Search results for: assessment practices

Authors: Kati Skarp, Keijo Varis, Juha Kettunen

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The purpose of this paper is to examine and evaluate the top-down and bottom-up leadership development programs focused on human capital that improve the performance of a company. This study reports on the external top-down leadership development program supported by a consulting company and the internal participatory action research of the bottom-up program. The sickness rate and the lost time incident failure rate decreased and the ideas produced for cost savings improved, leading to increased earnings during the top-down program. The estimated cost savings potential of the bottom-up program was 3.8 million euro based on the cost savings of meeting habits, maintenance practices and the way of working in production. The results of this study are useful for those who plan and evaluate leadership development and human capital productivity consultation programs to improve the performance of a company.

Keywords: Leadership, development, human resources, company, indicators, evaluation.

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Authors: M.A. Calin, S.V. Parasca, M.R. Calin, D. Savastru, D. Manea

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The goal of this paper is to examine the effects of laser radiation on the skin wound healing using infrared thermography as non-invasive method for the monitoring of the skin temperature changes during laser treatment. Thirty Wistar rats were used in this study. A skin lesion was performed at the leg on all rats. The animals were exposed to laser radiation (λ = 670 nm, P = 15 mW, DP = 16.31 mW/cm2) for 600 s. Thermal images of wound were acquired before and after laser irradiation. The results have demonstrated that the tissue temperature decreases from 35.5±0.50°C in the first treatment day to 31.3±0.42°C after the third treatment day. This value is close to the normal value of the skin temperature and indicates the end of the skin repair process. In conclusion, the improvements in the wound healing following exposure to laser radiation have been revealed by infrared thermography.

Keywords: skin, wound, laser, thermal image

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Authors: Tharunika Sridhar

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This paper addresses sustainable eco-connectivity within the telecommunications sector studying its importance to tackle the contemporary challenges and data regulation issues. The paper also investigates the role of Big Data and its integration in this context, specific to telecom industry. One of the major focus areas in this paper is studying and examining the pathways explored, that are state-of-the-art ecological infrastructure solutions and sector-led measures derived from expert analyses and reviews. Additionally, the paper analyses critical factors involving cost-effective route planning, and the development of green telecommunications infrastructure that adds qualitative reasoning to the research idea. Furthermore, the study discusses in detail a potential green roadmap towards sustainability by exploring green routing software, eco-friendly infrastructure and other eco-focused initiatives. The paper is also directed at the special linguistic needs of the telecommunications sector by focusing on targeted select range of telecom environment.

Keywords: Big Data, telecom, sustainable telecom sector, telecom networks.

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Authors: Linh Thi Truc Doan, Yousef Amer, Sang-Heon Lee, Phan Nguyen Ky Phuc

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During the last few decades, with the high-speed upgrade of electronic products, electronic waste (e-waste) has become one of the fastest growing wastes of the waste stream. In this context, more efforts and concerns have already been placed on the treatment and management of this waste. To mitigate their negative influences on the environment and society, it is necessary to establish appropriate strategies for e-waste management. Hence, this paper aims to review and analysis some useful strategies which have been applied in several countries to handle e-waste. Future perspectives on e-waste management are also suggested. The key findings found that, to manage e-waste successfully, it is necessary to establish effective reverse supply chains for e-waste, and raise public awareness towards the detrimental impacts of e-waste. The result of the research provides valuable insights to governments, policymakers in establishing e-waste management in a safe and sustainable manner.

Keywords: E-waste, e-waste management, life cycle assessment, recycling regulations.

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Authors: Najiba Ouled Omar, Azza Harbaoui, Henda Ben Ghezala

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Current research practices sentiment analysis with a focus on social networks, DEfi Fouille de Texte (DEFT) (Text Mining Challenge) evaluation campaign focuses on opinion mining and sentiment analysis on social networks, especially social network Twitter. It aims to confront the systems produced by several teams from public and private research laboratories. DEFT offers participants the opportunity to work on regularly renewed themes and proposes to work on opinion mining in several editions. The purpose of this article is to scrutinize and analyze the works relating to opinions mining and sentiment analysis in the Twitter social network realized by DEFT. It examines the tasks proposed by the organizers of the challenge and the methods used by the participants.

Keywords: Opinion mining, sentiment analysis, emotion, polarity, annotation, OSEE, figurative language, DEFT, Twitter, Tweet.

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Authors: Inayat Ur Rehman, Georgia Sakellari

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Cloud computing has evolved into a vital technology for businesses, offering scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness. However, maintaining high availability and optimal performance in the cloud is crucial for reliable services. This paper explores the significance of cloud monitoring and performance optimization in sustaining the high availability of cloud-based systems. It discusses diverse monitoring tools, techniques, and best practices for continually assessing the health and performance of cloud resources. The paper also delves into performance optimization strategies, including resource allocation, load balancing, and auto-scaling, to ensure efficient resource utilization and responsiveness. Addressing potential challenges in cloud monitoring and optimization, the paper offers insights into data security and privacy considerations. Through this thorough analysis, the paper aims to underscore the importance of cloud monitoring and performance optimization for ensuring a seamless and highly available cloud computing environment.

Keywords: Cloud computing, cloud monitoring, performance optimization, high availability.

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Authors: E. Halawa

Abstract:

Solar water heating (SWH) systems are gaining popularity in ASEAN in the midst of increasing number of affluent population in society and environmental concerns from seemingly unchanged reliance on fossil-based fuels. The penetration of these systems and technologies into ASEAN markets is a welcome development; however there is a need for the method of assessment of their thermal performances. This paper discusses the reasons for this need and a suitable method for thermal performance evaluation of SWH systems in ASEAN. The paper also calls on research to be focused on the establishment of reliable data to be entered into the performance rating software. The establishment of accredited solar systems testing facilities can help boost the competitiveness of ASEAN solar industry.

Keywords: ASEAN, solar industry, solar water heating systems, thermal performance rating.

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Authors: Leena N. Fukey, Surya S. Issac

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This review paper aims at understanding the importance of implementing sustainable green practices in the current hotel industry and the perception of the same from the point of view of the customers as well as the industry experts. Many hotels have benefited from green management such as enhanced reputation of the firm and more worth customers. For the business standing, it reduces business’s cost for posting advertisements and the clear hotel’s orientation shows hotels’ positive image which might increase employees’ recognition toward the business. Sustainability in business is the growth in lively processes which enable people to understand the potential to protect the Earth’s existent support systems. Well, looking to the future today’s green concerns will definitely become facet of more synchronized business environment, perhaps the concerns discussed in this study, may exchange a few words which hotels may consider in near future to widen awareness and improve business model.

Keywords: Environmental Protection, Green Hotel Concept, Hotel Industry, Sustainability.

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Authors: Amin Almasi

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Reliability assessment and risk analysis of rotating machine rotors in various overload and malfunction situations present challenge to engineers and operators. In this paper a new analytical method for evaluation of rotor under large deformation is addressed. Model is presented in general form to include also composite rotors. Presented simulation procedure is based on variational work method and has capability to account for geometric nonlinearity, large displacement, nonlinear support effect and rotor contacting other machine components. New shape functions are presented which capable to predict accurate nonlinear profile of rotor. The closed form solutions for various operating and malfunction situations are expressed. Analytical simulation results are discussed

Keywords: Large Deformation, Nonlinear, Rotor.

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Authors: Farag Azzedin, Ahmad Ridha, Ali Rizvi

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Trust management is one of the drawbacks in Peer-to-Peer (P2P) system. Lack of centralized control makes it difficult to control the behavior of the peers. Reputation system is one approach to provide trust assessment in P2P system. In this paper, we use fuzzy logic to model trust in a P2P environment. Our trust model combines first-hand (direct experience) and second-hand (reputation)information to allow peers to represent and reason with uncertainty regarding other peers' trustworthiness. Fuzzy logic can help in handling the imprecise nature and uncertainty of trust. Linguistic labels are used to enable peers assign a trust level intuitively. Our fuzzy trust model is flexible such that inference rules are used to weight first-hand and second-hand accordingly.

Keywords: P2P Systems; Trust, Reputation, Fuzzy Logic.

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Authors: Sebastian Tschöpe, Konja Knüppel, Peter Nyhuis

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In times when product life cycles are decreasing, while market demands are increasing, manufacturing enterprises are confronted with the challenge of more frequent and more complex ramp-ups. Thus it becomes obvious that ramp-up management is going to be a topic enterprises have to focus on in the future. Since each ramp-up is unique concerning the product, the process, the technology, the circumstances and the coaction of these four factors, the knowledge of the ramp-up situation and the current ramp-up capability of the enterprise are fundamental requirements for the subsequent improvement of the ramp-up capability of the production system.

In this article a methodology is going to be presented which can be used to define typical production ramp-up situations, to identify the current ramp-up capability of a production system and to improve it with respect to a specific situation. Additionally there will be a description of the functionality of a software-tool developed based on this methodology.

Keywords: Assessment methodology, ramp-up, ramp-up capability, software-tool.

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Authors: R. Sadykova

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This article analyses the peculiarities of Japan’s policy toward the countries of Central Asia. The increasing role of Central Asia in the system of international relations engendered an objective need for understanding of the policy of leading states, including Japan, in the region in the twenty-first century. The purpose of the study is to investigate the peculiarities of the formation and development of Japan policy in Central Asia and to identify the problems and prospects of Japan’s policy toward the countries of the region on the basis of experts’ opinions. In this article, the method of analysis of the situation and a systematic method were used. Prognostic methods, the collective expert assessment and scenarios were used in the study to determine the prospects of Japan’s policy toward the countries of Central Asia.

Keywords: Japan, Central Asia, the Eurasian concept, ‘Central Asia plus Japan’ Dialogue.

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Authors: K. S. Jasmine, R. Vasantha

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The overriding goal of software engineering is to provide a high quality system, application or a product. To achieve this goal, software engineers must apply effective methods coupled with modern tools within the context of a mature software process [2]. In addition, it is also must to assure that high quality is realized. Although many quality measures can be collected at the project levels, the important measures are errors and defects. Deriving a quality measure for reusable components has proven to be challenging task now a days. The results obtained from the study are based on the empirical evidence of reuse practices, as emerged from the analysis of industrial projects. Both large and small companies, working in a variety of business domains, and using object-oriented and procedural development approaches contributed towards this study. This paper proposes a quality metric that provides benefit at both project and process level, namely defect removal efficiency (DRE).

Keywords: Software Reuse, Defect density, Reuse metrics, Defect Removal efficiency.

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Authors: Ahmed Zaafouri, Mounir Sayadi, Farhat Fnaiech

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In this paper, we present a method for edge segmentation of satellite images based on 2-D Phase Congruency (PC) model. The proposed approach is composed by two steps: The contextual non linear smoothing algorithm (CNLS) is used to smooth the input images. Then, the 2D stretched Gabor filter (S-G filter) based on proposed angular variation is developed in order to avoid the multiple responses in the previous work. An assessment of our proposed method performance is provided in terms of accuracy of satellite image edge segmentation. The proposed method is compared with others known approaches.

Keywords: Edge segmentation, Phase congruency model, Satellite images, Stretched Gabor filter

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Authors: Suhartini M. Jainury, Rizauddin Ramli, Mohd Nizam A. Rahman

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Lean, which was initially developed by Toyota, is widely implemented in other companies to improve competitiveness. This research is an attempt to identify the adoption of lean in the production system of Malaysian car manufacturer, Proton using case study approach. To gain the in-depth information regarding lean implementation, an activity on the assembly line called Set Parts Supply (SPS) was studied. The result indicates that by using lean principles, tools and techniques in the implementation of SPS enabled to achieve the goals on safety, quality, cost, delivery and morale. The implementation increased the size of the workspace, improved the quality of assembly and the delivery of parts supply, reduced the manpower, achieved cost savings on electricity and also increased the motivation of manpower in respect of attendance at work. A framework of SPS implementation is suggested as a contribution for lean practices in production system.

Keywords: Assembly line, lean manufacturing, production, parts supply.

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Authors: Nedeljko Cvejic, Artur Łoza, David Bull, Nishan Canagarajah

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In this paper, we present a novel objective nonreference performance assessment algorithm for image fusion. It takes into account local measurements to estimate how well the important information in the source images is represented by the fused image. The metric is based on the Universal Image Quality Index and uses the similarity between blocks of pixels in the input images and the fused image as the weighting factors for the metrics. Experimental results confirm that the values of the proposed metrics correlate well with the subjective quality of the fused images, giving a significant improvement over standard measures based on mean squared error and mutual information.

Keywords: Fusion performance measures, image fusion, non-reference quality measures, objective quality measures.

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Authors: Dimitrios J. Dimitriou

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The decades after the end of the second War provide evidence that infrastructures investments contibute to economic development, on terms of productivity and income growth. In order to force productivity and increase competitiveness the financing of large transport infrastructure projects are on the top of the agenda in strategic planning process. Such a decision may take form some days to some decades and stakeholders as well as decision makers need tools in order to estimate the economic impact on natioanl economy of such an investment. The key question in such decisions is if the effects caused by the new infrastructure could be able to boost economic development on one hand, and create new jobs and activities on the other. This paper deals with the review of estimation of the mega transport infrastructure projects economic effects in economy.

Keywords: Economic impact, transport infrastructure, strategic planning.

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Authors: Rajeshkumar U. Sambhe

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Large scale Indian manufacturers started implementing Six Sigma to their supply core to fulfill the endless need of high quality products. As well, they initiated encouraging their suppliers to apply the well-ascertain SS management practice and kept no resource for supplier enterprises, generally small midsized enterprises to think for the admittance of Six Sigma as a quality promotion drive. There are many issues to study for requisite changes before the introduction of Six Sigma in auto SMEs. This paper converges on impeding factors while implementing SS drive and also pinpoints the gains achieved through successful implementation. The result of this study suggest some operational guidelines for effective implementation of Six Sigma from evidences acquired through research questionnaire and interviews with industrial professionals, apportioned to assort auto sector mid-sized enterprises (MSEs) in India.

Keywords: Indian automotive SMEs, quality management practices, six sigma imperatives, problems faced in six sigma implementation, benefits, some guidelines for implementation.

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Authors: Mostafa Alinezhad, Mehrdad Ahmadi Kamarposhti

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According to the increasing utilization in power system, the transmission lines and power plants often operate in stability boundary and system probably lose its stable condition by over loading or occurring disturbance. According to the reasons that are mentioned, the prediction and recognition of voltage instability in power system has particular importance and it makes the network security stronger.This paper, by considering of power system contingencies based on the effects of them on Mega Watt Margin (MWM) and maximum loading point is focused in order to analyse the static voltage stability using continuation power flow method. The study has been carried out on IEEE 14-Bus Test System using Matlab and Psat softwares and results are presented.

Keywords: Contingency, Continuation Power Flow, Static Voltage Stability, Voltage Collapse.

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Authors: Orkide Donma, Mustafa M. Donma

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Association between insulin resistance (IR) and hematological parameters has long been a matter of interest. Within this context, body mass index (BMI), red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets were involved in this discussion. Parameters related to platelets associated with IR may be useful indicators for the identification of IR. Platelet indices such as mean platelet volume (MPV), platelet distribution width (PDW) and plateletcrit (PCT) are being questioned for their possible association with IR. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between platelet (PLT) count as well as PLT indices and the surrogate indices used to determine IR in morbid obese (MO) children. A total of 167 children participated in the study. Three groups were constituted. The number of cases was 34, 97 and 36 children in the normal BMI, MO and metabolic syndrome (MetS) groups, respectively. Sex- and age-dependent BMI-based percentile tables prepared by World Health Organization were used for the definition of morbid obesity. MetS criteria were determined. BMI values, homeostatic model assessment for IR (HOMA-IR), alanine transaminase-to-aspartate transaminase ratio (ALT/AST) and diagnostic obesity notation model assessment laboratory (DONMA-lab) index values were computed. PLT count and indices were analyzed using automated hematology analyzer. Data were collected for statistical analysis using SPSS for Windows. Arithmetic mean and standard deviation were calculated. Mean values of PLT-related parameters in both control and study groups were compared by one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey post hoc tests to determine whether a significant difference exists among the groups. The correlation analyses between PLT as well as IR indices were performed. Statistically significant difference was accepted as p-value < 0.05. Increased values were detected for PLT (p < 0.01) and PCT (p > 0.05) in MO group compared to those observed in children with N-BMI. Significant increases for PLT (p < 0.01) and PCT (p < 0.05) were observed in MetS group in comparison with the values obtained in children with N-BMI (p < 0.01). Significantly lower MPV and PDW values were obtained in MO group compared to the control group (p < 0.01). HOMA-IR (p < 0.05), DONMA-lab index (p < 0.001) and ALT/AST (p < 0.001) values in MO and MetS groups were significantly increased compared to the N-BMI group. On the other hand, DONMA-lab index values also differed between MO and MetS groups (p < 0.001). In the MO group, PLT was negatively correlated with MPV and PDW values. These correlations were not observed in the N-BMI group. None of the IR indices exhibited a correlation with PLT and PLT indices in the N-BMI group. HOMA-IR showed significant correlations both with PLT and PCT in the MO group. All of the three IR indices were well-correlated with each other in all groups. These findings point out the missing link between IR and PLT activation. In conclusion, PLT and PCT may be related to IR in addition to their identities as hemostasis markers during morbid obesity. Our findings have suggested that DONMA-lab index appears as the best surrogate marker for IR due to its discriminative feature between morbid obesity and MetS.

Keywords: Children, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, plateletcrit, platelet indices.

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Authors: Cencen Li, Shaoying Liu, Shin Nakajima

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Specification-based testing enables us to detect errors in the implementation of functions defined in given specifications. Its effectiveness in achieving high path coverage and efficiency in generating test cases are always major concerns of testers. The automatic test cases generation approach based on formal specifications proposed by Liu and Nakajima is aimed at ensuring high effectiveness and efficiency, but this approach has not been empirically assessed. In this paper, we present an experiment for assessing Liu-s testing approach. The result indicates that this testing approach may not be effective in some circumstances. We discuss the result, analyse the specific causes for the ineffectiveness, and describe some suggestions for improvement.

Keywords: experiment, functional scenario, specification-based, testing.

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Authors: L. Mortari, A. Bevilacqua, R. Silva

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The experience presented in this paper aims to understand how educational research can support the introduction and optimization of teaching innovations in legal education. In this increasingly complex context, a strong need to introduce paths aimed at acquiring not only professional knowledge and skills but also reflective, critical and problem-solving skills emerges. Through a peer observation intertwined with an analysis of discursive practices, researchers and the teacher worked together through a process of participatory and transformative accompaniment whose objective was to promote the active participation and engagement of students in learning processes, an element indispensable to work in the more specific direction of strengthening key competences. This reflective faculty development path led the teacher to activate metacognitive processes, becoming thus aware of the strengths and areas of improvement of his teaching innovation.

Keywords: Discursive analysis, faculty development, legal education, peer observation, teaching innovation.

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Authors: Kyoung Hoon Kim

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Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) has potential in reducing fossil fuels and relaxing environmental problems. In this work performance analysis of ORC is conducted based on the second law of thermodynamics for recovery of low temperature heat source from 100^oC to 140^oC using R134a as the working fluid. Effects of system parameters such as turbine inlet pressure or source temperature are theoretically investigated on the exergy destructions (anergies) at various components of the system as well as net work production or exergy efficiency. Results show that the net work or exergy efficiency has a peak with respect to the turbine inlet pressure when the source temperature is low, however, increases monotonically with increasing turbine inlet pressure when the source temperature is high.

Keywords: Organic Rankine cycle (ORC), low temperature heat source, exergy, source temperature.

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Authors: Wei Bai, Ling-Wei Kong, Ai-Guo Guo

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Base on extenics theory, the statistical physical and mechanical properties from laboratory experiments are used to evaluate the bearing capacity of lateritic soil foundation. The properties include water content, bulk density, liquid limit, cohesion, and so on. The matter-element and the dependent function are defined. Then the synthesis dependent degree and the final grade index are calculated. The results show that predicted outcomes can be matched with the in-situ test data, and a evaluate grade associate with bearing capacity can be deduced. The results provide guidance to assess and determine the bearing capacity grade of lateritic soil foundation.

Keywords: Lateritic soil, bearing capacity, extenics theory, plate loading test.

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Authors: Ling Zheng, Yaping Wei, Kang Cao, Songpo Shi, Jinxing Wang

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It-s difficult for China-s current land transfer institutions limited to county-wide to solve the contradiction between urban-rural development and construction land shortage. On the basis of analyzing China-s construction land transfer system, and evaluation toward Transfer of development rights (TDR) practices in Anhui and Chongqing, the passage proposes: (1) we should establish a multi-level land indicators trade market under the guidance of regional spatial objectives, and allow land transfer paid across cities and counties within a specific area following the regulation of both government and market; (2) it would be better to combine organically the policy ntentions of land plan, regional plan, urban plan and economic plan, and link them with land indicators transfer to promote a wider range of urban-rural balance and regional coordination.

Keywords: China's land institutions, transfer of development rights, urban-rural balance, regional coordination.

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Authors: João Vilas-Boas, Abdul Suleman, Luis Moreira

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This research tested the performance of alternative warehouse designs concerning the picking process. The chosen performance measures were Travel Distance and Total Fulfilment Time. An explanatory case study was built up around a model implemented with SIMUL8. Hypotheses were set by selecting outcomes from the literature survey matching popular empirical findings. 17.4% reductions were found for Total Fulfilment Time and Resource Utilisation. The latter was then used as a proxy for operational efficiency. Literal replication of theoretical data-patterns was considered as an internal validity sign. Assessing the estimated changes benefits ahead of implementation was found to be a contribution to practice.

Keywords: Warehouse discrete-event simulation, Storage policy selection and assessment, Performance evaluation of order picking.

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Authors: Victoriano Valencia García, Luis Usero Aragonés, Eugenio J. Fernández Vicente

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Nowadays, the successful implementation of ICTs is vital for almost any kind of organization. Good governance and ICT management are essential for delivering value, managing technological risks, managing resources and performance measurement. In addition, outsourcing is a strategic IT service solution which complements IT services provided internally in organizations. This paper proposes the measurement tools of a new holistic maturity model based on standards ISO/IEC 20000 and ISO/IEC 38500, and the frameworks and best practices of ITIL and COBIT, with a specific focus on IT outsourcing. These measurement tools allow independent validation and practical application in the field of higher education, using a questionnaire, metrics tables, and continuous improvement plan tables as part of the measurement process. Guidelines and standards are proposed in the model for facilitating adaptation to universities and achieving excellence in the outsourcing of IT services.

Keywords: IT Governance, IT Management, IT Services, Maturity Model, Measurement Tools, Outsourcing.

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Authors: Majlinda Fetaji, Alajdin Abazi, Zamir Dika, Bekim Fetaji

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The assessment of the efficacy of devised Mobile- Assisted Instructional Modes in Mobile Learning was the focus of this research. The study adopted pre-test, post-test, control group quasi-experimental design. Research instruments were developed, validated and used for collecting data. Findings revealed that the students exposed to Mobile Task Based Learning Mode (MTBLM) in using Mobile-Assisted Instruction (MAI) performed significantly better. The implication of these findings is that, the Audio tutorial and Practice Mode (ATPM) (Stimulus instruments) of MAI had been found better over the other modes used in the study.

Keywords: Mobile-Assisted instructions, Mobile learning, learning instructions, task based learning.

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Authors: Piroska Biró, Mária Csernoch, János Máth, Kálmán Abari

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Testing the first year students of Informatics at the University of Debrecen revealed that students start their tertiary studies in programming with a low level of programming knowledge and algorithmic skills. The possible reasons which lead the students to this very unfortunate result were examined. The results of the test were compared to the students’ results in the school leaving exams and to their self-assessment values. It was found that there is only a slight connection between the students’ results in the test and in the school leaving exams, especially at intermediate level. Beyond this, the school leaving exams do not seem to enable students to evaluate their own abilities.

Keywords: Deep and surface approaches, metacognitive abilities, programming and algorithmic skills, school leaving exams, tracking code.

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Authors: G. Jelic Mrcelic, M. Sliskovic

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In Croatia, the majority of cultured marine fish species are reared in net cages. The intensive production of the fish in net cages may generate the considerable amount of bio waste and change water quality especially in enclosed and semi-enclosed coastal areas. The aim of this paper is to assess the potential impact of sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.) cage farm on water quality. The weak relationship between food supply and water quality parameters (nutrient content and phytoplankton biomass) was found, but significant changes in oxygen saturation was observed in the cages during the warmer period of a year especially in the morning (occasionally it dropped below 70 %). Despite of, satisfactory results of water quality parameters, it is necessary to establish comprehensive monitoring process, especially to include quality assessment of fouling communities.

Keywords: Mariculture, monitoring, fish cages, water quality parameters.

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