Search results for: schedule risk management

Authors: Gherbi Khadidja

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In the Mediterranean region, water resources are limited and very unevenly distributed in space and time. The main objective of this project is the development of a wireless network for the management of water resources in northern Algeria, the Mitidja plain, which helps farmers to irrigate in the most optimized way and solve the problem of water shortage in the region. Therefore, we will develop an aid tool that can modernize and replace some traditional techniques, according to the real needs of the crops and according to the soil conditions as well as the climatic conditions (soil moisture, precipitation, characteristics of the unsaturated zone), These data are collected in real-time by sensors and analyzed by an algorithm and displayed on a mobile application and the website. The results are essential information and alerts with recommendations for action to farmers to ensure the sustainability of the agricultural sector under water shortage conditions. In the first part: We want to set up a wireless sensor network, for precise management of water resources, by presenting another type of equipment that allows us to measure the water content of the soil, such as the Watermark probe connected to the sensor via the acquisition card and an Arduino Uno, which allows collecting the captured data and then program them transmitted via a GSM module that will send these data to a web site and store them in a database for a later study. In a second part: We want to display the results on a website or a mobile application using the database to remotely manage our smart irrigation system, which allows the farmer to use this technology and offers the possibility to the growers to access remotely via wireless communication to see the field conditions and the irrigation operation, at home or at the office. The tool to be developed will be based on satellite imagery as regards land use and soil moisture. These tools will make it possible to follow the evolution of the needs of the cultures in time, but also to time, and also to predict the impact on water resources. According to the references consulted, if such a tool is used, it can reduce irrigation volumes by up to up to 40%, which represents more than 100 million m3 of savings per year for the Mitidja. This volume is equivalent to a medium-size dam.

Keywords: optimal irrigation, soil moisture, smart irrigation, water management

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Authors: Andrea Szabó Nagy, János Szabó, Zsófia Csanádi, József Erdős

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The main objective of this study was to assess the seasonal variation of atmospheric polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations associated with PM10 in an urban site of Győr, Hungary. A total of 112 PM10 aerosol samples were collected in the years of 2012 and 2013 and analyzed for PAHs by gas chromatography method. The total PAH concentrations (sum of the concentrations of 19 individual PAH compounds) ranged from 0.19 to 70.16 ng/m3 with the mean value of 12.29 ng/m3. Higher concentrations of both total PAHs and benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) were detected in samples collected in the heating seasons. Using BaP-equivalent potency index on the carcinogenic PAH concentration data, the local population appears to be exposed to significantly higher cancer risk in the heating seasons. However, the comparison of the BaP and total PAH concentrations observed for Győr with other cities it was found that the PAH levels in Győr generally corresponded to the EU average.

Keywords: air quality, benzo[a]pyrene, PAHs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

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Authors: Fátima Farinha, Miguel J. Oliveira, Gina Matias, Armando Inverno, Jânio Monteiro, Cristiano Cabrita

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In the last decades, the construction of swimming pools for recreational activities has grown exponentially in southern Europe. Swimming pools are used both for private use in villas and for collective use in hotels or condominiums. However, they have a high environmental impact, mainly in terms of water and energy consumption, being used for a short period of time, depending significantly on favorable atmospheric conditions. Contrary to what would be expected, not enough research has been conducted to reduce the negative impact of this equipment. In this context, this work proposes and analyses technological measures to reduce the environmental impacts of swimming pools, such as thermal insulation of the tank, water balance in order to detect leaks and optimize the backwash process, integration of renewable energy generation, and a smart control system that meets the requirements of the user. The work was developed within the scope of the Ecopool+++ project, which aims to create innovative heated pools with reduced thermal losses and integration of SMART energy plus water management systems. The project is in the final phase of its development, with very encouraging results.

Keywords: swimming pools, sustainability, thermal losses, water management system

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Authors: Agnieszka Leszczynska

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Flexibility and agility constitute the most dominant features of modern human resource management systems. The former pertains to procedures, practices and competences of human resources, and the latter to the procedures and practices’ effectiveness in dealing with changing conditions in the surrounding environment. The purpose of the paper is to present the relations between the flexibility and agility of human resources and achieving sustainable competitiveness. Based upon hitherto research, we develop a conceptual model that links the constructs together. The conducted study is of theoretical and conceptual nature. Critical literature analysis and the synthesis method were applied. A premise was made that the three dimensions of HR (Human Resources) flexibility (employee skill flexibility, employee behaviour flexibility, and HR practice flexibility) and HR agility affect competitiveness, by increasing the flexibility, creativity of human resources, and improving quality performance, and exert an impact upon the quality of life of employees and social relations. In particular, the agility and flexibility of human resources contribute to the growth of adaptability and strategic orientation, which directly affects the organization's competitiveness. The research results will help to better understand the impact of flexibility and agility related to the HRM (Human Resources Management) system upon the implementation of the concept of sustainable development in the organization.

Keywords: agility, human resource, sustainable competitiveness, sustainable development

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Authors: A. Qayed Al-Emadi, C. Schwabenland, Q. Wei, B. Czarnecka

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In 2009, the new HRM policy was implemented in Qatar for public sector organisations. The purpose of this research is to examine how Qatar’s 2009 HRM policy was significant in influencing employee retention in public organisations. The conducted study utilised quantitative methodology to analyse the data on employees’ perceptions of such HRM practices as performance çanagement, rewards and promotion, training and development associated with the HRM policy in public organisations in comparison to semi-private organisations. Employees of seven public and semi-private organisations filled in the questionnaire based on the 5-point likert scale to present quantitative results. The data was analysed with the correlation and multiple regression statistical analyses. It was found that Performance Management had the relationship with Employee Retention, and Rewards and Promotion influenced Job Satisfaction in public organisations. The relationship between Job Satisfaction and Employee Retention was also observed. However, no significant differences were observed in the role of HRM practices in public and semi-private organisations.

Keywords: performance management, rewards and promotion, training and development, job satisfaction, employee retention, SHRM, configurational perspective

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Authors: B. Karmutoglu, E. Guzel, Y. Halefoglu

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The aim of this study was to determine the basic trends of the students and instructors who participated in the courses of entrepreneurship certificate education in universities. In this study, it is tried to determine whether the level of education and occupational groups are meaningful in creating entrepreneurship, taking into consideration the legal regulations, supports, researches and development targets issued in this respect. For this reason, this project started 2015 and opened five courses in 2015, thirteen courses in 2016, and eleven courses in 2017. The total numbers of course and participants have been 30 and 510 respectively. Comparisons were made according to the faculties of 510 participants. In this comparison, it was observed that outward-oriented, self-confidence, breakthrough, risk-taking and entrepreneurship tendencies of engineering faculty students were very high. In the second place, entrepreneurial desires of the students of vocational high schools came to the forefront. This project supported by Cukurova University and The Scientific And Technological Research Council Of Turkey(TÜBİTAK) 1601 programming.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, training, certificate, project

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Authors: Nidhi Gaur, Padmaja Joshi, Vijay Jain, Rajeev Srivastava

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Web application architecture is important to achieve the desired performance for the application. Performance analysis studies are conducted to evaluate existing or planned systems. Web applications are used by hundreds of thousands of users simultaneously, which sometimes increases the risk of server failure in real time operations. We use Coloured Petri Net (CPN), a very powerful tool for modelling dynamic behaviour of a web application system. CPNs extend the vocabulary of ordinary Petri nets and add features that make them suitable for modelling large systems. The major focus of this work is on server side of web applications. The presented work focuses on modelling restructuring aspects, with major focus on concurrency and architecture, using CPN. It also focuses on bringing out the appropriate architecture for web and database servers given the number of concurrent users.

Keywords: coloured Petri Nets (CPNs), concurrent users, per- formance modelling, web application architecture

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Authors: Ezekiel Ejiofor Nnadi

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Nigeria construction industry is known for its active construction activities. This has earmarked the industry to be the key to economic growth of the nation. It has largest employer of labour and gives sustenance to other industries like manufacturing industry. While this is a sign of growth and prosperity; the waste generated by the industry has always been a problem and a serious concern. It results in wastage of economic gain and has resultant health effect on the populace apart from injury being sustained on sites. This work provides a platform to learn more about construction waste, its management strategy and how to reduce waste production in Nigeria construction industry. Construction sites, waste management authority and public health institutions in Lagos as the centre of most construction activities in Nigeria were selected, and a set of questionnaire was administered to using the systematic sampling technique. Descriptive statistics and relative importance index (RII) technique were employed for the analysis of the data gathered. The findings of the analysis show that excessive wastes reduce contractors’ profit margin and also that some construction wastes contain hazardous and toxic elements such as lead, asbestos or radioactive materials which required proper handling and effective disposal. The conclusion was drawn that the check on waste on construction sites starts with the designers to the contractors who execute on site.

Keywords: construction cost, construction industry, economic growth, materials wastes

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Authors: Vahid Saatchian, Seyyed Farideh Hadavi

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The main aim of this study was developing the collaboration model of physical education and sport sciences faculties with service section of sport industrial.The research methods of this study was a qualitative. So researcher with of identifying the priority list of collaboration between colleges and service section of sport industry and according to sampling based of subjective and snowball approach, conducted deep interviews with 22 elites that study around the field of research topic. indeed interviews were analyzed through qualitative coding (open, axial and selective) with 5 category such as causal condition, basic condition, intervening conditions, action/ interaction and strategy. Findings exposed that in causal condition 10 labels appeared. So because of heterogeneity of labes, researcher categorized in total subject. In basic condition 59 labels in open coding identified this categorized in 14 general concepts. Furthermore with composition of the declared category and relationship between them, 5 final and internal categories (culture, intelligence, marketing, environment and ultra-powers) were appeared. Also an intervening condition in the study includes 5 overall scopes of social factors, economic, cultural factors, and the management of the legal and political factors that totally named macro environment. Indeed for identifying strategies, 8 areas that covered with internal and external challenges relationship management were appeared. These are including, understanding, outside awareness, manpower, culture, integrated management, the rules and regulations and marketing. Findings exposed 8 labels in open coding which covered the internal and external of challenges of relation management of two sides and these concepts were knowledge and awareness, external view, human source, madding organizational culture, parties’ thoughts, unit responsible for/integrated management, laws and regulations and marketing. Eventually the consequences categorized in line of strategies and were at scope of the cultural development, general development, educational development, scientific development, under development, international development, social development, economic development, technology development and political development that consistent with strategies. The research findings could help the sport managers witch use to scientific collaboration management and the consequences of this in those sport institutions. Finally, the consequences that identified as a result of the devopmental strategies include: cultural, governmental, educational, scientific, infrastructure, international, social, economic, technological and political that is largely consistent with strategies. With regard to the above results, enduring and systematic relation with long term cooperation between the two sides requires strategic planning were based on cooperation of all stakeholders. Through this, in the turbulent constantly changing current sustainable environment, competitive advantage for university and industry obtained. No doubt that lack of vision and strategic thinking for cooperation in the planning of the university and industry from its capability and instead of using the opportunity, lead the opportunities to problems.

Keywords: university and industry collaboration, sport industry, physical education and sport science college, service section of sport industry

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Authors: Elahe Memari, Ahmad Aslizadeh, Ahmad Memari

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Today strategic planning is counted as the most important duties of senior directors in each organization. Strategic planning allows the organizations to implement compiled strategies and reach higher competitive benefits than their competitors. The present research work tries to prepare and rank the strategies form effective factors on strategic planning in fulfillment of the State Road Management and Transportation Organization in order to indicate the role of organizational factors in efficiency of the process to organization managers. Connection between six main factors in fulfillment of State Road Management and Transportation Organization were studied here, including Improvement of Strategic Thinking in senior managers, improvement of the organization business process, rationalization of resources allocation in different parts of the organization, coordination and conformity of strategic plan with organization needs, adjustment of organization activities with environmental changes, reinforcement of organizational culture. All said factors approved by implemented tests and then ranked using fuzzy multivariate decision-making technique.

Keywords: Fuzzy TOPSIS, improvement of organization business process, multivariate decision-making, strategic planning

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Authors: Usha Barahmand, Ali Khazaee, Goudarz Sadeghi Hashjin

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The purpose of this study is to assess the relative mediating effects of impulsivity and internalizing problems in the relationship between childhood neglect and motives for opiate use. Seventy-two adolescent opiate users were recruited for the study. Participants completed assessments of childhood abuse history, distress, impulsiveness and motives for substance use as well as a socio-demographic information sheet. Findings from bootstrap mediator analyses indicated that distress, but not impulsiveness, mediated the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and expansion and enhancement motives for substance use. The current study provides preliminary evidence that internalizing problems may function as a mechanism linking prior childhood experiences of emotional neglect to subsequent motives for substance use. Clinical implications of these findings suggest that targeting emotion dysregulation problems may be an effective adjunct in the treatment of adolescents with a history of childhood maltreatment that are at risk for substance use.

Keywords: childhood neglect, impulsiveness, internalizing problems, substance use motives

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Authors: Setyo Pamuji

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The basis of this research is to create an international business project by developing an area in every country which focused on global language teaching to accelerate huge project of internationalization for mankind better with equity. It is to make an ease, learning more effective and efficient as well as economic development significantly at the place. Some have attempted to establish it, but could have not succeeded. This study uses stratified random sampling method to determine respondents. It is caused by population coming from around of Indonesia which is heterogeneity. Above all, researcher has already known well the spot including the mapping of students and societies, over 5-year, from beginning studying English (2011) until teaching English (2015). This quantitative research is able to analyze the vital factor of successful Language Village at Pare, Kediri, East Java, Indonesia which has never been obtained anywhere. This project provides valuable information regarding management used by the Language Village. Overall approach depicts vigorous marketing strategy and dedication blended. This will allow for more individual consideration of economist and may direct future research on the uniqueness of the Language Village to ascertain more profound understanding of the village which succeeds inviting people from other places to come, beside formal management and marketing.

Keywords: internationalization, accelerate, global language, economic development, blended, globalization

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Authors: HoYoung Son, DongHoon Shin, WooYoung Jung

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This study presented the seismic fragility framework of concrete weir structure subjected to strong seismic ground motions and in particular, concrete aging condition of the weir structure was taken into account in this study. In order to understand the influence of concrete aging on the weir structure, by using probabilistic risk assessment, the analytical seismic fragility of the weir structure was derived for pre- and post-deterioration of concrete. The performance of concrete weir structure after five years was assumed for the concrete aging or deterioration, and according to after five years’ condition, the elastic modulus was simply reduced about one–tenth compared with initial condition of weir structures. A 2D nonlinear finite element analysis was performed considering the deterioration of concrete in weir structures using ABAQUS platform, a commercial structural analysis program. Simplified concrete degradation was resulted in the increase of almost 45% of the probability of failure at Limit State 3, in comparison to initial construction stage, by analyzing the seismic fragility.

Keywords: weir, FEM, concrete, fragility, aging

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Authors: A. Pascual Ramsay

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Accounts of the management of the economic and euro crisis in Spain have been dominated by an emphasis on external constraints. However, this approach leaves unanswered important questions about the role of domestic political factors. Using systematic qualitative primary research and employing elite interviewing and process tracing, this paper aims to fill this gap for the period of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) administration. The paper shows that domestic politics played a crucial role in the management of the crisis, most importantly by determining the shape of the measures undertaken. In its three distinct stages – downplaying/inaction, reaction/stimulus, and austerity/reform – the PSOE's response was certainly constrained by external factors, most notably EMU membership and the actions of sovereign-bond investors, the ECB and Germany. Yet while these external constraints forced the government to act, domestic political factors fundamentally shaped the content of key measures: the fiscal stimulus, the labour, financial and pension reforms, the refusal to accept a bailout or the reform of the Constitution. Seven factors were particularly influential: i) electoral and political cost, ii) party and partisanship, iii) organised interests, iv) domestic institutions, v) ideological preferences, vi) ineffective decision-making, and vii) judgement and personal characteristics of decision-makers. In conclusion, domestic politics played an important role in the management of the crisis, a role that has been underestimated by dominant approaches focusing on external constraints and weak domestic policy autonomy. The findings provide empirical evidence to support research agendas that identify significant state discretion in the face of international economic integration and an important role for domestic political factors such as institutions, material interests, partisanship and ideology in shaping economic outcomes.

Keywords: economic crisis, Euro, PSOE, Spain

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Authors: Azita Behbahaninia

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Soil and surface and ground waters pollution to arsenic (As) due to its high potential for food cycle entrance, has high risk for human safety. Also, this pollution can cause quality and quantity decreasing of agricultural products or some lesions in farm animals that due to low knowledge, its reason is unknown, but can relate to As pollution. This study was conducted to investigate level of soil and water pollution by As in Hashtrood city. Based on the region’s information, the surface and ground waters, soil, river sediments, and rock were sampled and analyzed for physico-chemical and As in lab. There are significant differences for mean contents between As in the samples and crust. The maximum levels of As were observed in fly ash sample. Consequently, As pollution was related to geogenic and volcanic eruptions in this region. These mechanisms are diagnosed as As pollution in the region: As release for the rock units, As sorption by oxide minerals in aerobic and acidic to neutral conditions, desorption from oxide surfaces with pH increasing, increasing of As concentration in solution, and consequently pollution.

Keywords: arsenic, flyash, groundwater, soil

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Authors: Daniel C. S. Lim, W. Y. Tan

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The world is facing a growing food crisis. The concerns of food nutritional value, food safety and food security are becoming increasingly real. There is also a direct relationship to the risk of diseases, particularly chronic diseases, to the food we consume. So, there are increasing concerns about the modern day food ecosystem creating foods that can provide the nutritional components for organ function sustenance, as well as, taking a serious view on diet-related diseases. This paper addresses some of the above concerns and gives an overview of the current global situation relating to food nutrition and safety. The paper reviews nutritional aspects of food today compared to those of the last century, compares whole foods found in supermarkets versus those organically grown, as well as population behaviour towards food choices. It provides scientific insights into the effects of some of the global trends such as climate change and other changes environmental changes, and presents what individuals and corporations are doing to use the latest nutritional technologies as strategic assets. Finally, it briefly highlights some of the innovative solutions that are being applied to address several of the above concerns.

Keywords: food crisis, food safety, global trends, nutritional aspects

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Authors: Waqas Ashraf, Yasir Nawab, Haritham Khan, Habib Awais, Shahbaz Ahmad

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Seersucker is a popular lightweight fabric widely used in men’s and women’s suiting, casual wear, children’s clothing, house robes, bed spreads and for spring and summer wear. The puckered effect generates air spaces between body and the fabric, keeping the wearer cool in hot conditions. The aim of this work was to develop knitted seersucker fabric on single cylinder weft knitting machine using plain jersey structure. Core spun cotton yarn and cotton spun yarn of same linear density were used. Core spun cotton yarn, contains cotton fiber in the sheath and elastase filament in the core. The both yarn were fed at regular interval to feeders on the machine. The loop length and yarn tension were kept constant at each feeder. The samples were then scoured and bleached. After wet processing, the fabric samples were washed and tumble dried. Parameters like loop length, stitch density and areal density were measured after conditioning these samples for 24 hours in Standard atmospheric condition. Produced sample has a regular puckering stripe along the width of the fabric with same height. The stitch density of both the flat and puckered area of relaxed fabric was found to be different .Air permeability and moisture management tests were performed. The results indicated that the knitted seersucker fabric has better wicking and moisture management properties as the flat area contact, whereas puckered area held away from the skin. Seersucker effect in knitted fabric was achieved by the difference of contraction of both sets of courses produced from different types of yarns. The seer sucker fabric produce by knitting technique is less expensive as compared to woven seer sucker fabric as there is no need of yarn preparation. The knitted seersucker fabric is more practicable for summer dresses, skirts, blouses, shirts, trousers and shorts.

Keywords: air permeability, knitted structure, moisture management, seersucker

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Authors: Pimploi Tirastittam, Phutthiwat Waiyawuththanapoom, Sawanath Treesathon

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As there are several countries which import agriculture product from Thailand, those countries demand Thailand to establish the traceability system. The traceability system is the tool to reduce the risk in the supply chain in a very effective way as it will help the stakeholder in the supply chain to identify the defect point which will reduce the cost of operation in the supply chain. This research is aimed to design the traceability system for Tubtimjun roseapple for exporting to China, and it is the qualitative research. The data was collected from the expert in the tuntimjun roseapple and fruit exporting industry, and the data was used to design the traceability system. The design of the tubtimjun roseapple traceability system was followed the theory of supply chain which starts from the upstream of the supply chain to the downstream of the supply chain to support the process and condition of the exporting which included the database designing, system architecture, user interface design and information technology of the traceability system.

Keywords: design information, technology system, traceability, tubtimjun roseapple

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Authors: Elizabeth Stojanovski

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Associations between life events and various forms of cancers have been identified. The purpose of a recent random-effects meta-analysis was to identify studies that examined the association between adverse events associated with changes to financial status including decreased income and breast cancer risk. The same association was studied in four separate studies which displayed traits that were not consistent between studies such as the study design, location and time frame. It was of interest to pool information from various studies to help identify characteristics that differentiated study results. Two random-effects Bayesian meta-analysis models are proposed to combine the reported estimates of the described studies. The proposed models allow major sources of variation to be taken into account, including study level characteristics, between study variance, and within study variance and illustrate the ease with which uncertainty can be incorporated using a hierarchical Bayesian modelling approach.

Keywords: random-effects, meta-analysis, Bayesian, variation

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Authors: Urbánek Jiří J., Krahulec Josef, Urbánek Jiří F., Johanidesová Jitka

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These Computational assistance for the research and modelling of critical infrastructure subjects continuity deal with this paper. It enables us the using of prevailing operation system MS Office (SmartArt...) for mathematical models, using DYVELOP (Dynamic Vector Logistics of Processes) method. It serves for crisis situations investigation and modelling within the organizations of critical infrastructure. In the first part of the paper, it will be introduced entities, operators and actors of DYVELOP method. It uses just three operators of Boolean algebra and four types of the entities: the Environments, the Process Systems, the Cases and the Controlling. The Process Systems (PrS) have five “brothers”: Management PrS, Transformation PrS, Logistic PrS, Event PrS and Operation PrS. The Cases have three “sisters”: Process Cell Case, Use Case and Activity Case. They all need for the controlling of their functions special Ctrl actors, except ENV – it can do without Ctrl. Model´s maps are named the Blazons and they are able mathematically - graphically express the relationships among entities, actors and processes. In the second part of this paper, the rich blazons of DYVELOP method will be used for the discovering and modelling of the cycling cases and their phases. The blazons need live PowerPoint presentation for better comprehension of this paper mission. The crisis management of energetic crisis infrastructure organization is obliged to use the cycles for successful coping of crisis situations. Several times cycling of these cases is a necessary condition for the encompassment of the both the emergency event and the mitigation of organization´s damages. Uninterrupted and continuous cycling process bring for crisis management fruitfulness and it is a good indicator and controlling actor of organizational continuity and its sustainable development advanced possibilities. The research reliable rules are derived for the safety and reliable continuity of energetic critical infrastructure organization in the crisis situation.

Keywords: blazons, computational assistance, DYVELOP method, critical infrastructure

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Authors: Valerie A. Conrade

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Introduction: A large body of literature suggests patients who complete fecal immunochemical testing (FIT) kits are likely to identify colorectal cancer sooner than those who do not complete FIT kits. Background: Patients who do not participate in preventative measures such as the FIT kit are at a higher risk of colorectal cancer growing unnoticed. The objective was to see if the method the principal investigator (PI) uses to educate clinical staff on the importance of FIT kit administration provides an increased amount of FIT kit dissemination to patients post clinical education. Methodologies: Data collection via manual tallies took place before and after the clinical staff was educated on the importance of FIT kits. Results: The results showed an increase in FIT kit dissemination post clinical staff education. Through enhanced instruction to the clinical staff regarding the importance of FIT kits, expanding their knowledge on preventative measures to detect colorectal cancer positively impacted nurses and, in turn, their patients.

Keywords: colon cancer, education, fecal immunochemical testing, nursing

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Authors: Muhammad Abdul Basit Memon

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The importance of organizational knowledge sharing and knowledge management has been documented in numerous research studies in available literature, since knowledge sharing has been recognized as a founding pillar for superior organizational performance and a source of gaining competitive advantage. Built on this, most of the successful organizations perceive knowledge management and knowledge sharing as a concern of high strategic importance and spend huge amounts on the effective management and sharing of organizational knowledge. However, despite some very serious endeavors, many firms fail to capitalize on the benefits of knowledge sharing because of being unaware of the individual characteristics, interpersonal, organizational and contextual factors that influence knowledge sharing; simply the antecedent to knowledge sharing. The extant literature on antecedents to knowledge sharing, offers a range of antecedents mentioned in a number of research articles and research studies. Some of the previous studies about antecedents to knowledge sharing, studied antecedents to knowledge sharing regarding inter-organizational knowledge transfer; others focused on inter and intra organizational knowledge sharing and still others investigated organizational factors. Some of the organizational antecedents to KS can relate to the characteristics and underlying aspects of knowledge being shared e.g., specificity and complexity of the underlying knowledge to be transferred; others relate to specific organizational characteristics e.g., age and size of the organization, decentralization and absorptive capacity of the firm and still others relate to the social relations and networks of organizations such as social ties, trusting relationships, and value systems. In the same way some researchers have highlighted on only one aspect like organizational commitment, transformational leadership, knowledge-centred culture, learning and performance orientation and social network-based relationships in the organizations. A bulk of the existing research articles on antecedents to knowledge sharing has mainly discussed organizational or environmental factors affecting knowledge sharing. However, the focus, later on, shifted towards the analysis of individuals or personal determinants as antecedents for the individual’s engagement in knowledge sharing activities, like personality traits, attitude and self efficacy etc. For example, employees’ goal orientations (i.e. learning orientation or performance orientation is an important individual antecedent of knowledge sharing behaviour. While being consistent with the existing literature therefore, the antecedents to knowledge sharing can be classified as being individual and organizational. This paper is an endeavor to discuss a conceptual framework of the individual and organizational antecedents to knowledge sharing in the light of the available literature and empirical evidence. This model not only can help in getting familiarity and comprehension on the subject matter by presenting a holistic view of the antecedents to knowledge sharing as discussed in the literature, but can also help the business managers and especially human resource managers to find insights about the salient features of organizational knowledge sharing. Moreover, this paper can help provide a ground for research students and academicians to conduct both qualitative as well and quantitative research and design an instrument for conducting survey on the topic of individual and organizational antecedents to knowledge sharing.

Keywords: antecedents to knowledge sharing, knowledge management, individual and organizational, organizational knowledge sharing

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Authors: Endalew Jibat, Feyera Senbeta, Tesfaye Zeleke, Fitsum Hagos

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Water governance considers multi-sector participation beyond the state; and for sustainable use of water resources, appropriate laws, policies, regulations, and institutions needs to be developed and put in place. Water policy, a critical and integral instrument of water governance, guided water use schemes and ensures equitable water distribution among users. The Ethiopian Central Rift Valley (CRV) is wealthy of water resources, but these water resources are currently under severe strain owing to an imbalance in human-water interactions. The main aim of the study was to examine the state of water resources governance in the CRV of Ethiopia, and the impact of the Ethiopian Water Resources Management Policy on water governance. Key informant interviews (KII), focused group discussions, and document reviews were used to gather data for the study. The NVivo 11 program was used to organize, code, and analyze the data. The results revealed that water resources governance practices such as water allocation and apportionment, comprehensive and integrated water management plans, water resources protection, and conservation activities were rarely implemented. Water resources management policy mechanisms were not fully put in place. Lack of coherence in water policy implementation, absence of clear roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, absence of transparency and accountability in irrigation water service delivery, and lack of meaningful participation of key actors in water governance decision-making were the primary shortcomings observed. Factors such as over-abstraction, deterioration of buffer zone, and chemical erosion from surrounding farming have contributed to the reduction in water volume and quality in the CRV. These challenges have influenced aquatic ecosystem services and threaten the livelihoods of the surrounding communities. Hence, reforms relating to policy coherence and enforcement, stakeholder involvement, water distribution strategies, and the application of water governance principles must be given more emphasis.

Keywords: water resources, irrigation, governance, water allocation, governance principles, stakeholders engagement, central rift valley

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Authors: Sarah K. Taylor, Miratun M. Saharuddin, Zabri A. Talib

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Cybercrime is on the rise, and yet many Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in Malaysia have no Digital Forensics Laboratory (DFL) to assist them in the attrition and analysis of digital evidence. From the estimated number of 30 LEAs in Malaysia, sadly, only eight of them owned a DFL. All of the DFLs are concentrated in the capital of Malaysia and none at the state level. LEAs are still depending on the national DFL (CyberSecurity Malaysia) even for simple and straightforward cases. A survey was conducted among LEAs in Malaysia owning a DFL to understand their history of establishing the DFL, the challenges that they faced and the significance of the DFL to their case investigation. The results showed that the while some LEAs faced no challenge in establishing a DFL, some of them took seven to 10 years to do so. The reason was due to the difficulty in convincing their management because of the high costs involved. The results also revealed that with the establishment of a DFL, LEAs were better able to get faster forensic result and to meet agency’s timeline expectation. It is also found that LEAs were also able to get more meaningful forensic results on cases that require niche expertise, compared to sending off cases to the national DFL. Other than that, cases are getting more complex, and hence, a continuous stream of budget for equipment and training is inevitable. The result derived from the study is hoped to be used by other LEAs in justifying to their management the benefits of establishing an in-house DFL.

Keywords: digital evidence, digital forensics, digital forensics laboratory, law enforcement agency

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Authors: Jonghae Park, Daesung Kim

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The impact of aggressive and conservative working capital‘s strategies on the value and profitability of the firms has been evaluated by applying the panel data regression analysis. The control variables used in the regression models are natural log of firm size, sales growth, and debt. We collected a panel of 13,988 companies listed on the Korea stock market covering the period 2000-2016. The major findings of this study are as follow: 1) We find a significant negative correlation between firm profitability and the number of days inventory (INV) and days accounts payable (AP). The firm’s profitability can also be improved by reducing the number of days of inventory and days accounts payable. 2) We also find a significant positive correlation between firm profitability and the number of days accounts receivable (AR) and cash ratios (CR). In other words, the cash is associated with high corporate profitability. 3) Tobin's analysis showed that only the number of days accounts receivable (AR) and cash ratios (CR) had a significant relationship. In conclusion, companies can increase profitability by reducing INV and increasing AP, but INV and AP did not affect corporate value. In particular, it is necessary to increase CA and decrease AR in order to increase Firm’s profitability and value.

Keywords: working capital, working capital management, firm value, profitability

Procedia PDF Downloads 167

Authors: T. Rocha, P. Carvalho, S. Paredes, J. Henriques, A. Bianchi, V. Traver, A. Martinez

Abstract:

The main goal of LINK project is to join competences in intelligent processing in order to create a research ecosystem to address two central scientific and technical challenges for personal health care (PHC) deployment: i) how to merge clinical evidence knowledge in computational decision support systems for PHC management and ii) how to provide achieve personalized services, i.e., solutions adapted to the specific user needs and characteristics. The final goal of one of the work packages (WP2), designated Sustainable Linking and Synergies for Excellence, is the definition, implementation and coordination of the necessary activities to create and to strengthen durable links between the LiNK partners. This work focuses on the strategy that has been followed to achieve the definition of the Research Tracks (RT), which will support a set of actions to be pursued along the LiNK project. These include common research activities, knowledge transfer among the researchers of the consortium, and PhD student and post-doc co-advisement. Moreover, the RTs will establish the basis for the definition of concepts and their evolution to project proposals.

Keywords: LiNK Twin European Project, personal health care, cardiovascular diseases, research tracks

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Authors: Fikile Xaki, Zendy Magayiyana

Abstract:

The increasing population and urbanization, with the demand for land and development, has had adverse impacts on wetland areas which has resulted in changing the hydrology and water chemistry of wetlands, affecting the water supply and water quality in urban areas like the Highland View, a residential area in Mbizana, South Africa. The settlement development in Highland View has led to wetland degradation due to land uses like agriculture and conversion of wetland for settlement development. Interviews with the local community were conducted to show how settlement development on wetland affects them. The results indicated that the environmental rights of people as according to Section 24 of the South African Constitution are compromised, and sustainable development was not put into consideration during development. With the results from the survey - through questionnaires for the Mbizana Local Municipality and the community, it was clear that the community needs education and capacity building on wetland management and conservation. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used to map physical properties of the Highland View wetland and houses built on the wetland. With all the information gathered from the research, it was clear that local municipality, together with hydrologists, needs to develop an environmental management framework to protect the wetlands.

Keywords: sustainable development, wetlands, human settlement, water

Procedia PDF Downloads 321

Authors: Soha A. Bahanshal, Byung G. Kim

Abstract:

Identification of patients at high risk for hospital readmission is of crucial importance for quality health care and cost reduction. Predicting hospital readmissions among diabetic patients has been of great interest to many researchers and health decision makers. We build a prediction model to predict hospital readmission for diabetic patients within 30 days of discharge. The core of the prediction model is a modified k Nearest Neighbor called Hybrid Fuzzy Weighted k Nearest Neighbor algorithm. The prediction is performed on a patient dataset which consists of more than 70,000 patients with 50 attributes. We applied data preprocessing using different techniques in order to handle data imbalance and to fuzzify the data to suit the prediction algorithm. The model so far achieved classification accuracy of 80% compared to other models that only use k Nearest Neighbor.

Keywords: machine learning, prediction, classification, hybrid fuzzy weighted k-nearest neighbor, diabetic hospital readmission

Procedia PDF Downloads 171

Authors: Vakhtang Geladze, Nana Bolashvili, Tamazi Karalashvili, Nino Machavariani, Vajha Neidze, Nana Kvirkvelia, Tamar Chichinadze

Abstract:

Deficiency of fresh water is a vital global problem today. It must be taken into consideration that in the nearest future fresh water crisis will become even more acute owing to the global climate warming and fast desertification processes in the world. Georgia has signed the association agreement with Euro Union last year where the priority spheres of cooperation are the management of water resources, development of trans-boundary approach to the problem and active participation in the “Euro Union water initiative” component of “the East Europe, Caucasus and the Central Asia”. Fresh water resources are the main natural wealth of Georgia. According to the average water layer height, Georgia is behind such European countries only as Norway, Switzerland and Austria. The annual average water provision of Georgia is 4-8 times higher than in its neighbor countries Armenia and Azerbaijan. Despite abundant water resources in Georgia, there is considerable discrepancy between their volume and use in some regions because of the uneven territorial distribution. In the East Georgia, water supply of the territory and population is four times less than in the West Georgia.

Keywords: GIS, water consumption, water management, water resources

Procedia PDF Downloads 404

Authors: Marcus C. Garcia, Giselle C. Guimarães, Luciana H. Yamane, Renato R. Siman

Abstract:

The environmental indicators and the classification of beach waste are essential tools to diagnose the current situation and to indicate ways to improve the quality of this environment. The purpose of this paper was to perform a quali-quantitative analysis of the beach waste on the Curva da Jurema Beach (Espírito Santo - Brazil). Three transects were used with equidistant positioning over the total length of the beach for the solid waste collection. Solid wastes were later classified according to their use and primary raw material from the low and high summer season. During the low season, average values of 7.10 items.m^-1, 18.22 g.m^-1 and 0.91 g.m^-2 were found for the whole beach, and transect 3 contributed the most waste, with the total sum of items equal to 999 (49%), a total mass of 5.62 kg and a total volume of 21.31 L. During the high summer season, average values of 8.22 items.m^-1, 54.40 g.m^-1 and 2.72 g.m^-2 were found, with transect 2 contributing the most to the total sum with 1,212 items (53%), a total mass of 10.76 kg and a total volume of 51.99 L. Of the total collected, plastic materials represented 51.4% of the total number of items, 35.9% of the total mass and 68% of the total volume. The implementation of reactive and proactive measures is necessary so that the management of the solid wastes on Curva da Jurema Beach is in accordance with principles of sustainability.

Keywords: beach solid waste, environmental indicators, quali-quantitative analysis, waste management

Procedia PDF Downloads 294