (BoD) enhances sustainability performance, in order to understand how the BoD contribute to the integration of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their businesses. Hypotheses are developed based on the agency theory and stakeholder theory. Using a system generalized method of the moment (SGMM) two-step estimator, with data from Sustainalytics and Compustat databases for 362 firms in six regions, we find that firms with more diversity on the board and a separation of chair and CEO roles have higher sustainability performance. Moreover, our findings provide that a higher number of independent directors is negatively associated with sustainability performance. This study contributes to the literature on corporate governance and the firm’s performance by demonstrating that the composition of the board of directors contributes to a better sustainability performance: by the implementation of a particular corporate governance mechanism, it is possible to integrate SDGs in the corporate strategy.

Keywords: sustainable development goals, corporate governance, board of directors, sustainability performance

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Authors: Bahram Fathi, Mahdi Khodaparast Mashhadi, Masuod Homayounifar

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Global awareness on energy security and climate change has created much interest in assessing energy efficiency performance. A number of previous studies have contributed to evaluate energy efficiency performance using different analytical techniques among which data envelopment analysis (DEA) has recently received increasing attention. Most of DEA-related energy efficiency studies do not consider undesirable outputs such as CO2 emissions in their modeling framework, which may lead to biased energy efficiency values. Within a joint production frame work of desirable and undesirable outputs, in this paper we construct energy efficiency performance index for measuring energy efficiency performance by using environmental DEA model with CO2 emissions. We finally apply the index proposed to assess the energy efficiency performance in OPEC over time.

Keywords: energy efficiency, environmental, OPEC, data envelopment analysis

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Authors: Yingjie Zhang, Ming Li, Ying Zhang, Jing Zhang, Zuolei Hu

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In the actual start-up process of DC motors, the DC drive system often faces a conflict between energy consumption and acceleration performance. To resolve the conflict, this paper proposes a comprehensive performance index that energy consumption index is added on the basis of classical control performance index in the DC motor starting process. Taking the comprehensive performance index as the cost function, particle swarm optimization algorithm is designed to optimize the comprehensive performance. Then it conducts simulations on the optimization of the comprehensive performance of the DC motor on condition that the weight coefficient of the energy consumption index should be properly designed. The simulation results show that as the weight of energy consumption increased, the energy efficiency was significantly improved at the expense of a slight sacrifice of fastness indicators with the comprehensive performance index method. The energy efficiency was increased from 63.18% to 68.48% and the response time reduced from 0.2875s to 0.1736s simultaneously compared with traditional proportion integrals differential controller in energy saving.

Keywords: comprehensive performance index, energy consumption, acceleration performance, particle swarm optimal control

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Authors: Xiaoqin Wang, Li Yin

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Background and purpose: In many practices, one estimates causal effects arising from a complex stochastic process, where a sequence of treatments are assigned to influence a certain outcome of interest, and there exist time-dependent covariates between treatments. When covariates are plentiful and/or continuous, statistical modeling is needed to reduce the huge dimensionality of the problem and allow for the estimation of causal effects. Recently, Wang and Yin (Annals of statistics, 2020) derived a new general formula, which expresses these causal effects in terms of the point effects of treatments in single-point causal inference. As a result, it is possible to conduct the modeling via point effects. The purpose of the work is to study the modeling of these causal effects via point effects. Challenges and solutions: The time-dependent covariates often have influences from earlier treatments as well as on subsequent treatments. Consequently, the standard parameters – i.e., the mean of the outcome given all treatments and covariates-- are essentially all different (null paradox). Furthermore, the dimension of the parameters is huge (curse of dimensionality). Therefore, it can be difficult to conduct the modeling in terms of standard parameters. Instead of standard parameters, we have use point effects of treatments to develop likelihood-based parametric approach to the modeling of these causal effects and are able to model the causal effects of a sequence of treatments by modeling a small number of point effects of individual treatment Achievements: We are able to conduct the modeling of the causal effects from a sequence of treatments in the familiar framework of single-point causal inference. The simulation shows that our method achieves not only an unbiased estimate for the causal effect but also the nominal level of type I error and a low level of type II error for the hypothesis testing. We have applied this method to a longitudinal study of COVID-19 mortality among Scandinavian countries and found that the Swedish approach performed far worse than the other countries' approach for COVID-19 mortality and the poor performance was largely due to its early measure during the initial period of the pandemic.

Keywords: causal effect, point effect, statistical modelling, sequential causal inference

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Authors: P. F. Wong, H. Salleh, F. A. Rahim

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The adoption of building information modeling (BIM) is increasing in the construction industry. However, quantity surveyors are slow in adoption compared to other professions due to lack of awareness of the BIM’s potential in their profession. It is still unclear on how BIM application can enhance quantity surveyors’ work performance and project performance. The aim of this research is to identify the capabilities of BIM in quantity surveying practices and examine the relationship between BIM capabilities and project performance. Questionnaire survey and interviews were adopted for data collection. Literature reviews identified there are eleven BIM capabilities in quantity surveying practice. Questionnaire results showed that there are several BIM capabilities significantly correlated with project performance in time, cost and quality aspects and the results were validated through interviews. These findings show that BIM has the capabilities to enhance quantity surveyors’ performances and subsequently improved project performance.

Keywords: Building Information Modeling (BIM), quantity surveyors, capability, project performance

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Authors: Anna Paola Micheli, Anna Maria Calce, Loris Di Nallo

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Sustainable finance identifies the process that leads, in the adoption of investment decisions, to take into account environmental and social factors, with the aim of orienting investments towards sustainable and long-term activities. Considering that the topic is at the center of the interest of national agendas, long-term investments will no longer be analyzed only by looking at financial data, but environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors will be increasingly important and will play a fundamental role in determining the risk and return of an investment. Although this perspective does not deny the orientation to profit, ESG mutual funds represent sustainable finance applied to the world of mutual funds. So the goal of this paper is to verify this attitude, in particular in the energy sector. The choice of the sector is not casual: ESG is the acronym for environmental, social, and governance, and energy companies are strictly related to the environmental theme. The methodology adopted leads to a comparison between a sample of ESG funds and a sample of ESG funds with similar characteristics, using the most important indicators of literature: yield, standard deviation, and Sharpe index. The analysis is focused on equity funds. Results that are partial, due to the lack of historicity, show a good performance of ESG funds, testifying how a sustainable approach does not necessarily mean lower profits. It is clear that these first findings do not involve an absolute preference for ESG funds in terms of performance because the persistence of results is requested. Furthermore, these findings are to be verified in other sectors and in bond funds.

Keywords: mutual funds, ESG, performance, energy

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Authors: Yan Wang, Yuan George Shan

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This study examines whether earnings management reduces firm performance and how other comprehensive income (OCI) disclosure and strong corporate governance restrain earnings management. Using a data set comprising 6,260 firm-year observations from listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges during 2009–2015, the results indicate that OCI disclosure generally improves firm performance, but earnings management lowers firm performance. The study also finds that OCI disclosure and corporate governance are complementary in restraining earnings manipulation and promote firm performance. The implications of the findings are relevant policy-makers and regulators in assisting them evaluate the consequences of convergence of Chinese Accounting Standards with the International Financial Reporting Standards.

Keywords: other comprehensive income, corporate governance, earnings management, firm performance, China

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Authors: Shun Horikoshi, Tohru Kawabe

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This study presents performance analysis results of SMC (Sliding mode control) with changing the chattering functions applied to slip suppression problem of electric vehicles (EVs). In SMC, chattering phenomenon always occurs through high frequency switching of the control inputs. It is undesirable phenomenon and degrade the control performance, since it causes the oscillations of the control inputs. Several studies have been conducted on this problem by introducing some general saturation function. However, study about whether saturation function was really best and the performance analysis when using the other functions, weren’t being done so much. Therefore, in this paper, several candidate functions for SMC are selected and control performance of candidate functions is analyzed. In the analysis, evaluation function based on the trade-off between slip suppression performance and chattering reduction performance is proposed. The analyses are conducted in several numerical simulations of slip suppression problem of EVs. Then, we can see that there is no difference of employed candidate functions in chattering reduction performance. On the other hand, in slip suppression performance, the saturation function is excellent overall. So, we conclude the saturation function is most suitable for slip suppression sliding mode control.

Keywords: sliding mode control, chattering function, electric vehicle, slip suppression, performance analysis

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Authors: Ferhat Yilmaz

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Defense sector is one of the most important areas where logistics is used extensively. Nations give importance to their defense spending in order to survive in their geography. Parallel to the rising crises around the world, governments increase their defense spending; however, resources are limited while the needs are infinite. Therefore, countries try to develop a more effective use of their defense budget. In order to make logistics more effective and efficient, performance- based logistical system was developed. This article tries to explain the Performance-based Logistical System, its employment process, employment areas, and how it will be used along with other main systems in the Turkey.

Keywords: performance, performance based logistics applications, logistical system, Turkey

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Authors: N. Wongsai, R. Wetprasit, V. Siddoo

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The recently introduced ISO/IEC 29110 standard Lifecycle profile for Very Small Entities (VSE) has been adopted and practiced in many small and medium software companies, including in Thailand’s software industry. Many Thai companies complete their software process improvement (SPI) initiative program and have been certified. There are, however, a number of participants fail to success. This study was concerned with the factors that influence the accomplishment of the standard implementation in various VSE characteristics. In order to achieve this goal, exploring and extracting critical factors from prior studies were carried out and then the obtained factors were validated by the standard experts. Data analysis of comments and recommendations was performed using a qualitative content analysis method. This paper presents the initial set of influence factors in both positive and negative impact the ISO/IEC 29110 implementation with an aim at helping such SPI practitioners with some considerations to manage appropriate adoption approach in order to achieve its implementation.

Keywords: barriers, critical success factors, ISO/IEC 29110, Software Process Improvement, SPI, Very-Small Entity, VSE

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Authors: P. C. Tewari, Rajiv Kumar, Dinesh Khanduja

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This paper discusses the performance modeling and availability analysis of Yarn Dyeing System of a Textile Industry. The Textile Industry is a complex and repairable engineering system. Yarn Dyeing System of Textile Industry consists of five subsystems arranged in series configuration. For performance modeling and analysis of availability, a performance evaluating model has been developed with the help of mathematical formulation based on Markov-Birth-Death Process. The differential equations have been developed on the basis of Probabilistic Approach using a Transition Diagram. These equations have further been solved using normalizing condition in order to develop the steady state availability, a performance measure of the system concerned. The system performance has been further analyzed with the help of decision matrices. These matrices provide various availability levels for different combinations of failure and repair rates for various subsystems. The findings of this paper are, therefore, considered to be useful for the analysis of availability and determination of the best possible maintenance strategies which can be implemented in future to enhance the system performance.

Keywords: performance modeling, markov process, steady state availability, availability analysis

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Authors: A. A. Okafor, C. H. Achebe, J. L. Chukwuneke, C. G. Ozoegwu

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The performance of an engine whose basic design parameters are known can be predicted with the assistance of simulation programs into the less time, cost and near value of actual. This paper presents a comprehensive mathematical model of the performance parameters of four stroke spark ignition engine. The essence of this research work is to develop a mathematical model for the analysis of engine performance parameters of four stroke spark ignition engine before embarking on full scale construction, this will ensure that only optimal parameters are in the design and development of an engine and also allow to check and develop the design of the engine and it’s operation alternatives in an inexpensive way and less time, instead of using experimental method which requires costly research test beds. To achieve this, equations were derived which describe the performance parameters (sfc, thermal efficiency, mep and A/F). The equations were used to simulate and optimize the engine performance of the model for various engine speeds. The optimal values obtained for the developed bivariate mathematical models are: sfc is 0.2833kg/kwh, efficiency is 28.77% and a/f is 20.75.

Keywords: bivariate models, engine performance, injector engine, optimization, performance parameters, simulation, spark ignition

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Authors: Zineb Abidi, Marc-Arthur Diaye

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There exists a large empirical literature concerning the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance. This literature, however, applies mainly to large corporations and/or listed firms. To the best of our knowledge, the question of whether meeting CSR requirements impacts the financial performance of small and medium-sized unlisted SMEs has not so far been analyzed. This paper aims to analyze, for the first time, the effect of CSR on the financial performance of SMEs. Using an original database including 5,257 French SMEs, we show that adopting CSR practices has a positive but weak effect on a firm’s financial performance. To develop this further, we analyzed CSR practices interactions assessing the best combination of CSR components that positively influence SME financial performance. Our results show that French SMEs benefit more from their pro-social behavior when they choose a combination of CSR components best adapted to their individual characteristics.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, financial performance, unlisted firms, SMEs

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Authors: Anu Vinod Ranade

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Aim: To evaluate and compare the effects of Vitamin C and Vitamin E on experimentally induced testicular torsion and detorsion in rats. Methods: Forty Male Wistar Albino rats were divided into five groups. Animals in the Group I underwent Sham operation, Group II consisted of animals that were subjected to torsion for three hours followed by detorsion for 24 hours without any treatment. While Group III, IV and V were orally pretreated with Vitamin C (40mg/kg.bw), vitamin E (100mg/kg.bw) and a combination of Vitamin C and vitamin E respectively for a period of 30 days. The testes of the experimental groups were manually rotated to 720° clockwise for three hours and counter rotated for 24 hours to induce ischemia and reperfusion. Sequential biopsies were performed and the testes were collected at the end of 24 hours of detrosion for morphological evaluation. Result: There was a significant decrease in the standard tubular diameter and the epithelial height of the seminiferous tubules in the untreated group when compared to Sham controls. The standard tubular diameter and seminiferous epithelial height showed near normal values when animals were pretreated with Vitamin C and Vitamin E individually or in combination. Conclusion: The results showed that pretreatment of with antioxidants vitamin E and vitamin C when administered prior to testicular torsion in rats significantly reduced the torsion and detorsion induced histopathlogical injury.

Keywords: vitamin C, vitamin E, standard tubular diameter, standard epithelial height, testicular torsion

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Authors: Ajay Wadhwa

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A Laboratory course on computational physics is different from the conventional lab course on other topics of physics like Mechanics, Heat, Optics, etc. because it involves active participation of the teacher as well as one-to-one interaction between teacher and the student. The course content requires the teacher to teach programming language as well as numerical methods along with their applications in physics. The task becomes more daunting when about 90% of the students in the class have no previous experience of any programming language. In the presented work, we have described a methodology for conducting the computational physics course by using the Google Drive and Dropitto.me cloud storage services. We have evaluated the performance in a class of sixty students by dividing them equally into four groups. One of the groups was made the peer group on whom the presented methodology was tested. The other groups were taught by using conventional method of classroom lectures. In order to assess our methodology, we analyzed the performance of students in four class tests. A study of certain statistical parameters like the mean, standard deviation, and Z-test hypothesis revealed that the cyber methodology based on cloud storage is more efficient than the conventional method of teaching.

Keywords: computational Physics, Z-test hypothesis, cloud storage, Google drive

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Authors: B. Dehghan, T. Toppi, M. Aprile, M. Motta

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The environmental concerns related to global warming and ozone layer depletion along with the growing worldwide demand for heating and cooling have brought an increasing attention toward ecological and efficient Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems. Furthermore, since space heating accounts for a considerable part of the European primary/final energy use, it has been identified as one of the sectors with the most challenging targets in energy use reduction. Heat pumps are commonly considered as a technology able to contribute to the achievement of the targets. Current research focuses on the full load operation and seasonal performance assessment of three gas-driven absorption heat pump cycles. To do this, investigations of the gas-driven air-source ammonia-water absorption heat pump systems for small-scale space heating applications are presented. For each of the presented cycles, both full-load under various temperature conditions and seasonal performances are predicted by means of numerical simulations. It has been considered that small capacity appliances are usually equipped with fixed geometry restrictors, meaning that the solution mass flow rate is driven by the pressure difference across the associated restrictor valve. Results show that gas utilization efficiency (GUE) of the cycles varies between 1.2 and 1.7 for both full and partial loads and vapor exchange (VX) cycle is found to achieve the highest efficiency. It is noticed that, for typical space heating applications, heat pumps operate over a wide range of capacities and thermal lifts. Thus, partially, the novelty introduced in the paper is the investigation based on a seasonal performance approach, following the method prescribed in a recent European standard (EN 12309). The overall result is a modest variation in the seasonal performance for analyzed cycles, from 1.427 (single-effect) to 1.493 (vapor-exchange).

Keywords: absorption cycles, gas utilization efficiency, heat pump, seasonal performance, vapor exchange cycle

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Authors: Uyanga Jadamba

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Globalisation of the world economy has necessitated the development and implementation of a comparable and understandable reporting language suitable for use by all reporting entities. The International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) provides an international reporting language that lets all users understand the financial information of their business and potentially allows them to have access to finance at an international level. The study is based on logistic regression analysis to investigate the factors for the adoption of theInternational Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs). The study started with a list of 217 countries from World Bank data. Due to the lack of availability of data, the final sample consisted of 136 countries, including 60 countries that have adopted the IFRS for SMEs and 76 countries that have not adopted it yet. As a result, the study included a period from 2010 to 2020 and obtained 1360 observations. The findings confirm that the adoption of the IFRS for SMEs is significantly related to the existence of national reporting standards, law enforcement quality, common law (legal system), and extent of disclosure. It means that the likelihood of adoption of the IFRS for SMEs decreases if the country already has a national reporting standard for SMEs, which suggests that implementation and transitional costs are relatively high in order to change the reporting standards. The result further suggests that the new standard adoption is easier in countries with constructive law enforcement and effective application of laws. The finding also shows that the adoption increases if countries have a common law system which suggests that efficient reportingregulations are more widespread in these countries. Countries with a high extent of disclosing their financial information are more likely to adopt the standard than others. The findings lastly show that the audit qualityand primary education levelhave no significant impact on the adoption.One possible explanation for this could be that accounting professionalsfrom in developing countries lacked complete knowledge of the international reporting standards even though there was a requirement to comply with them. The study contributes to the literature by providing factors that impact the adoption of the IFRS for SMEs. It helps policymakers to better understand and apply the standard to improve the transparency of financial statements. The benefit of adopting the IFRS for SMEs is significant due to the relaxed and tailored reporting requirements for SMEs, reduced burden on professionals to comply with the standard, and provided transparent financial information to gain access to finance.The results of the study are useful toemerging economies where SMEs are dominant in the economy in informing its evaluation of the adoption of the IFRS for SMEs.

Keywords: IFRS for SMEs, international financial reporting standard, adoption, institutional factors

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Authors: Leonard D. Agana, Wendell Ace Dela Cruz, Arjan C. Lingaya, Bonifacio T. Doma Jr.

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The purpose of this paper is to study the predict the fuel performance parameters, which include drivability index (DI), vapor lock index (VLI), and vapor lock potential using distillation curve and Reid vapor pressure (RVP) of dual alcohol-gasoline fuel blends. Distillation curve and Reid vapor pressure were predicted using artificial neural networks (ANN) with macroscopic properties such as boiling points, RVP, and molecular weights as the input layers. The ANN consists of 5 hidden layers and was trained using Bayesian regularization. The training mean square error (MSE) and R-value for the ANN of RVP are 91.4113 and 0.9151, respectively, while the training MSE and R-value for the distillation curve are 33.4867 and 0.9927. Fuel performance analysis of the dual alcohol–gasoline blends indicated that highly volatile gasoline blended with dual alcohols results in non-compliant fuel blends with D4814 standard. Mixtures of low-volatile gasoline and 10% methanol or 10% ethanol can still be blended with up to 10% C3 and C4 alcohols. Intermediate volatile gasoline containing 10% methanol or 10% ethanol can still be blended with C3 and C4 alcohols that have low RVPs, such as 1-propanol, 1-butanol, 2-butanol, and i-butanol. Biography: Graduate School of Chemical, Biological, and Materials Engineering and Sciences, Mapua University, Muralla St., Intramuros, Manila, 1002, Philippines

Keywords: dual alcohol-gasoline blends, distillation curve, machine learning, reid vapor pressure

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Authors: J. Balaraju, M. Govinda Raj, C. S. N. Murthy

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Every industry is constantly looking for enhancement of its day to day production and productivity. This can be possible only by maintaining the men and machinery at its adequate level. Prediction of performance characteristics plays an important role in performance evaluation of the equipment. Analytical and statistical approaches will take a bit more time to solve complex problems such as performance estimations as compared with software-based approaches. Keeping this in view the present study deals with an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) modelling of a Load-Haul-Dump (LHD) machine to predict the performance characteristics such as reliability, availability and preventive maintenance (PM). A feed-forward-back-propagation ANN technique has been used to model the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) training algorithm. The performance characteristics were computed using Isograph Reliability Workbench 13.0 software. These computed values were validated using predicted output responses of ANN models. Further, recommendations are given to the industry based on the performed analysis for improvement of equipment performance.

Keywords: load-haul-dump, LHD, artificial neural network, ANN, performance, reliability, availability, preventive maintenance

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Authors: Jing Qingfeng, Wu Jiajia

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Due to the crowded orbits and shortage of frequency resources, utilizing of MIMO technology to improve spectrum efficiency and increase the capacity has become a necessary trend of broadband satellite communication. We analyze the main influenced factors and compare the BER performance of space-time block code (STBC) scheme and space-time trellis code (STTC) scheme. This paper emphatically studies the bit error rate (BER) performance of STTC and STBC under Rayleigh channel. The main emphasis is placed on the effects of the factors, such as terminal environment and elevation angles, on the BER performance of STBC and STTC schemes. Simulation results indicate that performance of STTC under Rayleigh channel is obviously improved with the increasing of transmitting and receiving antennas numbers, but the encoder state has little impact on the performance. Under Rayleigh channel, performance of Alamouti code is better than that of STTC.

Keywords: MIMO, space time block code (STBC), space time trellis code (STTC), Rayleigh channel

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Authors: Hamid Vahidkia

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Central to the World Court’s mission is the assurance of universal custom “as prove of a common hone acknowledged as law.” Understudies of the Court’s law have long been mindful that the Court has been superior at applying standard law than characterizing it. However until Nicaragua v. Joined together States, small hurt was done. For within the strongly challenged cases earlier to Nicaragua, the Court overseen to inspire commonalities in factious structure that floated its decisions toward the standard standards certain in state hone. The Court’s need of hypothetical unequivocality basically implied that a career opportunity emerged for a few eyewitnesses like me to endeavor to supply the lost hypothesis of custom.

Keywords: law, international law, jurisdication, customary

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Authors: M. A. Moghaddas, M. Short, N. Wiley, A. Y. Yi, K. F. Graff

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The application of ultrasonic vibrations to machining processes has a long history, ranging from slurry-based systems able to drill brittle materials, to more recent developments involving low power ultrasonics for high precision machining, with many of these at the research and laboratory stages. The focus of this development is the application of high levels of ultrasonic power (1,000’s of watts) to standard, heavy duty machine tools – drilling being the immediate focus, with developments in milling in progress – with the objective of dramatically increasing system productivity through faster feed rates, this benefit arising from the thrust force reductions obtained by power ultrasonic vibrations. The presentation will describe development of an advanced drilling system based on a special, acoustically designed, rugged drill module capable of functioning under heavy duty production conditions, and making use of standard tool holder means, and able to obtain thrust force reductions while maintaining or improving surface finish and drilling accuracy. The characterization of the system performance will be described, and results obtained in drilling several materials (Aluminum, Stainless steel, Titanium) presented.

Keywords: dimensional accuracy, machine tool, productivity, surface roughness, thrust force, ultrasonic vibrations, ultrasonic-assisted drilling

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Authors: Hussen Nasir, Mohd Fitri Mansor, Noor Hidayah Abu

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Liberation of the SME market led to a dynamic competitive business environment. SMEs are considered as an engine for economic growth of most nations. SMEs must be willing to adopt the latest technology and incorporate innovation as part of their business strategies. The aim of this study is to examine the innovation practices (innovation strategy and innovation culture) towards sustaining SME’s performance and the moderating effect of intellectual capital on the relationship of innovation practices on SME’s performance. The study will identify the strongest variables that influence the SMEs performance and proposed several hypothesis toward innovation and intellectual capital. Finally, the study will propose a theoretical framework. The current study will contribute to the knowledge of important on the element of intellectual capital as well as innovation practices in the SMEs performance.

Keywords: intellectual capital, innovation practices, SMEs, performance, innovation strategy, innovation culture

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Authors: Kitti Supchukun, Kris Angkanaporn, Teerapong Yata

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The product innovation using a nutraceutical delivery system on improving the growth performance of broilers is the product planning and development to solve the antibiotics banning policy incurred in the local and global livestock production system. Restricting the use of antibiotics can reduce the quality of chicken meat and increase pathogenic bacterial contamination. Although other alternatives were used to replace antibiotics, the efficacy was inconsistent, reflecting on low chicken growth performance and contaminated products. The product innovation aims to effectively deliver the selected active ingredients into the body. This product is tested on the pharmaceutical lab scale and on the farm-scale for market feasibility in order to create product innovation using the nutraceutical delivery system model. The model establishes the product standardization and traceable quality control process for farmers. The study is performed using mixed methods. Starting with a qualitative method to find the farmers' (consumers) demands and the product standard, then the researcher used the quantitative research method to develop and conclude the findings regarding the acceptance of the technology and product performance. The survey has been sent to different organizations by random sampling among the entrepreneur’s population including integrated broiler farm, broiler farm, and other related organizations. The mixed-method results, both qualitative and quantitative, verify the user and lead users' demands since they provide information about the industry standard, technology preference, developing the right product according to the market, and solutions for the industry problems. The product innovation selected nutraceutical ingredients that can solve the following problems in livestock; bactericidal, anti-inflammation, gut health, antioxidant. The combinations of the selected nutraceutical and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) technology aim to improve chemical and pharmaceutical components by changing the structure of active ingredients into nanoparticle, which will be released in the targeted location with accurate concentration. The active ingredients in nanoparticle form are more stable, elicit antibacterial activity against pathogenic Salmonella spp and E.coli, balance gut health, have antioxidant and anti-inflammation activity. The experiment results have proven that the nutraceuticals have an antioxidant and antibacterial activity which also increases the average daily gain (ADG), reduces feed conversion ratio (FCR). The results also show a significant impact on the higher European Performance Index that can increase the farmers' profit when exporting. The product innovation will be tested in technology acceptance management methods from farmers and industry. The production of broiler and commercialization analyses are useful to reduce the importation of animal supplements. Most importantly, product innovation is protected by intellectual property.

Keywords: nutraceutical, nano structure lipid carrier, anti-microbial drug resistance, broiler, Salmonella

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Authors: Rodrigo T. Lourenço, Margarida Mano

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Higher Education Institutions (HEI), and other levels of Education, face important challenges. One of the most relevant one is the ability to adapt to a society that is changing over time, whilst guarantying levels of training that do not merely react to such changes. Thus, interacting with society, particularly with surrounding communities and key stakeholders, has become an essential requirement for the sustainability of these institutions. One of the formal mechanisms implemented in European educational institutions has been the design of organizational structures that include a top governance body sharing its constitution with both internal members, students and external members. Such frame holds the core mission of involving communities in the governance of educational institutions, assuming, both strategic decision-making functions, with the approval of the institutions’ strategic plans, and a supervision function, approved by activity reports. It also plays an essential role in the life of institutions by holding the responsibility of electing its top executives. In Portugal, it has been almost a decade since the publication of RJIES, the legal framework of Higher Education, such bodies being designated by General Councils. Thus, one may highlight that there has been a better understanding of the operative process of these bodies, as well as their added value to the education system. It has also been possible to analyse the extent to which their core mission has been fulfilled and to understand its growing relevance, particularly regarding the autonomy of institutions. This article aims to contribute to this theme by presenting the results of a study on the role of these bodies in the governance of Public Portuguese HEI, with a special focus on the supervisory competence of organizational performance. Through questionnaires made to board members and interviews with chairpersons of the bodies and top managers of the institutions, it was possible to conclude that there is a high concern with the connections to the external environment. However, regarding organizational performance and the role of the Council as a supervisor of that performance, the activity of the bodies has fallen short of what would be expected. Several reasons may be identified. It is important to emphasize the importance of the profile of the external members and the relationship between the organ’s standard functioning and the election of the head of the institution.

Keywords: governance, stakeholders, supervision, performance

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Authors: Arif Budiman

Abstract:

Any organization or company that wishes to achieve vision, mission, and goals of the organization is required to implement a performance management system or known as the Performance Management System (PMS) in every part of the whole organization. PMS is a tool to help visualize the direction and work program of the organization to achieve the goal. The challenge is PMS should not stop merely as a visualization tool to achieve the vision and mission of the organization, but PMS should also be able to create a high-performance culture that is inherent in each individual of the organization. Establishment of a culture within an organization requires the support of top leaders and also requires a system or governance that encourages every individual in the organization to be involved in any work program of the organization. Keywords of creating a high-performance culture are the formation of communication pattern involving the whole individual, either vertically or horizontally, and performed consistently and persistently by all individuals in each line of the organization. PT Pertamina (Persero) as the state-owned national energy company holds a system to internalize the culture of high performance through a system called Performance Management System Cycle (PMS Cycle). This system has 7 stages of the cycle, those are: (1) defining vision, mission and strategic plan of the company, (2) defining key performance indicator of each line and the individual (‘expectation setting conversation’), (3) defining performance target and performance agreement, (4) monitoring performance on a monthly regular basis (‘pulse check’), (5) implementing performance dialogue between leaders and staffs periodically every 3 months (‘performance dialogue’), (6) defining rewards and consequences based on the achievement of the performance of each line and the individual, and (7) calculating the final performance value achieved by each line and individual from one period of the current year. Perform PMS is a continual communication running throughout the year, that is why any three performance discussion that should be performed, include expectation setting conversations, pulse check and performance dialogue. In addition, another significant point and necessary undertaken to complete the assessment of individual performance assessment is soft competencies through 360-degree assessment by leaders, staffs, and peers.

Keywords: 360-degree assessment, expectation setting conversation, performance management system cycle, performance dialogue, pulse check

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Authors: Pramod Ghadge, Swadesh Srivastava

Abstract:

Revenue generation of a logistics company depends on how the logistics cost of a shipment is calculated. Logistics cost of a shipment is a function of distance & speed of the shipment travel in a particular network, its volumetric size and dead weight. Logistics billing is based mainly on the consumption of the scarce resource (space or weight carrying capacity of a carrier). Shipment’s size or deadweight is a function of product and packaging weight, dimensions and flexibility. Hence, to arrive at a standard methodology to compute accurate cost to bill the customer, the interplay among above mentioned physical attributes along with their measurement plays a key role. This becomes even more complex for an ecommerce company, like Flipkart, which caters to shipments from both warehouse and marketplace in an unorganized non-standard market like India. In this paper, we will explore various methodologies to define a standard way of billing the non-standard shipments across a wide range of size, shape and deadweight. Those will be, usage of historical volumetric/dead weight data to arrive at a factor which can be used to compute the logistics cost of a shipment, also calculating the real/contour volume of a shipment to address the problem of irregular shipment shapes which cannot be solved by conventional bounding box volume measurements. We will also discuss certain key business practices and operational quality considerations needed to bring standardization and drive appropriate ownership in the ecosystem.

Keywords: contour volume, logistics, real volume, volumetric weight

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