Search results for: Knowledge management strategies

Authors: Aijaz A. Shaikh, Richard Glavee-Geo, Heikki Karjaluoto

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Adoption of Information Systems (IS) is receiving increasing attention such that its implications have been closely monitored and studied by the IS management community, industry and professional gatekeepers. Building on previous research regarding the adoption of technology, this paper develops and validates an integrated model of the adoption of mobile banking. The model originates from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). This paper intends to offer a preliminary scrutiny of the antecedents of the adoption of mobile banking services in the context of a developing country. Data was collected from Pakistan. The findings showed that an integrated TAM and TPB model greatly explains the adoption intention of mobile banking; and perceived behavioural control and its antecedents play a significant role in predicting adoption Theoretical and managerial implications of findings are presented and discussed.

Keywords: Developing country, mobile banking service adoption, technology acceptance model, theory of planned behaviour.

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Authors: H. Iranmanesh, M. Madadi

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Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is one of the most vital planning processes of the project management since it is considered to be the fundamental of other processes like scheduling, controlling, assigning responsibilities, etc. In fact WBS or activity list is the heart of a project and omission of a simple task can lead to an irrecoverable result. There are some tools in order to generate a project WBS. One of the most powerful tools is mind mapping which is the basis of this article. Mind map is a method for thinking together and helps a project manager to stimulate the mind of project team members to generate project WBS. Here we try to generate a WBS of a sample project involving with the building construction using the aid of mind map and the artificial intelligence (AI) programming language. Since mind map structure can not represent data in a computerized way, we convert it to a semantic network which can be used by the computer and then extract the final WBS from the semantic network by the prolog programming language. This method will result a comprehensive WBS and decrease the probability of omitting project tasks.

Keywords: Expert System, Mind map, Semantic network, Work breakdown structure,

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Authors: Ioannis I. Αngeli

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Worldwide and mainly in the European Union, many standards, regulations, models and systems exists for the evaluation and identification of stakeholders’ requirements of individual universities and higher education (HE) in general. All systems are targeting to measure or evaluate the Universities’ Quality Assurance Systems and the services offered to the recipients of HE, mainly the students. Numerous surveys were conducted in the past either by each university or by organized bodies to identify the students’ satisfaction or to evaluate to what extent these requirements are fulfilled. In this paper, the main results of an ongoing 6-year joint research will be presented very briefly. This research deals with an in depth investigation of student’s satisfaction, students personal requirements, a cup analysis among these two parameters and compares different universities. Through this research an attempt will be made to address four very important questions in higher education establishments (HEE): (1) Are there any common requirements, parameters, good practices or questions that apply to a large number of universities that will assure that students’ requirements are fulfilled? (2) Up to what extent the individual programs of HEE fulfil the requirements of the stakeholders? (3) Are there any similarities on specific programs among European HEE? (4) To what extent the knowledge acquired in a specific course program is utilized or used in a specific country? For the execution of the research an internationally accepted questionnaire(s) was used to evaluate up to what extent the students’ requirements and satisfaction were fulfilled in 2012 and five years later (2017). Samples of students and or universities were taken from many European Universities. The questionnaires used, the sampling method and methodology adopted, as well as the comparison tables and results will be very valuable to any university that is willing to follow the same route and methodology or compare the results with their own HHE. Apart from the unique methodology, valuable results are demonstrated from the four case studies. There is a great difference between the student’s expectations or importance from what they are getting from their universities (in all parameters they are getting less). When there is a crisis or budget cut in HEE there is a direct impact to students. There are many differences on subjects taught in European universities.

Keywords: Quality in higher education, students’ requirements, education standards, student’s survey, stakeholder’s requirements, Mechanical Engineering courses.

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Authors: T.P. Sharma

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Querying a data source and routing data towards sink becomes a serious challenge in static wireless sensor networks if sink and/or data source are mobile. Many a times the event to be observed either moves or spreads across wide area making maintenance of continuous path between source and sink a challenge. Also, sink can move while query is being issued or data is on its way towards sink. In this paper, we extend our already proposed Grid Based Data Dissemination (GBDD) scheme which is a virtual grid based topology management scheme restricting impact of movement of sink(s) and event(s) to some specific cells of a grid. This obviates the need for frequent path modifications and hence maintains continuous flow of data while minimizing the network energy consumptions. Simulation experiments show significant improvements in network energy savings and average packet delay for a packet to reach at sink.

Keywords: Mobility in WSNs, virtual grid, GBDD, clustering.

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Authors: Sungkyung Kim, Jee-Hyeon Na, Dong-Seung Kwon

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Future mobile networks following 5th generation will be characterized by one thousand times higher gains in capacity; connections for at least one hundred billion devices; user experience capable of extremely low latency and response times. To be close to the capacity requirements and higher reliability, advanced technologies have been studied, such as multiple connectivity, small cell enhancement, heterogeneous networking, and advanced interference and mobility management. This paper is focused on the multiple connectivity in heterogeneous cellular networks. We investigate the performance of coverage and user throughput in several deployment scenarios. Using the stochastic geometry approach, the SINR distributions and the coverage probabilities are derived in case of dual connection. Also, to compare the user throughput enhancement among the deployment scenarios, we calculate the spectral efficiency and discuss our results.

Keywords: Heterogeneous networks, multiple connectivity, small cell enhancement, stochastic geometry.

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Authors: Sandija Zeverte-Rivza, Irina Pilvere, Baiba Rivza

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The use of renewable energy sources incl. biogas has become topical in accordance with the increasing demand for energy, decrease of fossil energy resources and the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as to increase energy independence from the territories where fossil energy resources are available.

As the technologies of biogas production from agricultural biomass develop, risk assessment and risk management become necessary for farms producing such a renewable energy. The need for risk assessments has become particularly topical when discussions on changing the biogas policy in the EU take place, which may influence the development of the sector in the future, as well as the operation of existing biogas facilities and their income level.

The current article describes results of the risk assessment for farms producing biomass from agriculture biomass in Latvia, the risk assessment system included 24 risks, that affect the whole biogas production process and the obtained results showed the high significance of political and production risks.

Keywords: Biogas production, risks, risk assessment.

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Authors: Zine-Eddine Bouras, Abdelouaheb Talai

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The need to merge software artifacts seems inherent to modern software development. Distribution of development over several teams and breaking tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces are an effective means to deal with the kind of complexity. In each case, the separately developed artifacts need to be assembled as efficiently as possible into a consistent whole in which the parts still function as described. In addition, earlier changes are introduced into the life cycle and easier is their management by designers. Interaction-based specifications such as UML sequence diagrams have been found effective in this regard. As a result, sequence diagrams can be used not only for capturing system behaviors but also for merging changes in order to create a new version. The objective of this paper is to suggest a new approach to deal with the problem of software merging at the level of sequence diagrams by using the concept of dependence analysis that captures, formally, all mapping, and differences between elements of sequence diagrams and serves as a key concept to create a new version of sequence diagram.

Keywords: System behaviors, sequence diagram merging, dependence analysis, sequence diagram slicing.

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Authors: B. Frączek

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The paper analyses the usage of the Internet by university students in Visegrad Countries (4V Countries) who study economic fields in their formal and informal financial education and captures the areas of untapped potential of Internet in educational processes. Higher education and training, technological readiness, and the financial market development are in the group of pillars, that are key for efficiency driven economies. These three pillars have become an inspiration to the research on using the Internet in the financial education among economic university students as the group of the best educated people in finance. The financial education is a process that allows for improving the level of financial literacy. In turn, the financial literacy it is the set of financial knowledge, skills, awareness and patterns influencing the financial decisions. The level of financial literacy influences the level of financial well-being of individuals, determines the scale of saving of households and at the same time gives the greater chance for sustainable and more predictable development of the financial market with the positive impact on economy. The financial literacy is necessary for each group of society but its appropriate level is desirable especially in respect of economics students as future participants of financial markets as well as the experts and advisors in financial decision making. The low level of financial literacy is the great problem of many target groups in both developing and developed countries and the financial education is seen as the best way of improving this situation. Also the financial inclusion plays the special role in enhancing the level of financial literacy in the aspect of education by practice as well as due to interrelation between level of financial literacy and degree of financial inclusion. Despite many initiatives under financial education, the level of financial literacy is still very low. Scientists still search for new ways of solving this problem. One of the proposal is more effective usage of the new technology in financial education, especially the Internet, because of the growing popularity of e-learning and the increasing number of Internet users, especially among young people who are called the Generation Net. Due to special role of the university students studying the economics fields for the future financial markets, students of four universities from Visegrad Countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) were invited to participate in the survey. The aim of the article is to present the level and ways of using the Internet technology in financial education and indicating the so far unused or underused opportunities.

Keywords: Financial education, financial inclusion, financial literacy, usage of Internet in education.

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Authors: Kalayanee Koonmee

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An incentive for performance, as one subsystem of a new performance management system, has been implemented in the Thai public sector since 2004. This research investigates the development of organizational justice in the incentive allocation by comparing the roles of distributive and procedural justice on national personnel-s attitudinal outcomes (incentive satisfaction and job performance) between 2 periods, i.e. 2006 and 2008. The data were collected via self-administered questionnaires completed by national government officers and employees. They were stratified using multistage sampling with 2,600 usable samples or 72.0% response rate in 2006, and 1,969 usable samples or 59.3% in 2008. The findings are: (1) There is no difference in means between the two periods relating to distributive justice, procedural justice, incentive satisfaction and job performance. (2) Distributive justice and procedural justice played more important roles in predicting incentive satisfaction and job performance in 2008 than in 2006.

Keywords: Distributive justice, incentive allocation, proceduraljustice, Thai public sector.

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Authors: Tai-Yue Wang, Hui-Min Chiang, Su-Ni Hsieh, Yu-Min Chiang

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In many industries, control charts is one of the most frequently used tools for quality management. Hotelling-s T2 is used widely in multivariate control chart. However, it has little defect when detecting small or medium process shifts. The use of supplementary sensitizing rules can improve the performance of detection. This study applied sensitizing rules for Hotelling-s T2 control chart to improve the performance of detection. Support vector machines (SVM) classifier to identify the characteristic or group of characteristics that are responsible for the signal and to classify the magnitude of the mean shifts. The experimental results demonstrate that the support vector machines (SVM) classifier can effectively identify the characteristic or group of characteristics that caused the process mean shifts and the magnitude of the shifts.

Keywords: Hotelling's T2 control chart, Neural networks, Sensitizing rules, Support vector machines.

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Authors: Purnomo Yustianto, Robin Doss, Suhardi, Novianto Budi Kurniawan

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As a term for characterizing a process of devising a service system, the term ‘service engineering’ is still regarded as an ‘open’ research challenge due to unspecified details and conflicting perspectives. This paper presents consolidated service engineering ontologies in collecting, specifying and defining relationship between components pertinent within the context of service engineering. The ontologies are built by way of literature surveys from the collected conceptual works by collating various concepts into an integrated ontology. Two ontologies are produced: general service ontology and software service ontology. The software-service ontology is drawn from the informatics domain, while the generalized ontology of a service system is built from both a business management and the information system perspective. The produced ontologies are verified by exercising conceptual operationalizations of the ontologies in adopting several service orientation features and service system patterns. The proposed ontologies are demonstrated to be sufficient to serve as a basis for a service engineering framework.

Keywords: Engineering, ontology, service, SoaML.

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Authors: Ying Yuken, Pengfei Wang, Zhang Qilin, Xiao Ben

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Based on the main entrance and garden area (ME&G) project of Shanghai Disneyland, this paper introduces the application of BIM technology in this kind of low-rise comprehensive building with complex facade system, electromechanical system and decoration system. BIM technology is applied to the whole process of design, construction and completion of the whole project. With the construction of BIM application framework of the whole project, the key points of BIM modeling methods of different systems and the integration and coordination of BIM models are elaborated in detail. The specific application methods of BIM technology in similar complex low-rise building projects are sorted out. Finally, the paper summarizes the benefits of BIM technology application, and puts forward some suggestions for BIM management mode and practical application of similar projects in the future.

Keywords: BIM, complex low-rise building, BIM modeling, model integration and coordination, 3D scanning.

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Authors: V. Lakshmi Narasimhan, Bayu Hendradjaya

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We have defined two suites of metrics, which cover static and dynamic aspects of component assembly. The static metrics measure complexity and criticality of component assembly, wherein complexity is measured using Component Packing Density and Component Interaction Density metrics. Further, four criticality conditions namely, Link, Bridge, Inheritance and Size criticalities have been identified and quantified. The complexity and criticality metrics are combined to form a Triangular Metric, which can be used to classify the type and nature of applications. Dynamic metrics are collected during the runtime of a complete application. Dynamic metrics are useful to identify super-component and to evaluate the degree of utilisation of various components. In this paper both static and dynamic metrics are evaluated using Weyuker-s set of properties. The result shows that the metrics provide a valid means to measure issues in component assembly. We relate our metrics suite with McCall-s Quality Model and illustrate their impact on product quality and to the management of component-based product development.

Keywords: Component Assembly, Component Based SoftwareEngineering, CORBA Component Model, Software ComponentMetrics.

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Authors: Chun Chen Yea, Wen Huei Chou

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Many chemical changes in the atmosphere and the ocean are invisible to the naked eye, but they have profound impacts. These changes not only confirm the phenomenon of global carbon pollution, but also forewarn that more changes are coming. The carbon dioxide gases emitted from the burning of fossil fuels dissolve into the ocean and chemically react with seawater to form carbonic acid, which increases the acidity of the originally alkaline seawater. This gradual acidification is occurring at an unprecedented rate and will affect the effective formation of carapace of some marine organisms such as corals and crustaceans, which are almost entirely composed of calcium carbonate. The carapace of these organisms will become more dissoluble. Acidified seawater not only threatens the survival of marine life, but also negatively impacts the global ecosystem via the food chain. Faced with the threat of ocean acidification, all humans are duty-bound. The industrial sector outputs the highest level of carbon dioxide emissions in Taiwan, and the petrochemical industry is the major contributor. Ever since the construction of Formosa Plastics Group's No. 6 Naphtha Cracker Plant in Yunlin County, there have been many environmental concerns such as air pollution and carbon dioxide emission. The marine life along the coast of Yunlin is directly affected by ocean acidification arising from the carbon emissions. Societal change demands our willingness to act, which is what social advocacy promotes. This study uses digital storytelling for social advocacy and ocean acidification as the subject of a visual narrative in visualization to demonstrate the subsequent promotion of social advocacy. Storytelling can transform dull knowledge into an engaging narrative of the crisis faced by marine life. Digital dissemination is an effective social-work practice. The visualization promoting awareness on ocean acidification disseminated via social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. Social media enables users to compose their own messages and share information across different platforms, which helps disseminate the core message of social advocacy.

Keywords: Digital storytelling, visualization, ocean acidification, social advocacy.

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Authors: A.Gandomkar, F. Khorasanizadeh

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Tourism is a phenomenon respected by the human communities since a long time ago. It has been evoloving continually based on a variety of social and economic needs and with respect to increasingly development of communication and considerable increase of tourist-s number and resulted exchange income has attained much out come such as employment for the communities. or the purpose of tourism development in this zone suitable times and locations need to be specified in the zone for the tourist-s attendance. One of the most important needs of the tourists is the knowledge of climate conditions and suitable times for sightseeing. In this survey, the climate trend condition has been identified for attending the tourists in Isfahan province using the modified tourism climate index (TCI) as well as SPSS, GIS, excel, surfer softwares. This index evoluates systematically the climate conditions for tourism affairs and activities using the monthly maximum mean parameters of daily temperature, daily mean temperature, minimum relative humidity, daily mean relative humidity, precipitation (mm), total sunny hours, wind speed and dust. The results obtaind using kendal-s correlation test show that the months January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December are significant and have an increasing trend that indicates the best condition for attending the tourists. S, P, T mean , T max and dust are estimated from 1976-2005 and do kendal-s correlation test again to see which parameter has been effective. Based on the test, we also observed on the effective parameters that the rate of dust in February, March, April, May, June, July, August, October and November is decreasing and precipitation in September and January is increasing and also the radiation rate in May and August is increasing that indicate a better condition of convenience. Maximum temperature in June is also decreasing. Isfahan province has two spring and fall peaks and the best places for tourism are in the north and western areas.

Keywords: Climate, Tourism, Correlation Test, Tourism Climate Index, Isfahan Province

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Authors: Radin Siti Aishah Radin A Rahman, Norasmah Othman, Zaidatol Akmaliah Lope Pihie, Hariyaty Ab. Wahid

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The recent instability in economy was found to be influencing the situation in Malaysia whether directly or indirectly. Taking that into consideration, the government needs to find the best approach to balance its citizen’s socio-economic strata level urgently. Through education platform is among the efforts planned and acted upon for the purpose of balancing the effects of the influence, through the exposure of social entrepreneurial activity towards youth especially those in higher institution level. Armed with knowledge and skills that they gained, with the support by entrepreneurial culture and environment while in campus; indirectly, the students will lean more on making social entrepreneurship as a career option when they graduate. Following the issues of marketability and workability of current graduates that are becoming dire, research involving how far the willingness of student to create social innovation that contribute to the society without focusing solely on personal gain is relevant enough to be conducted. With that, this research is conducted with the purpose of identifying the level of entrepreneurial intention and social entrepreneurship among higher institution students in Malaysia. Stratified random sampling involves 355 undergraduate students from five public universities had been made as research respondents and data were collected through surveys. The data was then analyzed descriptively using min score and standard deviation. The study found that the entrepreneurial intention of higher education students are on moderate level, however it is the contrary for social entrepreneurship activities, where it was shown on a high level. This means that while the students only have moderate level of willingness to be a social entrepreneur, they are very committed to created social innovation through the social entrepreneurship activities conducted. The implication from this study can be contributed towards the higher institution authorities in prediction the tendency of student in becoming social entrepreneurs. Thus, the opportunities and facilities for realizing the courses related to social entrepreneurship must be created expansively so that the vision of creating as many social entrepreneurs as possible can be achieved.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial intention, higher education institutions (HEIs), social entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurial activity, gender.

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Authors: Crystal X. Jiang, Tess Han, George J. Titus, Matthew J. Liberatore

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Information is a critical asset and an important source for gaining competitive advantage in firms. The effective maintenance of IT becomes an important task. In order to better understand the determinants of IT effectiveness, this study employs the Industrial Organization (I/O) and Resource Based View (RBV) theories and investigates the industry effect and several major firmspecific factors in relation to their impact on firms- IT effectiveness. The data consist of a panel data of ten-year observations of firms whose IT excellence had been recognized by the CIO Magazine. The non-profit organizations were deliberately excluded, as explained later. The results showed that the effectiveness of IT management varied significantly across industries. Industry also moderated the effects of firm demographic factors such as size and age on IT effectiveness. Surprisingly, R & D investment intensity had negative correlation to IT effectiveness. For managers and practitioners, this study offers some insights for evaluation criteria and expectation for IT project success. Finally, the empirical results indicate that the sustainability of IT effectiveness appears to be short in duration.

Keywords: Firm effect, industry effect, IT effectiveness, sustained IT effectiveness.

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Authors: Rahul Malhotra

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The field of wireless sensor networks (WSN) engages a lot of associates in the research community as an interdisciplinary field of interest. This type of network is inexpensive, multifunctionally attributable to advances in micro-electromechanical systems and conjointly the explosion and expansion of wireless communications. A mobile ad hoc network is a wireless network without fastened infrastructure or federal management. Due to the infrastructure-less mode of operation, mobile ad-hoc networks are gaining quality. During this work, we have performed an efficient performance study of the two major routing protocols: Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV) and Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocols. We have used an accurate simulation model supported NS2 for this purpose. Our simulation results showed that AODV mitigates the drawbacks of the DSDV and provides better performance as compared to DSDV.

Keywords: Routing protocols, mobility, Mobile Ad-hoc Networks, Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector, Dynamic Source Routing, Destination Sequence Distance Vector, Quality of Service.

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Authors: R. Bremananth

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Biometric authentication is an essential task for any kind of real-life applications. In this paper, we contribute two primary paradigms to Iris recognition such as Robust Eyelash Detection (RED) using pathway kernels and hair curve fitting synthesized model. Based on these two paradigms, rotation invariant iris recognition is enhanced. In addition, the presented framework is tested with real-life iris data to provide the authentication for LRC (Learning Resource Center) users. Recognition performance is significantly improved based on the contributed schemes by evaluating real-life irises. Furthermore, the framework has been implemented using Java programming language. Experiments are performed based on 1250 diverse subjects in different angles of variations on the authentication process. The results revealed that the methodology can deploy in the process on LRC management system and other security required applications.

Keywords: Authentication, biometric, eye lashes detection, iris scanning, LRC security, secure access.

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Authors: O. Starineca, I. Voronchuk

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Human Resources (HR) selection and training have various implementation possibilities depending on an organization’s abilities and peculiarities. We propose to base HR selection and training decisions about on a competence-based approach. HR selection and training of employees are topical as there is room for improvement in this field; therefore, the aim of the research is to propose rational decision-making approaches for an organization HR selection and training choice. Our proposals are based on the training development and competence-based selection approaches created within previous researches i.e. Analytic-Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Linear Programming. Literature review on non-formal education, competence-based selection, AHP form our theoretical background. Some educational service providers in Latvia offer employees training, e.g. motivation, computer skills, accounting, law, ethics, stress management, etc. that are topical for Public Administration. Competence-based approach is a rational base for rational decision-making in both HR selection and considering HR training.

Keywords: Competence-based selection, human resource, training, decision-making.

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Authors: Madhukar Nagare, Pankaj Dutta, Amey Kambli

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Perishable goods constitute a large portion of retailer inventory and lose value with time due to deterioration and/or obsolescence. Retailers dealing with such goods required considering the factors of short shelf life and the dependency of sales on inventory displayed in determining optimal procurement policy. Many retailers follow the practice of using two bins - primary bin sales fresh items at a list price and secondary bin sales unsold items at a discount price transferred from primary bin on attaining certain age. In this paper, mathematical models are developed for primary bin and for secondary bin that maximizes profit with decision variables of order quantities, optimal review period and optimal selling price at secondary bin. The demand rates in two bins are assumed to be deterministic and dependent on displayed inventory level, price and age but independent of each other. The validity of the model is shown by solving an example and the sensitivity analysis of the model is also reported.

Keywords: Retail Inventory, Perishable Products, Two Bin, Profitable Sales.

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Authors: Kenneth M. Oba

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Adequate management, control, and optimization of cost is an essential element for a successful construction project. A multiple linear regression optimization model was formulated to address the problem of costs associated with pile construction operations. A total of 32 PVC-reinforced concrete piles with diameter of 300 mm, 5.4 m long, were studied during the construction. The soil upon which the piles were installed was mostly silty sand, and completely submerged in water at Bonny, Nigeria. The piles are friction piles installed by boring method, using a piling auger. The volumes of soil removed, the weight of reinforcement cage installed, and volumes of fresh concrete poured into the PVC void were determined. The cost of constructing each pile based on the calculated quantities was determined. A model was derived and subjected to statistical tests using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The model turned out to be adequate, fit, and have a high predictive accuracy with an R2 value of 0.833.

Keywords: Cost optimization modelling, multiple linear models, pile construction, regression models.

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Authors: Swapnil Singhal, Santosh Kumar Singh

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The emerging Cognitive Radio is combo of both the technologies i.e. Radio dynamics and software technology. It involve wireless system with efficient coding, designing, and making them artificial intelligent to take the decision according to the surrounding environment and adopt themselves accordingly, so as to deliver the best QoS. This is the breakthrough from fixed hardware and fixed utilization of the spectrum. This software-defined approach of research is centralized at user-definition and application driven model, various software method are used for the optimization of the wireless communication. This paper focused on the Spectrum allocation technique using genetic algorithm GA to evolve radio, represented by chromosomes. The chromosomes gene represents the adjustable parameters in given radio and by using GA, evolving over the generations, the optimized set of parameters are evolved, as per the requirement of user and availability of the spectrum, in our prototype the gene consist of 6 different parameters, and the best set of parameters are evolved according to the application need and availability of the spectrum holes and thus maintaining best QoS for user, simultaneously maintaining licensed user rights. The analyzing tool Matlab is used for the performance of the prototype.

Keywords: ASDR, Cognitive Radio, QoS, Spectrum.

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Authors: Y. Abdelrazig, A. Ghanem

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Construction projects are information intensive in nature and involve many activities that are related to each other. Wireless technologies can be used to improve the accuracy and timeliness of data collected from construction sites and shares it with appropriate parties. Nonetheless, the construction industry tends to be conservative and shows hesitation to adopt new technologies. A main concern for owners, contractors or any person in charge on a job site is the cost of the technology in question. Wireless technologies are not cheap. There are a lot of expenses to be taken into consideration, and a study should be completed to make sure that the importance and savings resulting from the usage of this technology is worth the expenses. This research attempts to assess the effectiveness of using the appropriate wireless technologies based on criteria such as performance, reliability, and risk. The assessment is based on a utility function model that breaks down the selection issue into alternatives attribute. Then the attributes are assigned weights and single attributes are measured. Finally, single attribute are combined to develop one single aggregate utility index for each alternative.

Keywords: Analytic Hierarchy Process, Utility Function, Wireless Technologies, construction management.

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Authors: S. Vijayakumar, M. Sasikala, T. S. Mohammed Saleem, Gurusharan, K. Gauthaman

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The main objective of our study is to collect data about the profile of the asthmatic patients in Assam and thereby have a comprehensive knowledge of the factors influencing the asthmatic patients of the state and their medication pattern. We developed a search strategy to find any publication about the community based survey asthma related and used. These to search the MEDLINE (1996 to current literature) CINAHL DOAJ pubmed databases using the key phrases, Asthma, Respiratory disorders, Drug therapy of Asthma, database decision support system and asthma. The appropriate literature was printed out from the online source and library (Journal) source. The study was conducted through a set of structured and non-structured questionnaires targeted on the asthmatic patients belonging to the rural and urban areas of Assam, during the month of Dec 2006 to July 2007, 138 cases were studied in Gauwathi Medical College & Hospital located in Bhangagarh, Assam in India. The demographic characteristics a factor in 138 patients with asthma with allergic rhinitis (cases) gives the detail profile of asthmatic patient-s distribution of Assam as classified on the basis of age and sex. It is evident from the study that male populations (66%) are more prone to asthma as compared to the females (34%).Another striking features that emerged from this survey is the maximum prevalence of asthma in the age group of 20- 30 years followed by infants belonging to the age group of 7 (0.05%) 0-10years among both male and female populations of Assam. The high incidence of asthma in the age group of 20-30 years may probably be due to the allergy arising out of sudden exposure to dust and pollen which the children face while playing and going to the school. The rural females in the age group of 30-40 years are more prone to asthma than urban females in the same age group may be due to sex differentiation among the tribal population of the state. Pharmacists should educate the asthmatics how to use inhalers considering growing menace of asthma in the state. Safer drugs should be produced in the form of aerosol so that easy administration by the asthmatic patients and physicians of the state is possible for curing asthma. The health centers should be more equipped with the medicines to cure asthma in the state like Assam.

Keywords: Asthma, Respiratory disease, Smoker.

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Authors: Naeem Muhammad, Yves Vandewoude, Yolande Berbers, Robert Feldt

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The Requirements Abstraction Model (RAM) helps in managing abstraction in requirements by organizing them at four levels (product, feature, function and component). The RAM is adaptable and can be tailored to meet the needs of the various organizations. Because software requirements are an important source of information for developing high-level tests, organizations willing to adopt the RAM model need to know the suitability of the RAM requirements for developing high-level tests. To investigate this suitability, test cases from twenty randomly selected requirements were developed, analyzed and graded. Requirements were selected from the requirements document of a Course Management System, a web based software system that supports teachers and students in performing course related tasks. This paper describes the results of the requirements document analysis. The results show that requirements at lower levels in the RAM are suitable for developing executable tests whereas it is hard to develop from requirements at higher levels.

Keywords: Market-driven requirements engineering, requirements abstraction model, requirements abstraction, system testing.

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Authors: Muhammad Rana, Quazi Mamun, Rafiqul Islam

Abstract:

In the Internet of Things (IoT), many devices are connected and accumulate a sheer amount of data. These Internet-driven raw data need to be transferred securely to the end-users via dependable networks. Consequently, the challenges of IoT security in various IoT domains are paramount. Cryptography is being applied to secure the networks for authentication, confidentiality, data integrity and access control. However, due to the resource constraint properties of IoT devices, the conventional cipher may not be suitable in all IoT networks. This paper designs a robust and effective lightweight cipher to secure the IoT environment and meet the resource-constrained nature of IoT devices. We also propose a symmetric and block-cipher based lightweight cryptographic algorithm. The proposed algorithm increases the complexity of the block cipher, maintaining the lowest computational requirements possible. The proposed algorithm efficiently constructs the key register updating technique, reduces the number of encryption rounds, and adds a layer between the encryption and decryption processes.

Keywords: Internet of Things, IoT, cryptography block cipher, s-box, key management, IoT security.

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Authors: C. Ardil

Abstract:

Being effective in every organizational activity has become necessary due to the escalating level of competition in all areas of corporate life. In the context of supply chain management, aircraft supplier selection is currently one of the most crucial activities. It is possible to choose the best aircraft supplier and deliver efficiency in terms of cost, quality, delivery time, economic status, and institutionalization if a systematic supplier selection approach is used. In this study, an effective multiple criteria decision-making methodology, proximity measure method (PMM), is used within a fuzzy environment based on the vague structure of the real working environment. The best appropriate aircraft suppliers are identified and ranked after the proposed multiple criteria decision making technique is used in a real-life scenario.

Keywords: Aircraft supplier selection, multiple criteria decision making, fuzzy sets, proximity measure method, Minkowski distance family function, Hausdorff distance function, PMM, MCDM

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Authors: A. Alrasheed, I. Connerton

Abstract:

Daily provision of high quality food and hygiene to patients is a challenging goal of the healthcare. In Saudi Arabia, matters related to food safety and hygiene are regulated by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Saudi Food and Drugs Authority (SFDA). The purpose of this research is to discuss the food safety management inconsistencies and flaws, in particular the ones related to Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) in Riyadh’s MOH hospitals. As required by law, written HACCP regulations must be implemented, and food handlers need to receive the training accordingly. However, in Saudi hospitals, this is not a requirement, and the food handlers do not need to hold training certificates in food safety or HACCP. Nowadays, the matter of food safety and hygiene have become increasingly important since the decision makers want to align these regulations with the majority of the world and to implement HACCP fully and for this purpose, the SFDA was established. 

Keywords: Food safety, patients, hospitals, HACCP, Saudi Arabia.

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Authors: Ghada Esheba, Fatimah Alturkistani, Arwa Obaid, Ahdab Bashehab, Moayad Alturkistani

Abstract:

Introduction: Craniopharyngiomas (CPs) are rare epithelial tumors located mainly in the sellar/parasellar region. CPs have been classified histopathologically, genetically, clinically and prognostically into two distinctive subtypes: adamantinomatous and papillary variants. Aim: To examine the pattern of expression of both the β-catenin and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in surgically resected samples of adamantinomatous CP, and to asses for the possibility of using anti-EGFR in the management of ACP patients. Materials and methods: β-catenin and EGFR immunostaining was performed on paraffin-embedded tissue sections of 18 ACP cases. Result: 17 out of 18 cases (94%) of ACP exhibited strong nuclear/cytoplasmic expression of β-catenin, 15 (83%) of APC cases were positive for EGFR. Conclusion: Nuclear accumulation of β-catenin is a diagnostic hallmark of ACP. EGFR positivity in most cases of ACP could qualify the use of anti-EGFR therapy. 

Keywords: Craniopharyngioma, adamantinomatous, papillary, epidermal growth factor receptor, B-catenin.

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