Search results for: uncertainty management

Authors: Jo Rhodes, Peter Lok, Zahra Sadeghinejad

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The aim of this study is to determine the impact of metacognition on top management team members and firm performance based on full team integration. A survey of 1500 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) was initiated and 140 firms were obtained in this study (with response rate of 9%). The result showed that different metacognitive abilities of managers [knowledge and experience] could enhance team decision-making and problem solving, resulting in greater firm performance. This is a significant finding for SMEs because these organisations have small teams with owner leadership and entrepreneurial orientation.

Keywords: Metacognition, behavioural integration, top management team, performance.

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Authors: Kailash, Rajeev Kumar Saha, Sanjeev Goyal

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Internal supply chain management benchmarking practice is necessary to overcome manufacturing industrial performance gap. The main purpose of this research work is to combine the benchmarking and internal supply chain practices to improve the performance of Indian manufacturing industries. In this paper, the main aim is to discuss the components of internal supply chain between suppliers and customers after that explain the scope of ISCM benchmarking in manufacturing industries.

Keywords: Competitive environment, internal supply chain management components, benchmarking practice, manufacturing industries, market potential.

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Authors: Sefa Aksu, Ünal Kızıl

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For this study, a town based soil database created in Gümüsçay District of Biga Town, Çanakkale, Turkey. Crop and livestock production are major activities in the district. Nutrient management is mainly based on commercial fertilizer application ignoring the livestock manure. Within the boundaries of district, 122 soil sampling points determined over the satellite image. Soil samples collected from the determined points with the help of handheld Global Positioning System. Labeled samples were sent to a commercial laboratory to determine 11 soil parameters including salinity, pH, lime, organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, iron, manganese, copper and zinc. Based on the test results soil maps for mentioned parameters were developed using remote sensing, GIS, and geostatistical analysis. In this study we developed a GIS database that will be used for soil nutrient management. Methods were explained and soil maps and their interpretations were summarized in the study.

Keywords: Geostatistics, GIS, Nutrient Management, Soil Mapping.

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Authors: D. Oshinubi, M. Rocznik, K. Dostert

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The need for micromechanical inertial sensors is increasing in future electronic stability control (ESC) and other positioning, navigation and guidance systems. Due to the rising density of sensors in automotive and consumer devices the goal is not only to get high performance, robustness and smaller package sizes, but also to optimize the energy management of the overall sensor system. This paper presents an evaluation concept for a surface micromachined yaw rate sensor. Within this evaluation concept an energy-efficient operation of the drive mode of the yaw rate sensor is enabled. The presented system concept can be realized within a power management subsystem.

Keywords: inertial sensors, micromachined gyros, gyro sensing concepts, power management, FPGA

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Authors: Dalia Suša Vugec

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In recent few decades, business process management (BPM) has been in focus of a great number of researchers and organizations. There are many benefits derived from the implementation of BPM in organizations. However, there has been also noticed that lately traditional BPM faces some difficulties in terms of the divide between models and their execution, lost innovations, lack of information fusioning and so on. As a result, there has been a new discipline, called social BPM, which incorporates principles of social software into the BPM. On the other hand, many researchers indicate organizational culture as a vital part of the BPM success and maturity. Therefore, the goal of this study is to investigate the current state of BPM maturity and the usage of social BPM among the organizations from Croatia, Slovenia and Austria, with the regards to the organizational culture as well. The paper presents the results of a survey conducted as part of the PROSPER project (IP-2014-09-3729), financed by Croatian Science Foundation. The results indicate differences in the level of BPM maturity, the usage of social BPM and the dominant organizational culture in the observed organizations from different countries. These differences are further discussed in the paper.

Keywords: Business process management, BPM maturity, organizational culture, social BPM.

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Authors: Li Jie, Zhang Wei

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In this paper, the problem of posture stabilization for a kinematic model of differential drive robots is studied. A more complex model of the kinematics of differential drive robots is used for the design of stabilizing control. This model is formulated in terms of the physical parameters of the system such as the radius of the wheels, and velocity of the wheels are the control inputs of it. In this paper, the framework of Lyapunov-based control design has been used to solve posture stabilization problem for the comprehensive model of differential drive robots. The results of the simulations show that the devised controller successfully solves the posture regulation problem. Finally, robustness and performance of the controller have been studied under system parameter uncertainty.

Keywords: Differential drive robots, nonlinear control, Lyapunov-based control design, posture regulation.

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Authors: Kong Fah Tee, Lutfor Rahman Khan, Hongshuang Li

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An advanced Monte Carlo simulation method, called Subset Simulation (SS) for the time-dependent reliability prediction for underground pipelines has been presented in this paper. The SS can provide better resolution for low failure probability level with efficient investigating of rare failure events which are commonly encountered in pipeline engineering applications. In SS method, random samples leading to progressive failure are generated efficiently and used for computing probabilistic performance by statistical variables. SS gains its efficiency as small probability event as a product of a sequence of intermediate events with larger conditional probabilities. The efficiency of SS has been demonstrated by numerical studies and attention in this work is devoted to scrutinise the robustness of the SS application in pipe reliability assessment. It is hoped that the development work can promote the use of SS tools for uncertainty propagation in the decision-making process of underground pipelines network reliability prediction.

Keywords: Underground pipelines, Probability of failure, Reliability and Subset Simulation.

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Authors: Win Thandar Soe, Innocent Mpawenimana, Mathieu Di Fazio, Cécile Belleudy, Aung Ze Ya

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Intelligent electronic equipment and automation network is the brain of high-tech energy management systems in critical role of smart homes dominance. Smart home is a technology integration for greater comfort, autonomy, reduced cost, and energy saving as well. These services can be provided to home owners for managing their home appliances locally or remotely and consequently allow them to automate intelligently and responsibly their consumption by individual or collective control systems. In this study, three smart plugs are described and one of them tested on typical household appliances. This article proposes to collect the data from the wireless technology and to extract some smart data for energy management system. This smart data is to quantify for three kinds of load: intermittent load, phantom load and continuous load. Phantom load is a waste power that is one of unnoticed power of each appliance while connected or disconnected to the main. Intermittent load and continuous load take in to consideration the power and using time of home appliances. By analysing the classification of loads, this smart data will be provided to reduce the communication of wireless sensor network for energy management system.

Keywords: Energy management, load profile, smart plug, wireless sensor network.

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Authors: Dalia Suša Vugec, Vesna Bosilj Vukšić, Ljubica Milanović Glavan

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Business process management (BPM) is a well-known holistic discipline focused on managing business processes with the intention of achieving higher level of BPM maturity and better organizational performance. In recent period, traditional BPM faced some of its limitations like model-reality divide and lost innovation. Following latest trends, as an attempt to overcome the issues of traditional BPM, there has been an introduction of applying the principles of social software in managing business processes which led to the development of social BPM. However, there are not many authors or studies dealing with this topic so this study aims to contribute to that literature gap and to examine the link between the level of BPM maturity and the usage of social BPM. To meet these objectives, a survey within the companies with more than 50 employees has been conducted. The results reveal that the usage of social BPM is higher within the companies which achieved higher level of BPM maturity. This paper provides an overview, analysis and discussion of collected data regarding BPM maturity and social BPM within the observed companies and identifies the main social BPM principles.

Keywords: Business process management, BPM maturity, process performance index, social BPM.

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Authors: Xiaohui Zhao, Shahan Mafuz

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Context-aware technologies provide system applications with the awareness of environmental conditions, customer behaviours, object movements, etc. Further, with such capability system applications can be smart to intelligently adapt their responses to the changing conditions. In regard to business operations, this promises businesses that their business processes can run more intelligently, adaptively and flexibly, and thereby either improve customer experience, enhance reliability of service delivery, or lower operational cost, to make the business more competitive and sustainable. Aiming at realising such context-aware business process management, this paper firstly explores its potential benefit, and then identifies some gaps between the current business process management support and the expected. In addition, some preliminary solutions are also discussed in regard to context definition, rule-based process execution, run-time process evolution, etc. A framework is also presented to give a conceptual architecture of context-aware business process management system to guide system implementation.

Keywords: Business process adaptation, business process evolution, business process modelling, and context awareness.

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Authors: Jochen Edmund Kerschenbauer, Roman Salinger, Daniel Strametz

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Insufficient informal communication systems can lead to the first crisis (‘Crisis of Leadership’) for start-ups. Management Control Systems (MCS) are one way for high-technology start-ups to successfully overcome these problems. So far the literature has investigated the incubation of a start-up, but focused less on the post-incubation stage. This paper focuses on the use of MCS in post-incubation and, if failed start-ups agree, on how MCS are used. We conducted 14 semi-structured interviews for this purpose, to obtain our results. The overall conclusion is that the majority of the companies were closed down due to a combination of strategic, operative and financial reasons.

Keywords: Closed down, high-technology, incubation, Levers of Control, management control systems, post-incubation, start-ups.

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Authors: G. Sekeroglu, M. Altan

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Working capital is identified as firm’s all current assets. Inventories which are one of the working capital elements are very important among current assets for firms. Because, profitability is an indicator for firms’ financial success is provided with minimum cost and optimum inventory quantity. So in this study, it is investigated as comparatively that the effect of inventory management on the profitability of Turkish firms which operated in weaving industry, eatables industry, wholesale and retail industry in between 2003 – 2012 years. Research data consist of profitability ratios and inventory turnovers ratio calculated by using balance sheets and income statements of firms which operated in Borsa Istanbul (BIST). In this research, the relationship between inventories and profitability is investigated by using SPSS-20 software with regression and correlation analysis. The results achieved from three industry departments which exist in study interpreted as comparatively. Accordingly, it is determined that there is a positive relationship between inventory management and profitability in eatables industry. However, it was founded that there is no relationship between inventory management and profitability in weaving industry and wholesale and retail industry.

Keywords: Profitability, regression analysis, inventory management, working capital.

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Authors: H. Silvestre

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The aim of this paper is to know the sociodemographic and operational-financial determinants of the services quality perceived by users of the national health services. Through the use of an inquiry conducted by the Ministry of Health, comprehending 16.936 interviews in 2006, we intend to find out if there is any characteristic that determines the 2006 inquiry results. With the revision of the literature we also want to know if the operational-financial results have implications in hospitals users- perception on the quality of the received services. In order to achieve our main goals we will make use of the regression analysis to find out the possible dimensions that determine those results.

Keywords: Management by Results, Quality Approach, Tableau de Bord, Total Quality Management, Services quality.

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Authors: O. Lasaga

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Defining professional objectives and the search for work are some of the greatest stress factors for final year university students and recent graduates. To manage correctly the stress brought about by the uncertainty, confusion and frustration this process often generates, a course to control stress based on mindfulness has been designed and taught. This course provides tools based on relaxation, mindfulness and meditation that enable students to address personal and professional challenges in the transition to the job market, eliminating or easing the anxiety involved. The course is extremely practical and experiential, combining theory classes and practical classes of relaxation, meditation and mindfulness, group dynamics, reflection, application protocols and session integration. The evaluation of the courses highlighted on the one hand the high degree of satisfaction and, on the other, the usefulness for the students in becoming aware of stressful situations and how these affect them and learning new coping techniques that enable them to reach their goals more easily and with greater satisfaction and well-being.

Keywords: Employability, meditation, mindfulness, relaxation techniques, stress.

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Authors: Abdelsalam Omran Gebril Ali

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Pollution and solid waste are the most important environmental problems plaguing the city of Benghazi as well as other cities and towns in Libya. These problems are caused by the lack of environmental planning and sound environmental management. Environmental planning is very important at present for the development of projects that preserve the environment; therefore, the planning process should be prioritized over the management process. Pollution caused by poor planning and environmental management exists not only in Benghazi but also in all other Libyan cities. This study was conducted through various field visits to several neighborhoods and areas within Benghazi as well as its neighboring regions. Follow-ups in these areas were conducted from March 2013 to October 2013 as documented by photographs. The existing methods of waste collection and means of transportation were investigated. Interviews were conducted with relevant authorities, including the Environment Public Authority in Benghazi and the Public Service Company of Benghazi. The objective of this study is to determine the causes of solid waste pollution in Benghazi City and its surrounding areas. Results show that solid waste pollution in Benghazi and its surrounding areas is the result of poor planning and environmental management, population growth, and the lack of hardware and equipment for the collection and transport of waste from the city to the landfill site. One of the most important recommendations in this study is the development of a complete and comprehensive plan that includes environmental planning and environmental management to reduce solid waste pollution.

Keywords: Solid waste, pollution, environmental planning, management, Benghazi, Libya.

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Authors: Kgabo H. Badimo, Sheryl Buckley

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Knowledge is increasingly recognised in this, the knowledge era, as a strategic resource, by public sector organisations, in view of the public sector reform initiatives. People and knowledge play a vital role in attaining improved organisational performance and high service quality. Many government departments in the public sector have started to realise the importance of knowledge management in streamlining their operations and processes. This study focused on knowledge management in the public healthcare service organisations, where the concept of service provider competitiveness pales to insignificance, considering the huge challenges emanating from the healthcare and public sector reforms. Many government departments are faced with challenges of improving organisational performance and service delivery, improving accountability, making informed decisions, capturing the knowledge of the aging workforce, and enhancing partnerships with stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to examine the knowledge management practices of the Gauteng Department of Health in South Africa, in order to understand how knowledge management practices influence improvement in organisational performance and healthcare service delivery. This issue is explored through a review of literature on dominant views on knowledge management and healthcare service delivery, as well as results of interviews with, and questionnaire responses from, the general staff of the Gauteng Department of Health. Web-based questionnaires, face-to-face interviews and organisational documents were used to collect data. The data were analysed using both the quantitative and qualitative methods. The central question investigated was: To what extent can the conditions required for successful knowledge management be observed, in order to improve organisational performance and healthcare service delivery in the Gauteng Department of Health. The findings showed that the elements of knowledge management capabilities investigated in this study, namely knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and knowledge application, have a positive, significant relationship with all measures of organisational performance and healthcare service delivery. These findings thus indicate that by employing knowledge management principles, the Gauteng Department of Health could improve its ability to achieve its operational goals and objectives, and solve organisational and healthcare challenges, thereby improving organisational performance and enhancing healthcare service delivery in Gauteng.

Keywords: Knowledge Management, Healthcare Service Delivery, Public Healthcare, Public Sector.

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Authors: Haidar Safa, Hassan Artail, Ahmad Mehio, Hicham Zahr, Ziad Matragi

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The Mobile IP Standard has been developed to support mobility over the Internet. This standard contains several drawbacks as in the cases where packets are routed via sub-optimal paths and significant amount of signaling messages is generated due to the home registration procedure which keeps the network aware of the current location of the mobile nodes. Recently, a dynamic hierarchical mobility management strategy for mobile IP networks (DHMIP) has been proposed to reduce home registrations costs. However, this strategy induces a packet delivery delay and increases the risk of packet loss. In this paper, we propose an enhanced version of the dynamic hierarchical strategy that reduces the packet delivery delay and minimizes the risk of packet loss. Preliminary results obtained from simulations are promising. They show that the enhanced version outperforms the original dynamic hierarchical mobility management strategy version.

Keywords: Location management, Mobile IP (MIP), Home Agent, Foreign Agent.

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Authors: Hiraku Nunomiya, Takuo Ichiju, Yoshiyuki Higuchi

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In the management of industrial waste, conversion from the use of paper invoices to electronic forms is currently under way in developed countries. Difficulties in such computerization include the lack of synchronization between the actual goods and the corresponding data managed by the server. Consequently, a system which utilizes the incorporation of a QR code in connection with the waste material has been developed. The code is read at each stage, from discharge until disposal, and progress at each stage can be easily reported. This system can be linked with Japanese public digital authentication service of waste, taking advantage of its good points, and can be used to submit reports to the regulatory authorities. Its usefulness was confirmed by a verification test, and put into actual practice.

Keywords: Infectious Waste, Electronic Manifest, Real Time Management, QR code.

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Authors: Lee Ock-Sun

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The effective development of a geoscience education and training program takes account of the rapidly changing environment in the geoscience market, includes information about resource-rich countries which have international education demands. In this paper, we introduce the geoscience program run by the International School for Geoscience Resources at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (IS-Geo of KIGAM), and show its remarkable performance. To further effective geoscience program planning and operation, we present recommendations for strategic management for customer-oriented operation with a more favorable program format and advanced training aids. Above all, the IS-Geo of KIGAM should continue improve through ‘plan-do-see-feedback’ activities based on the recommendations.

Keywords: Demand survey, geoscience program, program performance, strategic management.

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Authors: H. Shayeghi, B. Mohamadi

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This paper presents a possibilistic (fuzzy) model in optimal siting and sizing of Distributed Generation (DG) for loss reduction and improve voltage profile in power distribution system. Multi-objective problem is developed in two phases. In the first one, the set of non-dominated planning solutions is obtained (with respect to the objective functions of fuzzy economic cost, and exposure) using genetic algorithm. In the second phase, one solution of the set of non-dominated solutions is selected as optimal solution, using a suitable max-min approach. This method can be determined operation-mode (PV or PQ) of DG. Because of considering load uncertainty in this paper, it can be obtained realistic results. The whole process of this method has been implemented in the MATLAB7 environment with technical and economic consideration for loss reduction and voltage profile improvement. Through numerical example the validity of the proposed method is verified.

Keywords: Fuzzy Power Flow, DG siting and sizing, LoadUncertainty, Multi-objective Possibilistic Model.

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Authors: Anindya Roy, Goutam Saha

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Rapid progress in audio compression technology has contributed to the explosive growth of music available in digital form today. In a reversal of ideas, this work makes use of a recently proposed efficient audio compression scheme to develop three important applications in the context of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) for the effective manipulation of large music databases, namely automatic music recommendation (AMR), digital rights management (DRM) and audio finger-printing for song identification. The performance of these three applications has been evaluated with respect to a database of songs collected from a diverse set of genres.

Keywords: Audio compression, Music Information Retrieval, Digital Rights Management, Audio Fingerprinting.

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Authors: Jaramillo G. Maria Luisa, Turriago H. Álvaro, Thoene Ulf

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Financial inclusion has become a crucially important factor in debates on economic inequality posing challenges to the financial systems of countries around the world. Nowadays governments and banks are concerned about creating products that allow access to wide sectors of the population. The creation of banking products by the financial sector for people with low incomes tends to lead to improvements in the quality of life of vulnerable parts of the population. In countries with notable social and economic inequalities, financial inclusion is a key aspect for equitable economic growth. This study is based on the case of Colombia, which is a country with a strong record of economic growth over the past decade. Nevertheless, corruption, unemployment, and poverty contribute to uncertainty regarding the country’s future growth prospects. This study wants to explain the situation of financial exclusion and financial inclusion with respect to the Colombian case. Financial inclusion is going to be studied from the perspective of social innovation.

Keywords: Colombia, financial exclusion, financial inclusion, social innovation.

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Authors: Aras Adhami Mirhoseini, Mohammad J. Yazdanpanah

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In this paper, we consider nested sliding mode control of SISO nonlinear systems, perturbed by bounded matched and unmatched uncertainties. The systems are assumed to be in strict-feedback form. A step wise procedure is introduced to obtain the controller. In each step, a continuous sliding mode controller is designed as virtual control law. Then the next step sliding surface is defined by using this virtual controller. These sliding surfaces are selected as nonlinear static functions of the system states. Finally in the last step, smooth static state feedback control law is determined such that the output reaches the desired set-point while the system is forced arbitrary close to the intersection of sliding surfaces and the states remain bounded.

Keywords: Sliding mode control, Strict-feedback form, Unmatched uncertainty, output regulation.

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Authors: Elizabeth Stojanovski

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Associations between life events and various forms of cancers have been identified. The purpose of a recent random-effects meta-analysis was to identify studies that examined the association between adverse events associated with changes to financial status including decreased income and breast cancer risk. The same association was studied in four separate studies which displayed traits that were not consistent between studies such as the study design, location, and time frame. It was of interest to pool information from various studies to help identify characteristics that differentiated study results. Two random-effects Bayesian meta-analysis models are proposed to combine the reported estimates of the described studies. The proposed models allow major sources of variation to be taken into account, including study level characteristics, between study variance and within study variance, and illustrate the ease with which uncertainty can be incorporated using a hierarchical Bayesian modelling approach.

Keywords: Random-effects, meta-analysis, Bayesian, variation.

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Authors: Kung-Jen Tu

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Many public housing properties developed by local governments in Taiwan in the 1980s have deteriorated severely as these rental apartment buildings aged. The lack of building maintainability considerations during project design phase as well as insufficient maintenance funds have made it difficult and costly for local governments to maintain and keep public housing properties in good shape. In order to assist the local governments in achieving and delivering sustainable public housing, this paper intends to present a developed design evaluation method to be used to evaluate the presented design schemes from property management and financial feasibility perspectives during project design phase of public housing projects. The design evaluation results, i.e. the property management and financial implications of presented design schemes that could occur later during the building operation and maintenance phase, will be reported to the client (the government) and design schemes revised consequently. It is proposed that the design evaluation be performed from two main perspectives: (1) Operation and property management perspective: Three criteria such as spatial appropriateness, people and vehicle circulation and control, property management working spaces are used to evaluate the ‘operation and PM effectiveness’ of a design scheme. (2) Financial feasibility perspective: Four types of financial analyses are performed to assess the long term financial feasibility of a presented design scheme, such as operational and rental income analysis, management fund analysis, regular operational and property management service expense analysis, capital expense analysis. The ongoing Chung-Li Public Housing Project developed by the Taoyuan City Government will be used as a case to demonstrate how the presented design evaluation method is implemented. The results of property management assessment as well as the annual operational and capital expenses of a proposed design scheme are presented.

Keywords: Design evaluation method, management fund, operational and capital expenses, rental apartment buildings.

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Authors: Saumyaranjan Sahoo, Sudhir Yadav

Abstract:

Indian manufacturing firms operating in rapidly changing and highly competitive market, over the last few decades, have embraced organization-wide transformation to achieve cultural and operational excellence. In recent years, numerous approaches have been proposed to improve business and manufacturing performance. Lean practices in particular, Total Productive Management (TPM) and Total Quality Management (TQM) have received considerable attention, as they being adopted and adapted for raising the performance standard of Indian manufacturing firms to world class levels. The complementary nature of TPM and TQM is being practiced in many companies to achieve synergy. Specifically, this research investigates whether joint TPM-TQM implementation contribute to higher business performance when compared to individual implementation. Data from 160 manufacturing firms were analyzed that demonstrate synergetic implementation of both TPM-TQM practices over a reasonable period of time, contributed in delivering better business performance as compared to individual implementation strategy.

Keywords: Total productive management, total quality management, Indian manufacturing firms, business performance.

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Authors: H. Urbancova, J. Urbanec

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Today the intangible assets are the capital of knowledge and are the most important and the most valuable resource for organizations. All employees have knowledge independently of the kind of jobs they do. Knowledge is thus an asset, which influences business operations. The objective of this article is to identify knowledge continuity as an objective of business continuity management. The article has been prepared based on the analysis of secondary sources and the evaluation of primary sources of data by means of a quantitative survey conducted in the Czech Republic. The conclusion of the article is that organizations that apply business continuity management do not focus on the preservation of the knowledge of key employees. Organizations ensure knowledge continuity only intuitively, on a random basis, non-systematically and discontinuously. The non-ensuring of knowledge continuity represents a threat of loss of key knowledge for organizations and can also negatively affect business continuity.

Keywords: Business continuity, knowledge, organizations, survey.

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Authors: Ana Paula Monte, Christiane Fontenete

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As current business environment is demanding a constant adaptation of companies, the planning and strategic management should be an ongoing and natural process in all kind of organizations. The use of management and monitoring strategic performance tools such as the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) have been popular; even to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. This paper aims to investigate whether the BSC is being used in monitoring the performance of small businesses, particularly in small fuel retailers companies, which are competing in co-branding; and if not, it aims to identify its strategic orientation in order to recommend a possible strategy map for those managers that are willing to adopt this model as an alternative to traditional ones for organizational performance evaluation, which often focus only on evaluation of the organizational financial performance.

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard, Performance Management and Evaluation, SMEs, Strategy Maps

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Authors: Fernando Alonso, Rafael Fernandez, Sonia Frutos, Javier Soriano

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CIM is the standard formalism for modeling management information developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) in the context of its WBEM proposal, designed to provide a conceptual view of the managed environment. In this paper, we propose the inclusion of formal knowledge representation techniques, based on Description Logics (DLs) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL), in CIM-based conceptual modeling, and then we examine the benefits of such a decision. The proposal is specified as a CIM metamodel level mapping to a highly expressive subset of DLs capable of capturing all the semantics of the models. The paper shows how the proposed mapping can be used for automatic reasoning about the management information models, as a design aid, by means of new-generation CASE tools, thanks to the use of state-of-the-art automatic reasoning systems that support the proposed logic and use algorithms that are sound and complete with respect to the semantics. Such a CASE tool framework has been developed by the authors and its architecture is also introduced. The proposed formalization is not only useful at design time, but also at run time through the use of rational autonomous agents, in response to a need recently recognized by the DMTF.

Keywords: CIM, Knowledge-based Information Models, Ontology Languages, OWL, Description Logics, Integrated Network Management, Intelligent Agents, Automatic Reasoning Techniques.

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Authors: M. Haghighi, M. Zowghi, B. Zohouri

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Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is an expounded, multi-step planning method for delivering commodity, services, and processes to customers, both external and internal to an organization. It is a way to convert between the diverse customer languages expressing demands (Voice of the Customer), and the organization-s languages expressing results that sate those demands. The policy is to establish one or more matrices that inter-relate producer and consumer reciprocal expectations. Due to its visual presence is called the “House of Quality" (HOQ). In this paper, we assumed HOQ in multi attribute decision making (MADM) pattern and through a proposed MADM method, rank technical specifications. Thereafter compute satisfaction degree of customer requirements and for it, we apply vagueness and uncertainty conditions in decision making by fuzzy set theory. This approach would propound supervised neural network (perceptron) for MADM problem solving.

Keywords: MADM, fuzzy set, QFD, supervised neural network (perceptron).

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