Search results for: conceptual metaphor theory

Authors: V. Sathya Narayanan, P. Sidharth, V. R. Sanal Kumar

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The success of any retail business is predisposed by its swift response and its knack in understanding the constraints and the requirements of customers. In this paper a conceptual design model of an automated customer-friendly supermarket has been proposed. In this model a 10-sided, space benefited, regular polygon shaped gravity shelves have been designed for goods storage and effective customer-specific algorithms have been built-in for quick automatic delivery of the randomly listed goods. The algorithm is developed with two main objectives, viz., delivery time and priority. For meeting these objectives the randomly listed items are reorganized according to the critical-path of the robotic arm specific to the identified shop and its layout and the items are categorized according to the demand, shape, size, similarity and nature of the product for an efficient pick-up, packing and delivery process. We conjectured that the proposed automated supermarket model reduces business operating costs with much customer satisfaction warranting a win-win situation.

Keywords: automated supermarket, electronic shopping, polygon-shaped rack, shortest path algorithm for shopping

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Authors: Joanna Błach, Anna Doś, Maria Gorczyńska, Monika Wieczorek-Kosmala

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Financial innovations can be regarded as the cause and the effect of the evolution of the financial system. Most of financial innovations are created by various financial institutions for their own purposes and needs. However, due to their diversity, financial innovations can be also applied by various business entities (other than financial institutions). This paper focuses on the potential application of financial innovations by non-financial companies. It is assumed that financial innovations may be effectively applied in all fields of corporate financial decisions integrating financial management with the risk management process. Appropriate application of financial innovations may enhance the development of the company and increase its value by improving its financial situation and reducing the level of risk. On the other hand, misused financial innovations may become the source of extra risk for the company threatening its further operation. The main objective of the paper is to identify the major types of financial innovations offered to non-financial companies by the banking system in Poland. It also aims at identifying the main factors determining the creation of financial innovations in the banking system in Poland and indicating future directions of their development. This paper consists of conceptual and empirical part. Conceptual part based on theoretical study is focused on the determinants of the process of financial innovations and their application by the non-financial companies. Theoretical study is followed by the empirical research based on the analysis of the actual offer of the 20 biggest banks operating in Poland with regard to financial innovations offered to SMEs and large corporations. These innovations are classified according to the main functions of the integrated financial management, such as: Financing, investment, working capital management and risk management. Empirical study has proved that the biggest banks operating in the Polish market offer to their business customers many types and classes of financial innovations. This offer appears vast and adequate to the needs and purposes of the Polish non-financial companies. It was observed that financial innovations pertained to financing decisions dominate in the banks’ offer. However, due to high diversification of the offered financial innovations, business customers may effectively apply them in all fields and areas of integrated financial management. It should be underlined, that the banks’ offer is highly dispersed, which may limit the implementation of financial innovations in the corporate finance. It would be also recommended for the banks operating in the Polish market to intensify the education campaign aiming at increasing knowledge about financial innovations among business customers.

Keywords: banking products and services, banking sector in Poland, corporate financial management, financial innovations, theory of innovation

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Authors: Sunandapriya Bhikkhu, Shimo Sraman

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The main objective of this research is to analytically study the concept of Lyotard’s different that rejects the monopoly criteria and single rule with the incommensurable, which can explain about conceptual problems of beauty in the philosophy of contemporary art. In Lyotard’s idea that basic value judgment of human should be a value like a phrase that is a small unit and an individual such as the aesthetic value that to explain the art world. From the concept of the anti-war artist that rejects the concept of the traditional aesthetic which cannot be able to explain the changing in contemporary society but emphasizes the meaning of individual beauty that is at the beginning of contemporary art today. In the analysis of the problem, the researcher supports the concept of Lyotard’s different that emphasizes the artistic expression which opens the space of perception and beyond the limitations of language process. Art is like phrase or small units that can convey a sense of humanity through the aesthetic value of the individual, not social criteria or universal. The concept of Lyotard’s different awakens and challenge us to the rejection of the single rule that is not open the social space to minorities by not accepting the monopoly criteria.

Keywords: difference, Jean-Francois Lyotard, postmodern, beauty, contemporary art

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Authors: Altaf Hussain, Norashidah Hashim

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An important aspect needed for promoting entrepreneurship is to encourage individuals for becoming entrepreneurs by endowing them with the required skills and knowledge for identifying the opportunities and turning these opportunities into successful ventures. Literature has recognized entrepreneurship education has significant role in motivating individual’s intention to become an entrepreneurs. Developing upon the insights based on dynamic view of human capital theory, this conceptual paper explores the role of entrepreneurial alertness in a linkage between entrepreneurial education and intentions to become an entrepreneur. Prior knowledge which can be acquired through entrepreneurship education and or experience is an antecedent for developing specific human capital of alertness for identifying the opportunities which impact on individual intentions. This suggests cause & effect relationship between entrepreneurship education and intentions through entrepreneurial alertness by impacting on the attitude, social norms and perceived behavioral control of an individual which can motivate individual intention of becoming an entrepreneur. Thus, alertness skill acquired through entrepreneurship education for identifying the profitable opportunities mediates the relationship between entrepreneurship education and intentions.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education, alertness, intentions, human capital

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Authors: Ram Manohar Singh, Meenakshi Gupta

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Various terms such as ‘learning style’, ‘cognitive style’, ‘conceptual style’, ‘thinking style’, ‘intellectual style’ are used in literature to refer to an individual’s characteristic and consistent approach to organizing and processing information. However, style concepts are criticized for mutually overlapping definitions and confusing classification. This confusion should be addressed at the conceptual as well as empirical level. This paper is an attempt to bridge this gap in literature by proposing a new concept: expansive-restrictive intellectual style based on phenomenological analysis of an auto-ethnography and interview of 26 information technology (IT) professionals working in knowledge intensive organizations (KIOs) in India. Expansive style is an individual’s preference to expand his/her horizon of knowledge and understanding by gaining real meaning and structure of his/her work. On the contrary restrictive style is characterized by an individual’s preference to take minimalist approach at work reflected in executing a job efficiently without an attempt to understand the real meaning and structure of the work. The analysis suggests that expansive-restrictive style has three dimensions: (1) field dependence-independence (2) cognitive involvement and (3) epistemological beliefs.

Keywords: expansive, knowledge workers, restrictive, style

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Authors: Min Wei

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The green hotel provides the products/services consistent with the full utilization of resources, protecting the ecological environment conducive to customers’ requirements and health. In order to better develop the green hospitality industry, this paper applies the game theory to analyze the intrinsic relationship and balanced interests among the stakeholders including government, hotels, and tourists during green hospitality development. Based on the hypothesis in game theory, this paper tries to construct a linkage mechanism in stakeholders, by which a theoretical basis for the interests’ balance can be realized. By using game theory and constructing a game model including tourists, hotels and government, this paper analyzes the relationship of the various stakeholders involved in the green hospitality development, and subsequently proposes the development model of green hospitality industry. On the one hand, this paper applies game theory to construct a green hotel development model and provides a theoretical basis for the interest balance of stakeholders based on theoretical perspective. On the other hand, the current development of green hospitality industry is still in initial phase, and the outcome of this research tries to guide tourists to form a green awareness and to establish the concept of green consumption for hotel development, so that green hotel products/services are provided. In addition, this paper provides a basis for decision making in the relevant government departments so that the interests of all stakeholders are promoted and cooperative game between stakeholders is established, for which the sustainable development of green hotels is achieved. The findings indicate that the process of achieving green hospitality industry development is to maximize the whole interests of stakeholders.

Keywords: green hospitality, game theory, stakeholders, development model

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Authors: Yohei Saika

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On the basis of Bayesian inference using the maximizer of the posterior marginal estimate, we carry out phase unwrapping using multiple interferograms via generalized mean-field theory. Numerical calculations for a typical wave-front in remote sensing using the synthetic aperture radar interferometry, phase diagram in hyper-parameter space clarifies that the present method succeeds in phase unwrapping perfectly under the constraint of surface- consistency condition, if the interferograms are not corrupted by any noises. Also, we find that prior is useful for extending a phase in which phase unwrapping under the constraint of the surface-consistency condition. These results are quantitatively confirmed by the Monte Carlo simulation.

Keywords: Bayesian inference, generalized mean-field theory, phase unwrapping, multiple interferograms, statistical mechanics

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Authors: Selma R. Oliveira, E. W. Cazarini

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Recently, studies have referenced innovation as a key factor affecting the performance of firms. Companies make use of its innovative capacities to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. In this perspective, the objective of this paper is to contribute to innovation planning policies in industry 4.0. Thus, this paper examines the disruptive innovation capacity on firm performance in Europe. This procedure was prepared according to the following phases: Phase 1: Determination of the conceptual model; and Phase 2: Verification of the conceptual model. The research was initially conducted based on the specialized literature, which extracted the data regarding the constructs/structure and content in order to build the model. The research involved the intervention of experts knowledgeable on the object studied, selected by technical-scientific criteria. The data were extracted using an assessment matrix. To reduce subjectivity in the results achieved the following methods were used complementarily and in combination: multicriteria analysis, multivariate analysis, psychometric scaling and neurofuzzy technology. The data were extracted using an assessment matrix and the results were satisfactory, validating the modeling approach.

Keywords: disruptive innovation, capacity, performance, Industry 4.0

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Authors: Frederic Henry-Couannier

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Dark Gravity is a natural extension of general relativity in presence of a flat non dynamical background. Matter and radiation fields from its dark sector, as soon as their gravity dominates over our side fields gravity, produce a constant acceleration law of the scale factor. After a brief reminder of the Dark Gravity theory foundations, the confrontation with the main cosmological probes is carried out. We show that, amazingly, the sudden transition between the usual matter dominated decelerated expansion law a(t) ∝ t²/³ and this accelerated expansion law a(t) ∝ t² predicted by the theory should be able to fit the main cosmological probes (SN, BAO, CMB and age of the oldest stars data) but also direct H₀ measurements with two free parameters only: H₀ and the transition redshift.

Keywords: anti-gravity, negative energies, time reversal, field discontinuities, dark energy theory

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Authors: Ayla Hoeta, Holly Winton

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Maramataka is an ancestral lunar environmental knowledge system based on environmental tohu (signs, observations or indicators), that continues to impart maatauranga (knowledge) to tangata whenua, people of the land after thousands of years. Maramataka is the mauri (energy) flow between whenua (land), moana (water) and rangi (sky), experienced through tirotiro (observing), connecting and attuning to the natural environment. Tohu serve as guidance to practises of kaiawhina (protection) a key value driving Aotearoa New Zealand led research in Antarctica. Recent developments recognise the importance of including and integrating indigenous knowledge and perspectives such as maatauranga Maaori which can provide insights into the conservation of Antarctica. We use an ancient kaupapa Maaori framework of weaving, wayfinding and attunement to navigate complexities using Hautu Waka. We investigate and weave together learnings from Antarctic and western science and indigenous Maaori maatauranga and tohu of moana, whenua and rangi to provide an indigenous perspective of Antarctica taiao and Maramataka. Drawing on past and present knowledge of environmental calendars contained in maatauranga Maaori and paleoclimate knowledge bases, field observations, interviews and whakataukii (proverbs), we aim to provide a conceptual Maramataka of the southwestern Ross Sea region and area of Antarctica. A key area of interest are the tohu related to the marama which are connected to all three interweaving spheres of moana, rangi, whenua. Maatauranga Maramataka in Aotearoa has been developed over millennia and we acknowledge the mana and sacredness of this tupuna knowledge and that this conceptual Maramataka serves as the starting point of a journey to shine light on indigenous perspectives using Maaori methods and frameworks in a dominant western science paradigm.

Keywords: Maramataka, Antarctica, Aotearoa, Maaori, tohu, moon, lunar calendar

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Authors: Surajit Das Barman, Rakibuzzaman Shah, Apurv Kumar

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Bushfire is known as one of the ascendant factors to create pyrocumulus thundercloud that causes the ignition of new fires by pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) lightning strikes and creates major losses of lives and property worldwide. A conceptual model-based risk planning would be beneficial to predict the lightning striking zones on the surface of the earth underneath the pyroCb thundercloud. PyroCb thundercloud can generate both positive cloud-to-ground (+CG) and negative cloud-to-ground (-CG) lightning in which +CG tends to ignite more bushfires and cause massive damage to nature and infrastructure. In this paper, a simple line charge structured thundercloud model is constructed in 2-D coordinates using the method of image charge to predict the probable +CG lightning striking zones on the earth’s surface for two conceptual thundercloud charge configurations: titled dipole and conventional tripole structure with excessive lower positive charge regions that lead to producing +CG lightning. The electric potential and surface charge density along the earth’s surface for both structures via continuously adjusting the position and the charge density of their charge regions is investigated. Simulation results for tilted dipole structure confirm the down-shear extension of the upper positive charge region in the direction of the cloud’s forward flank by 4 to 8 km, resulting in negative surface density, and would expect +CG lightning to strike within 7.8 km to 20 km around the earth periphery in the direction of the cloud’s forward flank. On the other hand, the conceptual tripole charge structure with enhanced lower positive charge region develops negative surface charge density on the earth’s surface in the range |x| < 6.5 km beneath the thundercloud and highly favors producing +CG lightning strikes.

Keywords: pyrocumulonimbus, cloud-to-ground lightning, charge structure, surface charge density, forward flank

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Authors: Mohd Rashid Bin Hj. Md Idris, Lajiman Bin Janoory, Abdullah Bin Yusof, Mahzir Bin Ibrahim

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The Malay language curriculum at primary school level in Malaysia is instrumental in ensuring the status of the language as the official and national language, the language of instruction as well as the language that unites the various ethnics in Malaysia. A research addressing issues related to the curriculum standard is, therefore, essential to provide value added quality to the existing National Education Philosophy in ongoing efforts to produce an individual who is balanced in intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical developments. The objective of this study is to examine the Philosophy of Language Theory, to review the content of the Malay language subject in relation to the Standard Curriculum for Primary Schools (KSSR), and to identify aspects of Theory of Philosophy in the Standard Curriculum for Primary Schools. The Malay language Primary School Curriculum is designed to enable students to be competent speakers and communicators of the language in order to gain knowledge, skills, information, values, and ideas and to enhance skills in social relations. Therefore, this study is designed to help educators to achieve all the stated goals. At the same time students at primary school level are expected to be able to apply the principle of language perfection as stated in the Philosophy of Language Theory to enable them to understand, appreciate and to take pride in being a Malaysian who speaks the language well.

Keywords: language, philosophy, theory, curriculum, standard, national education philosophy

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Authors: Saied Farham-Nia, Alireza Ghaffari-Hadigheh

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Game theory is a mathematical tool to study the behaviors of a rational and strategic decision-makers, that analyze existing equilibrium in interest conflict situation and provides an appropriate mechanisms for cooperation between two or more player. Game theory is applicable for any strategic and interest conflict situation in politics, management and economics, sociology and etc. Real worlds’ decisions are usually made in the state of indeterminacy and the players often are lack of the information about the other players’ payoffs or even his own, which leads to the games in uncertain environments. When historical data for decision parameters distribution estimation is unavailable, we may have no choice but to use expertise belief degree, which represents the strength with that we believe the event will happen. To deal with belief degrees, we have use uncertainty theory which is introduced and developed by Liu based on normality, duality, subadditivity and product axioms to modeling personal belief degree. As we know, the personal belief degree heavily depends on the personal knowledge concerning the event and when personal knowledge changes, cause changes in the belief degree too. Uncertainty theory not only theoretically is self-consistent but also is the best among other theories for modeling belief degree on practical problem. In this attempt, we primarily reintroduced Expected Utility Function in uncertainty environment according to uncertainty theory axioms to extract payoffs. Then, we employed Nash Equilibrium to investigate the solutions. For more practical issues, Stackelberg leader-follower Game and Bertrand Game, as a benchmark models are discussed. Compared to existing articles in the similar topics, the game models and solution concepts introduced in this article can be a framework for problems in an uncertain competitive situation based on experienced expert’s belief degree.

Keywords: game theory, uncertainty theory, belief degree, uncertain expected value, Nash equilibrium

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Authors: Zahra Sadeghian

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This paper reports on the geometrical parameters optimized of the stationary point for the 2,3-Bis(furan-2-yl)pyrazino[2,3-f][1,10]phenanthroline. The calculations are performed using density functional theory (DFT) method at the B3LYP/LanL2DZ level. We determined bond lengths and bond angles values for the compound and calculate the amount of bond hybridization according to the natural bond orbital theory (NBO) too. The energy of frontier orbital (HOMO and LUMO) are computed. In addition, calculated data are accurately compared with the experimental result. This comparison show that the our theoretical data are in reasonable agreement with the experimental values.

Keywords: 2, 3-Bis(furan-2-yl)pyrazino[2, 3-f][1, 10]phenanthroline, density functional theory, theorical calculations, LanL2DZ level, B3LYP level

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Authors: Michael Subbey, Kwame Takyi Danquah

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Finding a child's exceptional skills and abilities at a young age and nurturing them is a challenging process. The Social Learning Theory (SLT) of Albert Bandura is used to analyze the effects of early talent identification on children's growth and development. The study examines both the advantages and disadvantages of early talent identification and stresses the significance of a moral strategy that puts the welfare of the child first. The paper emphasizes the value of a balanced approach to early talent identification that takes into account individual differences, cultural considerations, and the child's social environment.

Keywords: early talent development, social learning theory, child development, child welfare

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Authors: Najebah Alsaleh, Nirpendra Singh, Udo Schwingenschlogl

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The electronic and transport properties of bulk and monolayer CuSbS2 and CuSbSe2 are determined by using density functional theory and semiclassical Boltzmann transport theory, in order to investigate the role of interlayer coupling for the thermoelectric properties. The calculated band gaps of the bulk compounds are in agreement with experiments and significantly higher than those of the monolayers, which thus show lower Seebeck coefficients. Since also the electrical conductivity is lower, the monolayers are characterized by lower power factors. Therefore, interlayer coupling is found to be essential for the excellent thermoelectric response of CuSbS2 and CuSbSe2, even though it is weak.

Keywords: density functional theory, thermoelectric, electronic properties, monolayer

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Authors: Bassam Shaikh, R. S. A. Jumain

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Game addiction has become an extremely important topic in psychology researchers, particularly in understanding and explaining why individuals become addicted (to video games). In previous studies, effect of online game addiction on social responsibilities, health problems, government action, and the behaviors of individuals to purchase and the causes of making individuals addicted on the video games has been discussed. Extending these concepts in marketing, it could be argued than the phenomenon could enlighten and extending our understanding on consumer loyalty. This study took the Grounded Theory approach, and found that motivation, satisfaction, fulfillments, exploration and achievements to be part of the important elements that builds consumer loyalty.

Keywords: grounded theory, consumer loyalty, video games, video game addiction

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Authors: Ganiyat Soliu, Glen Bright, Chiemela Onunka

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Performance optimization plays a key role in controlling the waiting time during manufacturing in an advanced manufacturing environment to improve productivity. Queuing mathematical modeling theory was used to examine the performance of the multi-stage production line. Robotics as a disruptive technology was implemented into a virtual manufacturing scenario during the packaging process to study the effect of waiting time on productivity. The queuing mathematical model was used to determine the optimum service rate required by robots during the packaging stage of manufacturing to yield an optimum production cost. Different rates of production were assumed in a virtual manufacturing environment, cost of packaging was estimated with optimum production cost. An equation was generated using queuing mathematical modeling theory and the theorem adopted for analysis of the scenario is the Newton Raphson theorem. Queuing theory presented here provides an adequate analysis of the number of robots required to regulate waiting time in order to increase the number of output. Arrival rate of the product was fast which shows that queuing mathematical model was effective in minimizing service cost and the waiting time during manufacturing. At a reduced waiting time, there was an improvement in the number of products obtained per hour. The overall productivity was improved based on the assumptions used in the queuing modeling theory implemented in the virtual manufacturing scenario.

Keywords: performance optimization, productivity, queuing theory, robotics

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Authors: Yuxuan Liu, Jianli Hao, Ruoyu Zhang, Lin Lin, Nelsen Andreco Muljadi, Yu Song, Guobin Gong

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With the increased municipal waste of China, household waste management (HWM) has become a key issue for sustainable development. In this study, an online survey questionnaire was conducted with the aim of assessing the current attitudes and behaviors of the households in China towards waste separationand recycling practices. Related influential factors are also determined within the context of the theory of planned behavior and PEST analysis. The survey received a total of 551 valid respondents. Results showed that the sample has an overall positive attitudes and behavior toward participating in HWM, but only 16.3% of themregularly segregate their waste. Society and policy are also found to be the two most impactful factors.

Keywords: householde waste management, theory of planned behavior, attitude, behavior

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Authors: Zhang Qingzhong

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Though there exists an increasing number of research studies on the headquarters-subsidiary relationship, and within this context, there is a focus on subsidiaries' contributory role to multinational corporations (MNC), subsidiary autonomy, and the conditions under which autonomy exerts an effect on subsidiary performance still constitute a subject of debate in the literature. The objective of this research is to study the MNC subsidiary autonomy and performance relationship and the effect of subsidiary entrepreneurial orientation and trust on subsidiary autonomy in the China environment, a phenomenon that has not yet been studied. The research addresses the following three questions: (i) Is subsidiary autonomy associated with MNC subsidiary performance in the China environment? (ii) How do subsidiary entrepreneurship and its trust in headquarters affect the level of subsidiary autonomy and its relationship with subsidiary performance? (iii) Does subsidiary autonomy have a mediating effect on subsidiary performance with subsidiary’s entrepreneurship and trust in headquarters? In the present study, we have reviewed literature and conducted semi-structured interviews with multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiary senior executives in China. Building on our insights from the interviews and taking perspectives from four theories, namely the resource-based view (RBV), resource dependency theory, integration-responsiveness framework, and social exchange theory, as well as the extant articles on subsidiary autonomy, entrepreneurial orientation, trust, and subsidiary performance, we have developed a model and have explored the direct and mediating effects of subsidiary autonomy on subsidiary performance within the framework of the MNC. To test the model, we collected and analyzed data based on cross-industry two waves of an online survey from 102 subsidiaries of MNCs in China. We used structural equation modeling to test measurement, direct effect model, and conceptual framework with hypotheses. Our findings confirm that (a) subsidiary autonomy is positively related to subsidiary performance; (b) subsidiary entrepreneurial orientation is positively related to subsidiary autonomy; (c) subsidiary’s trust in headquarters has a positive effect on subsidiary autonomy; (d) subsidiary autonomy mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and subsidiary performance; (e) subsidiary autonomy mediates the relationship between trust and subsidiary performance. Our study highlights the important role of subsidiary autonomy in leveraging the resource of subsidiary entrepreneurial orientation and its trust relationship with headquarters to achieve high performance. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings and propose directions for future research.

Keywords: subsidiary entrepreneurial orientation, trust, subsidiary autonomy, subsidiary performance

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Authors: Chinedu Ifedi Okeke

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The behavioural orientations of fathers, which resonate in the way they relate to members of their families and other community members, appear to have a variety of implications for the early development of children. In this paper, a conceptual map of fathers’ lifestyles is adopted to provide an interconnected network of father lifestyles. Empirical evidence from a qualitative case study of 25 Black fathers, who had been purposively selected from a suburb in one rural Eastern Cape municipality in South Africa, is reported in this paper. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to obtain data, which was analysed thematically. Findings identify and provide evidence of father lifestyles that are incongruent with the kind of parental behaviour needed to support the healthy early development of children. Findings suggest that these negative lifestyles appear to incapacitate fathers who fail to make a positive contribution to their children’s early development. To ensure that fathers make the expected contributions to their children’s early development, policies aimed at rehabilitating fathers who are involved in the negative lifestyles reported in this paper should be put in place.

Keywords: childhood development, fathering, fathers, intervention strategies, lifestyles, South Africa

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Authors: Freddy Munzhelele

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Setting: the empirical research has shown that the life cycle theory has an impact on the firms’ financing decisions, particularly the dividend pay-outs. Accordingly, the life cycle theory posits that as a firm matures, it gets to a level and capacity where it distributes more cash as dividends. On the other hand, the young firms prioritise investment opportunities sets and their financing; thus, they pay little or no dividends. The research on firms’ financing decisions also demonstrated, among others, the adoption of trade-off and pecking order theories on the dynamics of firms capital structure. The trade-off theory talks to firms holding a favourable position regarding debt structures particularly as to the cost and benefits thereof; and pecking order is concerned with firms preferring a hierarchical order as to choosing financing sources. The case of life cycle hypothesis explaining the financial managers’ decisions as regards the firms’ capital structure dynamics appears to be an interesting link, yet this link has been neglected in corporate finance research. If this link is to be explored as an empirical research, the financial decision-making alternatives will be enhanced immensely, since no conclusive evidence has been found yet as to the dynamics of capital structure. Aim: the aim of this study is to examine the impact of life cycle theory on the capital structure dynamics trade-off and pecking order theories of firms listed in retail, industrial and mining sectors of the JSE. These sectors are among the key contributors to the GDP in the South African economy. Design and methodology: following the postpositivist research paradigm, the study is quantitative in nature and utilises secondary data obtainable from the financial statements of sampled firm for the period 2010 – 2022. The firms’ financial statements will be extracted from the IRESS database. Since the data will be in panel form, a combination of the static and dynamic panel data estimators will used to analyse data. The overall data analyses will be done using STATA program. Value add: this study directly investigates the link between the life cycle theory and the dynamics of capital structure decisions, particularly the trade-off and pecking order theories.

Keywords: life cycle theory, trade-off theory, pecking order theory, capital structure, JSE listed firms

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Authors: Nasser Salah Eldin Mohammed Salih Shebka

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Current problematic issues in AI fields are mainly due to those of knowledge representation conceptual theories, which in turn reflected on the entire scope of cognitive sciences. Knowledge representation methods and tools are driven from theoretical concepts regarding human scientific perception of the conception, nature, and process of knowledge acquisition, knowledge engineering and knowledge generation. And although, these theoretical conceptions were themselves driven from the study of the human knowledge representation process and related theories; some essential factors were overlooked or underestimated, thus causing critical methodological deficiencies in the conceptual theories of human knowledge and knowledge representation conceptions. The evaluation criteria of human cumulative knowledge from the perspectives of nature and theoretical aspects of knowledge representation conceptions are affected greatly by the very materialistic nature of cognitive sciences. This nature caused what we define as methodological deficiencies in the nature of theoretical aspects of knowledge representation concepts in AI. These methodological deficiencies are not confined to applications of knowledge representation theories throughout AI fields, but also exceeds to cover the scientific nature of cognitive sciences. The methodological deficiencies we investigated in our work are: - The Segregation between cognitive abilities in knowledge driven models.- Insufficiency of the two-value logic used to represent knowledge particularly on machine language level in relation to the problematic issues of semantics and meaning theories. - Deficient consideration of the parameters of (existence) and (time) in the structure of knowledge. The latter requires that we present a more detailed introduction of the manner in which the meanings of Existence and Time are to be considered in the structure of knowledge. This doesn’t imply that it’s easy to apply in structures of knowledge representation systems, but outlining a deficiency caused by the absence of such essential parameters, can be considered as an attempt to redefine knowledge representation conceptual approaches, or if proven impossible; constructs a perspective on the possibility of simulating human cognition on machines. Furthermore, a redirection of the aforementioned expressions is required in order to formulate the exact meaning under discussion. This redirection of meaning alters the role of Existence and time factors to the Frame Work Environment of knowledge structure; and therefore; knowledge representation conceptual theories. Findings of our work indicate the necessity to differentiate between two comparative concepts when addressing the relation between existence and time parameters, and between that of the structure of human knowledge. The topics presented throughout the paper can also be viewed as an evaluation criterion to determine AI’s capability to achieve its ultimate objectives. Ultimately, we argue some of the implications of our findings that suggests that; although scientific progress may have not reached its peak, or that human scientific evolution has reached a point where it’s not possible to discover evolutionary facts about the human Brain and detailed descriptions of how it represents knowledge, but it simply implies that; unless these methodological deficiencies are properly addressed; the future of AI’s qualitative progress remains questionable.

Keywords: cognitive sciences, knowledge representation, ontological reasoning, temporal logic

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Authors: Nicodemus M. J. Mbwambo, Yu-Shan Sun, Murali Sitaraman, Joan Krone

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This paper presents a generic data abstraction that captures a navigable tree position. The mathematical modeling of the abstraction encapsulates the current tree position, which can be used to navigate and modify the tree. The encapsulation of the tree position in the data abstraction specification avoids the use of explicit references and aliasing, thereby simplifying verification of (imperative) client code that uses the data abstraction. To ease the tasks of such specification and verification, a general tree theory, rich with mathematical notations and results, has been developed. The paper contains an example to illustrate automated verification ramifications. With sufficient tree theory development, automated proving seems plausible even in the absence of a special-purpose tree solver.

Keywords: automation, data abstraction, maps, specification, tree, verification

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Authors: Bijan Gillani, Roya Gillani

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The purpose of this paper is to propose a pedagogical model where engineering provides the interconnection to integrate the other topics of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The author(s) will first present a brief discussion of cognitive theory and then derive an integrated pedagogy to use engineering and technology, such as drones, sensors, camera, iPhone, radio waves as the nexus to an integrated curriculum development for the other topics of STEM. Based on this pedagogy, one example developed by the author(s) called “Drones and Environmental Science,” will be presented that uses a drone and related technology as an appropriate instructional delivery medium to apply Piaget’s cognitive theory to create environments that promote the integration of different STEM subjects that relate to environmental science.

Keywords: cogntive theories, drone, environmental science, pedagogy

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Authors: Sandra Young

Abstract:

The biodiversity literature is vast and heterogeneous. In today’s data age, numbers of data integration and standardisation initiatives aim to facilitate simultaneous access to all the literature across biodiversity domains for research and forecasting purposes. Ontologies are being used increasingly to organise this information, but the rationalisation intrinsic to ontologies can hit obstacles when faced with the intrinsic fluidity and inconsistency found in the domains comprising biodiversity. Essentially the problem is a conceptual one: biological taxonomies are formed on the basis of specific, physical specimens yet nomenclatural rules are used to provide labels to describe these physical objects. These labels are ambiguous representations of the physical specimen. An example of this is with the genus Melpomene, the scientific nomenclatural representation of a genus of ferns, but also for a genus of spiders. The physical specimens for each of these are vastly different, but they have been assigned the same nomenclatural reference. While there is much research into the conceptual stability of the taxonomic concept versus the nomenclature used, to the best of our knowledge as yet no research has looked empirically at the literature to see the conceptual plurality or singularity of the use of these species’ names, the linguistic representation of a physical entity. Language itself uses words as symbols to represent real world concepts, whether physical entities or otherwise, and as such lexicography has a well-founded history in the conceptual mapping of words in context for dictionary making. This makes it an ideal candidate to explore this problem. The lexicographic approach uses corpus-based analysis to look at word use in context, with a specific focus on collocated word frequencies (the frequencies of words used in specific grammatical and collocational contexts). It allows for inconsistencies and contradictions in the source data and in fact includes these in the word characterisation so that 100% of the available evidence is counted. Corpus analysis is indeed suggested as one of the ways to identify concepts for ontology building, because of its ability to look empirically at data and show patterns in language usage, which can indicate conceptual ideas which go beyond words themselves. In this sense it could potentially be used to identify if the hierarchical structures present within the empirical body of literature match those which have been identified in ontologies created to represent them. The first stages of this research have revealed a hierarchical structure that becomes apparent in the biodiversity literature when annotating scientific species’ names, common names and more general names as classes, which will be the focus of this paper. The next step in the research is focusing on a larger corpus in which specific words can be analysed and then compared with existing ontological structures looking at the same material, to evaluate the methods by means of an alternative perspective. This research aims to provide evidence as to the validity of the current methods in knowledge representation for biological entities, and also shed light on the way that scientific nomenclature is used within the literature.

Keywords: ontology, biodiversity, lexicography, knowledge representation, corpus linguistics

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Authors: Oluwatosin Olofintoye, Josiah Adeyemo, Gbemileke Shomade

Abstract:

The relationship between rainfall and runoff is an important issue in surface water hydrology therefore the understanding and development of accurate rainfall-runoff models and their applications in water resources planning, management and operation are of paramount importance in hydrological studies. This paper reviews some of the previous works on the rainfall-runoff process modeling. The hydrologic applications of conceptual models and artificial neural networks (ANNs) for the precipitation-runoff process modeling were studied. Gradient training methods such as error back-propagation (BP) and evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are discussed in relation to the training of artificial neural networks and it is shown that application of EAs to artificial neural networks training could be an alternative to other training methods. Therefore, further research interest to exploit the abundant expert knowledge in the area of artificial intelligence for the solution of hydrologic and water resources planning and management problems is needed.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, artificial neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, gradient training method, rainfall-runoff model

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Authors: Phan Nghiem Vu, Le Tuan Vu, Ta Quang Tai

Abstract:

Knowledge Management effectively is critical to the survival and advance of a company, especially in company-based industries such as construction. Knowledge management practice is crucial to the survival and progress of a company, especially company-based knowledge such as construction consultancy. Effective knowledge management practices are very significant to the competitive and development of a consulting organization. Hence, the success of knowledge management implementation depends on knowledge capturing and reusing effectively. In this paper, a survey was carried out of engineers and managers with experience in seven construction consulting organizations that provide services on the north-central coast of Vietnam. The main objectives of the survey to finding out how these organizations capture and reuse knowledge and significant barriers to the implementation of knowledge management. A conceptual framework based-on Trello application is proposed to formalize the knowledge-capturing and reusing process within construction consulting companies. It is showed that the conceptual framework could be used to manage both implicit and explicit knowledge effectively in construction consultant organizations.

Keywords: knowledge management, construction consultant organization, knowledge capturing, reusing knowledge, application-based technology

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Authors: Robyn L. Curran, Joanne R. Naidoo, Gugu Mchunu

Abstract:

Along with the increasing awareness of human trafficking, is the acknowledgement that it is no longer just a social problem but also a significant public health problem that requires both increased knowledge and the specialist equipping of aftercare providers such as nurses who care for human trafficking survivors. Current discourse regarding aftercare of human trafficking survivors, is that approaches do not clearly explain the function or content of aftercare and what aftercare entails. Although psychological and medical aftercare are emphasized as important components, little practical attention is devoted to what these components actually involve and the effectiveness of current practice in aftercare. Review of the literature on the processes that take place from aftercare to empowerment, revealed the need for emphasis to be placed on the voices of survivors concerning their liberation from oppression. The aim of the study was to develop a theory for aftercare of human trafficking survivors, through analyzing the experiences of survivors and aftercare providers in shelters in three provinces in South Africa. Through using a Straussian grounded theory approach, the researcher developed a theory to inform care of human trafficking survivors in low resource settings using the voice of the survivors and those experienced in direct care of human trafficking survivors. Four human trafficking survivors and three aftercare providers from three shelters in three provinces in South Africa were individually interviewed in order for the theory to emerge. The findings of the study elicited a theoretical model of the renewed self, and the conditions that facilitate this process in care of human trafficking survivors. The process that human trafficking survivors navigate to empowerment require mutual collaboration of the aftercare provider and survivor as the survivor awakens vision, confronts reality, re-salvages autonomy and liberates self. Psychological resilience of the survivor facilitates the transition to renewed self. The recommendations of this study may improve the nursing care provided to human trafficking survivors and equip professionals with knowledge and skills to promote the process of renewing self for survivors.

Keywords: aftercare, aftercare providers, grounded theory, human trafficking survivors

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Authors: Nino M. Pizarro

Abstract:

To the author’s knowledge, despite the written documents about Marist spirituality/charism, nothing has been done concerning a clear theoretical framework that highlights Marist spirituality/charism from the perspective or lived experience of the lay Marists of St. Marcellin Champagnat. The participants of the study are the lay Marist - educators who are from Marist Schools in the Philippines. Since the study would like to find out the respondents’ own concepts and meanings about Marist spirituality/charism, qualitative methodology is considered the approach to be used in the study. In particular, the study will use the qualitative methods of Barney Glaser. The theory will be generated systematically from data collection, coding and analyzing through memoing, theoretical sampling, sorting and writing and using the constant comparative method. The data collection method that will be employed in this grounded theory research is the in-depth interview that is semi-structured and participant driven. Data collection will be done through snowball sampling that is purposive. The study is considering to come up with a theoretical framework that will help the lay Marists to deepen their understanding of the Marist spirituality/charism and their vocation as lay partners of the Marist Brothers of the Schools.

Keywords: grounded theory, Lay Marists, lived experience, Marist spirituality/charism

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