Search results for: common market

Authors: Marzena Świgoń

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Nowadays, graduates should be prepared for serious challenges in the internal and external labor market. The notion that a degree is a “passport to employment” has been relegated to the past. In the last few years a phenomenon in the form of the increasing unemployment of highly educated young people in EU countries, including Poland has been observed. Empirical studies were conducted among Polish students in the scope of the so-called self-perceived employability review. In this study, a special scale was used which consisted of 19 statements regarding five components: student’s perception of university; field of study; self-belief; state of the external labor market; and, personal knowledge management. The respondent group consisted of final-year master’s students of International Relations at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. The findings of the empirical studies were compiled using statistical methods: descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. In general, in light of the conducted studies, the self-perceived employability of the Polish students was not high. Limitations of the studies were discussed, as well as the implications for future research in the scope of the students’ employability.

Keywords: Self-perceived employability, students of international relations, university education.

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Authors: Amany S. Youssef, Suzan A.M. El Feky, Samy A. El-Asser, Rasha A.M. Abd Allah

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Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the most common nosocomial infection in surgical patients resulting in significant increases in postoperative morbidity and mortality. The commonly causative bacteria developed resistance to virtually all antibiotics available. The aim of this study was to isolation and identification the most common bacteria that cause SSIs in Medical Research Institute, and to compare their sensitivity to selected group of antibiotics and natural products (garlic, oregano, olive, and Nigella sativa oils). The isolated pathogens collected from infected surgical wounds were identified, and their sensitivities to the antibiotics commonly available for clinical use, and also to the different concentrations of the used natural products were investigated. The results indicate to the potential therapeutic effect of the tested natural products in treatment of surgical wound infections.

Keywords: Surgical wounds, multi-resistant bacteria, bacterial sensitivity, natural oils.

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Authors: M.Y. Pua, M.C. Tan, L.W. Tan, N. Ab.Aziz, F.S. Taip

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The most common type of controller being used in the industry is PI(D) controller which has been used since 1945 and is still being widely used due to its efficiency and simplicity. In most cases, the PI(D) controller was tuned without taking into consideration of the effect of actuator saturation. In real processes, the most common actuator which is valve will act as constraint and restrict the controller output. Since the controller is not designed to encounter saturation, the process may windup and consequently resulted in large oscillation or may become unstable. Usually, an antiwindup compensator is added to the feedback control loop to reduce the deterioration effect of integral windup. This research aims to specifically control processes with constraints. The proposed method was applied to two different types of food processes, which are blending and spray drying. Simulations were done using MATLAB and the performances of the proposed method were compared with other conventional methods. The proposed technique was able to control the processes and avoid saturation such that no anti windup compensator is needed.

Keywords: constraints, food process control, first order plusdead time process, PI

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Authors: Mohammad A. Talaat, Magdi A. Koutb, Hoda S. Sorour

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In this paper we investigated a number of the Internet congestion control algorithms that has been developed in the last few years. It was obviously found that many of these algorithms were designed to deal with the Internet traffic merely as a train of consequent packets. Other few algorithms were specifically tailored to handle the Internet congestion caused by running media traffic that represents audiovisual content. This later set of algorithms is considered to be aware of the nature of this media content. In this context we briefly explained a number of congestion control algorithms and hence categorized them into the two following categories: i) Media congestion control algorithms. ii) Common congestion control algorithms. We hereby recommend the usage of the media congestion control algorithms for the reason of being media content-aware rather than the other common type of algorithms that blindly manipulates such traffic. We showed that the spread of such media content-aware algorithms over Internet will lead to better congestion control status in the coming years. This is due to the observed emergence of the era of digital convergence where the media traffic type will form the majority of the Internet traffic.

Keywords: Congestion Control, Media Traffic.

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Authors: Mudafara S Bengleil

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Estimation of the magnitude and causes of poisoning was the objective of the current study. A retrospective study of medical records of all poisoning children admitted to Benghazi Children Hospital in Libya from January 2008 up to December 2010. Number of children admitted was 244; the age ranged from less than one to 13 years old. Most of cases were admitted with mild symptom and the majority of them were boys. Only few cases admitted to intensive care unit and there was no mortality recorded through the period of study. Age group 1 to 3 years (50.8%) had the highest frequency of admission and the peak of admission was during summer. The most common cause of admission was due to ingestion of medication (53.69%), House hold product exposure (26.64%) was the second causes of admission while, 19.67% of admissions were due to Food poisoning. Almost all admitted cases were accidental and medicines were the most consumed substances in addition, improper storage of toxic agents were the first risk factor of poisoning. Present results indicated that, children poisoning seems to be a common pediatric care problem which need to control and prevent.

Keywords: Children, hospital, poisoning.

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Authors: T. Miková

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This paper analyzes the effect of a single uniform accounting rule on reporting quality by investigating the influence of IFRS on earnings management. This paper examines whether earnings management is reduced after IFRS adoption through the use of “loss avoidance thresholds”, a method that has been verified in earlier studies. This paper concentrates on two European countries: one that represents the continental code law tradition with weak protection of investors (France) and one that represents the Anglo-American common law tradition, which typically implies a strong enforcement system (the United Kingdom).

The research investigates a sample of 526 companies (6822 firm-year observations) during the years 2000 – 2013. The results are different for the two jurisdictions. This study demonstrates that a single set of accounting standards contributes to better reporting quality and reduces the pervasiveness of earnings management in France. In contrast, there is no evidence that a reduction in earnings management followed the implementation of IFRS in the United Kingdom. Due to the fact that IFRS benefit France but not the United Kingdom, other political and economic factors, such legal system or capital market strength, must play a significant role in influencing the comparability and transparency cross-border companies’ financial statements. Overall, the result suggests that IFRS moderately contribute to the accounting quality of reported financial statements and bring benefit for stakeholders, though the role played by other economic factors cannot be discounted.

Keywords: Accounting Standards, Earnings Management, International Financial Reporting Standards, Loss Avoidance, Reporting Quality.

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Authors: Cristian Păuna

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In the first decades of the 21st century, in the electronic trading environment, algorithmic capital investments became the primary tool to make a profit by speculations in financial markets. A significant number of traders, private or institutional investors are participating in the capital markets every day using automated algorithms. The autonomous trading software is today a considerable part in the business intelligence system of any modern financial activity. The trading decisions and orders are made automatically by computers using different mathematical models. This paper will present one of these models called Price Prediction Line. A mathematical algorithm will be revealed to build a reliable trend line, which is the base for limit conditions and automated investment signals, the core for a computerized investment system. The paper will guide how to apply these tools to generate entry and exit investment signals, limit conditions to build a mathematical filter for the investment opportunities, and the methodology to integrate all of these in automated investment software. The paper will also present trading results obtained for the leading German financial market index with the presented methods to analyze and to compare different automated investment algorithms. It was found that a specific mathematical algorithm can be optimized and integrated into an automated trading system with good and sustained results for the leading German Market. Investment results will be compared in order to qualify the presented model. In conclusion, a 1:6.12 risk was obtained to reward ratio applying the trigonometric method to the DAX Deutscher Aktienindex on 24 months investment. These results are superior to those obtained with other similar models as this paper reveal. The general idea sustained by this paper is that the Price Prediction Line model presented is a reliable capital investment methodology that can be successfully applied to build an automated investment system with excellent results.

Keywords: Algorithmic trading, automated investment system, DAX Deutscher Aktienindex.

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Authors: Hicham Benamirouche, Oum Elkheir Moussi

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The purpose of the study is to examine the dynamics of Algeria’s natural gas exports through the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach with break points. The analysis was carried out for the period from 1967 to 2015. Based on imperfect substitution specification, the ARDL approach reveals a long-run equilibrium relationship between Algeria’s Natural gas exports and their determinant factors (Algeria’s gas reserves, Domestic gas consumption, Europe’s GDP per capita, relative prices, the European gas production and the market share of competitors). All the long-run elasticities estimated are statistically significant with a large impact of domestic factors, which constitute the supply constraints. In short term, the elasticities are statistically significant, and almost comparable to those of the long term. Furthermore, the speed of adjustment towards long-run equilibrium is less than one year because of the little flexibility of the long term export contracts. Two break points have been estimated when we employ the domestic gas consumption as a break variable; 1984 and 2010, which reflect the arbitration policy between the domestic gas market and gas exports.

Keywords: Natural gas exports, elasticity, ARDL bounds testing, break points, Algeria.

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Authors: Maurício Covolan Rosito, Ricardo Melo Bastos

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Software projects are very dynamic and require recurring adjustments of their project plans. These settings can be understood as reconfigurations in the schedule, in the resources allocation and other design elements. Yet, during the planning and execution of a software project, the integration of specific activities in the projects with the activities that take part in the organization-s common activity flow should be considered. This article presents the results from a systematic review of aspects related to software projects- dynamic reconfiguration emphasizing the integration of project management with the organizational flows. A series of studies was analyzed from the year 2000 to the present. The results of this work show that there is a diversity of techniques and strategies for dynamic reconfiguration of software projects-. However, few approaches consider the integration of software project activities with the activities that take part in the organization-s common workflow.

Keywords: Dynamic Reconfiguration, Organizational workflows, Project Management, Systematic Review

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Authors: G.A.C.P. Ganegoda, D.M.A. Samaranayake, L.S. Bandara, K.A.D.N.K. Wimalawarne

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With the popularity of the multi-core and many-core architectures there is a great requirement for software frameworks which can support parallel programming methodologies. In this paper we introduce an Eclipse toolkit, JConqurr which is easy to use and provides robust support for flexible parallel progrmaming. JConqurr is a multi-core and many-core programming toolkit for Java which is capable of providing support for common parallel programming patterns which include task, data, divide and conquer and pipeline parallelism. The toolkit uses an annotation and a directive mechanism to convert the sequential code into parallel code. In addition to that we have proposed a novel mechanism to achieve the parallelism using graphical processing units (GPU). Experiments with common parallelizable algorithms have shown that our toolkit can be easily and efficiently used to convert sequential code to parallel code and significant performance gains can be achieved.

Keywords: Multi-core, parallel programming patterns, GPU, Java, Eclipse plugin, toolkit,

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Authors: Benazeer Md. Shahzada, Verelst Jan, Van Grembergen Wim, Mannaert Herwig

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This article is an extension and a practical application approach of Wheeler-s NEBIC theory (Net Enabled Business Innovation Cycle). NEBIC theory is a new approach in IS research and can be used for dynamic environment related to new technology. Firms can follow the market changes rapidly with support of the IT resources. Flexible firms adapt their market strategies, and respond more quickly to customers changing behaviors. When every leading firm in an industry has access to the same IT resources, the way that these IT resources are managed will determine the competitive advantages or disadvantages of firm. From Dynamic Capabilities Perspective and from newly introduced NEBIC theory by Wheeler, we know that only IT resources cannot deliver customer value but good configuration of those resources can guarantee customer value by choosing the right emerging technology, grasping the economic opportunities through business innovation and growth. We found evidences in literature that SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) is a promising emerging technology which can deliver the desired economic opportunity through modularity, flexibility and loosecoupling. SOA can also help firms to connect in network which can open a new window of opportunity to collaborate in innovation and right kind of outsourcing

Keywords: Absorptive capacity, Dynamic Capability, Netenabled business innovation cycle, Service oriented architecture.

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Authors: Jung-Lo Park, Sung-Sik Kim, Sun-Young Choi, Ju-Hyung Kim, Jae-Jun Kim

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Sub-prime mortgage crisis which began in the US is regarded as the most economic crisis since the Great Depression in the early 20th century. Especially, hidden problems on efficient operation of a business were disclosed at a time and many financial institutions went bankrupt and filed for court receivership. The collapses of physical market lead to bankruptcy of manufacturing and construction businesses. This study is to analyze dynamic efficiency of construction businesses during the five years at the turn of the global financial crisis. By discovering the trend and stability of efficiency of a construction business, this study-s objective is to improve management efficiency of a construction business in the ever-changing construction market. Variables were selected by analyzing corporate information on top 20 construction businesses in Korea and analyzed for static efficiency in 2008 and dynamic efficiency between 2006 and 2010. Unlike other studies, this study succeeded in deducing efficiency trend and stability of a construction business for five years by using the DEA/Window model. Using the analysis result, efficient and inefficient companies could be figured out. In addition, relative efficiency among DMU was measured by comparing the relationship between input and output variables of construction businesses. This study can be used as a literature to improve management efficiency for companies with low efficiency based on efficiency analysis of construction businesses.

Keywords: Construction Company, DEA, DEA/Window, Efficiency Analysis

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Authors: Joanna Stawska

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The main objective of this article is to examine the impact of interest rates on investments in Poland in the context of financial crisis. The paper also investigates the dependence of bank loans to enterprises on interbank market rates. The article studies the impact of interbank market rate on the level of investments in Poland. Besides, this article focuses on the research of the correlation between the level of corporate loans and the amount of investments in Poland in order to determine the indirect impact of central bank interest rates through the transmission mechanism of monetary policy on the real economy. To achieve the objective we have used econometric and statistical research methods like: econometric model and Pearson correlation coefficient. This analysis suggests that the central bank reference rate inversely proportionally affects the level of investments in Poland and this dependence is moderate. This is also important issue because it is related to preparing of Poland to accession to euro area. The research is important from both theoretical and empirical points of view. The formulated conclusions and recommendations determine the practical significance of the paper which may be used in the decision making process of monetary and economic authorities of the country.

Keywords: Central bank, financial crisis, interest rate, investments.

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Authors: Mohammadreza Razzazi, Maryam Bayat

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Selection of the best possible set of suppliers has a significant impact on the overall profitability and success of any business. For this reason, it is usually necessary to optimize all business processes and to make use of cost-effective alternatives for additional savings. This paper proposes a new efficient context-aware supplier selection model that takes into account possible changes of the environment while significantly reducing selection costs. The proposed model is based on data clustering techniques while inspiring certain principles of online algorithms for an optimally selection of suppliers. Unlike common selection models which re-run the selection algorithm from the scratch-line for any decision-making sub-period on the whole environment, our model considers the changes only and superimposes it to the previously defined best set of suppliers to obtain a new best set of suppliers. Therefore, any recomputation of unchanged elements of the environment is avoided and selection costs are consequently reduced significantly. A numerical evaluation confirms applicability of this model and proves that it is a more optimal solution compared with common static selection models in this field.

Keywords: Supplier Selection, Context-Awareness, OnlineAlgorithms, Data Clustering.

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Authors: Avantika Verma

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In industrialized nations, corneal lacerations are one of the most common reason for hospitalization. This study was designed to study visual and clinical outcome in patients presenting with full thickness corneal lacerations in Indian population and to ascertain the impact of various preoperative and operative factors influencing prognosis after repair of corneal lacerations. Males in third decade with injuries at work with metallic objects were common. Lens damage, hyphema, vitreous hemorrhage, retinal detachment and endophthalmitis were seen. All the patients underwent primary repair within first 24 hours of presentation. At 3 months, 74.3% had a good visual outcome. About 5.7% of patients had no perception of light.In conclusion, various demographic and preoperative factors like age, time of presentation, vision at presentation, length of corneal wound, involvement of visual axis, associated ocular features like hyphaema, lenticular changes, vitreous haemorrhage and retinal detachment are significant prognostic indicators for final visual outcome.

Keywords: Cornea, laceration, visual outcome, wound repair.

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Authors: Miho Tsukamoto

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Since the initial creation of the Barbie doll in 1959, it became a symbol of US society. Likewise, the Licca-chan, a Japanese doll created in 1967, also became a Japanese symbolic doll of Japanese society. Prior to the introduction of Licca-chan, Barbie was already marketed in Japan but their sales were dismal. Licca-chan (an actual name: Kayama Licca) is a plastic doll with a variety of sizes ranging from 21.0 cm to 29.0 cm which many Japanese girls dream of having. For over 35 years, the manufacturer, Takara Co., Ltd. has sold over 48 million dolls and has produced doll houses, accessories, clothes, and Licca-chan video games for the Nintendo DS. Many First-generation Licca-chan consumers still are enamored with Licca-chan, and go to Licca-chan House, in an amusement park with their daughters. These people are called Licca-chan maniacs, as they enjoy touring the Licca-chan’s factory in Tohoku or purchase various Licca-chan accessories. After the successful launch of Licca-chan into the Japanese market, a mixed-like doll from the US and Japan, a doll, JeNny, was later sold in the same Japanese market by Takara Co., Ltd. in 1982. Comparison of these cultural iconic dolls, Barbie and Licca-chan, are analyzed in this paper. In fact, these dolls have concepts of girls’ dreams. By using concepts of mythology of Jean Baudrillard, these dolls can be represented idealized images of figures in the products for consumers, but at the same time, consumers can see products with different perspectives, which can cause controversy.

Keywords: Barbie, Dolls, JeNny, Idealization, Licca-chan.

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Authors: Edward Pol

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All companies are confronted with the need to innovate in order to meet market demands. In so doing they are challenged with the dilemma of whether to aim to be first into the market with a new innovative product, or to deliberately wait and learn from a pioneers’ mistakes; potentially avoiding higher risks. It is therefore important to critically understand from a first mover advantage and disadvantage perspective the decision-making implications of defence industry transformation onset by an innovative paradigm shift. This paper will argue that the type of industry characteristics matter, especially when considering what role the clients play in the innovation process and what their level of influence is. Through investigation of qualitative case study research, this inquiry will focus on first mover advantages and first mover disadvantages with a view to establish practical and value-added academic findings by focusing on specific industries where the clients play an active role in cooperation with the supplier innovation. The resulting findings will help managers to mitigate risk in innovative technology introduction. A selection from several defence industry innovations is specifically chosen because of the client–supplier relationship that typically differs from traditional first mover research. In this instance, case studies will be used referencing vertical-take-off-and-landing defence equipment innovations. 

Keywords: innovation, pioneer, first mover advantage, first mover disadvantage, risk

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Authors: Xin Bai, Kresimir Sivoncik, Damla Turgut, Ladislau Bölöni

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Market based models are frequently used in the resource allocation on the computational grid. However, as the size of the grid grows, it becomes difficult for the customer to negotiate directly with all the providers. Middle agents are introduced to mediate between the providers and customers and facilitate the resource allocation process. The most frequently deployed middle agents are the matchmakers and the brokers. The matchmaking agent finds possible candidate providers who can satisfy the requirements of the consumers, after which the customer directly negotiates with the candidates. The broker agents are mediating the negotiation with the providers in real time. In this paper we present a new type of middle agent, the marketmaker. Its operation is based on two parallel operations - through the investment process the marketmaker is acquiring resources and resource reservations in large quantities, while through the resale process it sells them to the customers. The operation of the marketmaker is based on the fact that through its global view of the grid it can perform a more efficient resource allocation than the one possible in one-to-one negotiations between the customers and providers. We present the operation and algorithms governing the operation of the marketmaker agent, contrasting it with the matchmaker and broker agents. Through a series of simulations in the task oriented domain we compare the operation of the three agents types. We find that the use of marketmaker agent leads to a better performance in the allocation of large tasks and a significant reduction of the messaging overhead.

Keywords: grid computing, autonomous agents, market-basedgrid

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Authors: S. Mahalakshmi, B. Senthil Arasu

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As per the recent changes happening in the global policies, climate related changes and the impact it causes across every sector are viewed as green swan events – in essence, climate related changes can happen often and lead to risk and lot of uncertainty, but need to be mitigated instead of considering them as black swan events. This brings about a question on how this risk can be computed, so that the financial institutions can plan to mitigate it. Climate related changes impact all risk types – credit risk, market risk, operational risk, liquidity risk, reputational risk and others. And the models required to compute this have to consider the different industrial needs of the counterparty, as well as the factors that are contributing to this – be it in the form of different risk drivers, or the different transmission channels or the different approaches and the granular form of data availability. This brings out to the suggestion that the climate related changes, though it affects Pillar I risks, will be a Pillar II risk. This has to be modeled specifically based on the financial institution’s actual exposure to different industries, instead of generalizing the risk charge. And this will have to be considered as the additional capital to be met by the financial institution in addition to their Pillar I risks, as well as the existing Pillar II risks. In this paper, we present a risk assessment framework to model and assess climate change risks - for both credit and market risks. This framework helps in assessing the different scenarios, and how the different transition risks affect the risk associated with the different parties. This research paper delves on the topic of increase in concentration of greenhouse gases, that in turn causing global warming. It then considers the various scenarios of having the different risk drivers impacting credit and market risk of an institution, by understanding the transmission channels, and also considering the transition risk. The paper then focuses on the industry that’s fast seeing a disruption: automobile industry. The paper uses the framework to show how the climate changes and the change to the relevant policies have impacted the entire financial institution. Appropriate statistical models for forecasting, anomaly detection and scenario modeling are built to demonstrate how the framework can be used by the relevant agencies to understand their financial risks. The paper also focuses on the climate risk calculation for the Pillar II capital calculations, and how it will make sense for the bank to maintain this in addition to their regular Pillar I and Pillar II capital.

Keywords: Capital calculation, climate risk, credit risk, pillar II risk, scenario modeling.

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Authors: E. Dado, R. Beheshti

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Recent developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) have created excellent conditions for profoundly enhancing the traditional learning and teaching practices. New modes of teaching in higher education subjects can profoundly enhance ones ability to proactively constructing his or her personal learning universe. These developments have contributed to digital learning environments becoming widely available and accessible. In addition, there is a trend towards enlargement and specialization in higher education in Europe. With as a result that existing Master of Science (MSc) programmes are merged or new programmes have been established that are offered as joint MSc programmes to students. In these joint MSc programmes, the need for (common) digital learning environments capable of surmounting the barriers of time and location has become evident. This paper discusses the past and ongoing efforts to establish such common digital learning environments in two joint MSc programmes in Europe and discusses the way technology-based learning environments affect the traditional way of learning.

Keywords: education, engineering, learning environments, ICT.

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Authors: Jindřiška Šedová

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The Czech Republic is a country whose economy has undergone a transformation since 1989. Since joining the EU it has been striving to reduce the differences in its economic standard and the quality of its institutional environment in comparison with developed countries. According to an assessment carried out by the World Bank, the Czech Republic was long classed as a country whose institutional development was seen as problematic. For many years one of the things it was rated most poorly on was its bankruptcy law. The new Insolvency Act, which is a modern law in terms of its treatment of bankruptcy, was first adopted in the Czech Republic in 2006. This law, together with other regulatory measures, offers debtridden Czech economic subjects legal instruments which are well established and in common practice in developed market economies. Since then, analyses performed by the World Bank and the London EBRD have shown that there have been significant steps forward in the quality of Czech bankruptcy law. The Czech Republic still lacks an analytical apparatus which can offer a structured characterisation of the general and specific conditions of Czech company and household debt which is subject to current changes in the global economy. This area has so far not been given the attention it deserves. The lack of research is particularly clear as regards analysis of household debt and householders- ability to settle their debts in a reasonable manner using legal and other state means of regulation. We assume that Czech households have recourse to a modern insolvency law, yet the effective application of this law is hampered by the inconsistencies in the formal and informal institutions involved in resolving debt. This in turn is based on the assumption that this lack of consistency is more marked in cases of personal bankruptcy. Our aim is to identify the symptoms which indicate that for some time the effective application of bankruptcy law in the Czech Republic will be hindered by factors originating in householders- relative inability to identify the risks of falling into debt.

Keywords: bankruptcy law, household debt, consumer bankruptcy, business bankruptcy

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Authors: Ching-Feng Chen, Ching-Chih Tsai

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With the size of the transistor gradually approaching the physical limit, it challenges the persistence of Moore’s Law due to such issues of the short channel effect and the development of the high numerical aperture (NA) lithography equipment. In the context of the ever-increasing technical requirements of portable devices and high-performance computing (HPC), relying on the law continuation to enhance the chip density will no longer support the prospects of the electronics industry. Weighing the chip’s power consumption-performance-area-cost-cycle time to market (PPACC) is an updated benchmark to drive the evolution of the advanced wafer nanometer (nm). The advent of two and half- and three-dimensional (2.5 and 3D)- Very-Large-Scale Integration (VLSI) packaging based on Through Silicon Via (TSV) technology has updated the traditional die assembly methods and provided the solution. This overview investigates the up-to-date and cutting-edge packaging technologies for 2.5D and 3D integrated circuits (IC) based on the updated transistor structure and technology nodes. We conclude that multi-chip solutions for 2.5D and 3D IC packaging can prolong Moore’s Law.

Keywords: Moore’s Law, High Numerical Aperture, Power Consumption-Performance-Area-Cost-Cycle Time to Market, PPACC, 2.5 and 3D-Very-Large-Scale Integration Packaging, Through Silicon Vi.

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Authors: Ana-Marija Stjepić, Dalia Suša Vugec

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Today, digital transformation is one of the leading topics that occupy the attention of scientific circles and business experts. Organizational success is most often reflected through the successful managing of business processes. Given the growing market for digital innovations and its ever-increasing impact on business, organizations need to be prepared for organizational changes that come with the digital era. In order to maintain their competitive advantage in the global market, organizations must adapt their processes to new digitalization conditions. The main goal of this study is to point out the link between the digital transformation and the business process management concept. Therefore, in order to contribute to the scientific field that explores the potential relation between business process management concept and digital transformation, a literature review has been conducted. Papers have been searched within the Business Process Management Journal by keywords related to the term digital transformation. Selected papers have been analyzed according to the topic, type of publication, year of publication, keywords, etc. The results reveal a growing number of papers published on the topic of digital transformation to the Business Process Management Journal, but the lack of case studies. This paper contributes to the extension of academic literature in this important, yet insufficiently researched, scientific field that creates the bond between two strong concepts of digital transformation and business process management.

Keywords: Business process management, digital transformation, digitalization, process change.

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Authors: Iyad F. Jafar, Sandra J. Alrawashdeh, Ban K. Alhamayel

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High level synthesis (HLS) is a process which generates register-transfer level design for digital systems from behavioral description. There are many HLS algorithms and commercial tools. However, most of these algorithms consider a behavioral description for the system when a single token is presented to the system. This approach does not exploit extra hardware efficiently, especially in the design of digital filters where common operations may exist between successive tokens. In this paper, we modify the behavioral description to process multiple tokens in parallel. However, this approach is unlike the full processing that requires full hardware replication. It exploits the presence of common operations between successive tokens. The performance of the proposed approach is better than sequential processing and approaches that of full parallel processing as the hardware resources are increased.

Keywords: Digital filters, High level synthesis, Sub-token forwarding

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Authors: Anouar Ben Khalifa, Sami Gazzah, Najoua Essoukri BenAmara

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Multimodal biometric systems integrate the data presented by multiple biometric sources, hence offering a better performance than the systems based on a single biometric modality. Although the coupling of biometric systems can be done at different levels, the fusion at the scores level is the most common since it has been proven effective than the rest of the fusion levels. However, the scores from different modalities are generally heterogeneous. A step of normalizing the scores is needed to transform these scores into a common domain before combining them. In this paper, we study the performance of several normalization techniques with various fusion methods in a context relating to the merger of three unimodal systems based on the face, the palmprint and the fingerprint. We also propose a new adaptive normalization method that takes into account the distribution of client scores and impostor scores. Experiments conducted on a database of 100 people show that the performances of a multimodal system depend on the choice of the normalization method and the fusion technique. The proposed normalization method has given the best results.

Keywords: Multibiometrics, Fusion, Score level, Score normalization, Adaptive normalization.

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Authors: Benjamin D. Leiby, Darryl K. Ahner

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This study demonstrates an alternative stochastic imputation approach for large datasets when preferred commercial packages struggle to iterate due to numerical problems. A large country conflict dataset motivates the search to impute missing values well over a common threshold of 20% missingness. The methodology capitalizes on correlation while using model residuals to provide the uncertainty in estimating unknown values. Examination of the methodology provides insight toward choosing linear or nonlinear modeling terms. Static tolerances common in most packages are replaced with tailorable tolerances that exploit residuals to fit each data element. The methodology evaluation includes observing computation time, model fit, and the comparison of known  values to replaced values created through imputation. Overall, the country conflict dataset illustrates promise with modeling first-order interactions, while presenting a need for further refinement that mimics predictive mean matching.

Keywords: Correlation, country conflict, imputation, stochastic regression.

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Authors: Charru Malhotra, Girija Krishnaswamy

Abstract:

Setting up of rural telecentres, popularly referred to as Common Service Centres (CSCs), are considered one of the initial forerunners of rural e-Governance initiatives under the Government of India-s National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). CSCs are implemented on public-private partnership (PPP) – where State governments play a major role in facilitating the establishment of CSCs and investments are made by private companies referred to as Service Centre Agencies (SCAs). CSC implementation is expected to help in improving public service delivery in a transparent and efficient manner. However, there is very little research undertaken to study the actual impact of CSC implementation at the grassroots level. This paper addresses the gap by identifying the circumstances, concerns and expectations from the point-of-view of citizens and examining the finer aspects of social processes in the context of rural e-Governance.

Keywords: Capacity Building, Citizens' Participation, e- Government, NeGP, PPP, Rural Telecentres

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Authors: Laila Ozola, Evita Straumite

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Celiac disease is a permanent enteropathy caused by the ingestion of gluten, a protein occurring in wheat, rye and barley. The only way of the effective daily treatment is a strict gluten-free diet. From the investigation of products available in the local market, it was found that Latvian producers do not offer gluten-free products. The aim of this research was to study and analyze changes of celiac patient’s attitude to gluten-free product quality and availability in the Latvian market and purchasing habits. The survey was designed using website www.visidati.lv, and a questionnaire was sent to people suffering from celiac disease. The first time the respondents were asked to fill in the questionnaire in 2011, but now repeatedly from the beginning of September 2013 till the end of January 2014. The questionnaire was performed with 75 celiac patients, respondents were from all Latvian regions and they answered 16 questions. One of the most important questions was aimed to find out consumers’ opinion about quality of gluten-free products, consumption patterns of gluten-free products, and, moreover, their interest in products made in Latvia. Respondents were asked to name gluten-free products they mainly buy and give specific purchase locations, evaluate the quality of products and necessity for products produced in Latvia. The results of questionnaire show that the consumers are satisfied with the quality of gluten-free flour, flour blends, sweets and pasta, but are not satisfied with the quality of bread and confectionery available in the Latvian markets.

Keywords: Consumers, gluten-free products, quality, survey.

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Authors: M. F. Yilmaz, B. Ö. Çağlayan

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Fragility curve is an effective common used tool to determine the earthquake performance of structural and nonstructural components. Also, it is used to determine the nonlinear behavior of bridges. There are many historical bridges in the Turkish railway network; the earthquake performances of these bridges are needed to be investigated. To derive fragility curve Intensity measures (IMs) and Engineering demand parameters (EDP) are needed to be determined. And the relation between IMs and EDP are needed to be derived. In this study, a typical simply supported steel girder riveted railway bridge is studied. Fragility curves of this bridge are derived by two parameters lognormal distribution. Time history analyses are done for selected 60 real earthquake data to determine the relation between IMs and EDP. Moreover, efficiency, practicality, and sufficiency of three different IMs are discussed. PGA, Sa(0.2s) and Sa(1s), the most common used IMs parameters for fragility curve in the literature, are taken into consideration in terms of efficiency, practicality and sufficiency.

Keywords: Railway bridges, earthquake performance, fragility analyses, selection of intensity measures.

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Authors: B. Marasović, S. Pivac, S. V. Vukasović

Abstract:

Constructing a portfolio of investments is one of the most significant financial decisions facing individuals and institutions. In accordance with the modern portfolio theory maximization of return at minimal risk should be the investment goal of any successful investor. In addition, the costs incurred when setting up a new portfolio or rebalancing an existing portfolio must be included in any realistic analysis. In this paper rebalancing an investment portfolio in the presence of transaction costs on the Croatian capital market is analyzed. The model applied in the paper is an extension of the standard portfolio mean-variance optimization model in which transaction costs are incurred to rebalance an investment portfolio. This model allows different costs for different securities, and different costs for buying and selling. In order to find efficient portfolio, using this model, first, the solution of quadratic programming problem of similar size to the Markowitz model, and then the solution of a linear programming problem have to be found. Furthermore, in the paper the impact of transaction costs on the efficient frontier is investigated. Moreover, it is shown that global minimum variance portfolio on the efficient frontier always has the same level of the risk regardless of the amount of transaction costs. Although efficient frontier position depends of both transaction costs amount and initial portfolio it can be concluded that extreme right portfolio on the efficient frontier always contains only one stock with the highest expected return and the highest risk.

Keywords: Croatian capital market, Fractional quadratic programming, Markowitz model, Portfolio optimization, Transaction costs.

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