Search results for: literature review in ATMs.

Authors: Obaidullah Nadeem, Rizwan Hameed

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The preparation of good-quality Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports contribute to enhancing overall effectiveness of EIA. This component of the EIA process becomes more important in situation where public participation is weak and there is lack of expertise on the part of the competent authority. In Pakistan, EIA became mandatory for every project likely to cause adverse environmental impacts from July 1994. The competent authority also formulated guidelines for preparation and review of EIA reports in 1997. However, EIA is yet to prove as a successful decision support tool to help in environmental protection. One of the several reasons of this ineffectiveness is the generally poor quality of EIA reports. This paper critically reviews EIA reports of some randomly selected projects. Interviews of EIA consultants, project proponents and concerned government officials have also been conducted to underpin the root causes of poor quality of EIA reports. The analysis reveals several inadequacies particularly in areas relating to identification, evaluation and mitigation of key impacts and consideration of alternatives. The paper identifies some opportunities and suggests measures for improving the quality of EIA reports and hence making EIA an effective tool to help in environmental protection.

Keywords: Environmental Impact Assessment, EIA Guidelines, EIA Reports, Pakistan.

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Authors: Raúl González Muñoz, Essam Shehab, Martin Weinitzke, Chris Fowler, Paul Baguley

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Software applications have become crucial to the aerospace industry, providing a wide range of functionalities and capabilities used during the design, manufacturing and support of aircraft. However, as this criticality increases, so too does the risk for business operations when facing a software failure. Hence, there is a need for new methodologies to be developed to support aerospace companies in effectively managing their software portfolios, avoiding the hazards of business disruption and additional costs. This paper aims to provide a definition of operational software maturity, and how this can be used to assess software operational behaviour, as well as a view on the different aspects that drive software maturity within the aerospace industry. The key research question addressed is, how can operational software maturity monitoring assist the aerospace industry in effectively managing large software portfolios? This question has been addressed by conducting an in depth review of current literature, by working closely with aerospace professionals and by running an industry case study within a major aircraft manufacturer. The results are a software maturity model composed of a set of drivers and a prototype tool used for the testing and validation of the research findings. By utilising these methodologies to assess the operational maturity of software applications in aerospace, benefits in maintenance activities and operations disruption avoidance have been observed, supporting business cases for system improvement.

Keywords: Aerospace, capability maturity model, software maturity, software lifecycle.

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Authors: H. Al-Baghli, F. Al-Asfour

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The current applied asphalt technology for Kuwait roads pavement infrastructure is the hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavement, including both pen grade and polymer modified bitumen (PMBs), that is produced and compacted at high temperature levels ranging from 150 to 180 °C. There are no current specifications for warm and cold mix asphalts in Kuwait’s Ministry of Public Works (MPW) asphalt standard and specifications. The process of the conventional HMA is energy intensive and directly responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases and other environmental hazards into the atmosphere leading to significant environmental impacts and raising health risk to labors at site. Warm mix asphalt (WMA) technology, a sustainable alternative preferred in multiple countries, has many environmental advantages because it requires lower production temperatures than HMA by 20 to 40 °C. The reduction of temperatures achieved by WMA originates from multiple technologies including foaming and chemical or organic additives that aim to reduce bitumen and improve mix workability. This paper presents a literature review of WMA technologies and techniques followed by an experimental study aiming to compare the results of produced WMA samples, using a water containing additive (foaming process), at different compaction temperatures with the HMA control volumetric properties mix designed in accordance to the new MPW’s specifications and guidelines.

Keywords: Warm-mix asphalt, water-bearing additives, foaming-based process, chemical additives, organic additives.

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Authors: Roza Dastres, Mohsen Soori

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Networks are vulnerable devices due to their basic feature of facilitating remote access and data communication. The information in the networks needs to be kept secured and safe in order to provide an effective communication and sharing device in the web of data. Due to challenges and threats of the data in networks, the network security is one of the most important considerations in information technology infrastructures. As a result, the security measures are considered in the network in order to decrease the probability of accessing the secured data by the hackers. The purpose of network security is to protect the network and its components from unauthorized access and abuse in order to provide a safe and secured communication device for the users. In the present research work a review in recent development of network threats and security measures is presented and future research works are also suggested. Different attacks to the networks and security measured against them are discussed in order to increase security in the web of data. So, new ideas in the network security systems can be presented by analyzing the published papers in order to move forward the research field.

Keywords: Network threats, network security, security measures, firewalls.

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Authors: Ahmad Rabanimotlagh

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In this paper an ant colony optimization algorithm is developed to solve the permutation flow shop scheduling problem. In the permutation flow shop scheduling problem which has been vastly studied in the literature, there are a set of m machines and a set of n jobs. All the jobs are processed on all the machines and the sequence of jobs being processed is the same on all the machines. Here this problem is optimized considering two criteria, makespan and total flow time. Then the results are compared with the ones obtained by previously developed algorithms. Finally it is visible that our proposed approach performs best among all other algorithms in the literature.

Keywords: Scheduling, Flow shop, Ant colony optimization, Makespan, Flow time

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Authors: Edward C. W. Chan, Benny C. F. Cheung

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In the knowledge economy, the financial indicator is not the unique instrument to gauge the performance of a company. The role of intellectual capital contributing to the company performance is increasing. To measure the company performance due to intellectual capital, the value-added intellectual capital (VAIC) model is adopted to measure the intellectual capital utilization efficiency of the subject companies. The purpose of this study is to review the readiness of measuring intellectual capital for the Hong Kong listed companies in the property development and property investment industry by using VAIC model. This study covers the financial reports from the representative Hong Kong listed property development companies and property investment companies in the period 2014-2019. The findings from this study indicated the industry is ready for IC measurement employing VAIC framework but not yet ready for using the extended VAIC model.

Keywords: Intellectual capital, intellectual capital measurement, property development, property investment, Skandia Navigator, VAIC.

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Authors: Constantin Pehoiu, Cristian Savu, Silviu Badea, Cristian Borida

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The physiological effects of physical exercise on human body are relatively well known in literature, which describes in detail the changes that occur in the cardiovascular system, the respiratory one, in bones and other systems, both during exercise and after its delivery. However, the effects of exercise on mental processes are less treated. From the literature reviews discussed in this study, it can be detached the idea that we can not exactly say that physical exercise has beneficial effects on mental processes, but neither that it would have potentially negative effects. This uncertainty, reflected in the inability to indicate precise and unequivocal meaning, favorable-unfavorable physical effort in acting on mental processes, is a prime reason to undertake a study of the phenomenon influence effort administered physical education classes on the dynamics of mental processes like attention and memory.

Keywords: management, exercise, mental process, lesson.

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Authors: Mustapha Achibane, Imane Allam

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Since the nineties, all Moroccan banking institutions have to respect an arsenal of prudential ratios. The respect of these prudential measures aims to ensure the financial system stability. In order to do so, regulatory authorities tried to reduce the financial and operational risks incurred by the banking entities. Meanwhile, regulatory authorities demanded a balance sheet management work from banks. They also asked them to establish a management control system to manage operational risk, as well as an effort in terms of incurred risk-based commitments. Therefore, the prudential approach has a macroeconomic nature and it is presented as a determinant of the operational, microeconomic approach. This operational approach takes the form of a strategy that each banking entity must develop to manage the different banking risks. This study seeks to analyze the problem of risk management between the prudential and the operational approaches. It was processed through a literature review followed by an analysis of the Moroccan banking sector’s performance. At first, we will reconcile the inductive logic and then, the analytical one. The first approach consists of analyzing the phenomenon from a normative and conceptual perspective, while the second one will consist of considering the Moroccan banking system and analyzing the behavior of Moroccan banking entities in terms of risk management and performance. The results identified a favorable growth in terms of performance, despite the huge provisioning effort made to meet the international standards and the harmonization of the regulations.

Keywords: Banking performance, financial intermediation, operational approach, prudential standards, risk management.

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Authors: Sheng Teng Huang, Shigeru Yoshida

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Strategic alliances generally mean the cooperation or collaboration between firms which pursue for a synergy that each member hopes the benefits from the alliances would be much more than those from individual efforts. Past researches provide us sufficient theories and considerations for alliance forming in liner shipping market. This research reviews important academic journals for the past decade regarding to the most important reasons to form the alliances. We would explain the motive of alliances and details of shipping cooperation in literature review. The paper also empirically investigates the key service quality requirements improved through alliances by using quality function deployment (QFD). Moreover, the research investigates famous shipping reports, shipping consultant websites and most recent shipping publications to find out the executive-s viewpoint of several leading carriers among top 20 to assess current shipping strategic alliance on Asia/Europe route. These comments provide meaningful managerial reasons to consider alliance formations and search if there is any gap between the theories and industrial practice. Analysis of the empirical investigation and top management-s perspective on current market situation will contribute us some meaningful managerial suggestions to evaluate these theories applied to current strategic alliances.

Keywords: Liner shipping, Strategic alliances, quality function deployment, service quality.

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Authors: D. Tedesco, G. Feletti, P. Trucco

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The present study aims to develop a Decision Support System (DSS) to support operational decisions in Emergency Medical Service (EMS) systems regarding the assignment of medical emergency requests to Emergency Departments (ED). This problem is called “hospital selection” and concerns the definition of policies for the selection of the ED to which patients who require further treatment are transported by ambulance. The employed research methodology consists of a first phase of review of the technical-scientific literature concerning DSSs to support the EMS management and, in particular, the hospital selection decision. From the literature analysis, it emerged that current studies mainly focused on the EMS phases related to the ambulance service and consider a process that ends when the ambulance is available after completing a mission. Therefore, all the ED-related issues are excluded and considered as part of a separate process. Indeed, the most studied hospital selection policy turned out to be proximity, thus allowing to minimize the travelling time and to free-up the ambulance in the shortest possible time. The purpose of the present study consists in developing an optimization model for assigning medical emergency requests to the EDs also considering the expected time performance in the subsequent phases of the process, such as the case mix, the expected service throughput times, and the operational capacity of different EDs in hospitals. To this end, a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model was created to compare different hospital selection policies. The model was implemented with the AnyLogic software and finally validated on a realistic case. The hospital selection policy that returned the best results was the minimization of the Time To Provider (TTP), considered as the time from the beginning of the ambulance journey to the ED at the beginning of the clinical evaluation by the doctor. Finally, two approaches were further compared: a static approach, based on a retrospective estimation of the TTP, and a dynamic approach, focused on a predictive estimation of the TTP which is determined with a constantly updated Winters forecasting model. Findings reveal that considering the minimization of TTP is the best hospital selection policy. It allows to significantly reducing service throughput times in the ED with a negligible increase in travel time. Furthermore, an immediate view of the saturation state of the ED is produced and the case mix present in the ED structures (i.e., the different triage codes) is considered, as different severity codes correspond to different service throughput times. Besides, the use of a predictive approach is certainly more reliable in terms on TTP estimation, than a retrospective approach. These considerations can support decision-makers in introducing different hospital selection policies to enhance EMSs performance.

Keywords: Emergency medical services, hospital selection, discrete event simulation, forecast model.

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Authors: Cindy Wang-Cowham, Judy Ningyu Tang

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The paper contributes towards the development of scarce literature on HR knowledge management. Drawing literature from knowledge management, the authors define the meaning of HR knowledge and propose that there are social mechanisms in organizations that facilitate the management and sharing of HR knowledge. Instead of investigating the subject in large multinational corporations, the present paper examines it in a large Chinese privately owned enterprise, which has an international standing. The main finding of the case analysis is that communication and feedback plays a pivotal role when managing HR knowledge. Social mechanisms can stimulate the communication and feedback between employees, thus facilitate knowledge exchange.

Keywords: HR knowledge, knowledge management, large privately owned enterprises, China.

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Authors: Mijoh A. Gbededo, Kapila Liyanage, Sabuj Mallik

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The emerging approaches to sustainable manufacturing are considered to be solution-oriented with the aim of addressing the environmental, economic and social issues holistically. However, the analysis of the interdependencies amongst the three sustainability dimensions has not been fully captured in the literature. In a recent review of approaches to sustainable manufacturing, two categories of techniques are identified: 1) Sustainable Product Development (SPD), and 2) Sustainability Performance Assessment (SPA) techniques. The challenges of the approaches are not only related to the arguments and misconceptions of the relationships between the techniques and sustainable development but also to the inability to capture and integrate the three sustainability dimensions. This requires a clear definition of some of the approaches and a road-map to the development of a holistic approach that supports sustainability decision-making. In this context, eco-innovation, social impact assessment, and life cycle sustainability analysis play an important role. This paper deployed an integrative approach that enabled amalgamation of sustainable manufacturing approaches and the theories of reciprocity and motivation into a holistic simulation-based impact analysis framework. The findings in this research have the potential to guide sustainability analysts to capture the aspects of the three sustainability dimensions into an analytical model. Additionally, the research findings presented can aid the construction of a holistic simulation model of a sustainable manufacturing and support effective decision-making.

Keywords: Life cycle sustainability analysis, sustainable manufacturing, sustainability performance assessment, sustainable product development.

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Authors: Md. SajadulAlam, I. Ahmed, A. Naqib Jimmy, M. Haque Munna, N. Ahsan Khan

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The construction of coastal polders to reduce salinity ingress at greater Khulna-Jashore region area was initiated in the 1960s by Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB). Although successful in a short run the, the Coastal Embankment Project (CEP) and its predecessors are often held accountable for the entire ecological disasters that affected many people. To overcome the water-logging crisis the first Tidal River Management (TRM) at Beel Bhaiana, Bhabodaho was implemented by the affected local people in an unplanned. TRM is an eco-engineering, low cost and participatory approach that utilizes the natural tidal characteristics and the local community’s indigenous knowledge for design and operation of watershed management. But although its outcomes were overwhelming in terms of reducing water-logging, increasing navigability etc. at Beel Bhaina the outcomes of its consequent schemes were debatable. So this study aims to examine the effectiveness and impact of the TRM schemes. Primary data were collected through questionnaire survey, Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and Key Informant Interview (KII) so as to collect mutually complementary quantitative and qualitative information along with extensive literature review. The key aspects that were examined include community participation, community perception on effectiveness and operational challenges.

Keywords: Sustainable, livelihood, salinity, water-logging, shrimp fry collectors, coastal region.

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Authors: Ali Alotaibi, Francis Edum-Fotwe, Andrew Price /

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Mega construction projects create buildings and major infrastructure to respond to work and life requirements while playing a vital role in promoting any nation’s economy. However, the industry is often criticised for not balancing economic, environmental and social dimensions of their projects, with emphasis typically on one aspect to the detriment of the others. This has resulted in many negative impacts including environmental pollution, waste throughout the project lifecycle, low productivity, and avoidable accidents. The identification of comprehensive Social Responsibility (SR) indicators, which combine social, environmental and economic aspects, is urgently needed. This is particularly the case in the context of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), which often has mega public construction projects. The aim of this paper is to develop a set of wide-ranging SR indicators which encompass social, economic and environmental aspects unique to the KSA. A qualitative approach was applied to explore relevant indicators through a review of the existing literature, international standards and reports. A list of appropriate indicators was developed, and its comprehensiveness was corroborated by interviews with experts on mega construction projects working with SR concepts in the KSA. The findings present 39 indicators and their metrics, covering 10 economic, 12 environmental and 17 social aspects of SR mapped against their references. These indicators are a valuable reference for decision-makers and academics in the KSA to understand factors related to SR in mega construction projects. The indicators are related to mega construction projects within the KSA and require validation in a real case scenario or within a different industry to demonstrate their generalisability.

Keywords: Social responsibility, construction projects, economic, social, environmental, indicators.

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Authors: A. Khelifi, D. Ahmed, R. Salem, N. Ali

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Large patients’ queues at pharmacies and hospitals are a problem that faces the supposedly smooth and healthy environment in United Arab Emirates. As this sometimes leads to dissatisfaction from visiting patients, we tried to solve this problem with additional beneficial functions by developing the Hospital-Pharmacy Management System. The primary purpose of this research is to develop a system that joins the databases of a hospital and a pharmacy together for a better integrated system that provides a better coherent working environment. Three methods are used to design the system. These methods are detailed literature review, an extensive feasibility study and surveys for doctors, hospital IT managers and End-users. Interviews and surveys with related stakeholders were done to depict system’s requirements; design and prototype. The prototype illustrates system’s features and its client and server architecture. The system has a mobile application for visiting patients to, mainly, keep track of their prescriptions and access to their personal information. The server side allows doctors to submit the prescriptions online to pharmacists who will process them. This system is expected to reduce the long waiting queues of patients and increase their satisfaction while also reducing doctors and pharmacists’ stress and facilitating their work. It will be deployed to users of Android devices only. This limitation will be resolved, as one of main future enhancements, once the system finds acceptance from hospitals and pharmacies in United Arab Emirates.

Keywords: Hospital, Information System, Integration, Pharmacy.

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Authors: Mpai Mokoena, Nsenda Lukumwena

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South Africa is one of the driest countries in the world and is facing a water crisis. In addition to inadequate infrastructure and poor planning, the country is experiencing high rates of water wastage due to pipe leaks. This study outlines the level of water wastage and develops a smart solution to efficiently manage and reduce the effects of pipe leaks, while monitoring the situation before and after fixing the pipe leaks. To understand the issue in depth, a literature review of journal papers and government reports was conducted. A questionnaire was designed and distributed to the general public. Additionally, the municipality office was contacted from a managerial perspective. The analysis from the study indicated that the majority of the citizens are aware of the water crisis and are willing to participate positively to decrease the level of water wasted. Furthermore, the response from the municipality acknowledged that more practical solutions are needed to reduce water wastage, and resources to attend to pipe leaks swiftly. Therefore, this paper proposes a specific solution for municipalities, local plumbers and citizens to minimize the effects of pipe leaks. The solution provides web and mobile application platforms to report and manage leaks swiftly. The solution is beneficial to the country in achieving water security and would promote a culture of responsibility toward water usage.

Keywords: Urban Distribution Networks, leak management, mobile application, responsible citizens, water crisis, water security.

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Authors: Farid Ezanee Mohamed Ghazali

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The Malaysia Highway Authority (MHA) was established by the Government in 1980 for the purpose of designing, constructing and maintaining toll highways in Malaysia that include the North-South Expressway and the Penang Bridge, which were procured using the publicly-funded traditional procurement. However following a recession in the mid 80-s, the operations of these tolledhighways had been privatized to ensure that their operational services continue through private financing as a result of long-term concession agreement concurred between the Malaysian Government and private operators. The change in the contract strategy for highway projects in Malaysia would have a great tendency to dictate a significant risk exposure towards the key parties involved, particularly the Malaysian Government as project principal, unless operational risks are clearly identified and managed via appropriate mitigation measures prior to a contract signing. This research identifies potential operational risks that have a possibility to occur in highway projects in Malaysia from the perspective of public sector clients. Since this research focuses on the operational risks for highway projects in Malaysia, the initial results acquired from literature review on the operational risks of highway projects in some Asian countries are then justified by a number of key individuals from the MHA through interviews. As a result, among key operational risks that have possibility to occur in the highway projects in Malaysia include initial toll-tariff decided by the Government, traffic congestion, change of road network and overloaded freight transportation, which could cause damage to the road surface and hence affecting the operation of a particular highway.

Keywords: Malaysia, operating highway project, operational risk.

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Authors: S. Rezaei, Z. Mirzaei, M. Khalighi, J. Bahrami

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Bridges, as an essential part of road infrastructures, are affected by various deterioration mechanisms over time due to the changes in their performance. As changes in performance can have many negative impacts on society, it is essential to be able to evaluate and measure the performance of bridges throughout their life. This evaluation includes the development or the choice of the appropriate performance indicators, which, in turn, are measured based on the selection of appropriate models for the existing deterioration mechanism. The purpose of this article is a statistical study of indicators and deterioration mechanisms of bridges in order to discover further research capacities in bridges performance assessment. For this purpose, some of the most common indicators of bridge performance, including reliability, risk, vulnerability, robustness, and resilience, were selected. The researches performed on each index based on the desired deterioration mechanisms and hazards were comprehensively reviewed. In addition, the formulation of the indicators and their relationship with each other were studied. The research conducted on the mentioned indicators were classified from the point of view of deterministic or probabilistic method, the level of study (element level, object level, etc.), and the type of hazard and the deterioration mechanism of interest. For each of the indicators, a number of challenges and recommendations were presented according to the review of previous studies.

Keywords: Bridge, deterioration mechanism, lifecycle, performance indicator.

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Authors: D. Hilton

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The importance and significance of this research is based upon the fundamental knowledge reported in the scientific literature that physical activity is inversely associated with obesity. In addition, it is recognized there is a global epidemic of sedentariness while at the same time it is known that morbidity and mortality are associated with physical inactivity and as a result of overweight or obesity. Hence this small study in school students is an important area of research in our community. An application submitted in 2005 for the inaugural Public Health Education Research Trust [PHERT] Post Graduate Research Scholarship scheme organized by the Public Health Association of Australia [PHAA] was awarded 3rd place within Australia. The author and title was: D. Hilton, Methods to increase physical activity in school aged children [literature review, a trial using pedometers and a policy paper]. Third place is a good result, however this did not secure funding for the project, as only first place received $5000 funding. Some years later within Australia, a program commenced called the Global Children's Challenge [GCC]. Given details of the 2005 award above were included an application submission prepared for Parkhill Primary School [PPS] which is located in Victoria, Australia was successful. As a result, an excited combined grade 3/ 4 class at the school [27 students] in 2012 became recipients of these free pedometers. Ambassadors for the program were Mrs Catherine Freeman [OAM], Olympic Gold Medalist – Sydney 2000 [400 meters], while another ambassador was Mr Colin Jackson [CBE] who is a Welsh former sprint and hurdling athlete. In terms of PPS and other schools involved in 2012, website details show that the event started on 19th Sep 2012 and students were to wear the pedometer every day for 50 days [at home and at school] aiming for the recommended 15,000 steps/day recording steps taken in a booklet provided. After the finish, an analysis of the average step count for this school showed that the average steps taken / day was 14, 003 [however only a small percentage of students returned the booklets and units] as unfortunately the dates for the program coincided with school holidays so some students either forgot or misplaced the units / booklets. Unfortunately funding for this program ceased in 2013, however the lasting impact of the trial on student’s knowledge and awareness remains and in fact becomes a good grounding for students in how to monitor basic daily physical activity using a method that is easy, fun, low cost and readily accessible.

Keywords: Walking, exercise, physical activity [motor activity].

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Authors: Clara Inés Pardo Martínez, William H. Alfonso Piña

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In emerging economies, recycling is an opportunity for the cities to increase the lifespan of sanitary landfills, reduce the costs of the solid waste management, decrease the environmental problems of the waste treatment through reincorporate waste in the productive cycle and protect and develop people’s livelihoods of informal waste pickers. However, few studies have analysed the possibilities and strategies to integrate formal and informal sectors in the solid waste management for the benefit of both. This study seek to make a strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat (SWOT) analysis in three recycling associations of Bogotá with the aim to understand and determine the situation of recycling from perspective of informal sector in its transition to enter as authorized waste providers. Data used in the analysis are derived from multiple strategies such as literature review, the Bogota’s recycling database, focus group meetings, governmental reports, national laws and regulations and specific interviews with key stakeholders. Results of this study show as the main stakeholders of formal and informal sector of waste management can identify the internal and internal conditions of recycling in Bogotá. Several strategies were designed based on the SWOTs determined, could be useful for Bogotá to advance and promote recycling as a key strategy for integrated sustainable waste management in the city.

Keywords: Bogotá, recycling, solid waste management, SWOT analysis.

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Authors: Dong-Yan Huang, Ee Ping Ong, Susanto Rahardja, Minghui Dong, Haizhou Li

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The transformation of vocal characteristics aims at modifying voice such that the intelligibility of aphonic voice is increased or the voice characteristics of a speaker (source speaker) to be perceived as if another speaker (target speaker) had uttered it. In this paper, the current state-of-the-art voice characteristics transformation methodology is reviewed. Special emphasis is placed on voice transformation methodology and issues for improving the transformed speech quality in intelligibility and naturalness are discussed. In particular, it is suggested to use the modulation theory of speech as a base for research on high quality voice transformation. This approach allows one to separate linguistic, expressive, organic and perspective information of speech, based on an analysis of how they are fused when speech is produced. Therefore, this theory provides the fundamentals not only for manipulating non-linguistic, extra-/paralinguistic and intra-linguistic variables for voice transformation, but also for paving the way for easily transposing the existing voice transformation methods to emotion-related voice quality transformation and speaking style transformation. From the perspectives of human speech production and perception, the popular voice transformation techniques are described and classified them based on the underlying principles either from the speech production or perception mechanisms or from both. In addition, the advantages and limitations of voice transformation techniques and the experimental manipulation of vocal cues are discussed through examples from past and present research. Finally, a conclusion and road map are pointed out for more natural voice transformation algorithms in the future.

Keywords: Voice transformation, Voice Quality, Emotion, Individuality, Speaking Style, Speech Production, Speech Perception.

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Authors: Elina Bakhtieva

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The variety of available digital tools, strategies and activities might confuse and disorient even an experienced marketer. This applies in particular to B2B companies, which are usually less flexible in uptaking of digital technology than B2C companies. B2B companies are lacking a framework that corresponds to the specifics of the B2B business, and which helps to evaluate a company’s capabilities and to choose an appropriate path. A B2B digital marketing maturity model helps to fill this gap. However, modern marketing offers no widely approved digital marketing maturity model, and thus, some marketing institutions provide their own tools. The purpose of this paper is building an optimized B2B digital marketing maturity model based on a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of existing models. The current study provides an analytical review of the existing digital marketing maturity models with open access. The results of the research are twofold. First, the provided SWOT analysis outlines the main advantages and disadvantages of existing models. Secondly, the strengths of existing digital marketing maturity models, helps to identify the main characteristics and the structure of an optimized B2B digital marketing maturity model. The research findings indicate that only one out of three analyzed models could be used as a separate tool. This study is among the first examining the use of maturity models in digital marketing. It helps businesses to choose between the existing digital marketing models, the most effective one. Moreover, it creates a base for future research on digital marketing maturity models. This study contributes to the emerging B2B digital marketing literature by providing a SWOT analysis of the existing digital marketing maturity models and suggesting a structure and main characteristics of an optimized B2B digital marketing maturity model.

Keywords: B2B digital marketing strategy, digital marketing, digital marketing maturity model, SWOT analysis.

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Authors: Mohammad Hasan Raouf, Azim Nowbakht, Mohammad Bagher Haddadi, Mohammad Reza Tabatabaei

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Power quality has become a very important issue recently due to the impact on electricity suppliers, equipment manufacturers and customers. Power quality is described as the variation of voltage, current and frequency in a power system. Voltage magnitude is one of the major factors that determine the quality of power. Indeed, custom power technology, the low-voltage counterpart of the more widely known flexible ac transmission system (FACTS) technology, aimed at high-voltage power transmission applications, has emerged as a credible solution to solve many problems relating to power quality problems. There are various power quality problems such as voltage sags, swells, flickers, interruptions and harmonics etc. Active Power Filter (APF) is one of the custom power devices and can mitigate harmonics, reactive power and unbalanced load currents originating from load side. In this study, an extensive review of APF studies, the advantages and disadvantages of each introduced methods are presented. The study also helps the researchers to choose the optimum control techniques and power circuit configuration for APF applications.

Keywords: Power Quality, Custom Power, Active Filter, Control Approach.

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Authors: Maria Grazia Albanesi, Riccardo Amadeo

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This study presents a new model of the human image quality assessment process: the aim is to highlightthe foundations of the image quality metrics proposed in literature, by identifyingthe cognitive/physiological or mathematical principles of their development and the relation with the actual human quality assessment process. The model allows to createa novel categorization of objective and subjective image quality metrics. Our work includes an overview of the most used or effectiveobjective metrics in literature, and, for each of them, we underline its main characteristics, with reference to the rationale of the proposed model and categorization. From the results of this operation, we underline a problem that affects all the presented metrics: the fact that many aspects of human biasesare not taken in account at all. We then propose a possible methodology to address this issue.

Keywords: Eye-Tracking, image quality assessment metric, MOS, quality of user experience, visual perception.

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Authors: Fatemeh Azimi, Razeeh Sadat Aboutalebi, Amir Abbas Najafi

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In this paper the multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem with discounted cash flows is considered. Minimizing the makespan and maximization the net present value (NPV) are the two common objectives that have been investigated in the literature. We apply one evolutionary algorithm named multiobjective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) to find Pareto front solutions. We used standard sets of instances from the project scheduling problem library (PSPLIB). The results are computationally compared respect to different metrics taken from the literature on evolutionary multi-objective optimization.

Keywords: Evolutionary multi-objective optimization makespan, multi-mode, resource constraint, net present value.

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Authors: Pornpapatsorn Princhankol, Kannika Udnunkarn

Abstract:

This research was aimed to develop and determine the quality of online learning activities kit as well as to examine the learning achievement of students and their satisfaction towards the kit through authentic assessment. The tools in this research contained online learning activities kit on plant in Thai literature in compliance with the School Botanical Garden of Plant Genetic Conservation Project under the Royal Initiative of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the assessment form, the learning achievement test, the satisfaction form and the authentic assessment form. The population consisted of 40 students in the second range of primary years (Prathomsuksa 4 to 6) at Ban Khao Rak School, Suratthani Province, Thailand. The research results showed that the content quality of the developed online learning activities kit as assessed by the experts was 4.70 on average or at very high level. The pre-test and post-test comparison was made to examine the learning achievement and it revealed that the post-test score was higher than the pre-test score with statistical significance at the .01 level. The satisfaction of the sampling group towards the online learning activities kit was 4.74 or at the highest level. The authentic assessment showed an average of 1.69 or at good level. Therefore, the online learning activities kit on plant in Thai literature in compliance with the School Botanical Garden of Plant Genetic Conservation Project under the Royal Initiative of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn could be used in real classroom situations.

Keywords: Online learning activities kit, Plants in Thai literature, School Botanical garden

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Authors: S. R. Shamili, C. Natarajan, J. Karthikeyan

Abstract:

Rapid growth of world population and widespread urbanization has remarkably increased the development of the construction industry which caused a huge demand for sand and gravels. Environmental problems occur when the rate of extraction of sand, gravels, and other materials exceeds the rate of generation of natural resources; therefore, an alternative source is essential to replace the materials used in concrete. Now-a-days, electronic products have become an integral part of daily life which provides more comfort, security, and ease of exchange of information. These electronic waste (E-Waste) materials have serious human health concerns and require extreme care in its disposal to avoid any adverse impacts. Disposal or dumping of these E-Wastes also causes major issues because it is highly complex to handle and often contains highly toxic chemicals such as lead, cadmium, mercury, beryllium, brominates flame retardants (BFRs), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and phosphorus compounds. Hence, E-Waste can be incorporated in concrete to make a sustainable environment. This paper deals with the composition, preparation, properties, classification of E-Waste. All these processes avoid dumping to landfills whilst conserving natural aggregate resources, and providing a better environmental option. This paper also provides a detailed literature review on the behaviour of concrete with incorporation of E-Wastes. Many research shows the strong possibility of using E-Waste as a substitute of aggregates eventually it reduces the use of natural aggregates in concrete.

Keywords: Disposal, electronic waste, landfill, toxic chemicals.

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Authors: N. Garba, C. S. Özveren, D. Blackwood, A. Adamu, A. I. Augie

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper was to develop a policy and associated regulatory actions together with legislations that could help in sustainable energy development in Africa and Nigeria in particular. As a result of depletion of fossil fuels in most African countries, renewable energy options such as solar, wind and hydropower biomass are considered to be alternative sources in sustaining the energy security in the continent and particularly Nigeria. Corruption level is another factor that hinders economic growth and development in Nigeria. A review of the past literature on sustainable energy policy from Europe has been carried out. The countries investigated include: The United Kingdom, Germany, Norway and Finland. Their policies have been examined, and this helps suggest new policies on sustainable energy for Nigeria and Africa as a continent. The policies analyzed focused on incentives such as Feed-in-Tariff (FiT). Renewable energy sources potential and renewable have been investigated in Nigeria and that could help in formulating new sustainable energy policy for the country. Some of the proposed policies includes: Renewable Obligation (RO), Cogeneration, FiT, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), Renewable Integration, and Heat Entrepreneurship. These are some the new policies that could help sustain the energy security, reduce the level of poverty and corruption in Nigeria as well as Africa in general. If these policies are well designed and properly implemented as observed in this research, Nigeria can achieve sustainable energy and economic growth and development in the near future. Each proposed policy was assigned a timeframe for it to be achieved.

Keywords: Sustainability, renewable energy, energy policies, Africa, Nigeria, Europe, United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Finland.

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Authors: Mhand Hifi, Hedi Mhalla

Abstract:

In this paper, we study the knapsack sharing problem, a variant of the well-known NP-Hard single knapsack problem. We investigate the use of a tree search for optimally solving the problem. The used method combines two complementary phases: a reduction interval search phase and a branch and bound procedure one. First, the reduction phase applies a polynomial reduction strategy; that is used for decomposing the problem into a series of knapsack problems. Second, the tree search procedure is applied in order to attain a set of optimal capacities characterizing the knapsack problems. Finally, the performance of the proposed optimal algorithm is evaluated on a set of instances of the literature and its runtime is compared to the best exact algorithm of the literature.

Keywords: Branch and bound, combinatorial optimization, knap¬sack, knapsack sharing, heuristics, interval reduction.

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Authors: Cristina Sanchez-Sanchez

Abstract:

Although there seems to be a growing interest in the study of the citizen’s happiness as an alternative measure of a country’s progress to GDP, happiness as a public concern is still an ambiguous concept, hard to define. Moreover, different notions are used indiscriminately to talk about the same thing. This investigation aims to determine the conceptions of happiness, well-being and quality of life that originate from the indexes that different governments and public institutions around the world have created to study them. Through the Scoping Review method, this study identifies the recent academic research in this field (a total of 267 documents between 2006 and 2016) from some of the most popular social sciences databases around the world, Web of Science, Scopus, JSTOR, Sage, EBSCO, IBSS and Google Scholar, and in Spain, ISOC and Dialnet. These 267 documents referenced 53 different indexes and researches. The Grounded Theory method has been applied to a sample of 13 indexes in order to identify the main categories they use to determine these three concepts. The results show that these are multi-dimensional concepts and similar indicators are used indistinctly to measure happiness, well-being and quality of life.

Keywords: Grounded theory, happiness, happiness index, quality of life, scoping review, well-being.

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