Search results for: Financial development
4145 Characteristic on Compressive Strength of Blast Slag and Fly Ash Hybrid Geopolymer Mortar
Authors: G. S. Ryu, K. T. Koh, H. Y. Kim, G. H. An, D. W. Seo
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Geopolymer mortar is produced by alkaline activation of pozzolanic materials such as fly ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS) and fly ash (FA). Its unique reaction pathway facilitates rapid strength development in comparison with hydration of ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Geopolymer can be fabricated using various types and dosages of alkali-activator, which effectively gives a wider control over the performance of the final product. The present study investigates the effect of types of precursors and curing conditions on the fresh state and strength development characteristics of geopolymers, thereby comparatively exploring the effect of precursors from various sources of origin. The obtained result showed that the setting time and strength development of the specimens with the identical mix proportion but different precursors displayed significant variations.
Keywords: Alkali-activated material, blast furnace slag, fly ash, Flowability, strength development.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12694144 Use of Fuzzy Logic in the Corporate Reputation Assessment: Stock Market Investors’ Perspective
Authors: Tomasz L. Nawrocki, Danuta Szwajca
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The growing importance of reputation in building enterprise value and achieving long-term competitive advantage creates the need for its measurement and evaluation for the management purposes (effective reputation and its risk management). The paper presents practical application of self-developed corporate reputation assessment model from the viewpoint of stock market investors. The model has a pioneer character and example analysis performed for selected industry is a form of specific test for this tool. In the proposed solution, three aspects - informational, financial and development, as well as social ones - were considered. It was also assumed that the individual sub-criteria will be based on public sources of information, and as the calculation apparatus, capable of obtaining synthetic final assessment, fuzzy logic will be used. The main reason for developing this model was to fulfill the gap in the scope of synthetic measure of corporate reputation that would provide higher degree of objectivity by relying on "hard" (not from surveys) and publicly available data. It should be also noted that results obtained on the basis of proposed corporate reputation assessment method give possibilities of various internal as well as inter-branch comparisons and analysis of corporate reputation impact.Keywords: Corporate reputation, fuzzy logic, fuzzy model, stock market investors.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13734143 The Role of Business Process Management in Driving Digital Transformation: Insurance Company Case Study
Authors: Dalia Suša Vugec, Ana-Marija Stjepić, Darija Ivandić Vidović
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Digital transformation is one of the latest trends on the global market. In order to maintain the competitive advantage and sustainability, increasing number of organizations are conducting digital transformation processes. Those organizations are changing their business processes and creating new business models with the help of digital technologies. In that sense, one should also observe the role of business process management (BPM) and its maturity in driving digital transformation. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to investigate the role of BPM in digital transformation process within one organization. Since experiences from practice show that organizations from financial sector could be observed as leaders in digital transformation, an insurance company has been selected to participate in the study. That company has been selected due to the high level of its BPM maturity and the fact that it has previously been through a digital transformation process. In order to fulfill the goals of the paper, several interviews, as well as questionnaires, have been conducted within the selected company. The results are presented in a form of a case study. Results indicate that digital transformation process within the observed company has been successful, with special focus on the development of digital strategy, BPM and change management. The role of BPM in the digital transformation of the observed company is further discussed in the paper.
Keywords: Business process management, case study, Croatia, digital transformation, insurance company.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13324142 Systems Engineering Management Using Transdisciplinary Quality System Development Lifecycle Model
Authors: Mohamed Asaad Abdelrazek, Amir Taher El-Sheikh, M. Zayan, A.M. Elhady
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The successful realization of complex systems is dependent not only on the technology issues and the process for implementing them, but on the management issues as well. Managing the systems development lifecycle requires technical management. Systems engineering management is the technical management. Systems engineering management is accomplished by incorporating many activities. The three major activities are development phasing, systems engineering process and lifecycle integration. Systems engineering management activities are performed across the system development lifecycle. Due to the ever-increasing complexity of systems as well the difficulty of managing and tracking the development activities, new ways to achieve systems engineering management activities are required. This paper presents a systematic approach used as a design management tool applied across systems engineering management roles. In this approach, Transdisciplinary System Development Lifecycle (TSDL) Model has been modified and integrated with Quality Function Deployment. Hereinafter, the name of the systematic approach is the Transdisciplinary Quality System Development Lifecycle (TQSDL) Model. The QFD translates the voice of customers (VOC) into measurable technical characteristics. The modified TSDL model is based on Axiomatic Design developed by Suh which is applicable to all designs: products, processes, systems and organizations. The TQSDL model aims to provide a robust structure and systematic thinking to support the implementation of systems engineering management roles. This approach ensures that the customer requirements are fulfilled as well as satisfies all the systems engineering manager roles and activities.Keywords: Axiomatic design, quality function deployment, systems engineering management, system development lifecycle.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17644141 The Efficacy of Technology in Enhancing the Development and Learning of Children (0 – 5 Years)
Authors: Adesina, Olusola Joseph
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The use of Technological tools in the classroom setting has drawn the interest of researchers all over the world in the recent time. Technology has been identified in the recent time as potentials tools to aid learning especially during early childhood stage. The main objective of this is to assist the upcoming younger generations to acquire necessary skills for cognitive development which later enhances effective teaching learning process. The integration of Technology in early childhood requires a careful selection of devices that will both assist the children and the teachers or care givers. This paper therefore, examines some selected literature evidences and highlighted the efficacy of various technologies tools in enhancing the development and learning of children (0 – 5 years). Conclusion and recommendations were also drawn in this paper.
Keywords: Development, Efficacy, Learning, Technological Device.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15274140 Community Behaviour and Support towards Island Tourism Development
Authors: Mohd Hafiz Hanafiah, Mohamad Abdullah Hemdi
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The tourism industry has been widely used to eradicate poverty, due to the ability to generate income, employment as well as improving the quality of life. The industry has faced rapid growth with support from local residents who were involved directly and indirectly in tourism activities. Their support and behaviour does not only facilitate in boosting tourists’ satisfaction levels, but at the same time it contributes to the word-of-mouth promotion among the visitors. In order to ensure the success of the industry, the involvement and participation of the local communities are pertinent. This paper endeavours on local community attitudes, benefit and their support toward future tourism development in Tioman Island. Through a series of descriptive and factor analyses, various useful understandings on the issues of interest revealed. The findings indicated that community with personal benefit will support future development. Meanwhile, the finding also revealed that the community with negative perception still supports future tourism development due to their over reliance on this sector as their main source of income and destination development means.
Keywords: Personal benefit, perceived impact, future attitudes.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27754139 Development of Non-functional Requirements for Decision Support Systems
Authors: Kassem Saleh
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Decision Support System (DSS) are interactive software systems that are built to assist the management of an organization in the decision making process when faced with nonroutine problems in a specific application domain. Non-functional requirements (NFRs) for a DSS deal with the desirable qualities and restrictions that the DSS functionalities must satisfy. Unlike the functional requirements, which are tangible functionalities provided by the DSS, NFRs are often hidden and transparent to DSS users but affect the quality of the provided functionalities. NFRs are often overlooked or added later to the system in an ad hoc manner, leading to a poor overall quality of the system. In this paper, we discuss the development of NFRs as part of the requirements engineering phase of the system development life cycle of DSSs. To help eliciting NFRs, we provide a comprehensive taxonomy of NFRs for DSSs.Keywords: Decision support system, Development, Elicitation, Non-functional requirements, Taxonomy
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24724138 Ranking of the Main Criteria for Contractor Selection Procedures on Major Construction Projects in Libya Using the Delphi Method
Authors: Othoman Elsayah, Naren Gupta, Binsheng Zhang
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The construction sector constitutes one of the most important sectors in the economy of any country. Contractor selection is a critical decision that is undertaken by client organizations and is central to the success of any construction project. Contractor selection (CS) is a process which involves investigating, screening and determining whether candidate contractors have the technical and financial capability to be accepted to formally tender for construction work. The process should be conducted prior to the award of contract, characterized by many factors such as: contactor’s skills, experience on similar projects, track- record in the industry, and financial stability. However, this paper evaluates the current state of knowledge in relation to contractor selection process and demonstrates the findings from the analysis of the data collected from the Delphi questionnaire survey. The survey was conducted with a group of 12 experts working in the Libyan construction industry (LCI). The paper starts by briefly explaining the general outline of the questionnaire including the survey participation rate, the different fields the experts came from, and the business titles of the participants. Then the paper describes the tests used to determine when the experts had reached consensus. The paper is based on research which aims to develop rank contractor selection criteria with specific application to make construction projects in the Libyan context. The findings of this study will be utilized to establish the scope of work that will be used as part of a PhD research.
Keywords: Contractor selection, Libyan construction industry, Decision experts and Delphi technique.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 29564137 Consumer Market for Georgian Hazelnut and the Strategy to Improve Its Competitiveness
Authors: M. Chavleishvili
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The paper presents the trends of Georgian hazelnut market development and analyses the competitive advantages which will help Georgia to enter international hazelnut market using modern technologies. The history of hazelnut crop development and hazelnut varieties in Georgia are discussed. For hazelnut supply analysis trends in hazelnut production are considered, trends in export and import development is evaluated, domestic hazelnut market is studied and analysed based on expert interviews and initial accounting materials. In order to achieve and strengthen its position in international market, potential advantages and disadvantages of Georgian hazelnut are revealed, analysis of export and import possibilities of hazelnut is presented. Recommendations are developed based on the conclusions, which are made through identifying the key factors that hinder development of Georgian hazelnut market.
Keywords: Hazelnut market, hazelnut export and import, competitiveness of hazelnut
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 32444136 Development of a Harvest Mechanism for the Kahramanmaraş Chili Pepper
Authors: O. E. Akay, E. Güzel, M. T. Özcan
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The pepper has quite a rich variety. The development of a single harvesting machine for all kinds of peppers is a difficult research topic. By development of harvesting mechanisms, we could be able to facilitate the pepper harvesting problems. In this study, an experimental harvesting machine was designed for chili pepper. Four-bar mechanism was used for the design of the prototype harvesting machine. At the result of harvest trials, 80% of peppers were harvested and 8% foreign materials were collected. These results have provided some tips on how to apply to large-scale pepper Four-bar mechanism of the harvest machine.Keywords: Kinematic simulation, four bar linkage, harvest mechanization, pepper harvest.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22034135 Software Development Processes Maturity versus Software Processes and Products Measurement
Authors: Beata Czarnacka-Chrobot
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Unsatisfactory effectiveness of software systems development and enhancement projects is one of the main reasons why in software engineering there are attempts being made to use experiences coming from other engineering disciplines. In spite of specificity of software product and process a belief had come out that the execution of software could be more effective if these objects were subject to measurement – as it is true in other engineering disciplines for which measurement is an immanent feature. Thus objective and reliable approaches to the measurement of software processes and products have been sought in software engineering for several dozens of years already. This may be proved, among others, by the current version of CMMI for Development model. This paper is aimed at analyzing the approach to the software processes and products measurement proposed in the latest version of this very model, indicating growing acceptance for this issue in software engineering.Keywords: CMMI for Development (1.3), ISO/IEC standards, measurement and analysis process area, software process measurement, software product measurement.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17954134 Long-Term Effect of Breastfeeding in Preschooler’s Psychomotor Development
Authors: Aurela Saliaj, Majlinda Zahaj, Bruna Pura
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Background: Breast milk may impact early brain development, with potentially important biological, medical and social implications. There is an important discussion on which is the adequate breastfeeding extension to the development consolidation and how the children breastfeeding affects their psychomotor development, in the first year of life, and in following periods as well. Some special fats (LC PUFA) contained in breast milk play a key role in the brain’s maturation and cognitive development or social skills. These capacities created during breastfeeding time would be unfolded throughout all lifespan. Aim of the study: In our research, we have studied the effect of breastfeeding in preschooler's psychomotor assessment. Method: This study was conducted in a sample of 158 preschool children in Vlorë, Albania. We have measured the psychometric parameters of preschoolers with ASQ-3 (Age&Stage Questionnaires- 3). The studied sample was divided in three groups according to their breastfeeding duration (3, 6 and 12 months). Results: Children breastfed for only 3 months have definitely lower psychometric scores compared to the ones with 6 or more months of breastfeeding (respectively 217 to 239 ASQ-3 scores). Six and twelvemonth breastfed children have progressively more odds to have high levels of psychomotor development comparing to those with only 3 months of breastfeeding. The most affected psychometric domains by shortness of breastfeeding are Communication and Global motor. Conclusion: This leads to conclusion that to ensure high psychomotor parameters during childhood is necessary breastfeeding for at least 6 months.
Keywords: Breastfeeding, preschoolers, psycho-motor development, psycho-motor domains.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23524133 Privacy in New Mobile Payment Protocol
Authors: Tan Soo Fun, Leau Yu Beng, Rozaini Roslan, Habeeb Saleh Habeeb
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The increasing development of wireless networks and the widespread popularity of handheld devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), mobile phones and wireless tablets represents an incredible opportunity to enable mobile devices as a universal payment method, involving daily financial transactions. Unfortunately, some issues hampering the widespread acceptance of mobile payment such as accountability properties, privacy protection, limitation of wireless network and mobile device. Recently, many public-key cryptography based mobile payment protocol have been proposed. However, limited capabilities of mobile devices and wireless networks make these protocols are unsuitable for mobile network. Moreover, these protocols were designed to preserve traditional flow of payment data, which is vulnerable to attack and increase the user-s risk. In this paper, we propose a private mobile payment protocol which based on client centric model and by employing symmetric key operations. The proposed mobile payment protocol not only minimizes the computational operations and communication passes between the engaging parties, but also achieves a completely privacy protection for the payer. The future work will concentrate on improving the verification solution to support mobile user authentication and authorization for mobile payment transactions.Keywords: Mobile Network Operator, Mobile payment protocol, Privacy, Symmetric key.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21364132 Renewed Urban Waterfront: Spatial Conditions of a Contemporary Urban Space Typology
Authors: Beate Niemann, Fabian Pramel
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The formerly industrially or militarily used Urban Waterfront is a potential area for urban development. Extensive interventions in the urban space come along with the development of these previously inaccessible areas in the city. The development of the Urban Waterfront in the European City is not subject to any recognizable urban paradigm. In this study, the development of the Urban Waterfront as a new urban space typology is analyzed by case studies of Urban Waterfront developments in European Cities. For humans, perceptible spatial conditions are categorized and it is identified whether the themed Urban Waterfront Developments are congruent or incongruent urban design interventions and which deviations the Urban Waterfront itself induce. As congruent urban design, a design is understood, which fits in the urban fabric regarding its similar spatial conditions to the surrounding. Incongruent urban design, however, shows significantly different conditions in its shape. Finally, the spatial relationship of the themed Urban Waterfront developments and their associated environment are compared in order to identify contrasts between new and old urban space. In this way, conclusions about urban design paradigms of the new urban space typology are tried to be drawn.
Keywords: Composition, congruence, identity, paradigm, spatial condition, urban design, urban development, urban waterfront.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21464131 Creativity and Economic Development
Authors: A. Bobirca, A. Draghici
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The objective of this paper is to construct a creativity composite index designed to capture the growing role of creativity in driving economic and social development for the 27 European Union countries. The paper proposes a new approach for the measurement of EU-27 creative potential and for determining its capacity to attract and develop creative human capital. We apply a modified version of the 3T model developed by Richard Florida and Irene Tinagli for constructing a Euro-Creativity Index. The resulting indexes establish a quantitative base for policy makers, supporting their efforts to determine the contribution of creativity to economic development.Keywords: European Creativity Index, talent, technology, tolerance
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 29574130 Forensic Implications of Blowfly Chrysomya rufifacies (Calliphoridae: Diptera) Development Rates Affected by Ketum Extract
Authors: A. R. Rashid, A. S. Siti, F. R. Siti, A. R. Reena, H. S. S. Sharifah, F. Z. Nurul, W. A. Nazni
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This study was conducted to examine the effects of ketum extract on development of Chrysomya rufifacies and to analyze the presence of mitragynine in the larvae samples. 110 newly emerged first instar larvae of C. rufifacies were introduced on ketum extract-mixed cow liver at doses of 0, 20, 40 and 60g. Blowfly development rate was determined with 12 hour intervals and mitragynine in larvae was extracted and quantitated. C. rufifacies in control group took about 192 hours to complete their development from first instar larvae to adult blowfly; meanwhile blowfly form from the highest dose of ketum was 264 hours. Mitragynine was detected in all groups of treatment, except for control. In conclusion, the presence of mitragynine in C. rufifacies is affected in delaying development rates of the blowfly for up to 62 hours or 3 days. Chemical analysis of mitragynine from larvae samples showed that this alkaloid present in all specimens analyzed.
Keywords: Chrysomya rufifacies, Ketum, Mitragynine, Postmortem Interval (PMI).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25044129 A Case Study on Barriers in Total Productive Maintenance Implementation in the Abu Dhabi Power Industry
Authors: A. Alseiari, P. Farrell
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Maintenance has evolved into an imperative function, and contributes significantly to efficient and effective equipment performance. Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is an ideal approach to support the development and implementation of operation performance improvement. It systematically aims to understand the function of equipment, the service quality relationship with equipment and the probable critical equipment failure conditions. Implementation of TPM programmes need strategic planning and there has been little research applied in this area within Middle-East power plants. In the power sector of Abu Dhabi, technologically and strategically, the power industry is extremely important, and it thus needs effective and efficient equipment management support. The aim of this paper is to investigate barriers to successful TPM implementation in the Abu Dhabi power industry. The study has been conducted in the context of a leading power company in the UAE. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 employees, including maintenance and operation staff, and senior managers. The findings of this research identified seven key barriers, thus: managerial; organisational; cultural; financial; educational; communications; and auditing. With respect to the understanding of these barriers and obstacles in TPM implementation, the findings can contribute towards improved equipment operations and maintenance in power organisations.
Keywords: Abu Dhabi power industry, TPM implementation, key barriers, organisational culture, critical success factors.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7834128 Toward an Efficient Framework for Designing, Developing, and Using Secure Mobile Applications
Authors: Mohamed Adel Serhani, Abdelghani Benharref, Rachida Dssouli, Rabeb Mizouni
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Nowadays, people are going more and more mobile, both in terms of devices and associated applications. Moreover, services that these devices are offering are getting wider and much more complex. Even though actual handheld devices have considerable computing power, their contexts of utilization are different. These contexts are affected by the availability of connection, high latency of wireless networks, battery life, size of the screen, on-screen or hard keyboard, etc. Consequently, development of mobile applications and their associated mobile Web services, if any, should follow a concise methodology so they will provide a high Quality of Service. The aim of this paper is to highlight and discuss main issues to consider when developing mobile applications and mobile Web services and then propose a framework that leads developers through different steps and modules toward development of efficient and secure mobile applications. First, different challenges in developing such applications are elicited and deeply discussed. Second, a development framework is presented with different modules addressing each of these challenges. Third, the paper presents an example of a mobile application, Eivom Cinema Guide, which benefits from following our development framework.
Keywords: Mobile applications, development of mobile applications, efficient mobile application, secure mobile application.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16544127 Evaluating New Service Development Performance Based on Multigranular Linguistic Assessment
Authors: Wen-Pai Wang, Mei-Ching Tang
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The service sector continues to grow and the percentage of GDP accounted for by service industries keeps increasing. The growth and importance of service to an economy is not just a phenomenon of advanced economies, service is now a majority of the world gross domestic products. However, the performance evaluation process of new service development problems generally involves uncertain and imprecise data. This paper presents a 2-tuple fuzzy linguistic computing approach to dealing with heterogeneous information and information loss problems while the processes of subjective evaluation integration. The proposed method based on group decision-making scenario to assist business managers in measuring performance of new service development manipulates the heterogeneity integration processes and avoids the information loss effectively.Keywords: Heterogeneity, Multigranular linguistic computing, New service development, Performance evaluation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15474126 A Model of Technological Platform for the Knowledge Management Organization
Authors: Nieto B. W, Luna A. C, Ramos R. J.
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This paper describes an experience of research, development and innovation applied in Industrial Naval at (Science and Technology Corporation for the Development of Shipbuilding Industry, Naval in Colombia (COTECMAR) particularly through processes of research, innovation and technological development, based on theoretical models related to organizational knowledge management, technology management and management of human talent and integration of technology platforms. It seeks ways to facilitate the initial establishment of environments rich in information, knowledge and content-supported collaborative strategies on dynamic processes missionary, seeking further development in the context of research, development and innovation of the Naval Engineering in Colombia, making it a distinct basis for the generation of knowledge assets from COTECMAR. The integration of information and communication technologies, supported on emerging technologies (mobile technologies, wireless, digital content via PDA, and content delivery services on the Web 2.0 and Web 3.0) as a view of the strategic thrusts in any organization facilitates the redefinition of processes for managing information and knowledge, enabling the redesign of workflows, the adaptation of new forms of organization - preferably in networking and support the creation of symbolic-inside-knowledge promotes the development of new skills, knowledge and attitudes of the knowledge workerKeywords: Management Knowledge, Information andCommunication Technologies, Knowledge Worker.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 30754125 Importance of E-Participation by U-Society in the Development of the U-City
Authors: Jalaluddin Abdul Malek, Mohd Asruladlyi Ibrahim, Zurinah Tahir
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This paper is to reveal developments in the areas of urban technology in Malaysia. Developments occur intend to add value intelligent city development to the ubiquitous city (U-city) or smart city. The phenomenon of change is called the development of post intelligent cities. U-City development discourse is seen from the perspective of the philosophy of the virtuous city organized by al-Farabi. The prosperity and perfection of a city is mainly caused by human personality factors, as well as its relationship with material and technological aspects of the city. The question is, to what extent to which human factors are taken into account in the concept of U-City as an added value to the intelligent city concept to realize the prosperity and perfection of the city? Previously, the intelligent city concept was developed based on global change and ICT movement, while the U-city added value to the development of intelligent cities and focused more on the development of information and communications technology (ICT). Value added is defined as the use of fiber optic technology that is wired to the use of wireless technology, such as wireless broadband. In this discourse, the debate on the concept of U-City is to the symbiosis between the U-City and the importance of local human e-participation (U-Society) for prosperity. In the context of virtuous city philosophy, it supports the thought of symbiosis so the concept of U-City can achieve sustainability, prosperity and perfection of the city.
Keywords: Smart city, ubiquitous city, U-Society, e-participation, prosperity.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11754124 An Empirical Investigation of Montesquieu’s Theories on Climate
Authors: Lisa J. Piergallini
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This project uses panel regression analyses to investigate the relationships between geography, institutions, and economic development, as guided by the theories of the 18th century French philosopher Montesquieu. Contemporary scholars of political economy perpetually misinterpret Montesquieu’s theories on climate, and in doing so they miss what could be the key to resolving the geography vs. institutions debate. There is a conspicuous gap in this literature, in that it does not consider whether geography and institutors might have an interactive, dynamic effect on economic development. This project seeks to bridge that gap. Data are used for all available countries over the years 1980-2013. Two interaction terms between geographic and institutional variables are employed within the empirical analyses, and these offer a unique contribution to the ongoing geography vs. institutions debate within the political economy literature. This study finds that there is indeed an interactive effect between geography and institutions, and that this interaction has a statistically significant effect on economic development. Democracy (as measured by Polity score) and rule of law and property rights (as measured by the Fraser index) have positive effects on economic development (as measured by GDP per capita), yet the magnitude of these effects are stronger in contexts where a low percent of the national population lives in the geographical tropics. This has implications for promoting economic development, and it highlights the importance of understanding geographical context.
Keywords: Montesquieu, geography, institutions, economic development, political philosophy, political economy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 26934123 Engineering Education for Sustainable Development in China: Perceptions Bias between Experienced Engineers and Engineering Students
Authors: Liang Wang, Wei Zhang
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Nowadays sustainable development has increasingly become an important research topic of engineering education all over the world. Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (EESD) highlighted the importance of addressing sustainable development in engineering practice. However, whether and how the professional engineering learning and experience affect those perceptions is an interesting research topic especially in Chinese context. Our study fills this gap by investigating perceptions bias of EESD among first-grade engineering students, fourth-grade engineering students and experienced engineers using a triple-dimensional model. Our goal is to find the effect of engineering learning and experience on sustainable development and make these learning and experiences more accessible for students and engineers in school and workplace context. The data (n = 138) came from a Likert questionnaire based on the triple-dimensional model of EESD adopted from literature reviews and the data contain 48 first-grade students, 56 fourth-grade students and 34 engineers with rich working experience from Environmental Engineering, Energy Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Civil Engineering in or graduated from Zhejiang University, China. One-way ANOVA analysis was used to find the difference in different dimensions among the three groups. The statistical results show that both engineering students and engineers have a well understanding of sustainable development in ecology dimension of EESD while there are significant differences among three groups as to the socio-economy and value rationality dimensions of EESD. The findings provide empirical evidence that both engineering learning and professional engineering experience are helpful to cultivate the cognition and perception of sustainable development in engineering education. The results of this work indicate that more practical content should be added to students’ engineering education while more theoretical content should be added to engineers’ training in order to promote the engineering students’ and engineers’ perceptions of sustainable development. In addition, as to the design of engineering courses and professional practice system for sustainable development, we should not only pay attention to the ecological aspects, but also emphasize the coordination of ecological, socio-economic and human-centered sustainable development (e.g., engineer's ethical responsibility).
Keywords: Engineering education, sustainable development, experienced engineers, engineering students.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5984122 Geographic Information Systems as a Tool to Support the Sustainable Development Goals
Authors: Gulnara N. Nabiyeva, Stephen M. Wheeler
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Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a multipurpose computer-based tool that provides a sophisticated ability to map and analyze data on different spatial layers. However, GIS is far more easily applied in some policy areas than others. This paper seeks to determine the areas of sustainable development, including environmental, economic, and social dimensions, where GIS has been used to date to support efforts to implement the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to discuss potential areas where it might be used more. Based on an extensive analysis of published literature, we ranked the SDGs according to how frequently GIS has been used to study related policy. We found that SDG#15 “Life on Land” is most often addressed with GIS, following by SDG#11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities”, and SDG#13 “Climate Action”. On the other hand, we determined that SDG#2 “Zero Hunger”, SDG#8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth”, and SDG#16 “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions” are least addressed with GIS. The paper outlines some specific ways that GIS might be applied to the SDGs least linked to this tool currently.
Keywords: GIS, GIS application, sustainable community development, sustainable development goals.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15824121 Developmental Social Work: A Derailed Post-Apartheid Development Approach in South Africa
Authors: P. Mbecke
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Developmental social welfare implemented through developmental social work is being applauded internationally as an approach that facilitates social development theory and practice. However, twenty-two years into democracy, there are no tangible evidences that the much-desired developmental social welfare approach has assisted the post-apartheid macroeconomic policy frameworks in addressing poverty and inequality, thus, the derailment of the post-apartheid development approach in South Africa. Based on the implementation research theory, and the literature review technique, this paper recognizes social work as a principal role-player in social development. It recommends the redesign and implementation of an effective developmental social welfare approach with specific strategies, programs, activities and sufficient resources aligned to and appropriate in delivering on the promises of the government’s macroeconomic policy frameworks. Such approach should be implemented by skilled and dedicated developmental social workers in order to achieve transformation in South Africa.Keywords: Apartheid, developmental social welfare, developmental social work, inequality, poverty alleviation, social development, South Africa.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12734120 The Effectiveness of Banks’ Web Sites: A Study of Turkish Banking Sector
Authors: Raif Parlakkaya, Huseyin Cetin, Duygu Irdiren
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By the development of World Wide Web, the usage rate of Internet has rapidly grown globally; and provided a basis for the emergence of electronic business. As well as other sectors, the banking sector has adopted the use of internet with the developments in information and communication technologies. Due to the public disclosure and transparency principle of Corporate Governance, the importance of information disclosure of banks on their web sites has increased significantly. For the purpose of this study, a Bank Disclosure Attribute Index (BDAI) in Turkey has been constructed through classifying the information disclosure on banks’ web sites into general, financial, investors and corporate governance attributes. All 47 banks in Turkish Banking System have been evaluated according to the index with the aim of providing a comparison between banks. By Chi Square Test, Pearson Correlation, T-Test, and ANOVA statistical tools, it has been concluded that the majority of banks in Turkey have shared information on their web sites adequately with respect to their total index score. Although there is a positive correlation between various types of information on banks’ web sites, there is no uniformity among them. Also, no significant difference between various types of information disclosure and bank types has been observed. Compared with the total index score averages of the five largest banks in Turkey, there are some banks that need to improve the content of their web sites.
Keywords: Banking sector, public disclosure, Turkey, web site evaluation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14284119 Developing Learning in Organizations with Innovation Pedagogy Methods
Authors: T. Konst
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Most jobs include training and communication tasks, but often the people in these jobs lack pedagogical competences to plan, implement and assess learning. This paper aims to discuss how a learning approach called innovation pedagogy developed in higher education can be utilized for learning development in various organizations. The methods presented how to implement innovation pedagogy such as process consultation and train the trainer model can provide added value to develop pedagogical knowhow in organizations and thus support their internal learning and development.
Keywords: Innovation pedagogy, learning, organizational development, process consultation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12584118 Investigation of Time Delay Factors in Global Software Development
Authors: Khalid Khan, Atique Ahmad Zafar, Mohammed A. Alnuem, Hashim Khan
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Global Software Development (GSD) projects are passing through different boundaries of a company, country and even in other continents where time zone differs between both sites. Beside many benefits of such development, research declared plenty of negative impacts on these GSD projects. It is important to understand problems which may lie during the execution of GSD project with different time zones. This research project discussed and provided different issues related to time delays in GSD projects. In this paper, authors investigated some of the time delay factors which usually lie in GSD projects with different time zones. This investigation is done through systematic review of literature. Furthermore, the practices to overcome these delay factors which have already been reported in literature and GSD organizations are also explored through literature survey and case studies.Keywords: Case Studies, Global Software Development, Global Software Engineering, Temporal Difference, Time Delay
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19924117 Spatial Planning as an Approach to Achieve Sustainable Development in Historic Cities
Authors: Mohammad Ali Abdi, Sima Mehdizadegan Namin
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Sustainable development is a concept which was originated in Burtland commission in 1978. Although this concept was born with environmental aspects, it is penetrated in all areas rapidly, turning into a dominate view of planning. Concentrating on future generation issue, especially when talking about heritage has a long story. Each approach with all of its characteristics illustrates differences in planning, hence planning always reflects the dominate idea of its age. This paper studies sustainable development in planning for historical cities with the aim of finding ways to deal with heritage in planning for historical cities in Iran. Through this, it will be illustrated how challenges between sustainable concept and heritage could be concluded in planning. Consequently, the paper will emphasize on: Sustainable development in city planning Trends regarding heritage Challenges due to planning for historical cities in Iran For the first two issues, documentary method regarding the sustainable development and heritage literature is considered. As the next step focusing on Iranian historical cities require considering the urban planning and management structure and identifying the main challenges related to heritage, so analyzing challenges regarding heritage is considered. As the result it would be illustrated that key issue in such planning is active conservation to improve and use the potential of heritage while it's continues conservation is guaranteed. By emphasizing on the planning system in Iran it will be obvious that some reforms are needed in this system and its way of relating with heritage. The main weakness in planning for historical cities in Iran is the lack of independent city management. Without this factor achieving active conservation as the main factor of sustainable development would not be possible.Keywords: Active conservation, city planning, heritage, sustainable development.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14984116 A Review of the Theoretical Context of the Role of Innovation in Economic Development
Authors: Maria E. Eggink
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It is the aim of this paper to place the role of innovation in economic development in its theoretical context through a literature review. The review compares classical economic theory and the neoclassical theories of “equilibrium in the markets” and “perfectly competitive markets” with the Schumpeterian theory. It was found that Schumpeter’s role in contributing towards economic development theories, and by creating awareness of the role of innovation in these theories is of immeasurable importance. His contribution led to a change in economic thinking, although this was only realized much later than when his theories were first published. The neo-Schumpeterian thinking expanded on the Schumpeterian theory by studying innovation within a system of interaction among different role players. Studies on innovation should be founded in the neo-Schumpeterian school of thought in order to accommodate the complexity of the innovation system concept.
Keywords: Economic development, evolutionary economics, innovation, Schumpeter.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4430