Search results for: Team dynamic

Authors: Mohamed Belhorma, Aboubakar S. Bouchikhi, Belkacem Bounab

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This paper addresses modeling a Double A-Arm suspension, a three-dimensional nonlinear model has been developed using the multibody systems formalism. Dynamical study of the different components responses was done, particularly for the wheel assembly. To validate those results, the system was constructed and simulated by RecurDyn, a professional multibody dynamics simulation software. The model has been used as the Objectif function in an optimization algorithm for ride quality improvement.

Keywords: double A-Arm suspension, multibody systems, ride quality optimization, dynamic simulation

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Authors: Zahidul Islam

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This study investigates the effectiveness of resourcing in post-disaster housing reconstruction with reference to Cyclones Sidr and Aila in Bangladesh. Through evaluating three key theories- Build Back Better approach, Balance Scorecard approach and Dynamic Competency theories, the synthesis of literature, and empirical fieldwork, this research develops a dynamic theoretical framework that moves the trajectory of post-disaster housing reconstruction towards the reconstruction of more resilient houses. The ultimate goal of any post-disaster housing reconstruction project is to provide quality houses and to achieve high levels of satisfaction for beneficiaries. However, post-disaster reconstruction projects often fail in their stated objectives; only 10-20% housing needs are met, with most houses constructed on a temporary rather than permanent basis. A number of scholars have argued that access to resources can significantly increase the capacity and capability of disaster victims to rebuild their lives, including the construction of new homes. This study draws on structured interviews of 285 villagers affected by cyclones to investigate the effectiveness of resourcing in rebuilding houses after Cyclone Sidr in 2007 and Cyclone Aila in 2009. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 key stakeholders in UNDP, Oxfam, government officials, and national and international NGOs. The results of this study show that recovery rate of cyclone resilient houses that can withstand cyclone is very low and majority of the population are still vulnerable. Furthermore, hierarchical regression of survey data and thematic analyses of qualitative data indicate that access to resources, level of education, quality of building materials and income generating activities of the respondents are critical for effective post-disaster recovery. Conversely, resource availability, lack of coordination among participant organisations, corruption and lack of access to appropriate land constituted significant obstacles to livelihood recovery. Finally, this study makes significant theoretical contributions to theories of post-disaster recovery by introducing new variables and measures for evaluating the quality and effectiveness of post-disaster housing.

Keywords: disaster, resourcing, housing, resilience

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Authors: Layla Alzarah

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The purpose of this research was to study the effects of co-teaching upon study achievement by teaching unite of teaching strategy course to a sample of students at education college at King Faisal University. The sample of this study, which consisted of 100 students, was divided into two equal groups. 50 students were selected to be the Control group which had been taught by the traditional way with one teacher, whereas the remaining 50 students represented the experimental group who had been taught by co-teaching. The study had lasted for 4 weeks. Related achievement test had been prepared, consisted of 23 questions, from multi choice question type, which had been divided on the chosen unite syllabus. The validity and reliability had been tested. The study conducted at the second semester of 1433-1434 HT tests had been used to analysis the data. The research findings showed that the average exam scores of students receiving team teaching were higher than those of students receiving traditional teaching as there were significant differences in means at (<0.05) between the two groups in favor of the experimental group. Based on the study findings the researcher recommended applying co-teaching in teaching the course of teaching strategies and other courses also to conduct similar studies.

Keywords: co-teaching, cooperative teaching, teaching strategies, study achievement

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Authors: Amine Ganibardi, Cherif Arab Ali

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This paper addresses the data cleaning issue as a part of web usage data preprocessing within the scope of Web Usage Mining. Weblog data recorded by web servers within log files reflect usage activity, i.e., End-users’ clicks and underlying user-agents’ hits. As Web Usage Mining is interested in End-users’ behavior, user-agents’ hits are referred to as noise to be cleaned-off before mining. Filtering hits from clicks is not trivial for two reasons, i.e., a server records requests interlaced in sequential order regardless of their source or type, website resources may be set up as requestable interchangeably by end-users and user-agents. The current methods are content-centric based on filtering heuristics of relevant/irrelevant items in terms of some cleaning attributes, i.e., website’s resources filetype extensions, website’s resources pointed by hyperlinks/URIs, http methods, user-agents, etc. These methods need exhaustive extra-weblog data and prior knowledge on the relevant and/or irrelevant items to be assumed as clicks or hits within the filtering heuristics. Such methods are not appropriate for dynamic/responsive Web for three reasons, i.e., resources may be set up to as clickable by end-users regardless of their type, website’s resources are indexed by frame names without filetype extensions, web contents are generated and cancelled differently from an end-user to another. In order to overcome these constraints, a clustering-based cleaning method centered on the logging structure is proposed. This method focuses on the statistical properties of the logging structure at the requested and referring resources attributes levels. It is insensitive to logging content and does not need extra-weblog data. The used statistical property takes on the structure of the generated logging feature by webpage requests in terms of clicks and hits. Since a webpage consists of its single URI and several components, these feature results in a single click to multiple hits ratio in terms of the requested and referring resources. Thus, the clustering-based method is meant to identify two clusters based on the application of the appropriate distance to the frequency matrix of the requested and referring resources levels. As the ratio clicks to hits is single to multiple, the clicks’ cluster is the smallest one in requests number. Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering based on a pairwise distance (Gower) and average linkage has been applied to four logfiles of dynamic/responsive websites whose click to hits ratio range from 1/2 to 1/15. The optimal clustering set on the basis of average linkage and maximum inter-cluster inertia results always in two clusters. The evaluation of the smallest cluster referred to as clicks cluster under the terms of confusion matrix indicators results in 97% of true positive rate. The content-centric cleaning methods, i.e., conventional and advanced cleaning, resulted in a lower rate 91%. Thus, the proposed clustering-based cleaning outperforms the content-centric methods within dynamic and responsive web design without the need of any extra-weblog. Such an improvement in cleaning quality is likely to refine dependent analysis.

Keywords: clustering approach, data cleaning, data preprocessing, weblog data, web usage data

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Authors: Lizinis Cassendra Frederick Dony, Jirom Jeremy Frederick Dony, Cyril Supain Christopher

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The purpose of this paper is to improve the devotion to leadership through HR practices implementation at the PETRONAS stations. This emphasize the importance of personal grooming and Customer Care hospitality training for their front line working individuals and teams’ at PETRONAS stations in Sabah. Based on Thomas Edison, International Leadership Journal, theory, research, education and development practice and application to all organizational phenomena may affect or be affected by leadership. FINDINGS – PETRONAS in short called Petroliam Nasional Berhad is a Malaysian oil and gas company that was founded on August 17, 1974. Wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia, the corporation is vested with the entire oil and gas resources in Malaysia and is entrusted with the responsibility of developing and adding value to these resources. Fortune ranks PETRONAS as the 68th largest company in the world in 2012. It also ranks PETRONAS as the 12th most profitable company in the world and the most profitable in Asia. As of the end of March 2005, the PETRONAS Group comprised 103 wholly owned subsidiaries, 19 partly owned outfits and 57 associated companies. The group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining, marketing and distribution of petroleum products, trading, gas processing and liquefaction, gas transmission pipeline network operations, marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering and property investment. PETRONAS has growing their marketing channel in a competitive market. They have combined their resources to pursue common goals. PETRONAS provides opportunity to carry out Industrial Training Job Placement to the University students in Malaysia for 6-8 months. The effects of the Industrial Training have exposed them to the real working environment experience acting representing on behalf of General Manager for almost one year. Thus, the management education and reward incentives schemes have aspire the working teams transformed to gain their good leadership. Furthermore, knowledge and experiences are very important in the human capital development transformation. SPSS extends the accurate analysis PETRONAS achievement through 280 questionnaires and 81 questionnaires through excel calculation distributed to interview face to face with the customers, PETRONAS dealers and front desk staffs stations in the 17 stations in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Hence, this research study will improve its service quality innovation and business sustainability performance optimization. ORIGINALITY / VALUE – The impact of Transformational Leadership practices have influenced the working team’s behaviour as a Brand Ambassadors of PETRONAS. Finally, the findings correlation indicated that PETRONAS stations needs more HR resources practices to deploy more customer care retention resources in mitigating the business challenges in oil and gas industry. Therefore, as the business established at stiff competition globally (Cooper, 2006; Marques and Simon, 2006), it is crucial for the team management should be capable to minimize noises risk, financial risk and mitigating any other risks as a whole at the optimum level. CONCLUSION- As to conclude this research found that both transformational and transactional contingent reward leadership4 were positively correlated with ratings of platoon potency and ratings of leadership for the platoon leader and sergeant were moderately inter correlated. Due to this identification, we recommended that PETRONAS management should offers quality team management in PETRONAS stations in a broader variety of leadership training specialization in the operation efficiency at the front desk Customer Care hospitality. By having the reliability and validity of job experiences, it leverages diversity teamwork and cross collaboration. Other than leveraging factor, PETRONAS also will strengthen the interpersonal front liners effectiveness and enhance quality of interaction through effective communication. Finally, through numerous CSR correlation studies regression PETRONAS performance on Corporate Social Performance and several control variables.1 CSR model activities can be mis-specified if it is not controllable under R & D which evident in various feedbacks collected from the local communities and younger generation is inclined to higher financial expectation from PETRONAS. But, however, it created a huge impact on the nation building as part of its social adaptability overreaching their business stakeholders’ satisfaction in Sabah.

Keywords: human resources practices implementation (hrpi), source of competitive advantage in people’s development (socaipd), corporate social responsibility (csr), service quality at front desk stations (sqafd), impacts of petronas leadership (iopl)

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Authors: Parth Prajapati, A. R. Srinivas

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The purpose of this paper is to validate the concept of the Lotus Mechanism using Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) tools considering the statics and dynamics through actual time dependence involving inertial forces acting on the mechanism joints. For a 1.2 m mirror made of hexagonal segments, with simple harnesses and three-point supports, the maximum diameter is 400 mm, minimum segment base thickness is 1.5 mm, and maximum rib height is considered as 12 mm. Manufacturing challenges are explored for the segments using manufacturing research and development approaches to enable use of large lightweight mirrors required for the future space system.

Keywords: dynamics, manufacturing, reflectors, segmentation, statics

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Authors: Alaaeldin Hamdy Ahmed Mohammed

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Introduction: This study examines sports’ fans and non-interested public perception and recognition of the problems that have negative impacts upon the Egyptian sports, particularly football, through caricatures. Eight caricature paintings were designed to express eight problems affecting the Egyptian sports and its development. These paintings were distributed on two groups of the fans and the non-interested public. Methods: The study was limited to eight caricatures representing the eight issues which are: the impact of stopping the sports activity on athletes, the effect of clubs’ disagreement, fanaticism between the members of the ultras of different clubs, the negative impact of the mingling of politics into sports, the negative role of the clubs affects the professionalism of the promising players, the conflict between the national organization responsible for sports, the breaking in of the fans to the playgrounds, the impact of the lack of planning on the national team. The Results: The results showed that both sports fans and those who are not interested in sports recognized the problems that the caricatures refer to and criticizes exaggeration although the rate was higher for the fans. These caricatures contributed also in their recognition of the danger of the negative impact of these problems on the Egyptian sports, particularly football which is the most common at the Egyptian sports fans. Discussion: This finding echoes the conclusion that caricatures are distinctive in the adults’ facial stimuli that are either systematically exaggerated recognition of them.

Keywords: caricature, fans, football, sports

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Authors: Iliya Dimitrov Stoev, Benjamin Seelbinder, Elena Erben, Nicola Maghelli, Moritz Kreysing

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Despite the revolutionizing impact of optical tweezers in materials science and cell biology up to the present date, trapping has so far extensively relied on specific material properties of the probe and local heating has limited applications related to investigating dynamic processes within living systems. To overcome these limitations while maintaining high sensitivity, here we present a new optofluidic approach that can be used to gently trap microscopic particles and measure femtoNewton forces in a contact-free manner and with thermally limited precision.

Keywords: optofluidics, force measurements, microrheology, FLUCS, thermoviscous flows

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Authors: Nahid Tavakoli, Asghar Ehteshami, Akbar Hassanzadeh, Fatemeh Amini

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Introduction: The Information security incident management guidelines was been developed to help hospitals to meet their information security event and incident management requirements. The purpose of this Study was to investigate on Information Security Incident Management in Isfahan’s educational hospitals in accordance to ISO/IEC 27002 standards. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study to investigate on Information Security Incident Management of educational hospitals in 2014. Based on ISO/IEC 27002 standards, two checklists were applied to check the compliance with standards on Reporting Information Security Events and Weakness and Management of Information Security Incidents and Improvements. One inspector was trained to carry out the assessments in the hospitals. The data was analyzed by SPSS. Findings: In general the score of compliance Information Security Incident Management requirements in two steps; Reporting Information Security Events and Weakness and Management of Information Security Incidents and Improvements was %60. There was the significant difference in various compliance levels among the hospitals (p-valueKeywords: information security incident management, information security management, standards, hospitals

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Authors: Lucy Horrobin, Rebecca Fores

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Background: Muay Thai is an increasingly popular combat sport worldwide. Further academic research in the sport will contribute to its professional development. This research sought to produce normative data in relation to the physical and physiological characteristics of professional Muay Thai boxers, as, currently no such data exists. The ultimate aim being to inform appropriate training programs and to facilitate coaching. Methods: N = 9 professional, adult, male Muay Thai boxers were assessed for the following anthropometric, physical and physiological characteristics, using validated methods of assessment: body fat, hamstring flexibility, maximal dynamic upper body strength, lower limb peak power, upper body muscular endurance and aerobic capacity. Raw data scores were analysed for mean, range and SD and where applicable were expressed relative to body mass (BM). Results: Results showed similar characteristics to those found in other combat sports. Low percentages of body fat (mean±SD) 8.54 ± 1.16 allow for optimal power to weight ratios. Highly developed aerobic capacity (mean ±SD) 61.56 ± 5.13 ml.min.kg facilitate recovery and power maintenance throughout bouts. Lower limb peak power output values of (mean ± SD) 12.60 ± 2.09 W/kg indicate that Muay Thai boxers are amongst the most powerful of combat sport athletes. However, maximal dynamic upper body strength scores of (mean±SD) 1.14 kg/kg ± 0.18 were in only the 60th percentile of normative data for the general population and muscular endurance scores (mean±SD) 31.55 ± 11.95 and flexibility scores (mean±SD) 19.55 ± 11.89 cm expressed wide standard deviation. These results might suggest that these characteristics are insignificant in Muay Thai or under-developed, perhaps due to deficient training programs. Implications: This research provides the first normative data of physical and physiological characteristics of Muay Thai boxers. The findings of this study would aid trainers and coaches when designing effective evidence-based training programs. Furthermore, it provides a foundation for further research relating to physiology in Muay Thai. Areas of further study could be determining the physiological demands of a full rules bout and the effects of evidence-based training programs on performance.

Keywords: fitness testing, Muay Thai, physiology, strength and conditioning

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Authors: Ákos Tótin

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In crop production the most modern hybrids are available for us, therefore the yield and yield stability is determined by the agro-technology. The purpose of the experiment is to adapt the modern agrotechnology to the new type of hybrids. The long-term experiment was set up in 2015-2016 on chernozem soil in the Hajdúság (eastern Hungary). The plots were set up in 75 thousand ha-1 plant density. We examined some mainly use hybrids of Hungary. The conducted studies are: germination dynamic, growing dynamic and the effect of annual weather for the yield. We use three different sowing date as early, average and late, and measure how many plant germinated during the germination process. In the experiment, we observed the germination dynamics in 6 hybrid in 4 replication. In each replication, we counted the germinated plants in 2m long 2 row wide area. Data will be shown in the average of the 6 hybrid and 4 replication. Growing dynamics were measured from the 10cm (4-6 leaf) plant highness. We measured 10 plants’ height in two weeks replication. The yield was measured buy a special plot harvester - the Sampo Rosenlew 2010 – what measured the weight of the harvested plot and also took a sample from it. We determined the water content of the samples for the water release dynamics. After it, we calculated the yield (t/ha) of each plot at 14% of moisture content to compare them. We evaluated the data using Microsoft Excel 2015. The annual weather in each crop year define the maize germination dynamics because the amount of heat is determinative for the plants. In cooler crop year the weather is prolonged the germination. At the 2015 crop year the weather was cold in the beginning what prolonged the first sowing germination. But the second and third sowing germinated faster. In the 2016 crop year the weather was much favorable for plants so the first sowing germinated faster than in the previous year. After it the weather cooled down, therefore the second and third sowing germinated slower than the last year. The statistical data analysis program determined that there is a significant difference between the early and late sowing date growing dynamics. In 2015 the first sowing date had the highest amount of yield. The second biggest yield was in the average sowing time. The late sowing date has lowest amount of yield.

Keywords: germination, maize, sowing date, yield

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Authors: Jay Xiong, Li Lin

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Existing software modeling and visualization approaches using UML are outdated, which are outcomes of reductionism and the superposition principle that the whole of a system is the sum of its parts, so that with them all tasks of software modeling and visualization are performed linearly, partially, and locally. This paper introduces revolutionary solutions for modeling and visualization of complex software systems, which make complex software systems much easy to understand, test, and maintain. The solutions are based on complexity science, offering holistic, automatic, dynamic, virtual, and executable approaches about thousand times more efficient than the traditional ones.

Keywords: complex systems, software maintenance, software modeling, software visualization

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Authors: Piotr Romaniuk, Krzysztof Kaczmarek, Adam Szromek

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Background: A number of approaches to assess the performance of health system have been proposed so far. Nonetheless, they lack a consensus regarding the key components of assessment procedure and criteria of evaluation. The WHO and OECD have developed methods of assessing health system to counteract the underlying issues, but they are not free of controversies and did not manage to produce a commonly accepted consensus. The aim of the study: On the basis of WHO and OECD approaches we decided to develop own methodology to assess the performance of health systems in Central and Eastern European countries. We have applied the method to compare the effects of health systems reforms in 20 countries of the region, in order to evaluate the dynamic of changes in terms of health system outcomes.Methods: Data was collected from a 25-year time period after the fall of communism, subsetted into different post-reform stages. Datasets collected from individual countries underwent one-, two- or multi-dimensional statistical analyses, and the Synthetic Measure of health system Outcomes (SMO) was calculated, on the basis of the method of zeroed unitarization. A map of dynamics of changes over time across the region was constructed. Results: When making a comparative analysis of the tested group in terms of the average SMO value throughout the analyzed period, we noticed some differences, although the gaps between individual countries were small. The countries with the highest SMO were the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia, while the lowest was in Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Georgia, Albania, and Armenia. Countries differ in terms of the range of SMO value changes throughout the analyzed period. The dynamics of change is high in the case of Estonia and Latvia, moderate in the case of Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Croatia, Russia and Moldova, and small when it comes to Belarus, Ukraine, Macedonia, Lithuania, and Georgia. This information reveals fluctuation dynamics of the measured value in time, yet it does not necessarily mean that in such a dynamic range an improvement appears in a given country. In reality, some of the countries moved from on the scale with different effects. Albania decreased the level of health system outcomes while Armenia and Georgia made progress, but lost distance to leaders in the region. On the other hand, Latvia and Estonia showed the most dynamic progress in improving the outcomes. Conclusions: Countries that have decided to implement comprehensive health reform have achieved a positive result in terms of further improvements in health system efficiency levels. Besides, a higher level of efficiency during the initial transition period generally positively determined the subsequent value of the efficiency index value, but not the dynamics of change. The paths of health system outcomes improvement are highly diverse between different countries. The instrument we propose constitutes a useful tool to evaluate the effectiveness of reform processes in post-communist countries, but more studies are needed to identify factors that may determine results obtained by individual countries, as well as to eliminate the limitations of methodology we applied.

Keywords: health system outcomes, health reforms, health system assessment, health system evaluation

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Authors: Henrique Alpalhão

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This paper attempts to model the widely studied relationship between a country's economic growth and its level of democracy, with an emphasis on possible non-linearities. We adopt the concept of 'political capital' as a measure of democracy, which is extremely uncommon in the literature and brings considerable advantages both in terms of dynamic considerations and plausibility. While the literature is not consensual on this matter, we obtain, via panel Arellano-Bond regression analysis on a database of more than 60 countries over 50 years, significant and robust results that indicate that the impact of democratization on economic growth varies according to the stage of democratic development each country is in.

Keywords: democracy, economic growth, political capital, political economy

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Authors: Getaye Fisseha Gelaw

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the key physical and physiological characteristics of 16 elite male Ethiopian national team distance runners, who have an average age of 28.1±4.3 years, a height of 175.0 ±5.6 cm, a weight of 59.1 ±3.9 kg, a BMI of 19.6 ±1.5, and training age of 10.1 ±5.1 yrs. The average weekly distance is 196.3±13.8 km, the average 10,000m time is 27:14±0.5 min sec, the average half marathon time is 59:30±0.6 min sec, the average marathon time is 2hr 03min 39sec±0.02. In addition, the average Cooper test (12-minute run test) is 4525.4±139.7 meters, and the average VO2 max is 90.8±3.1ml/kg/m. All athletes have a high profile and compete on the international label, and according to the World Athletics athletes' ranking system in 2021, 56.3% of the 16 participants were platinum label status, while the remaining 43.7 % were gold label status-completed an incremental treadmill test for the assessment of VO2peak, submaximal running, lactate threshold and test during which they ran continuously at 21 km/h. The laboratory determined VO2peak was 91.4 ± 1.7 mL/kg/min with anaerobic threshold of 74.2±1.6 mL/min/Kg and VO2max 81%. The speed at the AT is 15.9 ±0.6 Kmh and the altitude is 4,0%. The respiratory compensation RC point was reached at 88.7±1.1 mL/min/Kg and 97% of VO2 max. On RCP, the speed is 17.6 ±0.4 km/h and the altitude/slope are 5.5% percent, and the speed at Maximum effort is 19.5 ±1.5 and the elevation is 6.0%. The data also suggest that Ethiopian distance top athletes have considerably higher VO2 max values than those found in earlier research.

Keywords: long-distance running, Ethiopians, VO2 max, world athletics, anthropometric

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Authors: Liliana O. Martínez, Juan E González, Manuel Ramírez-Aranda, Ana Cervantes-Herrera

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A serious game category mobile application called Math Dominoes is presented. The main objective of this applications is to strengthen the teaching-learning process of solving algebraic equations and is based on the board game "Double 6" dominoes. Math Dominoes allows the practice of solving first, second-, and third-degree algebraic equations. This application is aimed to students who seek to strengthen their skills in solving algebraic equations in a dynamic, interactive, and fun way, to reduce the risk of failure in subsequent courses that require mastery of this algebraic tool.

Keywords: algebra, equations, dominoes, serious games

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Authors: Yongjun Kim

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Since the agreement on the historicity of historical Buddha in eastern India, the beginning, heyday and decline of Buddhism in Early India have been discussed in urbanization, commercialism and state formation context, in short, Weberian socio-politico frame. Recent Scholarship, notably in archaeology and anthropology, has proposed ‘re-materialization of Buddhism in Early India’ based on what Buddhist had actually done rather than what they should do according to canonical teachings or philosophies. But its historical narrations still remain with a domain of socio-politico meta-narrative which tends to unjustifiably dismiss the naturally existing heterogeneity and often chaotic dynamic of diverse agencies, landscape perceptions, localized traditions, etc. An author will argue the multiplicity of theoretical standpoints for the reconstruction on the Buddhism in Early India. For this, at first, the diverse agencies, localized traditions, landscape patterns of Buddhist communities and monasteries in Trans-Himalayan regions; focusing Zanskar Valley and Spiti Valley in India will be illustrated based on an author’s field work. And then an author will discuss this anthropological landscape analysis is better appropriated with textual and archaeological evidences on the tension between urban monastic and forest Buddhism, the phenomena of sacred landscape, cemetery, garden, natural cave along with socio-economic landscape, the demographic heterogeneity in Early India. Finally, it will be attempted to compare between anthropological landscape of present Trans-Himalayan and archaeological one of ancient Western India. The study of Buddhism in Early India has hardly been discussed through multivalent theoretical archaeology and anthropology of religion, thus traditional and recent scholarship have produced historical meta-narrative though heterogeneous among them. The multidisciplinary approaches of textual critics, archaeology and anthropology will surely help to deconstruct the grand and all-encompassing historical description on Buddhism in Early India and then to reconstruct the localized, behavioral and multivalent narratives. This paper expects to highlight the importance of lesser-studied Buddhist archaeological sites and the dynamic views on religious landscape in Early India with a help of critical anthropology of religion.

Keywords: analogy by living traditions, Buddhism in Early India, landscape analysis, meta-narrative

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Authors: Supranee Wattanasin

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The objectives of this research are to find and collect the knowledge in order to transmit the food wisdom of Salaya community. The research is qualitative tool to gather the data. Phase 1: Collect and analyze related literature review on food wisdom including documents about Salaya community to have a clear picture on Salaya community context. Phase 2: Conduct an action research, stage a people forum to exchange knowledge in food wisdom of Salaya community. Learning stage on cooking, types, and benefits of the food wisdom of Salaya community were also set up, as well as a people forum to find ways to transmit and add value to the food wisdom of Salaya community. The result shows that Salaya old market community was once a marketplace located by Mahasawat canal. The old market had become sluggish due to growing development of land transportation. This had affected the ways of food consumption. Residents in the community chose 3 menus that represent the community’s unique food: chicken green curry, desserts in syrup and Khanom Sai-Sai (steamed flour with coconut filling). The researcher had the local residents train the team on how to make these meals. It was found that people in the community transmit the wisdom to the next generation by teaching and telling from parents to children. ‘Learning through the back door’ is one of the learning methods that the community used and still does.

Keywords: transmission, food wisdom, Salaya, cooking

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Authors: Anant Sharma, Ashwin Rajan

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Customer experience is measured today based on defining a set of metrics and KPIs, setting up thresholds and defining triggers across those thresholds. While this is an effective way of measuring against a Key Performance Indicator ( referred to as KPI in the rest of the paper ), this approach cannot capture the various nuances that make up the overall customer experience. Customers consume a product or service at various levels, which is not reflected in metrics like Customer Satisfaction or Net Promoter Score, but also across other measurements like recurring revenue, frequency of service usage, e-learning and depth of usage. Here we explore an alternative method of measuring customer experience by flipping the traditional views. Rather than rolling customers up to a metric, we roll up metrics to hierarchies and then measure customer experience. This method allows any team to quantify customer experience across multiple touchpoints in a customer’s journey. We make use of various data sources which contain information for metrics like CXSAT, NPS, Renewals, and depths of service usage collected across a customer lifecycle. This data can be mined systematically to get linkages between different data points like geographies, business groups, products and time. Additional views can be generated by blending synthetic contexts into the data to show trends and top/bottom types of reports. We have created a framework that allows us to measure customer experience using the above logic.

Keywords: analytics, customers experience, BI, business operations, KPIs, metrics

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Authors: Rohit T. P., Sahil Athrij, Sasi Gopalan

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Currently, the content entertainment industry is dominated by mobile devices. As the trends slowly shift towards Augmented/Virtual Reality applications the computational demands on these devices are increasing exponentially and we are already reaching the limits of hardware optimizations. This paper proposes a software solution to this problem. By leveraging the capabilities of cloud computing we can offload the work from mobile devices to dedicated rendering servers that are way more powerful. But this introduces the problem of latency. This paper introduces a protocol that can achieve high-performance low latency Augmented/Virtual Reality experience. There are two parts to the protocol, 1) In-flight compression The main cause of latency in the system is the time required to transmit the camera frame from client to server. The round trip time is directly proportional to the amount of data transmitted. This can therefore be reduced by compressing the frames before sending. Using some standard compression algorithms like JPEG can result in minor size reduction only. Since the images to be compressed are consecutive camera frames there won't be a lot of changes between two consecutive images. So inter-frame compression is preferred. Inter-frame compression can be implemented efficiently using WebGL but the implementation of WebGL limits the precision of floating point numbers to 16bit in most devices. This can introduce noise to the image due to rounding errors, which will add up eventually. This can be solved using an improved interframe compression algorithm. The algorithm detects changes between frames and reuses unchanged pixels from the previous frame. This eliminates the need for floating point subtraction thereby cutting down on noise. The change detection is also improved drastically by taking the weighted average difference of pixels instead of the absolute difference. The kernel weights for this comparison can be fine-tuned to match the type of image to be compressed. 2) Dynamic Load distribution Conventional cloud computing architectures work by offloading as much work as possible to the servers, but this approach can cause a hit on bandwidth and server costs. The most optimal solution is obtained when the device utilizes 100% of its resources and the rest is done by the server. The protocol balances the load between the server and the client by doing a fraction of the computing on the device depending on the power of the device and network conditions. The protocol will be responsible for dynamically partitioning the tasks. Special flags will be used to communicate the workload fraction between the client and the server and will be updated in a constant interval of time ( or frames ). The whole of the protocol is designed so that it can be client agnostic. Flags are available to the client for resetting the frame, indicating latency, switching mode, etc. The server can react to client-side changes on the fly and adapt accordingly by switching to different pipelines. The server is designed to effectively spread the load and thereby scale horizontally. This is achieved by isolating client connections into different processes.

Keywords: 2D kernelling, augmented reality, cloud computing, dynamic load distribution, immersive experience, mobile computing, motion tracking, protocols, real-time systems, web-based augmented reality application

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Authors: Robyn Jackaman

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This research explores the characterization of leadership, self-awareness, and gender identity within a higher educational institution. This is in response to the widely researched area of gender in relation to senior management levels and the contemporary reflection of this issue in leadership, where gender diversity is lacking. Through organizational platforms, the University has self-identified issues relating to gender, equality, and representation. With equality being central to the core of the project, a Community Participatory Action Research approach was implemented. This approach was chosen as it is recognized for facilitating change within community contexts which complements the University Campus culture. Seventeen semi-structured interviews gave qualitative insight into working habitus (from both professional and academic services), leadership attributions and qualities and gender significance within the workplace. The research team (cross-disciplinary) used framework analysis to code and categorized the data. Key findings presented categories in gender significance to personal/work identity, organizational change and positive reflections on leadership characteristics and roles. This research has helped support the creation of tools to better assist the organization in gender equality, inclusion, and leadership development.

Keywords: gendered work, gender equality, leadership, university organization

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Authors: Azza Hashim Abbas, Wan Rosli Wan Suliman

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The old school of study, well testing reservoir engineers used the transient pressure analyses to get certain parameters and variable factors on the reservoir's physical properties, such as, (permeability-thickness). Recently, the difficulties facing the newly discovered areas are the convincing fact that the exploration and production (E&p) team should have sufficiently accurate and appropriate data to work with due to different sources of errors. The well-test analyst does the work without going through well-informed and reliable data from colleagues which may consequently cause immense environmental damage and unnecessary financial losses as well as opportunity losses to the project. In 2003, new potential oil field (Moga) face circulation problem well-22 was safely completed. However the high mud density had caused an extensive damage to the nearer well area which also distracted the hypothetical oil rate of flow that was not representive of the real reservoir characteristics This paper presents methods to analyze and interpret the production rate and pressure data of an oil field. Specifically for Well- 22 using the Deconvolution technique to enhance the transient pressure .Applying deconvolution to get the best range of certainty of results needed for the next subsequent operation. The range determined and analysis of skin factor range was reasonable.

Keywords: well testing, exploration, deconvolution, skin factor, un certainity

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Authors: Dario Milani, Guido Morgenthal

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Fluid dynamic computation of wind caused forces on bluff bodies e.g light flexible civil structures or high incidence of ground approaching airplane wings, is one of the major criteria governing their design. For such structures a significant dynamic response may result, requiring the usage of small scale devices as guide-vanes in bridge design to control these effects. The focus of this paper is on the numerical simulation of the bluff body problem involving multiscale phenomena induced by small scale devices. One of the solution methods for the CFD simulation that is relatively successful in this class of applications is the Vortex Particle Method (VPM). The method is based on a grid free Lagrangian formulation of the Navier-Stokes equations, where the velocity field is modeled by particles representing local vorticity. These vortices are being convected due to the free stream velocity as well as diffused. This representation yields the main advantages of low numerical diffusion, compact discretization as the vorticity is strongly localized, implicitly accounting for the free-space boundary conditions typical for this class of FSI problems, and a natural representation of the vortex creation process inherent in bluff body flows. When the particle resolution reaches the Kolmogorov dissipation length, the method becomes a Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS). However, it is crucial to note that any solution method aims at balancing the computational cost against the accuracy achievable. In the classical VPM method, if the fluid domain is discretized by Np particles, the computational cost is O(Np2). For the coupled FSI problem of interest, for example large structures such as long-span bridges, the aerodynamic behavior may be influenced or even dominated by small structural details such as barriers, handrails or fairings. For such geometrically complex and dimensionally large structures, resolving the complete domain with the conventional VPM particle discretization might become prohibitively expensive to compute even for moderate numbers of particles. It is possible to reduce this cost either by reducing the number of particles or by controlling its local distribution. It is also possible to increase the accuracy of the solution without increasing substantially the global computational cost by computing a correction of the particle-particle interaction in some regions of interest. In this paper different strategies are presented in order to extend the conventional VPM method to reduce the computational cost whilst resolving the required details of the flow. The methods include temporal sub stepping to increase the accuracy of the particles convection in certain regions as well as dynamically re-discretizing the particle map to locally control the global and the local amount of particles. Finally, these methods will be applied on a test case and the improvements in the efficiency as well as the accuracy of the proposed extension to the method are presented. The important benefits in terms of accuracy and computational cost of the combination of these methods will be thus presented as long as their relevant applications.

Keywords: adaptation, fluid dynamic, remeshing, substepping, vortex particle method

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Authors: Jan-Philipp Schiele, Karsten Schlinkmeier

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Allocation of scarce resources is a core process of traditional project portfolio management. However, with the popularity of agile methodology, established concepts and methods of portfolio management are reaching their limits and need to be adapted. Consequently, the question arises of how the process of resource allocation can be managed appropriately in scaled agile environments. The prevailing framework SAFe offers Weightest Shortest Job First (WSJF) as a prioritization technique, butestablished companies are still looking for methodical adaptions to apply WSJF for prioritization in portfolios in a more goal-oriented way and aligned for their needs in practice. In this paper, the relevant problem of prioritization in portfolios is conceptualized from the perspective of coordination and related mechanisms to support resource allocation. Further, an Action Design Research (ADR) project with case studies in a finance company is outlined to develop a practically applicable yet scientifically sound prioritization method based on coordination theory. The ADR project will be flanked by consortium research with various practitioners from the financial and insurance industry. Preliminary design requirements indicate that the use of a feedback loop leads to better team and executive level coordination in the prioritization process.

Keywords: scaled agility, portfolio management, prioritization, business-IT alignment

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Authors: Pieter De Vries, Renate Klaassen, Maria Ioannides

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This paper is about an explorative research into the use of emerging technologies for teaching and learning in higher engineering education. The assumption is that these technologies and applications, which are not yet widely adopted, will help to improve education and as such actively work on the ability to better deal with the mismatch of skills bothering our industries. Technologies such as 3D printing, the Internet of Things, Virtual Reality, and others, are in a dynamic state of development which makes it difficult to grasp the value for education. Also, the instruments in current educational research seem not appropriate to assess the value of such technologies. This explorative research aims to foster an approach to better deal with this new complexity. The need to find out is urgent, because these technologies will be dominantly present in the near future in all aspects of life, including education. The methodology used in this research comprised an inventory of emerging technologies and tools that potentially give way to innovation and are used or about to be used in technical universities. The inventory was based on both a literature review and a review of reports and web resources like blogs and others and included a series of interviews with stakeholders in engineering education and at representative industries. In addition, a number of small experiments were executed with the aim to analyze the requirements for the use of in this case Virtual Reality and the Internet of Things to better understanding the opportunities and limitations in the day-today learning environment. The major findings indicate that it is rather difficult to decide about the value of these technologies for education due to the dynamic state of change and therefor unpredictability and the lack of a coherent policy at the institutions. Most decisions are being made by teachers on an individual basis, who in their micro-environment are not equipped to select, test and ultimately decide about the use of these technologies. Most experiences are being made in the industry knowing that the skills to handle these technologies are in high demand. The industry though is worried about the inclination and the capability of education to help bridge the skills gap related to the emergence of new technologies. Due to the complexity, the diversity, the speed of development and the decay, education is challenged to develop an approach that can make these technologies work in an integrated fashion. For education to fully profit from the opportunities, these technologies offer it is eminent to develop a pro-active strategy and a sustainable approach to frame the emerging technologies development.

Keywords: emerging technologies, internet of things, pro-active strategy, virtual reality

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Authors: C. Recommandé, J. C. Blind, A. Clavel, R. Gourichon, V. Le Gal

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Simulations are developed in this paper with usual DSGE model equations. The model is based on simplified version of Smets-Wouters equations in use at European Central Bank which implies 10 macro-economic variables: consumption, investment, wages, inflation, capital stock, interest rates, production, capital accumulation, labour and credit rate, and allows take into consideration the banking system. Throughout the simulations, this model will be used to evaluate the impact of rate shocks recounting the actions of the European Central Bank during 2008.

Keywords: CC-LM, Central Bank, DSGE, liquidity shock, non-standard intervention

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Authors: Nashrawan Naser Taha, Andrew M. Cox

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In a multi-cultural learning context, where ties are weak and dynamic, combining qualitative with quantitative research methods may be more effective. Such a combination may also allow us to answer different types of question, such as about people’s perception of the network. In this study the use of observation, interviews and photos were explored as ways of enhancing data from social network questionnaires. Integrating all of these methods was found to enhance the quality of data collected and its accuracy, also providing a richer story of the network dynamics and the factors that shaped these changes over time.

Keywords: mixed methods, social network analysis, multi-cultural learning, social network dynamics

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Authors: Katarzyna Niewiadomska

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Many technology startups fail to achieve a worthwhile return on investment for their funders, founders, and employees. Failures in product development, to-market strategy, sales, and delivery are commonly recognized. Founder failures are not as obvious and harder to identify. This paper explores six critical failure points that entrepreneurs and innovators are susceptible to and aims to link their emotional intelligence and behavioral profile to the points at which they experienced self-perceived failure. A model of six failure points from the perspective of the technology entrepreneur ranging from pre-startup to maturity is provided. By analyzing emotional and behavioral profile data from entrepreneurs and recording in-person accounts, certain key emotional and behavioral clusters contributing to each failure point are determined, and several underlying factors are defined and discussed. Recommendations that support entrepreneurs and innovators stalling at each failure point are given. This work can enable stakeholders to evaluate founder emotional and behavioral profiles and to take risk-mitigating action, either through coaching or through more robust team creation, to avoid founder-related company failure. The paper will be of interest to investors funding startups, executives leading them and mentors supporting them.

Keywords: behavior, emotional intelligence, entrepreneur, failure

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Authors: Mouna Essaadi, Mohamed Khafallah, Abdallah Saad, Hamid Chaikhy

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This paper presents a comparative analysis between conventional direct torque control (C_DTC), Modified direct torque control (M_DTC) and twelve sectors direct torque control (12_DTC).Those different strategies are compared by simulation in term of torque, flux and stator current performances. Finally, a summary of the comparative analysis is presented.

Keywords: C_DTC, M_DTC, 12_DTC, torque dynamic, stator current, flux, performances

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Authors: Arvind Kumar Trivedi

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Our Earth is dynamic in nature and its structure behaves like a puzzle because the interior of the Earth is in both gaseous as well as molten (liquid) form and the crust i.e. the outermost surface is in solid form. This Earth was one landmass known as ‘Pangaea’ in the beginning. With time due to complex phenomena of tectonic movements, it was broken into various landmasses along with water bodies. This Pangaea was in direct contact with the atmosphere playing dominant role in creating various ecosystems on the Earth. Ecosystems mean: Eco (environment body) and systems (interdependent complex of all the organisms interacting with each other). This paper provides an in-depth discussion on tectonic movements as well as ecosystems & how these two affect each other and in the end, we will enlist various methods on how to preserve our ‘Mother Earth’.

Keywords: tectonic movements, ecosystems, plate tectonics, impact

Procedia PDF Downloads 49