Search results for: Economic Analysis of CHP
9130 An Analysis of Institutional Environments on Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in Nigerian Renewable Energy Firms
Authors: Bolanle Deborah Motilewa, E. K. Rowland Worlu, Gbenga Mayowa Agboola, Ayodele Maxwell Olokundun
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Several studies have proposed a one-size fit all approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices, such that CSR as it applies to developed countries is adapted to developing countries, ignoring the differing institutional environments (such as the regulative, economic, social and political environments), which affects the profitability and practices of businesses operating in them. CSR as it applies to filling institutional gaps in developing countries, was categorized into four themes: environmental protection, product and service innovation, social innovation and local cluster development. Based on the four themes, the study employed a qualitative research approach through the use of interviews and review of available publications to study the influence of institutional environments on CSR practices engaged in by three renewable energy firms operating in Nigeria. Over the course of three 60-minutes sessions with the top management and selected workers of the firms, four propositions were made: regulatory environment influences environmental protection practice of Nigerian renewable firms, economic environment influences product and service innovation practice of Nigerian renewable energy firms, the social environment impacts on social innovation in Nigerian renewable energy firms, and political environment affects local cluster development practice of Nigerian renewable energy firms. It was also observed that beyond institutional environments, the international exposure of an organization’s managers reflected in their approach to CSR. This finding on the influence of international exposure on CSR practices creates an area for further study. Insights from this paper are set to help policy makers in developing countries, CSR managers, and future researchers.Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, institutional environment, renewable energy firms, developing countries, international exposure.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14289129 Planning a Supply Chain with Risk and Environmental Objectives
Authors: Ghanima Al-Sharrah, Haitham M. Lababidi, Yusuf I. Ali
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The main objective of the current work is to introduce sustainability factors in optimizing the supply chain model for process industries. The supply chain models are normally based on purely economic considerations related to costs and profits. To account for sustainability, two additional factors have been introduced; environment and risk. A supply chain for an entire petroleum organization has been considered for implementing and testing the proposed optimization models. The environmental and risk factors were introduced as indicators reflecting the anticipated impact of the optimal production scenarios on sustainability. The aggregation method used in extending the single objective function to multi-objective function is proven to be quite effective in balancing the contribution of each objective term. The results indicate that introducing sustainability factor would slightly reduce the economic benefit while improving the environmental and risk reduction performances of the process industries.Keywords: Supply chain, optimization, LP models, risk, environmental indicators, multi-objective.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14999128 Behavioral Response of Bee Farmers to Climate Change in South East, Nigeria
Authors: Jude A. Mbanasor, Chigozirim N. Onwusiribe
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The enigma climate change is no longer an illusion but a reality. In the recent years, the Nigeria climate has changed and the changes are shown by the changing patterns of rainfall, the sunshine, increasing level carbon and nitrous emission as well as deforestation. This study analyzed the behavioural response of bee keepers to variations in the climate and the adaptation techniques developed in response to the climate variation. Beekeeping is a viable economic activity for the alleviation of poverty as the products include honey, wax, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, venom, queens, bees and their larvae and are all marketable. The study adopted the multistage sampling technique to select 120 beekeepers from the five states of Southeast Nigeria. Well-structured questionnaires and focus group discussions were adopted to collect the required data. Statistical tools like the Principal component analysis, data envelopment models, graphs, and charts were used for the data analysis. Changing patterns of rainfall and sunshine with the increasing rate of deforestation had a negative effect on the habitat of the bees. The bee keepers have adopted the Kenya Top bar and Langstroth hives and they establish the bee hives on fallow farmland close to the cultivated communal farms with more flowering crops.Keywords: Climate, smart, smallholder, farmer, socioeconomic, response.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6069127 Constructing a New World Order through a Narrative of Infrastructural Development: The Case of the BRICS
Authors: Carolijn Van Noort
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The aim of this research is to understand how the emerging power bloc BRICS employs infrastructure development narratives to construct a new world order. BRICS is an international body consisting of five emerging countries that collaborate on economic and political issues: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. This study explores the projection of infrastructure development narratives through an analysis of BRICS’ attention to infrastructure investment and financing, its support of the New Partnership on African Development and the establishment of the New Development Bank in Shanghai. The theory of Strategic Narratives is used to explore BRICS’ commitment to infrastructure development and to distinguish three layers: system narratives (BRICS as a global actor to propose development reform), identity narratives (BRICS as a collective identity joining efforts to act upon development aspirations) and issue narratives (BRICS committed to a range of issues of which infrastructure development is prominent). The methodology that is employed is a narrative analysis of BRICS’ official documents, media statements, and website imagery. A comparison of these narratives illuminates tensions at the three layers and among the five member states. Identifying tensions among development infrastructure narratives provides an indication of how policymaking for infrastructure development could be improved. Subsequently, it advances BRICS’ ability to act as a global actor to construct a new world order.Keywords: BRICS, emerging powers, infrastructural development, strategic narratives.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20589126 Coastal Resource Management: Fishermen-s Perceptions of Seaweed Farming in Indonesia
Authors: Achmad Zamroni, Masahiro Yamao
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Seaweed farming is emerging as a viable alternative activity in the Indonesian fisheries sector. This paper aims to investigate people-s perceptions of seaweed farming, to analyze its social and economic impacts and to identify the problems and obstacles hindering its continued development. Structured and semi-structured questionnaires were prepared to obtain qualitative data, and interviews were conducted with fishermen who also plant seaweed. The findings showed that fishermen in the Laikang Bay were enthusiastic about cultivating seaweeds and that seaweed plays a major role in supporting the household economy of fishermen. However, current seaweed drying technologies cannot support increased seaweed production on a farm or plot, especially in the rainy season. Additionally, variable monsoon seasons and long marketing channels are still major constraints on the development of the industry. Finally, capture fisheries, the primary economic livelihood of fishermen of older generations, is being slowly replaced by seaweed farming.Keywords: Coastal management, perception, seaweed development and livelihood diversification
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 28749125 Accounting Performance of the Leading Companies in the Construction Sector in Brazil during the Period 2009-2012
Authors: Fabrício José Piacente, Vanessa de Cillos Silva, Thigo Luiz Mello Melato
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The construction industry has been demonstrating increased growth and importance in Brazil’s national economic development. This study aims to evaluate the financial performance of the leading companies in the construction sector in Brazil in the period from 2009 to 2012. An analysis is made of the capital structure, liquidity, and profitability of the six largest companies in the construction sector in Brazil: Brookfield, Cyrela, Gafisa, MRV, PDG and Rossi. The results are then compared with standard industry ratios. It was found that among the companies analyzed, MRV and Cyrela showed the best relative performance in the period under consideration.
Keywords: Accounting ratios, construction, financial performance.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18929124 Study of Influencing Factors of Shrinking Cities Based On Factor Analysis – The Example of Halle, Germany
Authors: Fang Yao, Minglei Chen
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City shrinkage is one of the thorny problems that many European cities have to face with nowadays. It is mainly expressed as the decrease of population in these cities. Eastern Germany is one of the pioneers of European shrinking cities with long shrinking history. The paper selects one representative shrinking city Halle (Saale) in eastern Germany as research objective, collecting and investigating nearly 20 years (1993-2010) municipal data after the reunification of Germany. These data based on five dimensions, which are demographic, economic, social, spatial and environmental and total 16 eligible variables. Factor Analysis is used to deal with these variables in order to assess the most important factors affecting shrinking Halle. The results show that there are three main factors determine the shrinkage of Halle, respectively named “demographical and economical factor”, “social stability factor”, and “city vitality factor”. The three factors act at different time period of Halle’s shrinkage: from 1993 to 1997 the demographical and economical factor played an important role; from 1997 to 2004 the social stability factor is significant to city shrinkage; since 2005 city vitality factor determines the shrinkage of Halle. In recent years, the shrinkage in Halle mitigates that shows the sign of growing population. Thus the city Halle should focus on attaching more importance on the city vitality factor to prevent the city from shrinkage. Meanwhile, the city should possess a positive perspective to shift the growth-oriented development to tap the potential of shrinking cities. This method is expected to apply to further research and other shrinking cities
Keywords: Demography, Factor analysis, Halle, Shrinking cities.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19599123 Evaluation of Disease Risk Variables in the Control of Bovine Tuberculosis
Authors: Berrin Şentürk
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In this study, due to the recurrence of bovine tuberculosis, in the same areas, the risk factors for the disease were determined and evaluated at the local level. This study was carried out in 32 farms where the disease was detected in the district and center of Samsun province in 2014. Predetermined risk factors, such as farm, environmental and economic risks, were investigated with the survey method. It was predetermined that risks in the three groups are similar to the risk variables of the disease on the global scale. These risk factors that increase the susceptibility of the infection must be understood by the herd owners. The risk-based contagious disease management system approach should be applied for bovine tuberculosis by farmers, animal health professionals and public and private sector decision makers.Keywords: Bovine tuberculosis, disease management, control, outbreak, risk analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11239122 The Role of State in Combating Religious Extremism and Terrorism
Authors: Kadyrzhan Smagulov, Mukhtar Senggirbay, Sholpan Zhandossova, Lyaila Ivatova, Gulnar Nassimova
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terrorism and extremism are among the most dangerous and difficult to forecast the phenomena of our time, which are becoming more diverse forms and rampant. Terrorist attacks often produce mass casualties, involve the destruction of material and spiritual values, beyond the recovery times, sow hatred among nations, provoke war, mistrust and hatred between the social and national groups, which sometimes can not be overcome within a generation. Currently, the countries of Central Asia are a topical issue – the threat of terrorism and religious extremism, which grow not only in our area, but throughout the world. Of course, in each of the terrorist threat is assessed differently. In our country the problem of terrorism should not be acutely. Thus, after independence and sovereignty of Kazakhstan has chosen the path of democracy, progress and free economy. With the policy of the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev and well-organized political and economic reforms, there has been economic growth and rising living standards, socio-political stability, ensured civil peace and accord in society [1].Keywords: Kazakhstan, national security, religious extremism and terrorism, ethnic conflict
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27799121 Social Business Models: When Profits and Impacts Are Not at Odds
Authors: Elisa Pautasso, Matteo Castagno, Michele Osella
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In the last decade the emergence of new social needs as an effect of the economic crisis has stimulated the flourishing of business endeavours characterised by explicit social goals. Social start-ups, social enterprises or Corporate Social Responsibility operations carried out by traditional companies are quintessential examples in this regard. This paper analyses these kinds of initiatives in order to discover the main characteristics of social business models and to provide insights to social entrepreneurs for developing or improving their strategies. The research is conducted through the integration of literature review and case study analysis and, thanks to the recognition of the importance of both profits and social impacts as the key success factors for a social business model, proposes a framework for identifying indicators suitable for measuring the social impacts generated.Keywords: Business model, case study, impacts, social business.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18089120 Statistical Texture Analysis
Authors: G. N. Srinivasan, G. Shobha
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This paper presents an overview of the methodologies and algorithms for statistical texture analysis of 2D images. Methods for digital-image texture analysis are reviewed based on available literature and research work either carried out or supervised by the authors.Keywords: Image Texture, Texture Analysis, Statistical Approaches, Structural approaches, spectral approaches, Morphological approaches, Fractals, Fourier Transforms, Gabor Filters, Wavelet transforms.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9369119 Economic Optimization of Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Using Nanofluid
Authors: Hassan Hajabdollahi
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Economic optimization of shell and tube heat exchanger (STHE) is presented in this paper. To increase the rate of heat transfer, copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticle is added into the tube side fluid and their optimum results are compared with the case of without additive nanoparticle. Total annual cost (TAC) is selected as fitness function and nine decision variables related to the heat exchanger parameters as well as concentration of nanoparticle are considered. Optimization results reveal the noticeable improvement in the TAC and in the case of heat exchanger working with nanofluid compared with the case of base fluid (8.9%). Comparison of the results between two studied cases also reveal that the lower tube diameter, tube number, and baffle spacing are needed in the case of heat exchanger working with nanofluid compared with the case of base fluid.
Keywords: Shell and tube heat exchanger, nanoparticles additive, total annual cost, particle volumetric concentration.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11189118 The Documentary Analysis of Meta-Analysis Research in Violence of Media
Authors: Proud Arunrangsiwed
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The part of “future direction” in the findings of meta-analysis could provide the great direction to conduct the future studies. This study, “The Documentary Analysis of Meta-Analysis Research in Violence of Media” would conclude “future directions” out of 10 meta-analysis papers. The purposes of this research are to find an appropriate research design or an appropriate methodology for the future research related to the topic, “violence of media”. Further research needs to explore by longitudinal and experimental design, and also needs to have a careful consideration about age effects, time spent effects, enjoyment effects and ordinary lifestyle of each media consumer.
Keywords: Aggressive, future direction, meta-analysis, media, violence.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27029117 The Importance of Patenting and Technology Exports as Indicators of Economic Development
Authors: Hugo Rodríguez
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The patenting of inventions is the result of an organized effort to achieve technological improvement and its consequent positive impact on the population's standard of living. Technology exports, either of high-tech goods or of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services, represent the level of acceptance that world markets have of that technology acquired or developed by a country, either in public or private settings. A quantitative measure of the above variables is expected to have a positive and relevant impact on the level of economic development of the countries, measured on this first occasion through their level of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And in that sense, it not only explains the performance of an economy but the difference between nations. We present an econometric model where we seek to explain the difference between the GDP levels of 178 countries through their different performance in the outputs of the technological production process. We take the variables of Patenting, ICT Exports and High Technology Exports as results of the innovation process. This model achieves an explanatory power for four annual cuts (2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015) equivalent to an adjusted r2 of 0.91, 0.87, 0.91 and 0.96, respectively.
Keywords: Development, exports, patents, technology.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6979116 A Method of Effective Planning and Control of Industrial Facility Energy Consumption
Authors: Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Filimonova, Lev Sergeevich Kazarinov, Tatyana Aleksandrovna Barbasova
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A method of effective planning and control of industrial facility energy consumption is offered. The method allows optimally arranging the management and full control of complex production facilities in accordance with the criteria of minimal technical and economic losses at the forecasting control. The method is based on the optimal construction of the power efficiency characteristics with the prescribed accuracy. The problem of optimal designing of the forecasting model is solved on the basis of three criteria: maximizing the weighted sum of the points of forecasting with the prescribed accuracy; the solving of the problem by the standard principles at the incomplete statistic data on the basis of minimization of the regularized function; minimizing the technical and economic losses due to the forecasting errors.Keywords: Energy consumption, energy efficiency, energy management system, forecasting model, power efficiency characteristics.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15549115 Proposal for a Ultra Low Voltage NAND gate to withstand Power Analysis Attacks
Authors: Omid Mirmotahari, Yngvar Berg
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In this paper we promote the Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) NAND gate to replace either partly or entirely the encryption block of a design to withstand power analysis attack.
Keywords: Differential Power Analysis (DPA), Low Voltage (LV), Ultra Low Voltage (ULV), Floating-Gate (FG), supply current analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19539114 Discovering Complex Regularities: from Tree to Semi-Lattice Classifications
Authors: A. Faro, D. Giordano, F. Maiorana
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Data mining uses a variety of techniques each of which is useful for some particular task. It is important to have a deep understanding of each technique and be able to perform sophisticated analysis. In this article we describe a tool built to simulate a variation of the Kohonen network to perform unsupervised clustering and support the entire data mining process up to results visualization. A graphical representation helps the user to find out a strategy to optimize classification by adding, moving or delete a neuron in order to change the number of classes. The tool is able to automatically suggest a strategy to optimize the number of classes optimization, but also support both tree classifications and semi-lattice organizations of the classes to give to the users the possibility of passing from one class to the ones with which it has some aspects in common. Examples of using tree and semi-lattice classifications are given to illustrate advantages and problems. The tool is applied to classify macroeconomic data that report the most developed countries- import and export. It is possible to classify the countries based on their economic behaviour and use the tool to characterize the commercial behaviour of a country in a selected class from the analysis of positive and negative features that contribute to classes formation. Possible interrelationships between the classes and their meaning are also discussed.Keywords: Unsupervised classification, Kohonen networks, macroeconomics, Visual data mining, Cluster interpretation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15419113 The Necessity of Biomass Application for Developing Combined Heat and Power (CHP)with Biogas Fuel: Case Study
Authors: F. Amin Salehi, L. Sharp, M. A. Abdoli, D.E.Cotton, K.Rezapour
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The daily increase of organic waste materials resulting from different activities in the country is one of the main factors for the pollution of environment. Today, with regard to the low level of the output of using traditional methods, the high cost of disposal waste materials and environmental pollutions, the use of modern methods such as anaerobic digestion for the production of biogas has been prevailing. The collected biogas from the process of anaerobic digestion, as a renewable energy source similar to natural gas but with a less methane and heating value is usable. Today, with the help of technologies of filtration and proper preparation, access to biogas with features fully similar to natural gas has become possible. At present biogas is one of the main sources of supplying electrical and thermal energy and also an appropriate option to be used in four stroke engine, diesel engine, sterling engine, gas turbine, gas micro turbine and fuel cell to produce electricity. The use of biogas for different reasons which returns to socio-economic and environmental advantages has been noticed in CHP for the production of energy in the world. The production of biogas from the technology of anaerobic digestion and its application in CHP power plants in Iran can not only supply part of the energy demands in the country, but it can materialize moving in line with the sustainable development. In this article, the necessity of the development of CHP plants with biogas fuels in the country will be dealt based on studies performed from the economic, environmental and social aspects. Also to prove the importance of the establishment of these kinds of power plants from the economic point of view, necessary calculations has been done as a case study for a CHP power plant with a biogas fuel.Keywords: Anaerobic Digestion, Biogas, CHP, Organic Wastes
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19379112 Efficiency of Floristic and Molecular Markers to Determine Diversity in Iranian Populations of T. boeoticum
Authors: M. R. Naghavi, M. Maleki, S. F. Tabatabaei
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In order to study floristic and molecular classification of common wild wheat (Triticum boeoticum Boiss.), an analysis was conducted on populations of the Triticum boeoticum collected from different regions of Iran. Considering all floristic compositions of habitats, six floristic groups (syntaxa) within the populations were identified. A high level of variation of T. boeoticum also detected using SSR markers. Our results showed that molecular method confirmed the grouping of floristic method. In other word, the results from our study indicate that floristic classification are still useful, efficient, and economic tools for characterizing the amount and distribution of genetic variation in natural populations of T. boeoticum. Nevertheless, molecular markers appear as useful and complementary techniques for identification and for evaluation of genetic diversity in studied populations.Keywords: T. boeoticum, diversity, floristic, SSRs.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13499111 Female Work Force Participation and Women Empowerment in Haryana
Authors: Dinabandhu Mahata, Amit Kumar, Ambarish Kumar Rai
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India is known as a country of diversity regarding the social, cultural and wide geographical variations. In the north and north-west part of the country, the strong patriarchal norms and the male dominance based social structure are the important constructs. Patriarchal social setup adversely affects the women’s social and economic wellbeing and hence in that social structure women are considered as second level citizen. Work participation rate of women has directly linked to the development of society or household. Haryana is one of the developed states of India, still being ahead in economic prosperity, much lagged behind in gender-based equality and male dominance in all dimensions of life. The position of women in the Haryana is no better than the other states of India. Haryana state has the great difference among the male-female sex ratio which is a serious concern for social science research as a demographic problem for the state. Now women are requiring for their holistic empowerment and that will take care of them for an enabling process that must lead to their economic as well as social transformation. Hence, the objective of the paper is to address the role of sex ratio, women literacy and her work participation in the process of their empowerment with special attention to the gender perspective. The study used the data from Census of India from 1991 to 2011. This paper will examine the regional disparity of sex ratio, literacy rate and female work participation and the improvement of empowerment of women in the state of Haryana. This paper will suggest the idea for focusing much intensively on the issues of women empowerment through enhancement of her education, workforce participation and social participation with people participation and holistic approach.Keywords: Sex ratio, literacy rate, workforce participation rate, women empowerment, Haryana.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 26449110 Guidelines for Sustainable Urban Mobility in Historic Districts from International Experiences
Authors: Tamer ElSerafi
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In recent approaches to heritage conservation, the whole context of historic areas becomes as important as the single historic building. This makes the provision of infrastructure and network of mobility an effective element in the urban conservation. Sustainable urban conservation projects consider the high density of activities, the need for a good quality access system to the transit system, and the importance of the configuration of the mobility network by identifying the best way to connect the different districts of the urban area through a complex unique system that helps the synergic development to achieve a sustainable mobility system. A sustainable urban mobility is a key factor in maintaining the integrity between socio-cultural aspects and functional aspects. This paper illustrates the mobility aspects, mobility problems in historic districts, and the needs of the mobility systems in the first part. The second part is a practical analysis for different mobility plans. It is challenging to find innovative and creative conservation solutions fitting modern uses and needs without risking the loss of inherited built resources. Urban mobility management is becoming an essential and challenging issue in the urban conservation projects. Depending on literature review and practical analysis, this paper tries to define and clarify the guidelines for mobility management in historic districts as a key element in sustainability of urban conservation and development projects. Such rules and principles could control the conflict between the socio–cultural and economic activities, and the different needs for mobility in these districts in a sustainable way. The practical analysis includes a comparison between mobility plans which have been implemented in four different cities; Freiburg in Germany, Zurich in Switzerland and Bray Town in Ireland. This paper concludes with a matrix of guidelines that considers both principles of sustainability and livability factors in urban historic districts.
Keywords: Sustainable mobility, urban mobility, mobility management, historic districts.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9579109 Copper Price Prediction Model for Various Economic Situations
Authors: Haidy S. Ghali, Engy Serag, A. Samer Ezeldin
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Copper is an essential raw material used in the construction industry. During 2021 and the first half of 2022, the global market suffered from a significant fluctuation in copper raw material prices due to the aftermath of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war which exposed its consumers to an unexpected financial risk. Thereto, this paper aims to develop two hybrid price prediction models using artificial neural network and long short-term memory (ANN-LSTM), by Python, that can forecast the average monthly copper prices, traded in the London Metal Exchange; the first model is a multivariate model that forecasts the copper price of the next 1-month and the second is a univariate model that predicts the copper prices of the upcoming three months. Historical data of average monthly London Metal Exchange copper prices are collected from January 2009 till July 2022 and potential external factors are identified and employed in the multivariate model. These factors lie under three main categories: energy prices, and economic indicators of the three major exporting countries of copper depending on the data availability. Before developing the LSTM models, the collected external parameters are analyzed with respect to the copper prices using correlation, and multicollinearity tests in R software; then, the parameters are further screened to select the parameters that influence the copper prices. Then, the two LSTM models are developed, and the dataset is divided into training, validation, and testing sets. The results show that the performance of the 3-month prediction model is better than the 1-month prediction model; but still, both models can act as predicting tools for diverse economic situations.
Keywords: Copper prices, prediction model, neural network, time series forecasting.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1869108 A Survey of the Applications of Sentiment Analysis
Authors: Pingping Lin, Xudong Luo
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Natural language often conveys emotions of speakers. Therefore, sentiment analysis on what people say is prevalent in the field of natural language process and has great application value in many practical problems. Thus, to help people understand its application value, in this paper, we survey various applications of sentiment analysis, including the ones in online business and offline business as well as other types of its applications. In particular, we give some application examples in intelligent customer service systems in China. Besides, we compare the applications of sentiment analysis on Twitter, Weibo, Taobao and Facebook, and discuss some challenges. Finally, we point out the challenges faced in the applications of sentiment analysis and the work that is worth being studied in the future.Keywords: Natural language processing, sentiment analysis, application, online comments.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9519107 Mega Projects and Governmentality
Authors: Sophie Sturup
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Mega urban transport projects (MUTPs) are increasingly being used in urban environments to ameliorate the problem of congestion. However, a number of problems with regard to mega projects have been identified. In particular the seemingly institutionalised over estimation of economic benefits and persistent cost over runs, could mean that the wrong projects are selected, and that the projects that are selected cost more than they should. Studies to date have produced a number of solutions to these problems, perhaps most notably, the various methods for the inclusion of the private sector in project provision. However the problems have shown significant intractability in the face of these solutions. This paper provides a detailed examination of some of the problems facing mega projects and then examines Foucault-s theory of 'governmentality' as a possible frame of analysis which might shed light on the intractability of the problems that have been identified, through an identification of the art of government in which MUTPs occur.Keywords: Michel Foucault, Governmentality, Mega projects, Transport.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24859106 Fine-Grained Sentiment Analysis: Recent Progress
Authors: Jie Liu, Xudong Luo, Pingping Lin, Yifan Fan
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Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, and other social media and significant e-commerce sites generate a massive amount of online texts, which can be used to analyse people’s opinions or sentiments for better decision-making. So, sentiment analysis, especially the fine-grained sentiment analysis, is a very active research topic. In this paper, we survey various methods for fine-grained sentiment analysis, including traditional sentiment lexicon-based methods, ma-chine learning-based methods, and deep learning-based methods in aspect/target/attribute-based sentiment analysis tasks. Besides, we discuss their advantages and problems worthy of careful studies in the future.
Keywords: sentiment analysis, fine-grained, machine learning, deep learning
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23949105 Direct Democracy and Social Contract in Ancient Athens
Authors: Nicholas Kyriazis, Emmanouil Marios L. Economou, Jr, Loukas Zachilas
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In the present essay, a model of choice by actors is analysedby utilizing the theory of chaos to explain how change comes about. Then, by using ancient and modern sources of literature, the theory of the social contract is analysed as a historical phenomenon that first appeared during the period of Classical Greece. Then, based on the findings of this analysis, the practice of direct democracy and public choice in ancient Athens is analysed, through two historical cases: Eubulus and Lycurgus political program in the second half of the 4th century. The main finding of this research is that these policies can be interpreted as an implementation of a social contract, through which citizens were taking decisions based on rational choice according to economic considerations.
Keywords: Chaos theory, public choice, social contract, 4th century BC. Athens.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23989104 Increasing Profitability Supported by Innovative Methods and Designing Monitoring Software in Condition-Based Maintenance: A Case Study
Authors: Nasrin Farajiparvar
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In the present article, a new method has been developed to enhance the application of equipment monitoring, which in turn results in improving condition-based maintenance economic impact in an automobile parts manufacturing factory. This study also describes how an effective software with a simple database can be utilized to achieve cost-effective improvements in maintenance performance. The most important results of this project are indicated here: 1. 63% reduction in direct and indirect maintenance costs. 2. Creating a proper database to analyse failures. 3. Creating a method to control system performance and develop it to similar systems. 4. Designing a software to analyse database and consequently create technical knowledge to face unusual condition of the system. Moreover, the results of this study have shown that the concept and philosophy of maintenance has not been understood in most Iranian industries. Thus, more investment is strongly required to improve maintenance conditions.
Keywords: Condition-based maintenance, Economic savings, Iran industries, Machine life prediction software.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15749103 The Change in Management Accounting from an Institutional and Contingency Perspective: A Case Study for a Romanian Company
Authors: Gabriel Jinga, Madalina Dumitru
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The objective of this paper is to present the process of change in management accounting in Romania, a former communist country from Eastern Europe. In order to explain this process, we used the contingency and institutional theories. We focused on the following directions: the presentation of the scientific context and motivation of this research and the case study. We presented the state of the art in the process of change in the management accounting from the international and national perspective. We also described the evolution of management accounting in Romania in the context of economic and political changes. An important moment was the fall of communism in 1989. This represents a starting point for a new economic environment and for new management accounting. Accordingly, we developed a case study which presented this evolution. The conclusion of our research was that the changes in the management accounting system of the company analysed occurred in the same time with the institutionalisation of some elements (e.g. degree of competition, training and competencies in management accounting). The management accounting system was modelled by the contingencies specific to this company (e.g. environment, industry, strategy).Keywords: Management accounting, change, Romania, contingency and institutional theory.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23299102 Voltage Stability Margin-Based Approach for Placement of Distributed Generators in Power Systems
Authors: Oludamilare Bode Adewuyi, Yanxia Sun, Isaiah Gbadegesin Adebayo
Abstract:
Voltage stability analysis is crucial to the reliable and economic operation of power systems. The power system of developing nations is more susceptible to failures due to the continuously increasing load demand which is not matched with generation increase and efficient transmission infrastructures. Thus, most power systems are heavily stressed and the planning of extra generation from distributed generation sources needs to be efficiently done so as to ensure the security of the power system. In this paper, the performance of a relatively different approach using line voltage stability margin indicator, which has proven to have better accuracy, has been presented and compared with a conventional line voltage stability index for distributed generators (DGs) siting using the Nigerian 28 bus system. Critical Boundary Index (CBI) for voltage stability margin estimation was deployed to identify suitable locations for DG placement and the performance was compared with DG placement using Novel Line Stability Index (NLSI) approach. From the simulation results, both CBI and NLSI agreed greatly on suitable locations for DG on the test system; while CBI identified bus 18 as the most suitable at system overload, NLSI identified bus 8 to be the most suitable. Considering the effect of the DG placement at the selected buses on the voltage magnitude profile, the result shows that the DG placed on bus 18 identified by CBI improved the performance of the power system better.
Keywords: Voltage stability analysis, voltage collapse, voltage stability index, distributed generation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4549101 Tourism Satellite Account: Approach and Information System Development
Authors: Pappas Theodoros, Michael Diakomichalis
Abstract:
Measuring the economic impact of tourism in a benchmark economy is a global concern, with previous measurements being partial and not fully integrated. Tourism is a phenomenon that requires individual consumption of visitors, and which should be observed and measured to reveal the overall contribution of tourism to an economy. The Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) is a critical tool for assessing the annual growth of tourism, providing reliable measurements. This article presents a system of TSA information that encompasses all functions TSA functions, including input, storage, management, and analysis of data, as well as additional future functions and enhances the efficiency of tourism data management and TSA collection utility. The methodology and results presented offer new insights for the development and implementation of TSA.
Keywords: Tourism Satellite Account, information system, data-based tourist account.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 57