Search results for: competitive strategy

Authors: Aynur Charkasova

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The scientific and economic contributions of international students cannot be underestimated. International education continues to be a competitive global industry, and many countries are seeking to recruit the best and the brightest to reinforce scientific innovations, boost intercultural learning, and bring more funding to the universities and colleges. Substantial changes in international educational policies and migration regulations have been made in the hopes of recruiting global talent. This paper explores and compares recruitment strategies, employment opportunities, and a legal path to permanent residency policies related to international students in the United States of America and Canada. This study will utilize the legal information available by the government websites of both countries, peer-reviewed scholarly articles and will highlight which approach promises a better path in recruiting and retention of international students. The findings from the study will be discussed and recommendations will be provided.

Keywords: international students, current immigration policies, STEM, visa reforms for international students

Procedia PDF Downloads 62

Authors: Jerome Nyameh

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The most valuable asset in the existence of organization is the employees and their ability in maintain appreciable level of performance which support the goal of the organization and the ability to do that depend largely on the organizational culture and culture has been considered most currently as the factor that relate positively to organizational excellence and sustainable employee’s performance over the period of time An employee engagement program will not go far without first establishing the organizational culture that is required to support sustainability. This means integrating sustainability into the overall employee’s performance, with clear vision, goals and metrics. It means having strong culture and a collaborative governance structure that has been develop as a ways of doing things in the organization for decision making and resource allocation. It requires a rewards and recognition program to support and reinforce sustainability behaviors. With such a culture in place, organization will be able to develop a strategy that fully engages employees, while fully realizing the benefits of their contributions. The study investigated empirically the role of organizational culture building sustainable employee’s performance using Zenith bank PLC a model where organizational culture will build sustainable employees performance strategy for a lasting actualization of organizational was developed. In order to achieve the research objectives of (i) to assess how organizational culture can build sustainable employee’s performance (ii) to analyze the gap that exists between organizational culture and sustainable employee’s performance in the organization, a survey questionnaires of 20 items was administered to sixty respondents. The findings of this study have practical implications for organizational leaders, managers and employees, and their organizations, particularly commercial banks in Nigeria, besides offering scope for further research in the area of organizational culture and sustainable employee’s performance. It will also show a significance and positive relationship that exist between organizational culture and sustainable employee’s performance, as means of building viable organization with cultural uniqueness and excellence performance in the world of competition.

Keywords: organizational culture, sustainable employee’s performance, organizations, Zenith Bank PLC Nigeria

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Authors: Azar Alizadeh, Mohammad Reza Naserkhaki

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The application of the IT systems for collecting and analyzing the data can have a significant effect on the performance of any company. In recent decade, different advancements and achievements in the field of information technology have changed the industry compared to the previous decade. The adoption and application of the information technology are one of the ways to achieve a distinctive competitive personality to the companies and their supply chain. The acceptance of the IT and its proper implementation cam reinforce and improve the cooperation between different parts of the supply chain by rapid transfer and distribution of the precise information and the application of the informational systems, leading to the increase in the supply chain efficiency. The main objective of this research is to study the effects and applications of the information technology on and in the supply chain management and to introduce the effective factors on the acceptance of information technology in the companies. Moreover, in order to understand the subject, we will investigate the role and importance of the information and electronic commerce in the supply chain and the characteristics of the supply chain based on the information flow approach.

Keywords: electronic commerce, industry, information technology, management, supply chain, system

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Authors: Amel Boulemtafes-Boukadoum, Ahmed Benzaoui

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Solar air heaters (SAH) are widely used in heating and drying applications using solar energy. Their efficiency needs to be improved to be competitive towards solar water heater. In this work, our goal is to study heat transfer enhancement in SAHs by the use of artificial roughness on the absorber. For this purpose, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were carried out to analyze the flow and heat transfer in the air duct of a solar air heater provided with transverse ribs. The air flows in forced convection and the absorber is heated with uniform flux. The effect of major parameters (Reynolds number, solar radiation, air inlet temperature, geometry of roughness) is examined and discussed. To highlight the effect of artificial roughness, we plotted the distribution of the important parameters: Nusselt number, friction factor, global thermohydraulic performance parameter etc. The results obtained are concordant to those found in the literature and shows clearly the heat transfer enhancement due to artifical roughness.

Keywords: solar air heater, artificial roughness, heat transfer enhancement, CFD

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Authors: Snezana Savoska, Blagoj Ristevski, Violeta Manevska, Zlatko Savoski, Ilija Jolevski

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Big data is widely accepted by the pharmaceutical companies as a result of business demands create through legal pressure. Pharmaceutical companies have many legal demands as well as standards’ demands and have to adapt their procedures to the legislation. To manage with these demands, they have to standardize the usage of the current information technology and use the latest software tools. This paper highlights some important aspects of experience with big data projects implementation in a pharmaceutical Macedonian company. These projects made improvements of their business processes by the help of new software tools selected to comply with legal and business demands. They use IT as a strategic tool to obtain competitive advantage on the market and to reengineer the processes towards new Internet economy and quality demands. The company is required to manage vast amounts of structured as well as unstructured data. For these reasons, they implement projects for emerging and appropriate software tools which have to deal with big data concepts accepted in the company.

Keywords: big data, unstructured data, SAP ERP, documentum

Procedia PDF Downloads 271

Authors: A. Peniak, J. Makarovič, P. Rafajdus, P. Dúbravka

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The purpose of this work is to optimize a Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) for an automotive application, specifically for a fully electric car. A new optimization approach is proposed. This unique approach transforms automotive customer requirements into an optimization problem, based on sound knowledge of a SRM theory. The approach combines an analytical and a finite element analysis of the motor to quantify static nonlinear and dynamic performance parameters, as phase currents and motor torque maps, an output power and power losses in order to find the optimal motor as close to the reality as possible, within reasonable time. The new approach yields the optimal motor which is competitive with other types of already proposed motors for automotive applications. This distinctive approach can also be used to optimize other types of electrical motors, when parts specifically related to the SRM are adjusted accordingly.

Keywords: automotive, drive system, electric car, finite element method, hybrid car, optimization, switched reluctance motor

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Authors: Kevin Smith

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Publicly traded company in the US are legally obligated to host earnings calls that discuss their most recent financial reports. During these calls, investors are able to ask these companies questions about these financial reports and on the future direction of the company. This paper examines whether common institutional owners use these calls as a way to indirectly signal to companies in their portfolio to not take actions that could hurt the common owner's interests. This paper uses transcripts taken from the earnings calls of the six largest health insurance companies in the US from 2014 to 2019. This data is analyzed using text analysis and sentiment analysis to look for patterns in the statements made by common owners. The analysis found that common owners where more likely to recommend against direct price competition and instead redirect the insurance companies towards more passive actions, like investing in new technologies. This result indicates a mechanism that common owners use to reduce competition in the health insurance market.

Keywords: common ownership, text analysis, sentiment analysis, machine learning

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Authors: T. S. Sidhu

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Amongst the existing coatings methods, the cold spray is new upcoming process to deposit coatings. As from the name itself, the cold spray coating takes place at very low temperature as compare to other thermal spray coatings. In all other thermal spray coating process the partial melting of the coating powder particles takes place before deposition, but cold spray process takes place in solid state. In cold spray process, the bonding of coating power with substrate is not metallurgical as in other thermal spray processes. Due to supersonic speed and less temperature of spray particles, solid state, dense, and oxide free coatings are produced. Due to these characteristics, the cold spray coatings have been used to protect the materials against hot corrosion. In the present study, the cold spray process, cold spray fundaments, its types, and its applications for high temperatures are discussed in the light of presently available literature. In addition, the assessment of cold spray with the competitive technologies has been conferred with available literature.

Keywords: cold spray coating, hot corrosion, thermal spray coating, high-temperature materials

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Authors: Anup Kumar Keshri, Arvind Agarwal

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Carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced aluminum oxide (Al2O3) composite coating was synthesized on the steel substrate using plasma spraying technique. Three different compositions of coating such as Al2O3, Al2O¬3-4 wt. % CNT and Al2O3-8 wt. % CNT were synthesized and the fracture strength was determined using the four point bend test. Uniform dispersion of CNTs over Al2O3 powder particle was successfully achieved. With increasing CNT content, porosity in the coating showed decreasing trend and hence contributed towards enhanced mechanical properties such as hardness (~12% increased) and elastic modulus (~34 % increased). Fracture strength of the coating was found to be increasing with the CNT additions. By reinforcement of 8 wt. % of CNT, fracture strength increased by ~2.5 times. The improvement in fracture strength of Al2O3-CNT coating was attributed to three competitive phenomena viz. (i) lower porosity (ii) higher hardness and elastic modulus (iii) CNT bridging between splats.

Keywords: aluminum oxide, carbon nanotube, fracture strength, plasma spraying

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Authors: M. Cizmesija, N. Erjavec, V. Bahovec

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While the European Union (EU) harmonized methodology is a benchmark of worldwide used business survey (BS) methodology, the choice of variables that are components of the confidence indicators, as the leading indicators, is not strictly determined and unique. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate and to quantify the relationship between all business survey variables in manufacturing industry and industrial production as a reference macroeconomic series in Croatia. The assumption is that there are variables in the business survey, that are not components of Industrial Confidence Indicator (ICI) and which can accurately (and sometimes better then ICI) predict changes in Croatian industrial production. Empirical analyses are conducted using quarterly data of BS variables in manufacturing industry and Croatian industrial production over the period from the first quarter 2005 to the first quarter 2013. Research results confirmed the assumption: three BS variables which is not components of ICI (competitive position, demand and liquidity) are the best leading indicator then ICI, in forecasting changes in Croatian industrial production instantaneously, with one, two or three quarter ahead.

Keywords: balance, business survey, confidence indicators, industrial production, forecasting

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Authors: Mounir Azzam, Valerie Graw, Andreas Rienow

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The Syrian war, which commenced in 2011, has resulted in significant changes in the real estate market in the Damascus metropolitan area, with rising levels of insecurity and disputes over tenure rights. The quest for spatial justice is, therefore, imperative, and this study performs a spatiotemporal analysis to investigate the impact of the war on real estate differentiation. Using the hedonic price models including 2,411 housing transactions over the period 2010-2022, this study aims to understand the spatial dynamics of the real estate market in wartime. Our findings indicate that war variables have had a significant impact on the differentiation and depreciation of property prices. Notably, property attributes have a more substantial impact on real estate values than district location, with severely damaged buildings in Damascus city resulting in an 89% decline in prices, while prices in Rural Damascus districts have decreased by 50%. Additionally, this study examines the urban texture of Damascus using correlation and homogeneity statistics derived from the gray-level co-occurrence matrix obtained from Google Earth Engine. We monitored 250 samples from hedonic datasets within three different years of the Syrian war (2015, 2019, and 2022). Our findings show that correlation values were highly differentiated, particularly among Rural Damascus districts, with a total decline of 87.2%. While homogeneity values decreased overall between 2015 and 2019, they improved slightly after 2019. The findings have valuable implications, not only for investment prospects in setting up a successful reconstruction strategy but also for spatial justice of property rights in strongly encouraging sustainable real estate development.

Keywords: hedonic price, real estate differentiation, reconstruction strategy, spatial justice, urban texture analysis

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Authors: Xiaohui Zhao, Shahan Mafuz

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Context-aware technologies provide system applications with the awareness of environmental conditions, customer behaviour, object movements, etc. Further, with such capability system applications can be smart to adapt intelligently their responses to the changing conditions. Concerning business operations, this promises businesses that their business processes can run more intelligently, adaptively and flexibly, and thereby either improve customer experience, enhance reliability of service delivery, or lower operational cost, to make the business more competitive and sustainable. Aiming at realizing such context-aware business process management, this paper firstly explores its potential benefit and then identifies some gaps between the current business process management support and the expected. In addition, some preliminary solutions are also discussed with context definition, rule-based process execution, run-time process evolution, etc. A framework is also presented to give a conceptual architecture of context-aware business process management system to guide system implementation.

Keywords: business process adaptation, business process evolution, business process modelling, and context awareness

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Authors: Gopinath Rathod, Vinod Puranik

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Growing business recognizes environmental consciousness as an important concept for survival in the competitive scenario. Environmental consciousness is a critical intersection between manufacturing and product design processes with environmental issues and concerns. This article presents a project in which quality function deployment (QFD) for environment (ECQFD) has been applied to rotary switches for enabling environmentally conscious design in the early stage of product development. ECQFD is capable of handling simultaneously the environmental and traditional product quality requirements. ECQFD consists of four phases. ECQFD phases I and II are concerned with the identification of parts that are important in enhancing environmental consciousness. ECQFD phases III and IV are concerned with the evaluation of effect of design improvement on environmental quality requirements. The case study has been practically validated which indicated the receptivity of applying ECQFD in industrial scenario.

Keywords: quality function deployment, environment, product design, design for environment, rotary switches

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Authors: Zainab Khalifah, Wong Chiet Bing, Noor Hazarina Hashim

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The evolution of customer behavior in purchasing products or services through the Internet leads to airline companies engaging in the e-ticketing process in order to maintain their business. A well-designed website is vitally significant for the airline companies to provide effective communication, support, and competitive advantage. This study was conducted to identify the dimensions of website quality for low cost airline and to investigate the relationship between the website quality and customer e-satisfaction at low cost airline. A total of 381 responses were conveniently collected among local passengers at Low Cost Carrier Terminal, Kuala Lumpur via questionnaire distribution. This study found that the five determinant factors of website quality for AirAsia were Information Content, Navigation, Responsiveness, Personalization, and Security and Privacy. The results of this study revealed that there is a positive relationship between the five dimensions of website quality and customer e-satisfaction, and also information content was the most significant contributor to customer e-satisfaction.

Keywords: website quality, customer e-satisfaction, low cost airline, e-ticketing

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Authors: Demet Ozgur-Unluakin, Busenur Turkali, S. Caglar Aksezer

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Since the age of industrialization, maintenance has always been a very crucial element for all kinds of factories and plants. With today’s increasingly developing technology, the system structure of such facilities has become more complicated, and even a small operational disruption may return huge losses in profits for the companies. In order to reduce these costs, effective maintenance planning is crucial, but at the same time, it is a difficult task because of the complexity of systems. The most important aspect of correct maintenance planning is to understand the structure of the system, not to ignore the dependencies among the components and as a result, to model the system correctly. In this way, it will be better to understand which component improves the system more when it is maintained. Undoubtedly, proactive maintenance at a scheduled time reduces costs because the scheduled maintenance prohibits high losses in profits. But the necessity of corrective maintenance, which directly affects the situation of the system and provides direct intervention when the system fails, should not be ignored. When a fault occurs in the system, if the problem is not solved immediately and proactive maintenance time is awaited, this may result in increased costs. This study proposes various maintenance methods with different efficiency measures under corrective maintenance strategy on a subsystem of a thermal power plant. To model the dependencies between the components, dynamic Bayesian Network approach is employed. The proposed maintenance methods aim to minimize the total maintenance cost in a planning horizon, as well as to find the most appropriate component to be attacked on, which improves the system reliability utmost. Performances of the methods are compared under corrective maintenance strategy. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis is also applied under different cost values. Results show that all fault effect methods perform better than the replacement effect methods and this conclusion is also valid under different downtime cost values.

Keywords: dynamic Bayesian networks, maintenance, multi-component systems, reliability

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Authors: Rehana Khan

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Background: The study investigates the experiences of Tiger Teams within the Sydney Local Health District during the COVID-19 pandemic. Aim: The aims were to understand the experiences of the Tiger Team members, to evaluate the effectiveness of Tiger Teams, and to elicit any learnings for future implementation of Tiger Teams in a similar context. Methods: Tiger Team members who worked from March 2020 to January 2022 were approached, with 23 members agreeing to participate in the study. Individual interviews were undertaken by a researcher on a virtual platform. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Saturation was deemed to have been reached when no new themes or subthemes arose within the final three interviews. Results: Four themes emerged: diversity worked well in Tiger Teams; fear of the unknown and challenging conversations were the main challenges of Tiger Teams; improved use of resources and more structure around the strategy of the Tiger Team model would help in future implementations; and Sydney Local Health District’s response to the pandemic was uniformly considered effective in keeping the community safe. In relation to Sydney Local Health District’s response in future pandemics, participants suggested having a pool of staff in readiness to undertake Tiger Team duties when required; prioritise staff welfare at all levels of involvement during a pandemic; maintaining transparent communication and relationship building between Executive level, Tiger Team members and clinical floor level in relation to decision making; and improve documentation, including evaluations of the COVID-19 pandemic response. Implications: The study provides constructive insights into the experiences of Tiger Team members, and these findings will help inform future planning for surge and secondment of staff in public health emergencies.

Keywords: Tiger Team, pandemic response, future planning, COVID-19

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Authors: Rakesh Prajapati, Purvik Patel, Hardik Patel

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Productivity and quality are two important aspects that have become great concerns in today’s competitive global market. Every production/manufacturing unit mainly focuses on these areas in relation to the process, as well as the product developed. The electrical discharge machining (EDM) process, even now it is an experience process, wherein the selected parameters are still often far from the maximum, and at the same time selecting optimization parameters is costly and time consuming. Material Removal Rate (MRR) during the process has been considered as a productivity estimate with the aim to maximize it, with an intention of minimizing surface roughness taken as most important output parameter. These two opposites in nature requirements have been simultaneously satisfied by selecting an optimal process environment (optimal parameter setting). Objective function is obtained by Regression Analysis and Analysis of Variance. Then objective function is optimized using Genetic Algorithm technique. The model is shown to be effective; MRR and Surface Roughness improved using optimized machining parameters.

Keywords: MMR, TWR, OC, DOE, ANOVA, minitab

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Authors: Malki Nadia Fatima Zahra, Kellal Chaimaa, Brahimi Houria

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Quality is one of the most important modern management patterns that organizations seek to achieve in all areas and sectors in order to meet the needs and desires of customers and to remain continuity, as they constitute a competitive advantage for the organization, and among the most prominent organizations that must be available on the quality factor are health organizations as they relate to the most valuable component of production It is a person and his health, and that any error in it threatens his life and may lead to death, so she must provide health services of high quality to achieve the highest degree of satisfaction for the patient. This research aims to study the quality of health services and the extent of their impact on patient satisfaction, and this is through an applied study that relied on measuring the level of quality of health services in the university hospital center of Algeria and the extent of their impact on patient satisfaction according to the dimensions of the quality of health services, and we reached a conclusion that the determinants of the quality of health services. It affects patient satisfaction, which necessitates developing health services according to patients' requirements and improving their quality to obtain patient satisfaction.

Keywords: health service, health quality, quality determinants, patient satisfaction

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Authors: Maha Mourad

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Higher education in any competitive European economy should serve the new information society by increasing the supply of good quality education services and by creating good international brands in the international higher education market. Hence, continuous risk management techniques through higher educational reforms programs became one of the top priorities within the European Union to control the quality of higher education. Risk is higher education is studies by several researchers who agreed that the risk in higher education has a direct influence on continuity of quality education and research contribution. The focus of this research is to highlights the Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) activities in the Polish higher education system as a risk management tool used to control the quality of education. This paper presents a qualitative empirical analysis in 5 different universities in Poland. In addition, it aims to help in finding global practical and create benchmark for policy makers concerning the risk management techniques based on the Polish experience.

Keywords: education development, quality assurance, sustainability, european higher education

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Authors: Daniela Tapusi, Adrian Andronic, Naomi Tufan, Ruxandra Erbașu, Ioana Teodorescu

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The proposed theme of this article falls within the policy of reducing carbon emissions imposed by the ‘Green New Deal’ by replacing structural elements made of energy-intensive materials with ecological materials. In this sense, wood has many qualities (high strength/mass and stiffness/mass ratio, low specific gravity, recovery/recycling) that make it competitive with classic building materials. The topological optimization of the linear glulam elements, resulting from different types of analysis (Finite Element Method, simple regression on metamodels), tests on models or by Monte-Carlo simulation, leads to a material reduction of more than 10%. This article proposes a method of obtaining topologically optimized shapes for different types of glued laminated timber beams. The results obtained will constitute the database for AI training.

Keywords: timber, glued laminated timber, artificial-intelligence, environment, carbon emissions

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Authors: A. Boudiaf

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The purpose of this paper is to analyze and apprehend, through four case studies, the interest of the project of the implementation of the quality management system (QMS) at four Moroccan small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This project could generate significant organizational change to improve the functioning of the organization. In fact, quality is becoming a necessity in the current business world. It is considered to be a major component in companies’ competitive strategies. It should be noted that quality management is characterized by a set of methods and techniques that can be used to solve malfunctions and reorganize companies. It is useful to point out that the choice of the adoption of the quality approach could be influenced by the circumstances of the business context, it could also be derived from its strategic vision; this means that this choice can be characterized as either a strategic aspect or a reactive aspect. This would probably have a major impact on the functioning of the QMS and also on the perception of the quality issue by company managers and their employees.

Keywords: business context, organizational change, quality, reorganization

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Authors: Maryam Safarirad

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Fast and increasing growth of electronic commerce (e-commerce) in developed countries and its resulting competitive advantages mean that those countries should revise dramatically their trade and commercial strategies and policies. Regarding the importance of food industry in Iran, the current paper studies the feasibility of implementing the e-commerce system in Shiraz’s petrochemical unit. The statistical population of the study includes 29 senior managers and experts of the food industries. In the present Feasibility study of implementing electronic commerce 249 research, senior managers and experts’ opinions on feasibility have been examined and some feedbacks have resulted in from the opinions. The current research concludes that the organization under study does not have favorable state either in software or in hardware. Implementation of the e-commerce system in food industries would reduce the average value of the transaction costs.

Keywords: electronic trading, electronic commerce, electronic exchange of information, feasibility study, information technology, virtual shopping, computer networks, electronic commerce laws, food industry

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Authors: Maamar Moumena

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the Follower of the movement of international competition finds that the success of Japanese companies to break into global markets and win a competitive edge and meet the challenges of this competition, due primarily to the adoption of these companies to the modern concept of marketing, and possession of sophisticated marketing systems, with a focus on pricing policy. The institution's ability to produce goods and services be limited unless accompanied by an effective marketing effort. So the satisfaction of the consumer needs efficiently and effectiveness are unwarranted economic and social presence in the market, and ensure the continuity and achieve their goals, and this can only be achieved through marketing activity, where he activity facet which translates the output of the institution and its presence in the form of financial compensation, and that the inclusion of and marketing function within the functions of the institution and awarded each of gravity reflects the extent of their importance in the conduct of the future of the institution, and depending on excellence in performance and a good application of the basic concepts of marketing and primarily make the consumer focus of attention, so the pleasing of the consumer and earn his allegiance reflects the success of an organization.

Keywords: competition, marketing, institution, consumer

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Authors: Yuxi Liu, Boris Belousov, Mehrzad Esmaeili Charkhab, Oliver Tessmann

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This paper presents a computational solution for designing reconfigurable interlocking structures that are fully assembled with SL Blocks. Formed by S-shaped and L-shaped tetracubes, SL Block is a specific type of interlocking puzzle. Analogous to molecular self-assembly, the aggregation of SL blocks will build a reversible hierarchical and discrete system where a single module can be numerously replicated to compose semi-interlocking components that further align, wrap, and braid around each other to form complex high-order aggregations. These aggregations can be disassembled and reassembled, responding dynamically to design inputs and changes with a unique capacity for reconfiguration. To use these aggregations as architectural structures, we developed computational tools that automate the configuration of SL blocks based on architectural design objectives. There are three critical phases in our work. First, we revisit the hierarchy of the SL block system and devise a top-down-type design strategy. From this, we propose two key questions: 1) How to translate 3D polyominoes into SL block assembly? 2) How to decompose the desired voxelized shapes into a set of 3D polyominoes with interlocking joints? These two questions can be considered the Hamiltonian path problem and the 3D polyomino tiling problem. Then, we derive our solution to each of them based on two methods. The first method is to construct the optimal closed path from an undirected graph built from the voxelized shape and translate the node sequence of the resulting path into the assembly sequence of SL blocks. The second approach describes interlocking relationships of 3D polyominoes as a joint connection graph. Lastly, we formulate the desired shapes and leverage our methods to achieve their reconfiguration within different levels. We show that our computational strategy will facilitate the efficient design of hierarchical interlocking structures with a self-replicating geometric module.

Keywords: computational design, SL-blocks, 3D polyomino puzzle, combinatorial problem

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Authors: Marlene Rosa, Susana Lopes

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There are few studies that explore the potential of board games as a performance measure, despite it can be an interesting strategy in the context of frailty populations. In fact, board games are immersive strategies than can inhibit the pressure of being evaluated. This study aimed to test the ability of gamed-base strategies to assess executive function in elderly population. Sixteen old participants were included: 10 with affected executive functions (G1 – 85.30±6.00 yrs old; 10 male); 6 with executive functions with non-clinical important modifications (G2 - 76.30±5.19 yrs old; 6 male). Executive tests were assessed using the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), which is a quick-applicable cognitive screening test (score<12 means impairment). The board game used in this study was the TATI Hand Game, specifically for training rhythmic coordination of the upper limbs with multiple cognitive stimuli. This game features 1 table grid, 1 set of Single Game cards (to play with one hand); Double Game cards (to play simultaneously with two hands); 1 dice to plan Single Game mode; cards to plan the Double Game mode; 1 bell; 2 cups. Each participant played 3 single game cards, and the following data were collected: (i) variability in time during board game challenges (SD); (ii) number of errors; (iii) execution speed (sec). G1 demonstrated: high variability in execution time during board game challenges (G1 – 13.0s vs G2- 0.5s); a higher number of errors (1.40 vs 0.67); higher execution velocity (607.80s vs 281.83s). These results demonstrated the potential of implementing board games as a functional assessment strategy in geriatric care. Future studies might include larger samples and statistical methodologies to find cut-off values for impairment in executive functions during performance in TATI game.

Keywords: board game, aging, executive function, evaluation

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Authors: Zhuang Ma, Zihan Zhang, Yu Li

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Environmental concerns from stakeholders (e.g., governments & customers) have pushed firms to integrate environmental management systems into business processes such as R&D, manufacturing, and marketing. Environmental systems include managing environmental risks and pollution control (e.g., air pollution control, waste-water treatment, noise control, energy recycling & solid waste treatment) through raw material management, the elimination and reduction of contaminants, recycling, and reuse in firms' operational processes. Despite increasing studies on firms' proactive adoption of environmental management, their focus is primarily on large corporations operating in developed economies. Investigations in the environmental management efforts of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are scarce. This is problematic for SMEs because, unlike large corporations, SMEs have limited awareness, resources, capabilities to adapt their operational routines to address environmental impacts. The purpose of this study is to explore how SMEs develop organizational capabilities through interactions with business partners (e.g., environmental management specialists & customers). Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) and an organizational capabilities perspective, this study investigates the interactively developed capabilities that allow SMEs to adopt environmental management systems. Using an exploratory approach, the study includes 12 semi-structured interviews with senior managers from four SMEs, two environmental management specialists, and two customers in the pharmaceutical sector in Chongqing, China. Findings of this study include four key organizational capabilities: 1) ‘dynamic marketing’ capability, which allows SMEs to recoup the investments in environmental management systems by developing environmentally friendly products to address customers' ever-changing needs; 2) ‘process improvement’ capability, which allows SMEs to select and adopt the latest technologies from biology, chemistry, new material, and new energy sectors into the production system for improved environmental performance and cost-reductions; and 3) ‘relationship management’ capability which allows SMEs to improve corporate image among the public, social media, government agencies, and customers, who in turn help SMEs to overcome their competitive disadvantages. These interactively developed capabilities help SMEs to address larger competitors' foothold in the local market, reduce market constraints, and exploit competitive advantages in other regions (e.g., Guangdong & Jiangsu) of China. These findings extend the RBV and organizational capabilities perspective; that is, SMEs can develop the essential resources and capabilities required for environmental management through interactions with upstream and downstream business partners. While a limited number of studies did highlight the importance of interactions among SMEs, customers, suppliers, NGOs, industrial associations, and consulting firms, they failed to explore the specific capabilities developed through these interactions. Additionally, the findings can explain how a proactive adoption of environmental management systems could help some SMEs to overcome the institutional and market restraints on their products, thereby springboarding into larger, more environmentally demanding, yet more profitable markets compared with their existing market.

Keywords: capabilities, environmental management systems, interactions, SMEs

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Authors: F. Gökgöz, M. E. Atmaca

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Electricity plays an indispensable role in human life and the economy. It is a unique product or service that must be balanced instantaneously, as electricity is not stored, generation and consumption should be proportional. Effective and efficient use of electricity is very important not only for society, but also for the environment. A competitive electricity market is one of the best ways to provide a suitable platform for effective and efficient use of electricity. On the other hand, it carries some risks that should be carefully managed by the market players. Risk management is an essential part in market players’ decision making. In this paper, risk management through diversification is applied with the help of Markowitz’s Mean-variance, Down-side and Semi-variance methods for a case study. Performance of optimal electricity sale solutions are measured and evaluated via Sharpe-Ratio, and the optimal portfolio solutions are improved. Two years of historical weekdays’ price data of the Turkish Day Ahead Market are used to demonstrate the approach.

Keywords: electricity market, portfolio optimization, risk management in electricity market, sharpe ratio

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Authors: Rahmad Wisnu Wardana, Eakachai Warinsiriruk, Sutep Joy-A-Ka

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Selecting the most suitable welding process usually depends on experiences or common application in similar companies. However, this approach generally ignores many criteria that can be affecting the suitable welding process selection. Therefore, knowledge automation through knowledge-based systems will significantly improve the decision-making process. The aims of this research propose integrated data envelopment analysis (DEA) and fuzzy credibility constrained programming approach for identifying the best welding process for stainless steel storage tank in the food and beverage industry. The proposed approach uses fuzzy concept and credibility measure to deal with uncertain data from experts' judgment. Furthermore, 12 parameters are used to determine the most appropriate welding processes among six competitive welding processes.

Keywords: welding process selection, data envelopment analysis, fuzzy credibility constrained programming, storage tank

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Authors: M. Azugama, P. Okoro Ugo Chigozie, A. O. Nnamocha

Abstract:

Emotional Intelligence constitutes powerful psychological forces that can strongly influence performance in behaviour, interaction and relationship management. Surprisingly how emotions are interpreted and employed in marketing of hospitality experience have had limited comprehension. Marketing of hospitality experiences have important emotional dimensions which the traditional marketing techniques tend to underplay. Guest and host relationship are challenged by mutual hospitableness obligations; suggesting that the commercial practice of delivering satisfactory guest experience has much to gain from traditional understanding of hospitality. By understanding the emotion-based hospitality transaction between guests and hosts, customers’ experiences can be delivered over and against competitor pressure. In this paper, marketing strategies and tactics in hospitality and tourism are principally concerned with adjusting each of the 6P & T elements (i.e. product, place, price and promotion; and adding people, processes and Time in service contexts), to provide a competitive offer (experience) to customers.

Keywords: Emotional intelligence, hospitality and tourism, relationship management, marketing

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Authors: Yang Ye, Hongfei Qiu, Yaqi Li

Abstract:

The planning and construction of traditional cities are oriented by cars, which leads to the problems of insufficient urban public space, fragmentation, and low utilization efficiency. With the development of driverless technology, the urban structure will change from the traditional single-core grid structure to the multi-core model. In terms of traffic organization, with the release of land for traffic facilities, public space will become more continuous and integrated with traffic space. In the context of driverless technology, urban public reconstruction is characterized by modularization and high efficiency, and its planning and layout features accord with points (service facilities), lines (smart lines), surfaces (activity centers). The public space of driverless urban roads will provide diversified urban public facilities and services. The intensive urban layout makes the commercial public space realize the functions of central activities and style display, respectively, in the interior (building atrium) and the exterior (building periphery). In addition to recreation function, urban green space can also utilize underground parking space to realize efficient dispatching of shared cars. The roads inside the residential community will be integrated into the urban landscape, providing conditions for the community public activity space with changing time sequence and improving the efficiency of space utilization. The intervention of driverless technology will change the thinking of traditional urban construction and turn it into a human-oriented one. As a result, urban public space will be richer, more connected, more efficient, and the urban space justice will be optimized. By summarizing the frontier research, this paper discusses the impact of unmanned driving on cities, especially urban public space, which is beneficial for landscape architects to cope with the future development and changes of the industry and provides a reference for the related research and practice.

Keywords: driverless, urban public space, construction strategy, urban design

Procedia PDF Downloads 114