Search results for: diversity and business performance

Authors: Kumar Manoj, Ramesh Kumar, Kumari Arti, Kumar Prashant

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Routing protocols have a central role in any mobile ad hoc network (MANET). There are many routing protocols that exhibit different performance levels in different scenarios. In this paper we compare AODV, DSDV, DSR and ZRP routing protocol in mobile ad hoc networks to determine the best operational conditions for each protocol. We analyses these routing protocols by extensive simulations in OPNET simulator and show that how pause time and the number of nodes affect their performance. In this study, performance is measured in terms of control traffic received, control traffic sent, data traffic received, data traffic sent, throughput, retransmission attempts.

Keywords: MANET, AODV, DSDV, DSR, ZRP

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Authors: Angelina Tarabokija

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This study looks into how cognitive behavioral training (CBT) techniques affect collegiate track and field athletes' anxiety related to performance, with a focus on distance runners. The goal of the research is to discover whether consistent use of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) methods, such as progressive muscle relaxation, yoga (Y-CBT), visualization, relaxed breathing, and meditation, can reduce performance anxiety and improve sports performance. Six runners from the Rider Track & Field team, aged eighteen to twenty-three, participated in the quantitative research design used in the technique. Prior to employing CBT techniques every day for two weeks, including before competitions or on race day, participants conducted baseline assessments using the Sport Anxiety Scale-2 (SAS-2). The SAS-2 was used in post-competition evaluations to track alterations in performance anxiety. The findings show that participants' total trait anxiety levels significantly decreased after utilizing CBT techniques for one week. However, after two weeks, a few participants' anxiety levels slightly increased, pointing to the need for more research and regular practice. The study indicates that CBT approaches can effectively reduce performance anxiety and increase athletic performance in collegiate track and field athletes, despite constraints related to participant motivation and potential confounding variables. Future areas for research could entail examining the precise impacts of worry, interruption of attention, and bodily anxiety on performance, as well as adding more controls. Overall, by providing insights into evidence-based strategies to maximize mental states and athletic performance in collegiate athletes, this study advances the area of sports psychology.

Keywords: cognitive behavioral training, performance, athletes, anxiety, well-being, SAS-2, Sport, trait anxiety, somatic anxiety

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Authors: Alfi Al Fahreizy

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Yogyakarta is one of the provinces in Indonesia that often get a power outage because of high load electrical consumption. The authors mapped the electrical energy consumption [GWh] for the province of Yogyakarta in 2014-2025 using LEAP (Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning system) software. This paper use BAU (Business As Usual) scenario. BAU scenario in which the projection is based on the assumption that growth in electricity consumption will run as normally as before. The goal is to be able to see the electrical energy consumption in the household sector, industry , business, social, government office building, and street lighting. The data is the data projected statistical population and consumption data electricity [GWh] 2010, 2011, 2012 in Yogyakarta province.

Keywords: LEAP, energy consumption, Yogyakarta, BAU

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Authors: Benjamin Bae

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This study investigates the relationship between the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the performance of banks in a number of Middle East countries. We examine whether performance levels and audit qualities play any role in adopting the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Middle East banks. This study hypothesizes that, in general, banks with high performance and audit quality measures tend to adopt the IFRS than low-performing banks, as the adoption of a new standard takes lots of time and expenses, which could be an additional burden to them. The results show that three hypotheses are strongly supported whereas the cultural factor hypothesis is not. Banks with high ROA and ROE tend to adopt IFRS than low-performing banks. Big banks are also more likely to adopt IFRS than small or medium-sized banks. Contrary to the hypothesis, the Islamic bank status as a cultural factor has some positive impact on the adoption of the banks in the region. Overall, this research adds to our understanding of the bank’s performance. First, evidence on the relationship between the adoption of IFRS and the bank’s performance should be useful to investors. Second, the findings of this study provide financial statement users with useful information about the bank’s performance measures.

Keywords: IFRS, financial performance, audit quality, culture, firm size

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Authors: Khattab Al Qaisi, Nicholas Bowring

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This paper presents the simulation results of the effects of sampling frequency on the total harmonic distortion (THD) of three-phase inverters using the space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) and space vector control (SVC) algorithms. The relationship between the variables was studied using curve fitting techniques, and it has been shown that, for 50 Hz inverters, there is an exponential relation between the sampling frequency and THD up to around 8500 Hz, beyond which the performance of the model becomes irregular, and there is an negative exponential relation between the sampling frequency and the marginal improvement to the THD. It has also been found that the performance of SVPWM is better than that of SVC with the same sampling frequency in most frequency range, including the range where the performance of the former is irregular.

Keywords: DSI, SVPWM, THD, DC-AC converter, sampling frequency, performance

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Authors: Hanan Alshaher, Jinsheng Xu

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Large amounts of data on the web can provide valuable information. For example, product reviews help business owners measure customer satisfaction. Sentiment analysis classifies texts into two polarities: positive and negative. This paper examines movie reviews and tweets using a new term weighting scheme, called one-over-sigma (1/sigma), on benchmark datasets for sentiment classification. The proposed method aims to improve the performance of sentiment classification. The results show that 1/sigma is more accurate than the popular term weighting schemes. In order to verify if the entropy reflects the discriminating power of terms, we report a comparison of entropy values for different term weighting schemes.

Keywords: 1/sigma, natural language processing, sentiment analysis, term weighting scheme, text classification

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Authors: Zeinab Ranjbar

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Service-oriented architecture in the world today, it is proposed to exchange information and services of interest to those such as IT managers, business managers, designers and system builders scene. The basic architecture of the software used to provide service to all users.the worries of all people (managers, business managers, designers, and system builders scene) effectiveness of this model, how reliable it is in security transactions.To increase the reliability of multi-layer fuzzy logic Architectures used.

Keywords: SOA, service oriented architecture, fuzzy logic, multi layer, SOA security

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Authors: Yiea Funk Te, Daniel Mueller, Irena Pletikosa Cvijikj

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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the economy of many countries. When the overall world economy is considered, SMEs represent 95% of all businesses in the world, accounting for 66% of the total employment. Existing studies show that the current business environment is characterized as highly turbulent and strongly influenced by modern information and communication technologies, thus forcing SMEs to experience more severe challenges in maintaining their existence and expanding their business. To support SMEs at improving their competitiveness, researchers recently turned their focus on applying data mining techniques to build risk and growth prediction models. However, data used to assess risk and growth indicators is primarily obtained via questionnaires, which is very laborious and time-consuming, or is provided by financial institutes, thus highly sensitive to privacy issues. Recently, web mining (WM) has emerged as a new approach towards obtaining valuable insights in the business world. WM enables automatic and large scale collection and analysis of potentially valuable data from various online platforms, including companies’ websites. While WM methods have been frequently studied to anticipate growth of sales volume for e-commerce platforms, their application for assessment of SME risk and growth indicators is still scarce. Considering that a vast proportion of SMEs own a website, WM bears a great potential in revealing valuable information hidden in SME websites, which can further be used to understand SME risk and growth indicators, as well as to enhance current SME risk and growth prediction models. This study aims at developing an automated system to collect business-relevant data from the Web and predict future growth trends of SMEs by means of WM and data mining techniques. The envisioned system should serve as an 'early recognition system' for future growth opportunities. In an initial step, we examine how structured and semi-structured Web data in governmental or SME websites can be used to explain the success of SMEs. WM methods are applied to extract Web data in a form of additional input features for the growth prediction model. The data on SMEs provided by a large Swiss insurance company is used as ground truth data (i.e. growth-labeled data) to train the growth prediction model. Different machine learning classification algorithms such as the Support Vector Machine, Random Forest and Artificial Neural Network are applied and compared, with the goal to optimize the prediction performance. The results are compared to those from previous studies, in order to assess the contribution of growth indicators retrieved from the Web for increasing the predictive power of the model.

Keywords: data mining, SME growth, success factors, web mining

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Authors: Iman Shabanzadeh

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The purpose of this research is to understand the lived experience of private sector entrepreneurs in facing the sources of freedom and unfreedom and benefiting from opportunities and basic capabilities in the process of realizing entrepreneurial ability in order to get closer to the macro situation of the narrative of human development in Iranian society. Therefore, the main question of the present research is to figure out what sources of freedom and social opportunities and unfreedom entrepreneurs in Iran's society benefit from the process of transforming their potential entrepreneurial abilities into entrepreneurial and business enterprises. In terms of methodology, the current research method will be thematic analysis in the form of semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs active in small and medium-sized enterprises in Tehran, whose process of establishing and expanding their entrepreneurial activity has been in the last two decades. By examining the possibilities and refusals of advancing these people in the three stages of 'Idea creation and desire for entrepreneurship’, ‘Starting and creating a business’, and finally, ‘Continuing and expanding the business’, the findings of the research show the impact of five main resources for people to realize their potential talents, from the stage of creating an idea to expanding their business. These sources include' family institution,’ ‘education institution,’ ‘social norms and beliefs,’ ‘government and market,’ and ‘personality components of the entrepreneur.’ Finally, the findings are reported in three levels of basic themes (fifteen items), organizing themes (five items), and comprehensive themes (one item) and in the form of a theme network.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, human development, capability, sources of freedom

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Authors: Ahmed Amine Hachicha

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Temperature effect on the performance of a photovoltaic module is one of the main concern that face this renewable energy, especially in the hot arid region, e.g United Arab Emirates. Overheating of the PV modules reduces the open circuit voltage and the efficiency of the modules dramatically. In this work, water cooling is developed to enhance the performance of PV modules. Different scenarios are tested under UAE weather conditions: front, back and double cooling. A spraying system is used for the front cooling whether a direct contact water system is used for the back cooling. The experimental results are compared to a non-cooling module and the performance of the PV module is determined for different situations. A mathematical model is presented to estimate the theoretical performance and validate the experimental results with and without cooling. The experimental results show that the front cooling is more effective than the back cooling and may decrease the temperature of the PV module significantly.

Keywords: PV cooling, solar energy, cooling methods, electrical efficiency, temperature effect

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Authors: Md. Rakeb-Ul Islam, Daniel J. Schmidt, Jane M. Hughes

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Population connectivity plays an important role in the conservation and recovery of declining species. It affects genetic diversity, adaptive potential and resilience of species in nature. Loss of genetic variation can affect populations by limiting their ability to persist in stressful environmental conditions. Generally, freshwater fishes show higher levels of genetic structuring and subdivision among populations than those inhabiting estuarine or marine environments due to the presence of artificial (e.g. dams) and natural (e.g. mountain ranges) barriers to dispersal in freshwater ecosystems. The Australian smelt (Retropinnidae: Retropinna spp.) is a common freshwater fish species which is widely distributed throughout coastal and inland drainages in South - eastern Australia. These fish are found in a number of habitats from headwaters to lowland sites. They form large shoals in the mid to upper water column and inhabit deep slow – flowing pools as well as shallow fast flowing riffle-runs. Previously, Australian smelt consisted of two described taxa (Retropinna semoni and Retropinna tasmanica), but recently a complex of five or more species has been recognized based on an analysis of allozyme variation. In many area, they spend their entire life cycle within freshwater. Although most populations of the species are thought to be non-diadromous, it is still unclear whether individuals within coastal populations of Australian Retropinna exhibit diadromous migrations or whether fish collected from marine/estuarine environments are vagrants that have strayed out of the freshwater reaches. In this current study, the population structure and genetic differentiation of Australian smelt fish were investigated among eight rivers of South-East Queensland (SEQ), Australia. 11 microsatellite loci were used to examine genetic variation within and among populations. Genetic diversity was very high. Number of alleles ranged from three to twenty. Expected heterozygosity averaged across loci ranged from 0.572 to 0.852. There was a high degree of genetic differentiation among rivers (FST = 0.23), although low levels of genetic differentiation among populations within rivers. These extremely high levels of genetic differentiation suggest that the all smelt in SEQ complete their life history within freshwater, or, if they go to the estuary, they do not migrate to sea. This hypothesis is being tested further with a micro-chemical analysis of their otoliths.

Keywords: diadromous, genetic diversity, microsatellite, otolith

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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: Steve Fish, Chris Lambert

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Cumbria is a geo-political county in Northwest England within which the Lake District National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site is located. Whilst the area has a formidable reputation for natural beauty and historic assets, the innovation ecosystem is described as ‘patchy’ for a number of reasons. The county is one of the largest in England by area and is sparsely populated. This paper describes the needs, development and delivery of an SME business-support programme funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Lancaster University and the University of Cumbria. The Cumbria Innovations Platform (CUSP) Project has been designed to respond to the nuanced needs of SMEs in this locale, whilst promoting the adoption of research and innovation. CUSP utilizes a funnel method to support rural businesses with access to university innovation intervention. CUSP has been built on a three-tier model: Communicate, Collaborate and Create. The paper describes this project in detail and presents results in terms of output indicators achieved, a beneficiary telephone survey and wider economic forecasts. From a pragmatic point-of-view, the paper provides experiences and reflections of those people who are delivering and evaluating knowledge exchange. The authors discuss some of the benefits, challenges and implications for both policy makers and practitioners. Finally, the paper aims to serve as an invitation to others who may consider adopting a similar method of university-industry collaboration in their own region.

Keywords: regional business support, rural business support, university-industry collaboration, collaborative R&D, SMEs, knowledge exchange

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Authors: Fangying Wang, Zhang Sanming, Ni Qian

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In recent years, more and more personalized sound absorbing materials have entered the Chinese room acoustical decoration market. The acoustic performance of three kinds of personalized sound-absorbing materials: Flame-retardant Flax Fiber Sound-absorbing Cotton, Eco-Friendly Sand Acoustic Panel and Transparent Micro-perforated Panel (Film) are tested by Reverberation Room Method. The sound absorption characteristic curves show that their performance match for or even exceed the traditional sound absorbing material. Through the application in the actual projects, these personalized sound-absorbing materials also proved their sound absorption ability and unique decorative effect.

Keywords: acoustic performance, application prospect personalized sound-absorbing materials

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Authors: Apurba Kanti Chowdhury, Taslima Zahan

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The inclusion of mungbean in a cropping pattern not only increases the cropping intensity but also enriches soil health as well as ensures nutrition for the fast-growing population of Bangladesh. A study was conducted in the farmers’ field during 2013-14 and 2014-15 to observe the performance of four-crop based improve cropping pattern Potato-Mungbean-Jute -t.aman rice against the existing cropping pattern Potato-Jute -t.aman rice at Domar, Nilphamari followed by randomized complete block design with three replications. Two years study revealed that inclusion of mungbean and better management practices in improved cropping pattern provided higher economic benefit over the existing pattern by 73.1%. Moreover, the average yield of potato increased in the improved pattern by 64.3% compared to the existing pattern; however yield of jute and t.aman rice in improved pattern declined by 5.6% and 10.7% than the existing pattern, respectively. Nevertheless, the additional yield of mungbean in the improved pattern helped to increase rice equivalent yield of the whole pattern by 38.7% over the existing pattern. Thus, the addition of mungbean in the existing pattern Potato-Jute -t.aman rice seems to be profitable for the farmers and also might be sustainable if the market channel of mungbean developed.

Keywords: crop diversity, food nutrition, production efficiency, yield improvement

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Authors: Yo Han Choi, Hee Suk Seo, Seung Hwan Ju, Sung Hyu Han

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As currently various portable devices were launched, smart business conducted using them became common. Since smart business can use company-internal resources in an external remote place, user authentication that can identify authentic users is an important factor. Commonly used user authentication is a method of using user ID and Password. In the user authentication using ID and Password, the user should see and enter authentication information him or herself. In this user authentication system depending on the user’s vision, there is the threat of password leaks through snooping in the process which the user enters his or her authentication information. This study designed and produced a user authentication module using an actuator to respond to the snooping threat.

Keywords: actuator, user authentication, security evaluation, haptic actuator

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Authors: Daniel Stabler, Anne-Laure Mention, Henri Hakala, Ahmad Alaassar

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In Europe, 2.2 billion tons of waste annually generate severe environmental damage and economic burdens, and negatively impact human health. A stark illustration of the problem is found within the consumer electronics industry, which reflects one of the most complex global waste streams. Of the 5.3 billion globally discarded mobile phones in 2022, only 17% were properly recycled. To address these pressing issues, Europe has made significant strides in developing waste management strategies, Circular Economy initiatives, and Right to Repair policies. These endeavors aim to make product repair and maintenance more accessible, extend product lifespans, reduce waste, and promote sustainable resource use. European countries have introduced Right to Repair policies, often in conjunction with extended producer responsibility legislation, repair subsidies, and consumer repair indices, to varying degrees of regulatory rigor. Changing societal trends emphasizing sustainability and environmental responsibility have driven consumer demand for more sustainable and repairable products, benefiting repair-focused consumer electronics businesses. In academic research, much of the literature in Management studies has examined the European Circular Economy and the Right to Repair from firm-level perspectives. These studies frequently employ a business-model lens, emphasizing innovation and strategy frameworks. However, this study takes an institutional perspective, aiming to understand the adoption of Circular Economy and repair-focused business models within the European consumer electronics market. The concepts of the Circular Economy and the Right to Repair align with institutionalism as they reflect evolving societal norms favoring sustainability and consumer empowerment. Regulatory institutions play a pivotal role in shaping and enforcing these concepts through legislation, influencing the behavior of businesses and individuals. Compliance and enforcement mechanisms are essential for their success, compelling actors to adopt sustainable practices and consider product life extension. Over time, these mechanisms create a path for more sustainable choices, underscoring the influence of institutions and societal values on behavior and decision-making. Institutionalism, particularly 'neo-institutionalism,' provides valuable insights into the factors driving the adoption of Circular and repair-focused business models. Neo-institutional pressures can manifest through coercive regulatory initiatives or normative standards shaped by socio-cultural trends. The Right to Repair movement has emerged as a prominent and influential idea within academic discourse and sustainable development initiatives. Therefore, understanding how macro-level societal shifts toward the Circular Economy and the Right to Repair trigger firm-level responses is imperative. This study aims to answer a crucial question about the impact of European Right to Repair initiatives had on the financial and environmental performance of European consumer electronics companies at the firm level. A quantitative and statistical research design will be employed. The study will encompass an extensive sample of consumer electronics firms in Northern and Western Europe, analyzing their financial and environmental performance in relation to the implementation of Right to Repair mechanisms. The study's findings are expected to provide valuable insights into the broader implications of the Right to Repair and Circular Economy initiatives on the European consumer electronics industry.

Keywords: circular economy, right to repair, institutionalism, environmental management, european union

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Authors: Saad Bin Nasir

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This research will examine the impact of corporate governance on firm performance in family and non-family owned firms in Pakistan. For the purpose of this research, corporate governance mechanisms which included are board size, board composition, leadership structure, board meetings are taken as independent variable and firm performance taken as dependent variable and it will be measured with return on asset and return on equity. Firm size and firm’s age will be taken as control variables. Secondary data will collect from audited annul reports of companies and panel data regression model will applied, to check the impact of corporate governance on firm performance.

Keywords: board size, board composition, Leadership Structure, board meetings, firm performance, family and non-family owned firms

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Authors: Yuguang Gao, Qiang Yang, Yanpeng Zhang, Mingtao Deng

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To enhance the safety, quality and efficiency of healthcare services provided by surgical doctors, we propose a comprehensive approach to the performance evaluation of individual doctors by incorporating insights from performance data as well as views of different stakeholders in the hospital. Exploratory factor analysis was first performed on collective multidimensional performance data of surgical doctors, where key factors were extracted that encompass assessment of professional experience and service performance. A two-level indicator system was then constructed, for which we developed a weighted interval-valued spherical fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to analyze the relative importance of the indicators while handling subjectivity and disparity in the decision-making of multiple parties involved. Our analytical results reveal that, for the key factors identified as instrumental for evaluating surgical doctors’ performance, the overall importance of clinical workload and complexity of service are valued more than capacity of service and professional experience, while the efficiency of resource consumption ranks comparatively the lowest in importance. We also provide a retrospective case study to illustrate the effectiveness and robustness of our quantitative evaluation model by assigning meaningful performance ratings to individual doctors based on the weights developed through our approach.

Keywords: analytic hierarchy processes, factor analysis, fuzzy logic, performance evaluation

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Authors: Purna Singh, Vaibhav Tripathi, Vinayak Kalluri, Sumit Roy

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The present experimental work was carried out to investigate performance and emission characteristics of single cylinder diesel engine operating under dual-fuel mode with coconut oil blended with diesel. Coconut oil is one of the edible oil which is abundant in tropical countries and has properties like diesel. To this end, performance and emission parameters of diesel-coconut oil blends were reported in the current study. The results were drawn at different load steps of engine operation with 10% and 20% of coconut oil linearly blended with diesel. From the results, it was evident that coconut oil can be successfully replaced up to 20% of diesel without hampering the performance-emission characteristics of the existing diesel engine.

Keywords: coconut oil, alternative fuel, emissions, dual-fuel

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Authors: Sarit Rashkovits, Anat Drach- Zahavy

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The research considers the unresolved question regarding the link between nursing team accountability and team learning and the resulted team performance in nursing teams. Empirical findings reveal disappointing evidence regarding improvement in healthcare safety and quality. Therefore, there is a need in advancing managerial knowledge regarding the factors that enhance constant healthcare teams' proactive improvement efforts, meaning team learning. We first aim to identify the organizational resources that are needed for team learning in nursing teams; second, to test the moderating role of nursing teams' learning resources in the team accountability-team learning link; and third, to test the moderated mediation model suggesting that nursing teams' accountability affects team performance by enhancing team learning when relevant resources are available to the team. We point on the intervening role of three team learning resources, namely time availability, team autonomy and performance data on the relation between team accountability and team learning and test the proposed moderated mediation model on 44 nursing teams (462 nurses and 44 nursing managers). The results showed that, as was expected, there was a positive significant link between team accountability and team learning and the subsequent team performance when time availability and team autonomy were high rather than low. Nevertheless, the positive team accountability- team learning link was significant when team performance feedback was low rather than high. Accordingly, there was a positive mediated effect of team accountability on team performance via team learning when either time availability or team autonomy were high and the availability of team performance data was low. Nevertheless, this mediated effect was negative when time availability and team autonomy were low and the availability of team performance data was high. We conclude that nurturing team accountability is not enough for achieving nursing teams' learning and the subsequent improved team performance. Rather there is need to provide nursing teams with adequate time, autonomy, and be cautious with performance feedback, as the latter may motivate nursing teams to repeat routine work strategies rather than explore improved ones.

Keywords: nursing teams' accountability, nursing teams' learning, performance feedback, teams' autonomy

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Authors: Turkyh Alotibi, Ghadah Obeid Alrasheed, Afaf Saad Alshaibani, Moneerah Obeid Alrasheed

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This study explores factors that influence MBA enrolment and investigates strategic prerequisites for developing a viable online MBA program at Alfaisal University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It compares students’ perspectives about online MBA against the face-to-face on-site MBA program. With the self-administered online survey tool, we collected data from 52 first- and second-year MBA students enrolled at Alfaisal University for the 2021 Fall Semester. The data from the survey questionnaire, distributed at the university’s College of Business, reports that approximately 60% of MBA students prefer face-to-face, in-person courses. Their preference for considering an online MBA, primarily rests on two factors, the university’s ranking (68% would enroll for an online MBA program offered by Harvard Business School) and 34.07% for the program timing (timetable). Alfaisal University’s outstanding ranking makes it viable to offer an online MBA either independently or in collaboration with other internationally reputed business schools. The paper contains useful insights to set “the strategic agenda for Online MBA program” in no accredited University but with a good reputation. The information from the case study could be useful for supporting the strategic intent to start an Online MBA program in Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: online MBA, online education demand, university management, course evaluation, blended learning

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Authors: Preeti Virkar, V. P. Uniyal, Vinod Kumar Bhatt

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With 50% decline in managed honey bee hives in the continents of Europe and America, farmers and landscape managers are turning to native wild bees for their essential ecosystem services of pollination. Wild bees population are too under danger due to the rapid land use changes from anthropogenic activities. With an escalating population reaching 9.0 billion by 2050, human-induced land use changes are predicted to further deteriorate the habitats of numerous species by the turn of this century. The status of bees are uncertain, especially in the tropical regions of the world, which also questions the crisis of global pollinator decline and their essential services to wild and managed flora. Our investigation collectively compares wild native bee diversity and their status in forests and agroecosystems in Doon Valley landscape, situated at the foothills of Himalayan ranges, Uttarakhand, India. We seek to ask whether (1) natural habitat are refuge to richer and rarer bees communities than the agroecosystems, (2) Are agroecosystems closer to natural habitats similar to them than agroecosystems farther away; hence support richer bee communities and hence, (3) Do polyculture farms support richer bee communities than monoculture. The data was collected using observation and pantrap sampling form February to May, 2012 to 2014. We recorded 43 species of bees in Doon Valley. They belonged to 5 families; Megachilidae, Apidae, Andrenidae, Halictidae and Collitidae. A multinomial model approach was used to classify the bees into 2 habitats, in which forests demonstrated to support greater number of specialist (26%, n= 11) species than agroecosystems (7%, n= 3). The valley had many species categorized as the rare (58%, n= 25) and very few generalists (9%, n=4). A linear regression model run on our data demonstrated higher bee diversity in agro-ecosystems in close proximity to forests (H’ for < 200 m = 1.60) compared to those further away (H’ for > 600 m = 0.56) (R2=0.782, SE=0.148, p value=0.004). Organic agriculture supported significantly greater species richness in comparison to conventional farms (Mann-Whitney U test, n1 = 33, n2 = 35; P = 0.001). Forests ecosystems are refuge to rare specialist groups and support bee communities in nearby agroecosystems. The findings of our investigation demonstrate the importance of natural habitats as a potential refuge for rare native wild bee pollinators. Polyculture in the valley behaves similar to natural habitats and supports diverse bee communities in comparison to conventional monocultures. Our study suggests that the farming communities adopt diverse organic agriculture systems to attract wild pollinators beneficial for better crop production. Forests are sanctuaries for bees to nest, forage, and breed. Therefore, our outcome also suggests landscape managers not only preserve protected areas but also enhance the floral diversity in semi-natural and urban areas.

Keywords: native bees, pollinators, polyculture, agroecosystem, natural habitat, diversity, monoculture, specialists, generalists

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Authors: Farida, M. Shehu, Shehu U. R. Aliyu

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Access to finance has been recognized in the literature as one of the major impediments confronting small scale businesses (SSBs). This largely arises due to high lending rate, religious inclinations, collateral, etc. Islamic mode finance operates under Profit and Loss Sharing (PLS) arrangement between a borrower (business owner) and a lender (Islamic bank). This paper empirically assesses the determinants of predisposition of small scale business operators in Fagge local government area, Kano State, Nigeria, towards the PLS. Cross-sectional data from a sample of 291 small scale business operators was analyzed using logit and probit regression models. Empirical results reveal that while awareness and religion inclination positively drive interest towards the PLS, lending rate and collateral work against it. The paper, therefore, strongly recommends more advocacy campaigns and setting up of more Islamic banks in the country to cater for the financing and religious needs of SSBs in the study area.

Keywords: Islamic finance, logit and probit models, profit and loss sharing small scale businesses, finance, commerce

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Authors: Lindy Valdez, Daryl Parker

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Introduction: There has been much research on academic achievement in elementary schools. Most of the research has been on school leadership. While research has focused on the role of leadership on school improvement, little research has examined what variables the top elementary schools have in common. To undertake school improvement, it is important to understand what factors the best schools share. The purpose of this study was to examine data of the “Best Elementary Schools in California,” based on academic achievement as rated by three prominent websites and determine if these schools had any common factors which were different than the statewide averages. The variables examined included access to subject matter specialists (physical education, art, and music), librarians, after school programs, class size, socioeconomic status, and diversity. The participants consisted of the top public elementary schools in California based on the websites i)https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-schools/, ii)https://www.finder.com/best-schools-california,and iii)https://www.schooldigger.com/go/CA/schoolrank.aspx. The data for subject matter specialists (physical education, art, and music), librarians, after school programs, class size, socioeconomic status, and diversity were collected from these top schools and compared to California statewide averages. Results indicate that top public elementary schools in California have a high number of subject matter specialists that teach physical education, art, and music. These positions are on the decline in the average public elementary school in California, but the top schools have abundant access to these specialists. The physical education specialist has the highest statistically significant difference between the nationwide average and the top schools—librarians, and after school programs are also most commonly high in top public elementary schools in California. The high presence of these programs may be aiding academic achievement in less visible ways. Class size is small, socio-economic status is high, and diversity is low among top public elementary schools in California when compared to the statewide average public elementary schools in California. The single largest area of discrepancy was between physical education specialists in a top school and their state and nationwide averages. The socioeconomic status of schools and parents may be an underlining factor affecting several other variables. This affluence could explain how these schools were able to have access to subject matter specialists, after-school activities, and, therefore, more opportunities for physical activity and greater learning opportunities affecting academic achievement.

Keywords: academic achievement, elementary education, factors, schools

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Authors: Sharon Milberger, Jane Turner, Denise White-Perkins

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Michigan shares the overall U.S. national need for more highly qualified professionals who have knowledge and experience in the use of evidence-based practices to meet the special health care needs of children, adolescents, and adults with neurodevelopmental disabilities including autism spectrum disorder (DD/ASD). The Michigan Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (MI-LEND) program is a consortium of six universities that spans the state of Michigan and serves more than 181,800 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. The purpose of the MI LEND program is to improve the health of infants, children and adolescents with disabilities in Michigan by training individuals from different disciplines to assume leadership roles in their respective fields and work across disciplines. The MI-LEND program integrates “L.I.F.E.” perspectives into all training components. L.I.F.E. is an acronym for Leadership, Interdisciplinary, Family-Centered and Equity perspectives. This paper will describe how L.I.F.E. perspectives are embedded into all aspects of the MI-LEND training program including the application process, didactic training, community and clinical experiences, discussions, journaling and projects. Specific curriculum components will be described including content from a training module dedicated to Equity. Upon completion of the Equity module, trainees are expected to be able to: 1) Use a population health framework to identify key social determinants impacting families and children; 2) Explain how addressing bias and providing culturally appropriate linguistic care/services can influence patient/client health and wellbeing; and 3) Describe the impact of policy and structural/institutional factors influencing care and services for children with DD/ASD and their families. Each trainee completes two self-assessments: the Cultural and Linguistic Competence Health Practitioner Assessment and the other assessing social attitudes/implicit bias. Trainees also conduct interviews with a family with a child with DD/ASD. In addition, interdisciplinary Equity-related group activities are incorporated into face-to-face training sessions. Each MI-LEND trainee has multiple ongoing opportunities for self-reflection through discussion and journaling and completion of a L.I.F.E. project as a culminating component of the program. The poster will also discuss the challenges related to teaching and measuring successful outcomes related to diversity/equity perspectives.

Keywords: disability, diversity, equity, training

Procedia PDF Downloads 166

Authors: Madiha Zahid, Afifa Khanam

Abstract:

The present study aims to investigate the effect of reflective teaching practices on prospective teachers’ performance. Reflective teaching practice helps teachers to plan, implement and improve their performance by rethinking about their strengths and weaknesses. An action research was conducted by the researcher. All prospective teachers of sixth semester in a women university’s teacher education program were the population of the study. From 40 students, 20 students were taken as experimental group, and the rest of 20 students were taken as control group. During the action research a cyclic process of producing a module, training teachers for the reflective practices and then observing them during their class for reflective practice was done by the researchers. The research used a set of rubrics and checklists for assessing prospective teachers’ performance during their class. Finally, the module was modified with the help of findings. It was found that the training has improved the performance of teachers as they revised and modified their teaching strategies through reflective practice. However, they were not able to train their students for reflective practice as per expectation. The study has implications for teacher training programs to include reflective practice modules as part of their course work for making them better teachers.

Keywords: reflective practices, prospective teacher, effect, performance

Procedia PDF Downloads 176

Authors: María Fernanda Quiceno Vallejo, Patricia del Portillo, María Mercedes Zambrano, Jeisson Alejandro Triana, Dayana Calderon, Juan Manuel Anzola

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Microorganisms from tropical ecosystems can be novel in terms of adaptations and conservation. Given the macrodiversity of Colombian ecosystems, it is possible that this diversity is also present in Colombian soils. Tropical soil bacteria could offer a potentially novel source of bioactive compounds. In this study we analyzed a metagenomic fosmid library constructed with tropical bacterial DNAs with the aim of understanding its underlying diversity and functional potential. 8640 clones from the fosmid library were sequenced by NANOPORE MiniOn technology, then analyzed with bioinformatic tools such as Prokka, AntiSMASH and Bagel4 in order to identify functional biosynthetic pathways in the sequences. The strains showed ample difference when it comes to biosynthetic pathways. In total we identified 4 pathways related to aryl polyene synthesis, 12 related to terpenes, 22 related to NRPs (Non ribosomal peptides), 11 related PKs (Polyketide synthases) and 7 related to RiPPs (bacteriocins). We designed primers for the metagenomic clones with the most BGCs (sample 6 and sample 2). Results show the biotechnological / pharmacological potential of tropical ecosystems. Overall, this work provides an overview of the genomic and functional potential of Colombian soil and sets the groundwork for additional exploration of tropical metagenomic sequencing.

Keywords: bioactives, biosyntethic pathways, bioinformatic, bacterial gene clusters, secondary metabolites

Procedia PDF Downloads 166

Authors: Njeze Anthony

Abstract:

In the world economy, entrepreneurship is an outstanding venture. Failures in the businesses of over 70% of Entrepreneurs can be attributed to lack of proper planning. For an entrepreneur to succeed, there are some vital planning strategies that will come into play such as organizational, operational, financial and marketing plans. When an entrepreneur lacks the above mentioned, such an entrepreneur is bound to encounter a catastrophic failure. An entrepreneur with an adequate plan will examine his/her own goals, know why he is in business, look at the venture resource base, have a sound knowledge of his proposed venture and identify obstacles that will be surmounted to achieve the desired goals. This work is aimed at identifying the organizational, operational, financial and marketing impact of entrepreneurship in the world economy and as well the important issues in global entrepreneurship, possible obstacles, and solutions.

Keywords: economy, entrepreneurship, business, operation

Procedia PDF Downloads 459

Authors: E. A. Tkachenko, E. M. Rogova, V. V. Klimov

Abstract:

One of the basic issues of development management is connected with performance measurement as a prerequisite for identifying the achievement of development objectives. The aim of our research is to develop an improved model of assessing a company’s development results. The model should take into account the cyclical nature of development and the high degree of uncertainty in dealing with numerous management tasks. Our hypotheses may be formulated as follows: Hypothesis 1. The cycle of a company’s development may be studied from the standpoint of a project cycle. To do that, methods and tools of project analysis are to be used. Hypothesis 2. The problem of the uncertainty when justifying managerial decisions within the framework of a company’s development cycle can be solved through the use of the mathematical apparatus of fuzzy logic. The reasoned justification of the validity of the hypotheses made is given in the suggested article. The fuzzy logic toolkit applies to the case of technology shift within an enterprise. It is proven that some restrictions in performance measurement that are incurred to conventional methods could be eliminated by implementation of the fuzzy logic apparatus in performance measurement models.

Keywords: logic, fuzzy sets, performance measurement, project analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 383