Search results for: environmental management accounting

Authors: Helena Costa Oliveira, Carmem Oliveira, Rita Moutinho

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The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a continuous strategic monitoring model focused not only on financial issues but also on internal processes, patients/users, and learning and growth. Initially dedicated to business management, it currently serves organizations of other natures - such as hospitals. This paper presents a BSC designed for a Portuguese Acute Pain Unit (APU). This study is qualitative and based on the experience of collaborators at the APU. The management of APU is based on four perspectives – users, internal processes, learning and growth, and financial and legal. For each perspective, there were identified strategic objectives, critical factors, lead indicators and initiatives. The strategic map of the APU outlining sustained strategic relations among strategic objectives. This study contributes to the development of research in the health management area as it explores how organizational insufficiencies and inconsistencies in this particular case can be addressed, through the identification of critical factors, to clearly establish core outcomes and initiatives to set up.

Keywords: Acute pain unit, balanced scorecard, hospital management, organizational performance, Portugal.

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Authors: H. O. Barbosa, A. C. R. da Silva, C. M. de Almeida, E. M. dos Santos, F. O. de Sousa, F. B. da S. Souza, F. B. da S. Souza, F. de O. Lima, L. H. Albuquerque, R. F. do Valle Cunha

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Software development is intrinsic human-based knowledge-intensive. Due to globalization, software development has become a complex challenge and we usually face barriers related to knowledge management, team building, costly testing processes, especially in distributed settings. In this paper, we present the use of experimental studies to improve our knowledge management process using the Wiki system. According to the results, it was possible to identify learning preferences from our software projects leader team, organize and improve the learning experience of our Wiki, and facilitate collaboration by newcomers to improve Wiki with new contents available in the Wiki.

Keywords: Mobile products, knowledge management process, Wiki system, Global Software Development.

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Authors: N. Sefiani, C. Fikri Benbrahim, A. Boumane, K. Reklaoui

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Nowadays, the reflection on competence management is the basic for new competitive strategies. It is considered as the core of the problems of the global supply chain. It interact a variety of actors: information, physical and activities flows, etc. Even though competence management is seen as the key factor for any business success, the existing approaches demonstrate the deficiencies and limitations of the competence concept. This research has two objectives: The first is to make a contribution by focusing on the development of a competence approach, based on continuous improvement. It allows the enterprise to spot key competencies, mobilize them in order to serve its strategic objectives and to develop future competencies. The second is to propose a method to evaluate the Level of Collective Competence. The approach was confirmed through an application carried out at an automotive company.

Keywords: Competencies, approach, continuous improvement, collective competence level, performance indicator.

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Authors: Ahmad Munawar

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The provision of urban public transport in Indonesia is not free of problems. Some of the problems include: an overall lack of capacity, lack of quality and choice, severe traffic congestions and insufficient fund to renew and repair vehicles. Generally, the comfort and quality of the city bus is poor, and many of the vehicles are dilapidated and dirty. Surveys were carried out in the city of Yogyakarta, by counting city bus vehicles and occupancies, interviewing the bus passengers, drivers and institutional staffs, who involve in public transport management. This paper will then analyze the possible plan to develop the public transport system to become more attractive and to improve the public transport management. The short, medium and long term plans are analyzed, to find the best solutions. Some constraints such as social impacts and financial impact are also taken into accounts.

Keywords: City bus, management, public transport.

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Authors: Prateep Wajeetongratana

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The purpose of this research was to study the influence of learning efficiency on local accountants’ job performance effectiveness. This paper drew upon the survey data collected from 335 local accountants survey conducted at Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand. The statistics utilized in this paper included percentage, mean, standard deviation, and regression analysis. The findings revealed that the majority of samples were between 31-40 years old, married, held an undergraduate degree, and had an average income between 10,000-15,000 baht. The majority of respondents had less than five years of accounting experience and worked for local administrations. The overall learning efficiency score was in the highest level while the local accountants’ job performance effectiveness score was also in the high level. The hypothesis testing’s result disclosed that learning efficiency factors which were knowledge, Skill, and Attitude had an influence on local accountants’ job the performance effectiveness.

Keywords: Accountants, Leaning Efficiency, Performance Effectiveness.

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Authors: Jijimon Alakkalam Joseph

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The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development claims to be a comprehensive and integrated plan of action for prosperity for people and the planet, including almost all dimensions of human existence. Nevertheless, the religious dimension of human existence has been kept away from development discussions. Care for the earth is one of the vital aspects of sustainable development. Farmers all over the world contribute much to environmental protection. Most farmers are religious believers and religious ideologies influence their agricultural practices. This nexus between faith and agriculture has forced policymakers to include religion in development discussions. This paper delves deeper into this religion and sustainable development connection. Buddhism and Christianity have contributed much to environmental protection in Taiwan. However, interviews conducted among 40 Taiwanese farmers (10 male and female farmers from Buddhism and Christianity) show that their faith experiences make them relate to the natural environment differently. Most of the Buddhist farmers interviewed admitted that they chose their religious adherence, while most of the Christian farmers inherited their faith. The in-depth analysis of the interview data collected underlines the close relationship between religion and sustainable development. More importantly, concerning their intention to care for the earth, farmers whose religious adherence is ‘chosen’ are self-motivated and more robust compared to those whose religious adherence is ‘inherited’.

Keywords: Buddhism, Christianity, environmental protection, sustainable development.

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Authors: Bassam Atieh Rajabi, Sai Peck Lee

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Business Process Modeling (BPM) is the first and most important step in business process management lifecycle. Graph based formalism and rule based formalism are the two most predominant formalisms on which process modeling languages are developed. BPM technology continues to face challenges in coping with dynamic business environments where requirements and goals are constantly changing at the execution time. Graph based formalisms incur problems to react to dynamic changes in Business Process (BP) at the runtime instances. In this research, an adaptive and flexible framework based on the integration between Object Oriented diagramming technique and Petri Net modeling language is proposed in order to support change management techniques for BPM and increase the representation capability for Object Oriented modeling for the dynamic changes in the runtime instances. The proposed framework is applied in a higher education environment to achieve flexible, updatable and dynamic BP.

Keywords: Business Process Modeling, Change Management, Graph Based Modeling, Rule Based Modeling, Object Oriented PetriNet.

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Authors: R. Chithra, B. Kalavathi, J. Christy Lavanya

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WiMAX is a telecommunications technology and it is specified by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., as the IEEE 802.16 standard. The goal of this technology is to provide a wireless data over long distances in a variety of ways. IEEE 802.16 is a recent standard for mobile communication. In this paper, we provide an overview of various key management algorithms to provide security for WiMAX.

Keywords: Broadcast, Rekeying, Scalability, Secrecy, Unicast, WiMAX.

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Authors: Pimploi Tirastittam, Sawanath Treesathon, Amornrath Ongkawat

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Learning Management System (LMS) is the system which uses to manage the learning in order to grouping the content and learning activity between the lecturer and learner including online examination and evaluation. Nowadays, it is the borderless learning era so the learning activities can be accessed from everywhere in the world and also anytime via the information technology and media. The learner can easily access to the knowledge so the different in time and distance is not a constraint for learning anymore. The learning pattern which was used in this research is the integration of the in-class learning and online learning via internet and will be able to monitor the progress by the Learning management system which will create the fast response and accessible learning process via the social media. In order to increase the capability and freedom of the learner, the system can show the current and history of the learning document, video conference and also has the chat room for the learner and lecturer to interact to each other. So the objectives of the “The Design and Applied of Learning Management System via Social Media on Internet: Case Study of Operating System for Business Subject” are to expand the opportunity of learning and to increase the efficiency of learning as well as increase the communication channel between lecturer and student. The data of this research was collect from 30 users of the system which are students who enroll in the subject. And the result of the research is in the “Very Good” which is conformed to the hypothesis.

Keywords: Learning Management System, Social Media.

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Authors: Kgomotso Matobole, Pascal Mwenge, Tumisang Seodigeng

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The global urbanisation and worldwide economic growth have caused a high rate of food waste generation, resulting in environmental pollution. Food waste disposed on landfills decomposes to produce methane (CH₄), a greenhouse gas. Inadequate waste management practices contribute to food waste polluting the environment. Thus effective organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) management and treatment are attracting widespread attention in many countries. This problem can be minimised by the employment of anaerobic digestion process, since food waste is rich in organic matter and highly biodegradable, resulting in energy generation and waste volume reduction. The current study investigated the Biomethane Potential (BMP) of the Vaal University of Technology canteen food waste using anaerobic digestion. Tests were performed on canteen food waste, as a substrate, with total solids (TS) of 22%, volatile solids (VS) of 21% and moisture content of 78%. The tests were performed in batch reactors, at a mesophilic temperature of 37 °C, with two different types of inoculum, primary and digested sludge. The resulting CH₄ yields for both food waste with digested sludge and primary sludge were equal, being 357 Nml/g VS. This indicated that food waste form this canteen is rich in organic and highly biodegradable. Hence it can be used as a substrate for the anaerobic digestion process. The food waste with digested sludge and primary sludge both fitted the first order kinetic model with k for primary sludge inoculated food waste being 0.278 day^-1 with R² of 0.98, whereas k for digested sludge inoculated food waste being 0.034 day^-1, with R² of 0.847.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion, biogas, biomethane potential, food waste.

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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 provides CIM diagrams with precise semantics and can be used for automatic reasoning about the management information models, as a design aid, by means of newgeneration 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, OntologyLanguages, OWL, Description Logics, Integrated Network Management, Intelligent Agents, Automatic Reasoning Techniques.

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Authors: Eman M. Wahba, Noha M. Galal, Khaled S. El-Kilany

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Spare parts inventory management is one of the major areas of inventory research. Analysis of recent literature showed that an approach integrating spare parts classification, demand forecasting, and stock control policies is essential; however, adapting this integrated approach is limited. This work presents an integrated framework for spare part inventory management and an Excel based application developed for the implementation of the proposed framework. A multi-criteria analysis has been used for spare classification. Forecasting of spare parts- intermittent demand has been incorporated into the application using three different forecasting models; namely, normal distribution, exponential smoothing, and Croston method. The application is also capable of running with different inventory control policies. To illustrate the performance of the proposed framework and the developed application; the framework is applied to different items at a service organization. The results achieved are presented and possible areas for future work are highlighted.

Keywords: Demand forecasting, intermittent demand, inventory management, integrated approach, spare parts, spare part classification

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Authors: Gergely Horváth

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The study presents the complexity of food safety dividing it into two layers. Beyond the basic layer of requirements, there is a more demanding higher level linked with quality and purity aspects. It would be important to give special prominence to both layers, given that massive illnesses are caused by foods even though officially licensed. Then the study discusses an exciting safety challenge stemming from the risks of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Furthermore, it features legal case examples that illustrate how certain liability questions are solved or not yet decided in connection with the production of genetically modified crops. In addition, a special kind of land grabbing, more precisely land grabbing from non-GMO farming systems can also be noticed as well as a new phenomenon eroding food sovereignty. Coexistence, the state where organic, conventional, and GM farming systems are standing alongside each other is an unsuitable experiment that cannot be successful, because of biophysical reasons (such as cross-pollination). Agricultural and environmental lawyers both try to find the optimal solution. Agri-environmental measures are introduced as a special subfield of law maintaining also food safety. The important steps of agri-environmental legislation are aiming at the protection of natural values, the environmental media and strengthening food safety as well, practically the quality of agricultural products intended for human consumption. The major findings of the study focus on searching for the appropriate approach capable of solving the security and safety problems of food production. The most interesting concepts of the Hungarian national and EU food law legislation are analyzed in more detail with descriptive, analytic and comparative methods.

Keywords: Food law, food safety, food security, GMO, agri-environmental measures.

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Authors: M. Sarai Atab, A. Smallbone, A. P. Roskilly

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A thermodynamic study is performed on the Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination process for brackish water. The detailed RO model of thermodynamics properties with and without an energy recovery device was built in Simulink/MATLAB and validated against reported measurement data. The efficiency of desalination plants can be estimated by both the first and second laws of thermodynamics. While the first law focuses on the quantity of energy, the second law analysis (i.e. exergy analysis) introduces quality. This paper used the Main Outfall Drain in Iraq as a case study to conduct energy and exergy analysis of RO process. The result shows that it is feasible to use energy recovery method for reverse osmosis with salinity less than 15000 ppm as the exergy efficiency increases twice. Moreover, this analysis shows that the highest exergy destruction occurs in the rejected water and lowest occurs in the permeate flow rate accounting 37% for 4.3% respectively.

Keywords: Brackish water, exergy, irrigation, reverse osmosis.

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Authors: Shin-Jer Yang, Kai-Tai Yang

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In response to a changing world and the fast growth of the Internet, more and more enterprises are replacing web-based services with cloud-based ones. Multi-tenancy technology is becoming more important especially with Software as a Service (SaaS). This in turn leads to a greater focus on the application of Identity and Access Management (IAM). Conventional Near-Field Communication (NFC) based verification relies on a computer browser and a card reader to access an NFC tag. This type of verification does not support mobile device login and user-based access management functions. This study designs an NFC-based third-party cloud identity and access management scheme (NFC-IAM) addressing this shortcoming. Data from simulation tests analyzed with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) suggest that the NFC-IAM not only takes less time in identity identification but also cuts time by 80% in terms of two-factor authentication and improves verification accuracy to 99.9% or better. In functional performance analyses, NFC-IAM performed better in salability and portability. The NFC-IAM App (Application Software) and back-end system to be developed and deployed in mobile device are to support IAM features and also offers users a more user-friendly experience and stronger security protection. In the future, our NFC-IAM can be employed to different environments including identification for mobile payment systems, permission management for remote equipment monitoring, among other applications.

Keywords: Cloud service, multi-tenancy, NFC, IAM, mobile device.

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Authors: Prabhakar Venugopal Gantasala

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Complex environments triggered by globalization have necessitated new paradigms of leadership – Complexity Leadership that encompass multiple roles that leaders need to take upon. Success of Higher Education institutions depends on how well leaders can provide adaptive, administrative and enabling leadership. Complexity Leadership seems all the more relevant for institutions that are knowledge-driven and thrive on Knowledge creation, Knowledge storage and retrieval, Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge applications. Discussed in this paper are the elements of Globalization and the opportunities and challenges that are brought forth by globalization. The Complexity leadership paradigm in a knowledge-based economy and the need for such a paradigm shift for higher education institutions is presented. Further, the paper also discusses the support the leader requires in a knowledge-driven economy through knowledge management initiatives.

Keywords: Globalization, Complexity Leadership, Knowledge Management.

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Authors: Fernanda M. Assef, Maria Teresinha A. Steiner, David Gabriel F. de Barros

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Review researches are useful in terms of analysis of research problems. Between the types of review documents, we commonly find bibliometric studies. This type of application often helps the global visualization of a research problem and helps academics worldwide to understand the context of a research area better. In this document, a bibliometric view surrounding clustering techniques and sustainability problems is presented. The authors aimed at which issues mostly use clustering techniques and even which sustainability issue would be more impactful on today’s moment of research. During the bibliometric analysis, we found 10 different groups of research in clustering applications for sustainability issues: Energy; Environmental; Non-urban Planning; Sustainable Development; Sustainable Supply Chain; Transport; Urban Planning; Water; Waste Disposal; and, Others. Moreover, by analyzing the citations of each group, it was discovered that the Environmental group could be classified as the most impactful research cluster in the area mentioned. After the content analysis of each paper classified in the environmental group, it was found that the k-means technique is preferred for solving sustainability problems with clustering methods since it appeared the most amongst the documents. The authors finally conclude that a bibliometric assessment could help indicate a gap of researches on waste disposal – which was the group with the least amount of publications – and the most impactful research on environmental problems.

Keywords: Bibliometric assessment, clustering, sustainability, territorial partitioning.

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Authors: A. Leśniak, E. Plebankiewicz, K. Zima

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Construction projects can be implemented under various contractual and organizational systems. They can be divided into two groups: systems without the managing company where the Client manages the process, and systems with the managing company, where management is entrusted to an external company. In the public sector of the Polish market there are two ways of delivery of construction projects with the participation of the manager: one is to assign operations to another party, the so called Project Supervisor, whilst the other results from the application of FIDIC conditions of contract, which entail appointment of the Engineer. The decision is to be made by the Client and depends on various factors. On the public procurement market in Poland the selection of construction project manager boils down to awarding the contract for such a service. The selection can be done by one of eight public procurement procedures identified by the procurement law. The paper provides the analysis of 96 contracts for services awarded in 2011, which employed construction management. The study aimed to investigate the methods and criteria for selecting managers, applied in practice by the Polish public Clients.

Keywords: construction management, construction services, methods and criteria of tender selection, public procurement

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Authors: J. X. Dong, C. J. An, Z. Chen, E. H. Owens, M. C. Boufadel, E. Taylor, K. Lee

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Shorelines are vulnerable to significant environmental impacts from oil spills. Stranded oil can cause potential short- to long-term detrimental effects along beaches that include injuries to ecosystem, socio-economic and cultural resources. In this study, a three-dimensional (3D) numerical modeling approach is developed to evaluate the fate and transport of spilled oil for hypothetical oiled shoreline cases under various combinations of beach geomorphology and environmental conditions. The developed model estimates the spatial and temporal distribution of spilled oil for the various test conditions, using the finite volume method and considering the physical transport (dispersion and advection), sinks, and sorption processes. The model includes a user-friendly interface for data input on variables such as beach properties, environmental conditions, and physical-chemical properties of spilled oil. An experimental meso-scale tank design was used to test the developed model for dissolved petroleum hydrocarbon within shorelines. The simulated results for effects of different sediment substrates, oil types, and shoreline features for the transport of spilled oil are comparable to that obtained with a commercially available model. Results show that the properties of substrates and the oil removal by shoreline effects have significant impacts on oil transport in the beach area. Sensitivity analysis, through the application of the one-step-at-a-time method (OAT), for the 3D model identified hydraulic conductivity as the most sensitive parameter. The 3D numerical model allows users to examine the behavior of oil on and within beaches, assess potential environmental impacts, and provide technical support for decisions related to shoreline clean-up operations.

Keywords: dissolved petroleum hydrocarbons, environmental multimedia model, finite volume method, FVM, sensitivity analysis, total petroleum hydrocarbons, TPH

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Authors: Aishath Shakeela

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At a global level, water stewardship, water stress and water security are crucial factors in tourism planning and development considerations. Challenges associated with water is of particular concern to the Maldives as there is limited availability of freshwater, high dependency on desalinated water, and high unit cost associated with desalinating water. While the Maldives is promoted as an example of sustainable tourism, a key sustainability challenge facing tourism dependent communities is the efficient use and management of available water resources. A water crisis event in the capital island of Maldives highlighted how precarious water related issues are in this tourism dependent destination. Applying netnography, the focus of this working paper is to present community perceptions of how government policies addressed Malé Water and Sewerage Company (MWSC) water crisis event.

Keywords: Crisis management, government policies, Maldives, tourism, water.

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Authors: Mohammed Bilal, Noor Hyder

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Agile methodology is a popular project management methodology and is widely used in many engineering projects. In the recent years agile methodology is successful in countering the inherent problems seen in traditional methodology. The application of the Agile methodology in the computational fluid dynamic project had improved the project delivery performance. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is the method to solve and analyze the fluid flow problems by the application of the numerical analysis. In this paper, study is conducted using agile methodology and results are compared with waterfall methodology. The result shows that the agile methodology is improves the final delivery of the project.

Keywords: Agile methodology, traditional methodology, engineering management, engineering technology, Computational Fluid Dynamics, project management.

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Authors: S. Saravanan, G. Sugumaran

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Nowadays the use of Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) is increasing dramatically. The HEV is mainly dependent on electricity and there is always a need for storage of charge. Fuel Cell (FC), Batteries and Ultra Capacitor are being used for the proposed HEV as an electric power source or as an energy storage unit. The aim of developing an energy management technique is to utilize the sources according to the requirement of the vehicle with help of controller. This increases the efficiency of hybrid electric vehicle to reduce the fuel consumption and unwanted emission. The Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) in FC is done using (Perturb & Observe) algorithm. In this paper, the control of automobiles at variable speed is achieved effectively.

Keywords: Batteries, Energy Management System (EMS), Fuel Cell (FC), Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT).

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Authors: Hsueh-Chih, Chen, Yau-Ting, Sung, Tsai-Wen, Lin, Hung-Teng, Chou

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It has formed an essential issue that Climate Change, composed of highly knowledge complexity, reveals its significant impact on human existence. Therefore, specific national policies, some of which present the educational aspects, have been published for overcoming the imperative problem. Accordingly, the study aims to analyze as well as integrate the relationship between Climate Change and environmental education and apply the perspective of concept map to represent the knowledge contents and structures of Climate Change; by doing so, knowledge contents of Climate Change could be represented in an even more comprehensive way and manipulated as the tool for environmental education. The method adapted for this study is knowledge conversion model compounded of the platform for experts and teachers, who were the participants for this study, to cooperate and combine each participant-s standpoints into a complete knowledge framework that is the foundation for structuring the concept map. The result of this research contains the important concepts, the precise propositions and the entire concept map for representing the robust concepts of Climate Change.

Keywords: Climate Change, knowledge complexity, concept map.

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Authors: Vinod Tejwani, Bhavik Suthar

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The paper presents and energy management strategy for a Fuel Cell, Ultracapacitor, Battery hybrid energy storage. The fuel cell hybrid power system is devised basically for emergency power requirements and transient load applications. The power density of an Ultracapacitor is extremely high and for a battery, it is subtle. For a fuel cell, the value of power density is medium. The energy density of these three stockpiling gadgets is contrarily about the power density, i.e. for the batteries it is most noteworthy and for the Ultracapacitor, it is least. Again the fuel cell has medium energy density. The proposed Energy Management System (EMS) is trying to rationalize these parameters viz. the energy density and power density. The working of the fuel cell, Ultracapacitor and batteries are controlled in a coordinated environment in a way to optimize the energy usage and at the same time to get benefits of power and energy density from their inherent characteristics. MATLAB/ Simulink® based test bench is created by using different DC-DC converters for all energy storage devices and an inverter is modeled to supply the time varying load. The results provided by the EMS are highly satisfactory that proves its adaptability.

Keywords: Energy Management System (EMS) Fuel Cell, Ultracapacitor, Battery, Hybrid Energy Storage.

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Authors: Kristjan Kuhi, Kati K. Kaare, Ott Koppel

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Modern management in most fields is performance based; both planning and implementation of maintenance and operational activities are driven by appropriately defined performance indicators. Continuous real-time data collection for management is becoming feasible due to technological advancements. Outdated and insufficient input data may result in incorrect decisions. When using deterministic models the uncertainty of the object state is not visible thus applying the deterministic models are more likely to give false diagnosis. Constructing structured probabilistic models of the performance indicators taking into consideration the surrounding indicator environment enables to estimate the trustworthiness of the indicator values. It also assists to fill gaps in data to improve the quality of the performance analysis and management decisions. In this paper authors discuss the application of probabilistic graphical models in the road performance measurement and propose a high-level conceptual model that enables analyzing and predicting more precisely future pavement deterioration based on road utilization.

Keywords: Probabilistic graphical models, performance indicators, road performance management, data collection

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Authors: Achmad Zamroni, Masahiro Yamao

Abstract:

Coastal resource management, community empowerment and socio economic development are the cornerstones for uplifting the lives of coastal area inhabitants. This paper aims to identify the positive impacts of coastal management projects toward fishermen-s economic well-being, to analyze the role of fishermen and their families in effecting economic change and to analyze the roles of stakeholders in managing coastal resources. Structured and semi-structured questionnaires were prepared to obtain qualitative data, and interviews were conducted with fishermen. Findings show that community empowerment and conservation of coastal resources through local and central government projects have exerted positive impact on the coastal community. Some activities involved women who are more active particularly in “off-fishing" season. Traditionally, local fishermen together with local stakeholders have set up a zoning system to minimize conflicts between fishermen. In addition, zoning is used to protect certain ecosystems that can provide benefits well into the future.

Keywords: Economic development, Off-fishing, Resource management, Stakeholders' participation, Women's participation

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Authors: Mohsen Pirdashti, Arezou Ghadi, Mehrdad Mohammadi, Gholamreza Shojatalab

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Chemical industry project management involves complex decision making situations that require discerning abilities and methods to make sound decisions. Project managers are faced with decision environments and problems in projects that are complex. In this work, case study is Research and Development (R&D) project selection. R&D is an ongoing process for forward thinking technology-based chemical industries. R&D project selection is an important task for organizations with R&D project management. It is a multi-criteria problem which includes both tangible and intangible factors. The ability to make sound decisions is very important to success of R&D projects. Multiple-criteria decision making (MCDM) approaches are major parts of decision theory and analysis. This paper presents all of MCDM approaches for use in R&D project selection. It is hoped that this work will provide a ready reference on MCDM and this will encourage the application of the MCDM by chemical engineering management.

Keywords: Chemical Engineering, R&D Project, MCDM, Selection.

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Authors: M. Osipova

Abstract:

Thanks to informational technologies development every sphere of economics is becoming more and more datacentralized as people are generating huge datasets containing information on any aspect of their life. Applying research of such data to human resources management allows getting scarce statistics on labor market state including salary expectations and potential employees’ typical career behavior, and this information can become a reliable basis for management decisions. The following article presents results of career behavior research based on freely accessible resume data. Information used for study is much wider than one usually uses in human resources surveys. That is why there is enough data for statistically significant results even for subgroups analysis.

Keywords: Human resources management, labor market, salary expectations, statistics, turnover.

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Authors: Matthew P. Mancini, Vincent Ribiere

Abstract:

Today’s workers face more numerous and complex challenges and are required to be increasingly interdependent and faster learners. Knowledge sharing activities between people have been understood as a significant element affecting organizational innovation performance. While they do have the potential to spark cognitive conflict, disagreement is important from an organizational perspective because it can stimulate the development of new ideas and perhaps pave the way for creativity, innovation, and competitive advantage. How teams cope with the cognitive conflict dimension of knowledge sharing and the associated interpersonal risk is what captures our attention. Specifically, assertive conflict management strategies have a positive influence on knowledge sharing behaviors, and team psychological safety has a positive influence on knowledge sharing intention. This paper focuses on explaining the impact that these factors have on the shaping of an individual’s decision to engage or not in knowledge sharing activities. To accomplish this, we performed an empirical analysis on the results of our questionnaire about knowledge-sharing related conflict management and team psychological safety in pharmaceutical enterprises located in North America, Europe, and Asia. First, univariate analysis is used to characterize behavior regarding conflict management strategy into two groups. Group 1 presents assertive conflict management strategies and group 2 shows unassertive ones. Then, by using SEM methodology, we evaluated the relationships between them and the team psychological safety construct with the knowledge sharing process. The results of the SEM analysis show that assertive conflict management strategies affect the knowledge sharing process the most with a small, but significant effect from team psychological safety. The findings suggest that assertive conflict management strategies are just as important as knowledge sharing intentions for encouraging knowledge sharing behavior. This paper provides clear insights into how employees manage the sharing of their knowledge in the face of conflict and interpersonal risk and the relative importance of these factors in sustaining productive knowledge sharing activities.

Keywords: Cognitive dissonance, conflict management, knowledge sharing, organizational behavior, psychological safety.

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Authors: Sawcen Chebaane, Hakim Ben Othman

Abstract:

This paper investigates the effect of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption on the frequency of earnings managements towards small positive profits. We focus on two emerging markets IFRS adopters: South Africa and Turkey. We tested our logistic regression using appropriate panelestimation techniques over a sample of 330 South African and 210 Turkish firm-year observations over the period 2002-2008. Our results document that mandatory adoption of IFRS is not associated with a reduction in earnings management towards small positive profits in emerging markets. These results contradict most of the previous findings of the studies conducted in developed countries. Based on the legal system factor, we compare the intensity of earnings management between a code law country (Turkey) and a common law country (South Africa) over the pre and post-adoption periods. Our findings show that the frequency of such earnings management practice increases significantly for the code law country.

Keywords: Civil law, common law, emerging markets, Mandatory IFRS adoption, small positive profits.

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