Search results for: Relation between Market Orientation and Competitiveness

Authors: Jonathan D. Morales M., Ramón Silva R.

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The purpose of this project is to carry out an analysis and determine the profile of actual lean manufacturing processes in the Metropolitan Area of Bucaramanga. Through the analysis of qualitative and quantitative variables it was possible to establish how these manufacturers develop production practices that ensure their competitiveness and productivity in the market. In this study, a random sample of metallurgic and wrought iron companies was applied, following which a quantitative focus and analysis was used to formulate a qualitative methodology for measuring the level of lean manufacturing procedures in the industry. A qualitative evaluation was also carried out through a multivariate analysis using the Numerical Taxonomy System (NTSYS) program which should allow for the determination of Lean Manufacturing profiles. Through the results it was possible to observe how the companies in the sector are doing with respect to Lean Manufacturing Practices, as well as identify the level of management that these companies practice with respect to this topic. In addition, it was possible to ascertain that there is no one dominant profile in the sector when it comes to Lean Manufacturing. It was established that the companies in the metallurgic and wrought iron industry show low levels of Lean Manufacturing implementation. Each one carries out diverse actions that are insufficient to consolidate a sectoral strategy for developing a competitive advantage which enables them to tie together a production strategy.

Keywords: Lean manufacturing, metallurgic industry, production line management, productivity.

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Authors: Pongsiri K.

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This research aimed to study the market feasibility for new brand coffee house, the case study of Thailand.. This study is a mixed methods research combining quantitative research and the qualitative research. Primary data 350 sets of questionnaires were distributed, and the high quality completed questionnaires of 320 sets returned. Research samples are identified as customers’ of Hi-end department stores in Thailand. The sources of secondary data were critical selected from highly reliable sources, both from public and private sectors. The results were used to classify the customer group into two main groups, the younger than 25 and the older than 25years old. Results of the younger group, are give priority to the dimension of coffee house and its services dimension more than others, then branding dimension and the product dimension respectively. On the other hand, the older group give the difference result as they rate the important of the branding, coffee house and its services, then the product respectively. Coffee consuming is not just the trend but it has become part of people lifestyle. And the new cultures also created by the wise businessman. Coffee was long produced and consumed in Thailand. But it is surprisingly the hi-end brand coffee houses in Thai market are mostly imported brands. The café business possibility for Thai brand coffee house in Thai market were discussed in the paper.

Keywords: Coffee House, Café, Coffee Consuming and new entry branding, market feasibility

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Authors: B. Fahimnia, L.H.S. Luong, B. Motevallian, R. M. Marian, M. M. Esmaeil

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Product Lead Time (PLT) is the period of time from receiving a customer's order to delivering the final product. PLT is an indicator of the manufacturing controllability, efficiency and performance. Due to the explosion in the rate of technological innovations and the rapid changes in the nature of manufacturing processes, manufacturing firms can bring the new products to market quicker only if they can reduce their PLT and speed up the rate at which they can design, plan, control, and manufacture. Although there is a substantial body of research on manufacturing relating to cost and quality issues, there is no much specific research conducted in relation to the formulation of PLT, despite its significance and importance. This paper analyzes and formulates PLT which can be used as a guideline for achieving the shorter PLT. Further more this paper identifies the causes of delay and factors that contributes to the increased product lead-time.

Keywords: Manufacturing Control, Manufacturing Lead Time, Manufacturing Planning, Product Design, and Product Lead Time.

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Authors: Safiah A. Madkhali

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The grammatical relation object has not attracted the same attention in the literature as subject has. Where there is a clearly monotransitive verb such as kick, the criteria for identifying the grammatical relation may converge. However, the term object is also used to refer to phenomena that do not subsume all, or even most, of the recognized properties of the canonical object. Instances of such phenomena include non-canonical objects such as the ones in the so-called double-object construction i.e., the indirect object and the direct object as in (He bought his dog a new collar). In this paper, it is demonstrated how criteria of identifying the grammatical relation object that are found in the theoretical and typological literature can be applied to Arabic. Also, further language-specific criteria are here derived from the regularities of the canonical object in the language. The criteria established in this way are then applied to the non-canonical objects to demonstrate how far they conform to, or diverge from, the canonical object. Contrary to the claim that the direct object is more similar to the canonical object than is the indirect object, it was found that it is, in fact, the indirect object rather than the direct object that shares most of the aspects of the canonical object in monotransitive clauses.

Keywords: Canonical objects, double-object constructions, direct object, indirect object, non-canonical objects.

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Authors: J. L. Liu, L. Wang, B. Zhu, J. Zhou, W. D. Gao

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Fabric textures are very common in our daily life. However, the representation of fabric textures has never been explored from neuroscience view. Theoretical studies suggest that primary visual cortex (V1) uses a sparse code to efficiently represent natural images. However, how the simple cells in V1 encode the artificial textures is still a mystery. So, here we will take fabric texture as stimulus to study the response of independent component analysis that is established to model the receptive field of simple cells in V1. We choose 140 types of fabrics to get the classical fabric textures as materials. Experiment results indicate that the receptive fields of simple cells have obvious selectivity in orientation, frequency and phase when drifting gratings are used to determine their tuning properties. Additionally, the distribution of optimal orientation and frequency shows that the patch size selected from each original fabric image has a significant effect on the frequency selectivity.

Keywords: Fabric Texture, Receptive Filed, Simple Cell, Spare Coding.

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Authors: Edikan E. Akpanibah, Ogunmodimu Dupe Catherine

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The relevance of geometric Brownian motion (GBM) in modelling the behaviour of stock market prices (SMP) cannot be over emphasized taking into consideration the volatility of the SMP. Consequently, there is need to investigate how GBM models are being estimated and used in financial market to predict SMP. To achieve this, the GBM estimation and its application to the SMP of some selected companies are studied. The normal and log-normal distributions were used to determine the expected value, variance and co-variance. Furthermore, the GBM model was used to predict the SMP of some selected companies over a period of time and the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) were calculated and used to determine the accuracy of the GBM model in predicting the SMP of the four companies under consideration. It was observed that for all the four companies, their MAPE values were within the region of acceptance. Also, the MAPE values of our data were compared to an existing literature to test the accuracy of our prediction with respect to time of investment. Finally, some numerical simulations of the graphs of the SMP, expectations and variance of the four companies over a period of time were presented using MATLAB programming software.

Keywords: Stock Market, Geometric Brownian Motion, normal and log-normal distribution, mean absolute percentage error.

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Authors: Bello Nurudeen Akinsola

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The study analyzed the risk and returns of commercial-property in Southwestern Nigeria and selected stocksmarket investment between 2000 and 2009; compared the inflation hedging characteristics and diversification potentials of investing in commercial-property and selected stock- market investment. Primary data were collected on characteristics, rental and capital values of commercial- properties from their property managers through the use of questionnaire. Secondary data on stock prices and dividends on banking, insurance and conglomerates sectors were sourced from the Nigerian Stock Exchange (2000-2009). The result showed that average return on all the selected stock- investments was higher than that of commercial-property. As regards risk, commercial-property indicated lower risk, compared to stocks. Also the stock-investment had better inflation hedging capacity than commercial-properties; combination of both had diversification potentials. The study concluded that stock-market investment offered attractive higher return than commercial-property although with higher risk and there could be diversification benefits in combining commercial-property with stock- investment.

Keywords: Commercial-Property, Return, Risk, Stock Market

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Authors: Guenther Schuh, Christina Koenig, Nico Schoen, Markus Wellensiek

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Identification and selection of appropriate product and manufacturing technologies are key factors for competitiveness and market success of technology-based companies. Therefore, many companies perform technology intelligence (TI) activities to ensure the identification of evolving technologies at the right time. Technology monitoring is one of the three base activities of TI, besides scanning and scouting. As the technological progress is accelerating, more and more technologies are being developed. Against the background of limited resources it is therefore necessary to focus TI activities. In this paper we propose a concept for defining appropriate search fields for technology monitoring. This limitation of search space leads to more concentrated monitoring activities. The concept will be introduced and demonstrated through an anonymized case study conducted within an industry project at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT. The described concept provides a customized monitoring approach, which is suitable for use in technology-oriented companies. It is shown in this paper that the definition of search fields and search tasks are suitable methods to define topics of interest and thus to align monitoring activities. Current as well as planned product, production and material technologies and existing skills, capabilities and resources form the basis for derivation of relevant search areas. To further improve the concept of technology monitoring the proposed concept should be extended during future research e.g. by the definition of relevant monitoring parameters.

Keywords: Monitoring radar, search field, technology intelligence, technology monitoring.

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Authors: K. Nirmala Devi, V. Murali Bhaskaran

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Traditional document representation for classification follows Bag of Words (BoW) approach to represent the term weights. The conventional method uses the Vector Space Model (VSM) to exploit the statistical information of terms in the documents and they fail to address the semantic information as well as order of the terms present in the documents. Although, the phrase based approach follows the order of the terms present in the documents rather than semantics behind the word. Therefore, a semantic concept based approach is used in this paper for enhancing the semantics by incorporating the ontology information. In this paper a novel method is proposed to forecast the intraday stock market price directional movement based on the sentiments from Twitter and money control news articles. The stock market forecasting is a very difficult and highly complicated task because it is affected by many factors such as economic conditions, political events and investor’s sentiment etc. The stock market series are generally dynamic, nonparametric, noisy and chaotic by nature. The sentiment analysis along with wisdom of crowds can automatically compute the collective intelligence of future performance in many areas like stock market, box office sales and election outcomes. The proposed method utilizes collective sentiments for stock market to predict the stock price directional movements. The collective sentiments in the above social media have powerful prediction on the stock price directional movements as up/down by using Granger Causality test.

Keywords: Bag of Words, Collective Sentiments, Ontology, Semantic relations, Sentiments, Social media, Stock Prediction, Twitter, Vector Space Model and wisdom of crowds.

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Authors: Rawaa H. El-Bidweihy, Hisham M. Abdelsalam, Ihab A. El-Khodary

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Bayesian networks are now considered to be a promising tool in the field of energy with different applications. In this study, the aim was to indicate the states of a previous constructed Bayesian network related to the solar energy in Egypt and the factors affecting its market share, depending on the followed data distribution type for each factor, and using either the Z-distribution approach or the Chebyshev’s inequality theorem. Later on, the separate and the conditional probabilities of the states of each factor in the Bayesian network were derived, either from the collected and scrapped historical data or from estimations and past studies. Results showed that we could use the constructed model for scenario and decision analysis concerning forecasting the total percentage of the market share of the solar energy in Egypt by 2035 and using it as a stable renewable source for generating any type of energy needed. Also, it proved that whenever the use of the solar energy increases, the total costs decreases. Furthermore, we have identified different scenarios, such as the best, worst, 50/50, and most likely one, in terms of the expected changes in the percentage of the solar energy market share. The best scenario showed an 85% probability that the market share of the solar energy in Egypt will exceed 10% of the total energy market, while the worst scenario showed only a 24% probability that the market share of the solar energy in Egypt will exceed 10% of the total energy market. Furthermore, we applied policy analysis to check the effect of changing the controllable (decision) variable’s states acting as different scenarios, to show how it would affect the target nodes in the model. Additionally, the best environmental and economical scenarios were developed to show how other factors are expected to be, in order to affect the model positively. Additional evidence and derived probabilities were added for the weather dynamic nodes whose states depend on time, during the process of converting the Bayesian network into a dynamic Bayesian network.

Keywords: Bayesian network, Chebyshev, decision variable, dynamic Bayesian network, Z-distribution

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Authors: Samuel Carpintero

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Public-private partnerships (PPP) arrangements have been extensively used in Canada, where the participation of private companies in financing and managing infrastructure projects has increased significantly in the last decade, particularly in the transportation sector. This paper analyses the evolution of the PPP market for transportation projects in Canada and examines the participation of Spanish developers in this market, which have been particularly successful in winning PPP contracts during the last decade.

Keywords: PPP, concession, infrastructure, construction.

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Authors: Dawei Cai

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This paper describes a design of earphone style wearable device that may provide an automatic guidance service for visitors. With both position information and orientation information obtained from NFC and terrestrial magnetism sensor, a high level automatic guide service may be realized. To realize the service, a algorithm for position detection using the packet from NFC tags, and developed an algorithm to calculate the device orientation based on the data from acceleration and terrestrial magnetism sensors called as MEMS. If visitors want to know some explanation about an exhibit in front of him, what he has to do is only move to the object and stands for a moment. The identification program will automatically recognize the status based on the information from NFC and MEMS, and start playing explanation content about the exhibit. This service should be useful for improving the understanding of the exhibition items and bring more satisfactory visiting experience without less burden.

Keywords: Wearable device, MEMS sensor, NFC, ubiquitous computing, guide system.

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Authors: P. Sankar, P. James Daniel Paul, Siddhant Sahu

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A brief review of the empirical studies on the methodology of the stock market decision support would indicate that they are at a threshold of validating the accuracy of the traditional and the fuzzy, artificial neural network and the decision trees. Many researchers have been attempting to compare these models using various data sets worldwide. However, the research community is on the way to the conclusive confidence in the emerged models. This paper attempts to use the automotive sector stock prices from National Stock Exchange (NSE), India and analyze them for the intra-sectorial support for stock market decisions. The study identifies the significant variables and their lags which affect the price of the stocks using OLS analysis and decision tree classifiers.

Keywords: Indian Automotive Sector, Stock Market Decisions, Equity Portfolio Analysis, Decision Tree Classifiers, Statistical Data Analysis.

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Authors: Salavati, Adel, Ebadi Shaghayegh

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This study examines knowledge management in the public organizations in Iran. The purpose of this article is to provide a conceptual framework for application of knowledge management in public organizations. The study indicates that an increasing tendency for implementation of knowledge management in organizations is emerging. Nonetheless knowledge management in public organizations is toddler and little has been done to bring the subject to use in the public sector. The globalization of change and popularization of some values like participation, citizen-orientation and knowledge-orientation in the new theories of public administration requires that the knowledge management is considered and attend to in the public sector. This study holds that a knowledge management framework for public organizations is different from this in the public sector, because public sector is stakeholder-dependent while the private is shareholder-dependent. Based on the research, we provide a conceptual model. The model proposed involves three factors: Organizational, knowledge citizens and contextual factors. The study results indicate these factors affect on knowledge management in public organizations in Iran.

Keywords: Knowledge management, public organizations in Iran, model of knowledge management.

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Authors: Ekachai Phaisangittisagul, Rapeepol Chongprachawat

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Obtaining labeled data in supervised learning is often difficult and expensive, and thus the trained learning algorithm tends to be overfitting due to small number of training data. As a result, some researchers have focused on using unlabeled data which may not necessary to follow the same generative distribution as the labeled data to construct a high-level feature for improving performance on supervised learning tasks. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the relationship between unlabeled and labeled data for classification performance. Specifically, we will apply difference unlabeled data which have different degrees of relation to the labeled data for handwritten digit classification task based on MNIST dataset. Our experimental results show that the higher the degree of relation between unlabeled and labeled data, the better the classification performance. Although the unlabeled data that is completely from different generative distribution to the labeled data provides the lowest classification performance, we still achieve high classification performance. This leads to expanding the applicability of the supervised learning algorithms using unsupervised learning.

Keywords: Autoencoder, high-level feature, MNIST dataset, selftaught learning, supervised learning.

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Authors: M’hamed Outanoute, Mohamed Baslam, Belaid Bouikhalene

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The customers use the best compromise criterion between price and quality of service (QoS) to select or change their Service Provider (SP). The SPs share the same market and are competing to attract more customers to gain more profit. Due to the divergence of SPs interests, we believe that this situation is a non-cooperative game of price and QoS. The game converges to an equilibrium position known Nash Equilibrium (NE). In this work, we formulate a game theoretic framework for the dynamical behaviors of SPs. We use Genetic Algorithms (GAs) to find the price and QoS strategies that maximize the profit for each SP and illustrate the corresponding strategy in NE. In order to quantify how this NE point is performant, we perform a detailed analysis of the price of anarchy induced by the NE solution. Finally, we provide an extensive numerical study to point out the importance of considering price and QoS as a joint decision parameter.

Keywords: Pricing, QoS, Market share game, Genetic algorithms, Nash equilibrium, Learning, Price of anarchy.

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Authors: Robert Grzeszczak, Magdalena Gniadzik

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The article deals with one of the most significant issues concerning the functioning of the internal market of the European Union – the free movement of workers and free movement of persons. The purpose is to identify the political and legal effects of the “renationalisation process” on the EU and its Member States. The concept of renationalisation is expressed through Member States’ aim to verify the relationship with the EU. The tendency is more visible in the public opinion of several MS’s of the ‘EU core’ and may be confirmed by the changes applied by the regulatory body. The thesis for the article is the return of renationalisation tendencies in the area of the Single Market, which is supported by, among others, an open criticism of the foundations of EU integration or considerations on withdrawal from the EU by some MS. This analysis will focus primarily on the effects that renationalisation may have on the free movement of persons. The free movement of persons is one of the key issues for the development of the European integration. It is still subject to theoretical reflections, new doubts and practical issues. The latest developments in politics, law and jurisprudence demonstrate the need to reflect on the attempts to redefine certain principles regarding migrant EU workers and their protection against nationality-based discrimination.

Keywords: European law, European Union, common market, free movement of workers, posting of workers, case law.

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Authors: Prashant Kumar Tiwari, Yog Raj Sood

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This paper proposes an investment cost recovery based efficient and fast sequential optimization approach to optimal allocation of thyristor controlled series compensator (TCSC) in competitive power market. The optimization technique has been used with an objective to maximizing the social welfare and minimizing the device installation cost by suitable location and rating of TCSC in the system. The effectiveness of proposed approach for location of TCSC has been compared with some existing methods of TCSC placement, in terms of its impact on social welfare, TCSC investment recovery and optimal generation as well as load patterns. The results have been obtained on modified IEEE 14-bus system.

Keywords: Double auction market, Investment cost recovery, Optimal location, Social welfare, TCSC

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Authors: Zh. Nurbekova, Z. Zhanazarova, A. Beissenova

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This article is devoted to the analysis of results of sociological researches carried out by authors directed on studying of opinion of representatives of small, medium and big business on formation of the Customs Union, Common Free Market Zone with participation of Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus. It-s forecasted that companies, their branches will interpenetrate with registration and moving their businesses to regions with more beneficial conditions. They say that in Kazakhstan there are more profitable geo-strategic operating environment for business and lower taxes. Russia using this opportunity will create new conditions for expansion into other countries of Central Asia and China. Opinions of participants of questionnaire and expert poll different in estimation of value of these two integration mechanisms since market segments on the one hand extend, but also on the other hand - loss of exclusive influence in certain fields of activity.

Keywords: Customs Union, Kazakhstan, sociological research.

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Authors: Imran S.Bajwa

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The trends of design and development of information systems have undergone a variety of ongoing phases and stages. These variations have been evolved due to brisk changes in user requirements and business needs. To meet these requirements and needs, a flexible and agile business solution was required to come up with the latest business trends and styles. Another obstacle in agility of information systems was typically different treatment of same diseases of two patients: business processes and information services. After the emergence of information technology, the business processes and information systems have become counterparts. But these two business halves have been treated under totally different standards. There is need to streamline the boundaries of these both pillars that are equally sharing information system's burdens and liabilities. In last decade, the object orientation has evolved into one of the major solutions for modern business needs and now, SOA is the solution to shift business on ranks of electronic platform. BPM is another modern business solution that assists to regularize optimization of business processes. This paper discusses how object orientation can be conformed to incorporate or embed SOA in BPM for improved information systems.

Keywords: Object Oriented Business Solutions, Services forBusiness Processes; Mixing SOA and BPM.

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Authors: João V. Staub de Melo, Glicério Trichês, Liseane P. Thives

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This paper presents the results of the development of asphalt nanocomposites containing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with high resistance to permanent deformation, aiming to increase the performance of asphalt surfaces in relation to the rutting problem. Asphalt nanocomposites were prepared with the addition of different proportions of CNTs (1%, 2% and 3%) in relation to the weight of asphalt binder. The base binder used was a conventional binder (50-70 penetration) classified as PG 58-22. The optimum percentage of CNT addition in the asphalt binder (base) was determined through the evaluation of the rheological and empirical characteristics of the nanocomposites produced. In order to evaluate the contribution and the effects of the nanocomposite (optimized) in relation to the rutting, the conventional and nanomodified asphalt mixtures were tested in a French traffic simulator (Orniéreur). The results obtained demonstrate the efficient contribution of the asphalt nanocomposite containing CNTs to the resistance to permanent deformation of the asphalt mixture.

Keywords: Asphalt nanocomposites, asphalt mixtures, carbon nanotubes, nanotechnology, permanent deformation.

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Authors: G.K.Panda, S.S.Rout

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The balancing numbers are natural numbers n satisfying the Diophantine equation 1 + 2 + 3 + · · · + (n - 1) = (n + 1) + (n + 2) + · · · + (n + r); r is the balancer corresponding to the balancing number n.The nth balancing number is denoted by Bn and the sequence {Bn}1 n=1 satisfies the recurrence relation Bn+1 = 6Bn-Bn-1. The balancing numbers posses some curious properties, some like Fibonacci numbers and some others are more interesting. This paper is a study of recurrent sequence {xn}1 n=1 satisfying the recurrence relation xn+1 = Axn - Bxn-1 and possessing some curious properties like the balancing numbers.

Keywords: Recurrent sequences, Balancing numbers, Lucas balancing numbers, Binet form.

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Authors: Mingook Lee, Sungjoo Lee

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As technology-based service industries grow drastically worldwide; companies are recognizing the importance of market preoccupancy and have made an effort to capture a large market to gain the upper hand. To this end, a focus on patents can be used to determine the properties of a technology, as well as to capture advantages in technical skills, in comparison with the firm’s competitors. However, technology-based services largely depend not only on their technological value but also their economic value, due to the recognized worth that is passed to a plurality of users. Thus, it is important to determine whether there are any competitors in the target areas and what services they provide in any field. Despite this importance, little effort has been made to systematically benchmark competitors in order to identify business opportunities. Thus, this study aims to not only identify each position of technology-centered service companies in complex market dynamics, but also to discover new business opportunities. For this, we try to consider both technology and market environments simultaneously by utilizing patent data as a representative proxy for technology and trademark dates as an index for a firm’s target goods and services. Theoretically, this is one of the earliest attempts to combine patent data and trademark data to analyze corporate strategies. In practice, the research results are expected to be used as a decision criterion to diagnose the economic value that companies can obtain by entering the market, as well as the technological value to be passed onto their customers. Thus, the proposed approach can be useful to support effective technology and business strategies in a firm.

Keywords: Business opportunity, patent, Portfolio analysis, trademark.

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Authors: N. J. Imu, N. Rabbani, Md E. Hossain

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Achieving national climate goals requires transforming the energy system and increasing the use of renewable energy in Bangladesh as renewable energy offers an environmentally friendly energy supply. In view of this, Bangladesh has set a goal of 100% renewable power generation by 2050. Among all the renewable energy, solar is the most effective and popular source of renewable energy in Bangladesh. In order to build up on-grid and off-grid solar systems to increase energy transformation, monocrystalline type (highly efficient) solar module, and the polycrystalline type (low-efficient) solar module are commonly used. Due to their low price and availability, polycrystalline-type solar modules dominated the local market in the past years. However, in recent times the use of monocrystalline types modules has increased considerably owing to the significant decrease in price difference that existed between these two modules. Despite the deployment of both mono- and poly-crystalline modules in the market, the proliferation of low-quality solar panels are dominating the market resulting in reduced generation of solar electricity than expected. This situation is further aggravated by insufficient information regarding the effect of solar irradiation on solar module performance in relation to the quality of the materials used for the production of the module. This research aims to evaluate the efficiency of monocrystalline and polycrystalline solar modules that are available in Bangladesh by considering seasonal variations. Both types of solar modules have been tested for three different capacities 45W, 60W, and 100W in Dhaka regions to evaluate their power generation capability under Standard Test Conditions (STC). Module testing data were recorded twelve months in a full year from January to December. Data for solar irradiation were collected using HT304N while HT I-V400 multifunction instrument was used for testing voltage and current of photovoltaic (PV) systems and complete power quality analyzer. Results obtained in this study indicated differences between the efficiencies of polycrystalline and monocrystalline solar modules under the country’s solar irradiation. The average efficiencies of 45W, 60W, and 100W monocrystalline solar panels were recorded as 11.73%, 13.41%, and 15.37% respectively while for polycrystalline panels were 8.66%, 9.37%, and 12.34%. Monocrystalline solar panels, which offer greater working output than polycrystalline ones, are also represented by the Pearson Correlation value. The output of polycrystalline solar panels fluctuated highly with the changes in irradiation and temperature whereas monocrystalline panels were much stable.

Keywords: Solar energy, solar irradiation, efficiency, polycrystalline solar module, monocrystalline solar module, SPSS analysis.

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Authors: Syeda Maria Ali Shah, Asif Mansoor, Talat Sharafat Rehmani, Safia Mirza

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The stock market of any country acts as a predictor of the economy. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the global financial markets. Besides, it has also critically affected the economy of Pakistan. In this study, we consider the role of the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) with regard to the Pakistan Stock Exchange and quantify the impact on macroeconomic variables in presence of COVID-19. The suitable macroeconomic variables are used to quantify the impact of COVID-19 by developing the stochastic model. The sufficiency of the computed model is attained by means of available techniques in the literature. The estimated equations are used to forecast the impact of pandemic on macroeconomic variables. The constructed model can help the policymakers take counteractive measures for restricting the influence of viruses on the Karachi Stock Market.

Keywords: COVID-19, Karachi Stock Market, macroeconomic variables, stochastic model, forecasting.

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Authors: Mihai Gheorghe

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Freelancing in IT has seen an increased popularity during the last years mainly because of the fast Internet adoption in the countries with emerging economies, correlated with the continuous seek for reduced development costs as well with the rise of online platforms which address planning, coordination and various development tasks. This paper conducts an overview of the most relevant Freelance Marketplaces available and studies the market structure, distribution of the workforce and trends in IT freelancing.

Keywords: Freelancing in IT, Freelance Marketplaces, Freelance Market Structure, Globalization, Online Staffing, Trends in Freelancing.

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Authors: Toyomi Fujita

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This paper presents a sensing system for 3D sensing and mapping by a tracked mobile robot with an arm-type sensor movable unit and a laser range finder (LRF). The arm-type sensor movable unit is mounted on the robot and the LRF is installed at the end of the unit. This system enables the sensor to change position and orientation so that it avoids occlusions according to terrain by this mechanism. This sensing system is also able to change the height of the LRF by keeping its orientation flat for efficient sensing. In this kind of mapping, it may be difficult for moving robot to apply mapping algorithms such as the iterative closest point (ICP) because sets of the 2D data at each sensor height may be distant in a common surface. In order for this kind of mapping, the authors therefore applied interpolation to generate plausible model data for ICP. The results of several experiments provided validity of these kinds of sensing and mapping in this sensing system.

Keywords: Laser Range Finder, Arm-Type Sensor Movable Unit, Tracked Mobile Robot, 3D Mapping.

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Authors: Piotr Prewysz-Kwinto

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The market of financial instruments with high risk is developing very dynamically in recent years and attracts more and more interest of investors. It consists essentially of two groups of instruments, i.e. derivatives and exchange traded product (ETP), and each year new types are introduced and offered to investors. The aim of this paper is to present the principles concerning financial instruments with high investment risk available on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE), because they have quite complex constructions, and to evaluate the development of this market. In order to achieve this aim, statistical data from 2014-2016 was analyzed. The results confirm that the financial instruments with high investment risk available on the WSE constitute a diversified and the most numerous group of financial instruments and attract the most interest of investors. Responsible investing requires, however, a good knowledge of how they work and how they can generate profit to not expose oneself to unexpected losses.

Keywords: Derivatives, exchange traded products, financial instruments, financial market, risk, stock exchange.

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Authors: M. Shirinbayan, J. Fitoussi, N. Abbasnezhad, A. Lucas, A. Tcharkhtchi

Abstract:

Sheet Molding Compounds (SMCs) with special microstructures are very attractive to use in automobile structures especially when they are accidentally subjected to collision type accidents because of their high energy absorption capacity. These are materials designated as standard SMC, Advanced Sheet Molding Compounds (A-SMC), Low-Density SMC (LD-SMC) and etc. In this study, testing methods have been performed to compare the mechanical responses and damage phenomena of SMC, LD-SMC, and A-SMC under quasi-static and high strain rate tensile tests. The paper also aims at investigating the effect of an initial pre-damage induced by fatigue on the tensile dynamic behavior of A-SMC. In the case of SMCs and A-SMCs, whatever the fibers orientation and applied strain rate are, the first observed phenomenon of damage corresponds to decohesion of the fiber-matrix interface which is followed by coalescence and multiplication of these micro-cracks and their propagations. For LD-SMCs, damage mechanisms depend on the presence of Hollow Glass Microspheres (HGM) and fibers orientation.

Keywords: SMC, LD-SMC, A-SMC, HGM, damage.

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Authors: Natalia Polkanova, Sergey Kazakov

Abstract:

In the second decade of the XXI century the role of tourism destination attractiveness is becoming increasingly important for destination management. Competition in tourism market moves from ordinary service quality to provision of unforgettable emotional experience for tourists. The main purpose of the present study is to identify the perception of the tourism destinations based on the number of factors related to its tourist attractiveness. The content analysis method was used to analyze the on-line tourist feedback data immensely available in Social Media and in travel related sites. The collected data made it possible to procure the information which is necessary to understand the perceived attractiveness of the destinations and key destination appeal factors that are important for Russian leisure travelers. Results of the present study demonstrate key attractiveness factors or destination ‘properties’ that were unveiled as the most important for Russian leisure tourists. The study targeted five main Spanish tourism destinations that initially were determined by in-depth interview with a number of Russian nationals who had visited Spain at least once. The research results can be useful for Spanish Tourism Organization Representation office in Russia as well as for the other national tourism organizations in order to promote their respective destinations for Russian travelers focusing on main attractiveness factors identified in this study.

Keywords: Tourism destination, destination attractiveness, destination competitiveness, content analysis, unstructured image.

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