Search results for: empirical risk minimization

Authors: N. Todorovic, I. Bikit, J. Nikolov, S. Forkapic, D. Mrdja, S. Todorovic

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Interventional cardiologists are at greater risk from radiation exposure as a result of the procedures they undertake than most other medical specialists. A study was performed to evaluate operator dose during interventional cardiology procedures and to establish methods of operator dose reduction with a radiation protective device. Different procedure technique and use of protective tools can explain big difference in the annual equivalent dose received by the professionals. Strategies to prevent and monitor radiation exposure, advanced protective shielding and effective radiation monitoring methods should be applied.

Keywords: absorbed dose rate measurements, annualequivalent dose, protective device.

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Authors: Markéta Gregušová, Vladimíra Schindlerová, Ivana Šajdlerová, Petr Mohyla, Jan Kedroň

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Company managers are always looking for more and more opportunities to succeed in today's fiercely competitive market. To maintain your place among the successful companies on the market today or to come up with a revolutionary business idea is much more difficult than before. Each new or improved method, tool, or approach that can improve the functioning of business processes or even of the entire system is worth checking and verification. The use of simulation in the design of manufacturing systems and their management in practice is one of the ways without increased risk, which makes it possible to find the optimal parameters of manufacturing processes and systems. The paper presents an example of use of simulation for solution of the bottleneck problem in the concrete company.

Keywords: Practical applications, business processes, systems, simulation.

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Authors: B. K. Yeoh, Z. Arsad, C. W. Hooy

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This paper tests the level of market integration between Malaysia and Singapore stock markets with the world market. Kalman Filter (KF) methodology is used on the International Capital Asset Pricing Model (ICAPM) and the pricing errors estimated within the framework of ICAPM are used as a measure of market integration or segmentation. The advantage of the KF technique is that it allows for time-varying coefficients in estimating ICAPM and hence able to capture the varying degree of market integration. Empirical results show clear evidence of varying degree of market integration for both case of Malaysia and Singapore. Furthermore, the results show that the changes in the level of market integration are found to coincide with certain economic events that have taken placed. The findings certainly provide evidence on the practicability of the KF technique to estimate stock markets integration. In the comparison between Malaysia and Singapore stock market, the result shows that the trends of the market integration indices for Malaysia and Singapore look similar through time but the magnitude is notably different with the Malaysia stock market showing greater degree of market integration. Finally, significant evidence of varying degree of market integration shows the inappropriate use of OLS in estimating the level of market integration.

Keywords: ICAPM, Kalman filter, stock market integration.

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Authors: Haluk Gümüskaya, Hüseyin Hakkoymaz

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This paper describes WiPoD (Wireless Position Detector) which is a pure software based location determination and tracking (positioning) system. It uses empirical signal strength measurements from different wireless access points for mobile user positioning. It is designed to determine the location of users having 802.11 enabled mobile devices in an 802.11 WLAN infrastructure and track them in real time. WiPoD is the first main module in our LBS (Location Based Services) framework. We tested K-Nearest Neighbor and Triangulation algorithms to estimate the position of a mobile user. We also give the analysis results of these algorithms for real time operations. In this paper, we propose a supportable, i.e. understandable, maintainable, scalable and portable wireless positioning system architecture for an LBS framework. The WiPoD software has a multithreaded structure and was designed and implemented with paying attention to supportability features and real-time constraints and using object oriented design principles. We also describe the real-time software design issues of a wireless positioning system which will be part of an LBS framework.

Keywords: Indoor location determination and tracking, positioning in Wireless LAN.

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Authors: C. Li, G. Coates, N. Johnson, M. McGuinness

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In the UK, flooding is responsible for significant losses to the economy due to the impact on businesses, the vast majority of which are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Businesses of this nature tend to lack formal plans to aid their response to and recovery from disruptive events such as flooding. This paper reports on work on how an agent-based model (ABM) is being developed based on interview data gathered from SMEs at-risk of flooding and/or have direct experience of flooding. The ABM will enable simulations to be performed allowing investigations of different response strategies which SMEs may employ to lessen the impact of flooding, thus strengthening their resilience.

Keywords: ABM, Flood response, SMEs, Business continuity.

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Authors: František Bozek, Alexandr Bozek, Alena Bumbova, Eduard Bakos, Jiri Dvorak

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The article deals with the classification of alternative water resources in terms of potential risks which is the prerequisite for incorporating these water resources to the emergency plans. The classification is based on the quantification of risks resulting from possible damage, disruption or total destruction of water resource caused by natural and anthropogenic hazards, assessment of water quality and availability, traffic accessibility of the assessed resource and finally its water yield. The aim is to achieve the development of an integrated rescue system, which will be capable of supplying the population with drinking water on the whole stricken territory during the states of emergency.

Keywords: Classification, Emergency Supply, Risk, Water Standby Resource.

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Authors: Chris K. Y. Lo, Andy C. L. Yeung, T. C. Edwin Cheng

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ISO 9000 is the most popular and widely adopted meta-standard for quality and operational improvements. However, only limited empirical research has been conducted to examine the impact of ISO 9000 on operational performance based on objective and longitudinal data. To reveal any causal relationship between the adoption of ISO 9000 and operational performance, we examined the timing and magnitude of change in time-based performance as a result of ISO 9000 adoption. We analyzed the changes in operating cycle, inventory days, and account receivable days prior and after the implementation of ISO 9000 in 695 publicly listed manufacturing firms. We found that ISO 9000 certified firms shortened their operating cycle time by 5.28 days one year after the implementation of ISO 9000. In the long-run (3 years after certification), certified firms showed continuous improvement in time-based efficiency, and experienced a shorter operating cycle time of 11 days than that of non-certified firms. There was an average of 6.5% improvement in operating cycle time for ISO 9000 certified firms. Both inventory days and account receivable days showed similar significant improvements after the implementation of ISO 9000, too.

Keywords: ISO 9000, Operating Cycle, Time-based efficiency.

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Authors: Paul Osmond

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This paper reports a new application of material accounting techniques to characterise and quantify material stocks and flows at the “neighbourhood" scale. The study area is the main campus of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The system boundary is defined by the urban structural unit (USU), a typological construct devised to facilitate assessment of the metabolism of urban systems. A streamlined material flow analysis (MFA) was applied to quantify the stocks and flows of key construction materials within the campus USU over time, drawing on empirical data from a major campus development project. The results are reviewed to assess the efficacy of the method in supporting urban environmental evaluation and design practice, for example to facilitate estimation of significant impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions. It is concluded that linking a service (in this case, teaching students) enabled by a given product (university buildings) to the amount of materials used in creating that product offers a potential way to reduce the environmental impact of that service, through more efficient use of materials.

Keywords: Construction materials, material flow analysis, urban metabolism, urban structural unit.

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Authors: Wen-Chi Liu

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This paper aims to examine whether a bubble is present in the housing market of China. Thus, we use the housing  price-to-income ratios and housing price-to-rent ratios of 35 cities from 1998 to 2010. The methods of the panel KSS unit root test with a  Fourier function and the SPSM process are likewise used. The panel  KSS unit root test with a Fourier function considers the problem of  non-linearity and structural changes, and the SPSM process can avoid  the stationary time series from dominating the result-generated bias.  Through a rigorous empirical study, we determine that the housing  price-to-income ratios are stationary in 34 of the 35 cities in China.  Only Xining is non-stationary. The housing price-to-rent ratios are  stationary in 32 of the 35 cities in China. Chengdu, Fuzhou, and  Zhengzhou are non-stationary. Overall, the housing bubbles are not a  serious problem in China at the time.

 

Keywords: Housing Price-to-Income Ratio, Housing Price-to-Rent Ratio, Housing Bubbles, Panel Unit-Root Test.

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Authors: Patsaraporn Somboonsak, Mud-Armeen Munlin

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In April 2009, a new variant of Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 emerged in Mexico and spread all over the world. The influenza has three subtypes in human (H1N1, H1N2 and H3N2) Types B and C influenza tend to be associated with local or regional epidemics. Preliminary genetic characterization of the influenza viruses has identified them as swine influenza A (H1N1) viruses. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the Haemagglutinin (HA) and Neuraminidase (NA) are similar to each other and the majority of their genes of swine influenza viruses, two genes coding for the neuraminidase (NA) and matrix (M) proteins are similar to corresponding genes of swine influenza. Sequence similarity between the 2009 A (H1N1) virus and its nearest relatives indicates that its gene segments have been circulating undetected for an extended period. Nucleic acid sequence Maximum Likelihood (MCL) and DNA Empirical base frequencies, Phylogenetic relationship amongst the HA genes of H1N1 virus isolated in Genbank having high nucleotide sequence homology. In this paper we used 16 HA nucleotide sequences from NCBI for computing sequence relationships similarity of swine influenza A virus using the following method MCL the result is 28%, 36.64% for Optimal tree with the sum of branch length, 35.62% for Interior branch phylogeny Neighber – Join Tree, 1.85% for the overall transition/transversion, and 8.28% for Overall mean distance.

Keywords: Sequence DNA, Relationship of swine, Swineinfluenza, Sequence Similarity

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Authors: Shadi Alghaffari, Hong-Oanh Nguyen, Peggy Chen, Hossein Enshaei

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The main purpose of this study was to explore the role of organisational effectiveness (OE) in seaports. OE is an important managerial concept, one that is necessary for leaders and directors in any organisation to understand the output of their work. OE has been applied in many organisations; however, it is a vital concept in the port business. This paper examines various approaches and applications of the OE concept to business management, and describes benefits that are important and applicable to seaport management. This research reviews and classifies articles published in relevant journals and books between 1950 and 2016; from the general literature on OE to the narrower field of OE in seaports. Based on the extensive literature review, this study identifies and discusses several issues relevant to both practices and theories of this concept. The review concludes by presenting a gap in the literature, as it found only a limited amount of research that endeavours to clarify OE in the seaport sector. As a result of this gap, seaports suffer from a lack of empirical study and are largely neglected in this subject area. The implementation of OE in this research has led to the maritime sector interfacing with different disciplines in order to acquire the advantage of enhancing managerial knowledge and competing successfully in the international marketplace.

Keywords: Maritime, organisational effectiveness, seaport management.

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Authors: D. Beckwith

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This research explored sexual identity for women with physical disability, both congenital and acquired. It also explored whether exposure to violence or negative risk-taking had played a role in their intimate relationships. This phenomenological research used semi-structured interviews and photo elicitation with the researcher’s insider knowledge adding experiential substance and understanding to the discussion. Findings confirm sexuality for women with physical disability is marginalised and de-gendered making it less of a priority for professionals and policy makers and emphasising the need to more effectively support women with disability in relation to their sexuality, sexual expression and violence.

Keywords: Lived-experience, PhotoVoice, sexuality, violence.

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Authors: Om Pal, Amit Kumar Gupta, R. K. Garg

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An effective supplier selection process is very important to the success of any manufacturing organization. The main objective of supplier selection process is to reduce purchase risk, maximize overall value to the purchaser, and develop closeness and long-term relationships between buyers and suppliers in today’s competitive industrial scenario. The literature on supplier selection criteria and methods is full of various analytical and heuristic approaches. Some researchers have developed hybrid models by combining more than one type of selection methods. It is felt that supplier selection criteria and method is still a critical issue for the manufacturing industries therefore in the present paper the literature has been thoroughly reviewed and critically analyzed to address the issue.

Keywords: Supplier selection, AHP, ANP, TOPSIS, Mathematical Programming

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Authors: Seema Biday, Udhav Bhosle

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Repeated observation of a given area over time yields potential for many forms of change detection analysis. These repeated observations are confounded in terms of radiometric consistency due to changes in sensor calibration over time, differences in illumination, observation angles and variation in atmospheric effects. This paper demonstrates applicability of an empirical relative radiometric normalization method to a set of multitemporal cloudy images acquired by Resourcesat1 LISS III sensor. Objective of this study is to detect and remove cloud cover and normalize an image radiometrically. Cloud detection is achieved by using Average Brightness Threshold (ABT) algorithm. The detected cloud is removed and replaced with data from another images of the same area. After cloud removal, the proposed normalization method is applied to reduce the radiometric influence caused by non surface factors. This process identifies landscape elements whose reflectance values are nearly constant over time, i.e. the subset of non-changing pixels are identified using frequency based correlation technique. The quality of radiometric normalization is statistically assessed by R2 value and mean square error (MSE) between each pair of analogous band.

Keywords: Correlation, Frequency domain, Multitemporal, Relative Radiometric Correction

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Authors: Vriddhi Prasad

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The paper briefly outlines the nature of contemporary Architecture Education in India and its present challenges with theoretically feasible solutions. It explores in detail the arduous position of architecture education owing to, privatization of higher education institutes in India, every changing demand of the technology driven industry and discipline, along with regional and cultural resources that should be explored academically for the enrichment of graduates. With the government's education policy of supporting privatization, a comprehensive role for the regulating body of Architecture Education becomes imperative. The paper provides key insights through empirical research into the nature of these roles and the areas which need attention in light of the problems. With the aid of critically acclaimed education model like Design Build, contextual retrofits for Indian institutes can be stressed for inclusion in the curriculum. The pairing of a private institute and public industry/research body and vice versa can lead to pro-economic and pro-social research environment. These reforms if stressed by an autonomous nationwide regulating body rather than the state will lead to uniformity and flexibility of curriculum which promotes the creation of fresh graduates who are adaptable to the changing needs.

Keywords: Architecture education, building information modeling, design build, pedagogy.

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Authors: Victoria A. Bakhtina

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At a time of growing market turbulence and a strong shifts towards increasingly complex risk models and more stringent audit requirements, it is more critical than ever to maintain the highest quality of financial and credit information. IFC implemented an approach that helps increase data integrity and quality significantly. This approach is called “Screening". Screening is based on linking information from different sources to identify potential inconsistencies in key financial and credit data. That, in turn, can help to ease the trials of portfolio supervision, and improve overall company global reporting and assessment systems. IFC experience showed that when used regularly, Screening led to improved information.

Keywords: Information Integrity, Information Quality, Business Rules, Portfolio Management

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Authors: Jakub Hospodka

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This paper dissertates about issues which may occur after next year will be major part of civil aviation in EU included into system of Emission trading. This system should help to fight against global warming and to fulfill Kyoto Protocol commitments of European countries. Main issues mentioned in this paper are connected with problem of radiative forcing from emissions and lack of their monitoring and charging in EU legislative. There are mentioned main differences between industrial emissions and emissions form aviation with notification about possible negative impacts of neglecting these differences. Special attention is dedicated to risk of possible reverse effect of inclusion aviation in EU ETS, which may theoretically occur.

Keywords: EU ETS, radiative forcing, aviation, emissiontrading.

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Authors: Craig Loschmann

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With the global financial crisis turning into what more and more appears to be a prolonged “Great Recession", we are witnessing marked reductions in remittance transfers to developing countries with the likely possibility that overall flows will decline even further in the near future. With countless families reliant on remittance inflows as a source of income maintaining their economic livelihood, a reduction would put many at risk of falling below or deeper into poverty. Recognizing the importance of remittance inflows as a lifeline to the poor, policy should aim to (1) reduce the barriers to remit in both sending and receiving nations thus easing the decline in transfers; (2) leverage the development impacts of remittances; and (3) buffer vulnerable groups dependent on remittance transfers as a source of livelihood through sound countercyclical macroeconomic policies.

Keywords: crisis, migration, remittance, livelihood.

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Authors: Ljubomir Nikolic, Larisa Trichtchenko

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The connection between solar activity and adverse phenomena in the Earth’s environment that can affect space and ground based technologies has spurred interest in Space Weather (SW) research. A great effort has been put on the development of suitable models that can provide advanced forecast of SW events. With the progress in computational technology, it is becoming possible to develop operational large scale physics based models which can incorporate the most important physical processes and domains of the Sun-Earth system. In order to enhance our SW prediction capabilities we are developing advanced numerical tools. With operational requirements in mind, our goal is to develop a modular simulation framework of propagation of the disturbances from the Sun through interplanetary space to the Earth. Here, we report and discuss on the development of coronal field and solar wind components for a large scale MHD code. The model for these components is based on a potential field source surface model and an empirical Wang-Sheeley-Arge solar wind relation. 

Keywords: Space weather, numerical modeling, coronal field, solar wind.

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Authors: Sidharth Talan, Devendra Kumar Yadav, Yuvraj Singh Rajput, Subhajit Bhattacharjee

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Mining industry is known for its appetite to spend sizeable capital on mine equipment. However, in the current scenario, the mining industry is challenged by daunting factors of non-uniform geological conditions, uneven ore grade, uncontrollable and volatile mineral commodity prices and the ever increasing quest to optimize the capital and operational costs. Thus, the role of equipment reliability and maintenance planning inherits a significant role in augmenting the equipment availability for the operation and in turn boosting the mine productivity. This paper presents the Risk Based Maintenance (RBM) planning conducted on mine loading equipment namely Load Haul Dumpers (LHDs) at Vedanta Resources Ltd subsidiary Hindustan Zinc Limited operated Sindesar Khurd Mines, an underground zinc and lead mine situated in Dariba, Rajasthan, India. The mining equipment at the location is maintained by the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) namely Sandvik and Atlas Copco, who carry out the maintenance and inspection operations for the equipment. Based on the downtime data extracted for the equipment fleet over the period of 6 months spanning from 1^st January 2017 until 30^th June 2017, it was revealed that significant contribution of three downtime issues related to namely Engine, Hydraulics, and Transmission to be common among all the loading equipment fleet and substantiated by Pareto Analysis. Further scrutiny through Bubble Matrix Analysis of the given factors revealed the major influence of selective factors namely Overheating, No Load Taken (NTL) issues, Gear Changing issues and Hose Puncture and leakage issues. Utilizing the equipment wise analysis of all the downtime factors obtained, spares consumed, and the alarm logs extracted from the machines, technical design changes in the equipment and pre shift critical alarms checklist were proposed for the equipment maintenance. The given analysis is beneficial to allow OEMs or mine management to focus on the critical issues hampering the reliability of mine equipment and design necessary maintenance strategies to mitigate them.

Keywords: Bubble matrix analysis, LHDs, OEMs, pareto chart analysis, spares consumption matrix, critical alarms checklist.

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Authors: Agnieszka Szczudlińska-Kanoś

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Socio-economic development, which is seen around the world today, has contributed to the emergence of new problems of a social nature. Different political, historical, geographical or economic conditions cause that, in addition to global issues of social policy such as an aging population, unemployment, migration, countries, regions, there are also specific new problems that require diagnosis, individualized approach and efficient, planned solutions. These should include, among others, digital addiction, peer violence, obesity among children, the problem of ‘legal highs’, stress, depression, diseases associated with environmental pollution etc. The central authorities, selected most often with the tools specific to representative democracy, that is, the general election, for many reasons, inter alia, organizational, communication, are not able to effectively diagnose their intensity, territorial distribution, and thus to effectively fight them. This article aims to show how in Poland, citizens influence solving problems related to the broader social policy implemented at the local government level and indicates the possibilities of improving those solutions. The conclusions of theoretical analysis have been supported by empirical studies, which tested the use of instruments of participatory democracy in the planning and creation of communal strategies for solving social problems in one of the Polish voivodeships.

Keywords: Commune, democracy, participation, social policy, social problems.

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Authors: Chyi Jaw

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Prior literature on innovation diffusion or acceptance has almost exclusively concentrated on consumers’ positive attitudes and behaviors for new products/services. Consumers’ negative attitudes or behaviors to innovations have received relatively little marketing attention, but it happens frequently in practice. This study discusses consumer psychological factors when they try to learn or use new technologies. According to recent research, technological innovation acceptance has been considered as a dynamic or mediated process. This research argues that consumers can experience inertia and emotions in the initial use of new technologies. However, given such consumer psychology, the argument can be made as to whether the inclusion of consumer inertia (routine seeking and cognitive rigidity) and emotions increases the predictive power of new technology acceptance model. As data from the empirical study find, the process is potentially consumer emotion changing (independent of performance benefits) because of technology complexity and consumer inertia, and impact innovative technology use significantly. Finally, the study presents the superior predictability of the hypothesized model, which let managers can better predict and influence the successful diffusion of complex technological innovations.

Keywords: Cognitive rigidity, consumer emotions, new technology acceptance, routine seeking, technology complexity.

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Authors: Climstein Mike, Walsh Joe, John Best, Heazlewood Ian Timothy, Burke Stephen, Kettunen Jyrki, Adams Kent, DeBeliso Mark

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Recently, the health of retired National Football League players, particularly lineman has been investigated. A number of studies have reported increased cardiometabolic risk, premature ardiovascular disease and incidence of type 2 diabetes. Rugby union players have somatotypes very similar to National Football league players which suggest that rugby players may have similar health risks. The International Golden Oldies World Rugby Festival (GORF) provided a unique opportunity to investigate the demographics of veteran rugby players. METHODOLOGIES: A cross-sectional, observational study was completed using an online web-based questionnaire that consisted of medical history and physiological measures. Data analysis was completed using a one sample t-test (<50yrs versus >50yrs) and Chi-square test. RESULTS: A total of 216 veteran rugby competitors (response rate = 6.8%) representing 10 countries, aged 35-72 yrs (mean 51.2, S.D. ±8.0), participated in the online survey. As a group, the incidence of current smokers was low at 8.8% (avg 72.4 cigs/wk) whilst the percentage consuming alcohol was high (93.1% (avg 11.2 drinks/wk). Competitors reported the following top six chronic diseases/disorders; hypertension (18.6%), arthritis (OA/RA, 11.5%), asthma (9.3%), hyperlipidemia (8.2%), diabetes (all types, 7.5%) and gout (6%), there were significant differences between groups with regard to cancer (all types) and migraines. When compared to the Australian general population (Australian Bureau of Statistics data, n=18,000), GORF competitors had a Climstein Mike, Walsh Joe (corresponding author) and Burke Stephen School of Exercise Science, Australian Catholic University, 25A Barker Road, Strathfield, Sydney, NSW, 2016, Australia (e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]). John Best is with Orthosports, 160 Belmore Rd., Randwick, Sydney,NSW 2031, Australia (e-mail: [email protected]). Heazlewood, Ian Timothy is with School of Environmental and Life Sciences, Faculty Education, Health and Science, Charles Darwin University, Precinct Yellow Building 2, Charles Darwin University, NT 0909, Australia (e-mail: [email protected]). Kettunen Jyrki Arcada University of Applied Sciences, Jan-Magnus Janssonin aukio 1, FI-00550, Helsinki, Finland (e-mail: [email protected]). Adams Kent is with California State University Monterey Bay, Kinesiology Department, 100 Campus Center, Seaside, CA., 93955, USA (email: [email protected]). DeBeliso Mark is with Department of Physical Education and Human Performance, Southern Utah University, 351 West University Blvd, Cedar City, Utah, USA (e-mail: [email protected]). significantly lower incidence of anxiety (p<0.01), arthritis (p<0.06), depression (p<.01) however, a significantly higher incidence of diabetes (p<0.03) and hypertension (p<0.01). The GORF competitors also reported taking the following prescribed medications; antihypertensive (13%), hypolipidemics (8%), non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (6%), and anticoagulants (4%). Significant differences between groups were observed in antihypertensives, anticoagulants and hypolipidemics. There were significant (p<0.05) differences between groups (<50yrs versus >50yrs) with regard to height (180 vs 177cm), weight (97.6 vs 93.1Kg-s), BMI (30 vs 29.7kg/m2) and waist circumference (85.7 vs 93.1cm) however, there were no differences in subsequent parameters of systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, HDL-C, LDL-C, triglycerides-C or fasting plasma glucose. CONCLUSIONS: This represents the first collection of demographics on this cohort. GORF participants demonstrated increased cardiometabolic risk with regard to the incidence of hypercholesterolemia, hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Preventative strategies should be developed to reduce this risk with education of these risks for future participants.

Keywords: Masters athlete, rugby union, risk factors, chronic disease.

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Authors: Monika Kulikowska-Pawlak, Katarzyna Bratnicka-Myśliwiec, Tomasz Ingram

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This study seeks to contribute to the literature on firm competitiveness by advancing the perspective of organizational politics that views this process as a driver which creates identifiable differences in firm performance. The hypothesized relationships were tested on the basis of data from 355 Polish medium and large-sized enterprises. Data were analyzed using correlation analysis, EFA and robustness tests. The main result of the conducted analyses proved the coexistence, previously examined in the literature, of corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance. The obtained research findings made it possible to add organizational politics to a wide range of elements determining corporate entrepreneurship, followed by competitive advantage, in addition to antecedents such as strategic leadership, corporate culture, opportunity-oriented resource-based management, etc. Also, the empirical results suggest that four dimensions of organizational politics (dominant coalition, influence exertion, making organizational changes, and information openness) are positively related to firm competitiveness. In addition, these findings seem to underline a supposition that corporate entrepreneurship is an important mediator which strengthens the competitive effects of organizational politics.

Keywords: Corporate entrepreneurship, firm competitiveness organizational politics, sensemaking.

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Authors: Encarnación Álvarez, Rosa M. García-Fernández, Francisco J. Blanco-Encomienda, Juan F. Muñoz

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The European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) is a popular survey which provides information on income, poverty, social exclusion and living conditions of households and individuals in the European Union. The EU-SILC contains variables which may contain outliers. The presence of outliers can have an impact on the measures and indicators used by the EU-SILC. In this paper, we used data sets from various countries to analyze the presence of outliers. In addition, we obtain some indicators after removing these outliers, and a comparison between both situations can be observed. Finally, some conclusions are obtained.

Keywords: Headcount index, poverty line, risk of poverty, skewness coefficient.

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Authors: Manuel Martínez Martínez, Daniel Zavala Ríos

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To determine the length of engagement threads of a bolt installed in a tapped part in order to avoid the threads stripping remains a very current problem in the design of the thread assemblies. It does not exist a calculation method formalized for the cases where the bolt is screwed directly in a ductile material. In this article, we study the behavior of the threads stripping of a loaded assembly by using a modelling by finite elements and a rupture criterion by damage. This modelling enables us to study the different parameters likely to influence the behavior of this bolted connection. We study in particular, the influence of couple of materials constituting the connection, of the bolt-s diameter and the geometrical characteristics of the tapped part, like the external diameter and the length of engagement threads. We established an experiments design to know the most significant parameters. That enables us to propose a simple expression making possible to calculate the resistance of the threads whatever the metallic materials of the bolt and the tapped part. We carried out stripping tests in order to validate our model. The estimated results are very close to those obtained by the tests.

Keywords: Bolt, damage, plasticity, stripping, thread assemblies.

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Authors: Vera Varazashvili, Murman Tsarakhov, Tamar Mirianashvili, Teimuraz Pavlenishvili, Tengiz Machaladze, Mzia Khundadze

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Standard Gibbs energy of formation ΔGfor(298.15) of lanthanide-iron double oxides of garnet-type crystal structure R3Fe5O12 - RIG (R – are rare earth ions) from initial oxides are evaluated. The calculation is based on the data of standard entropies S298.15 and standard enthalpies ΔH298.15 of formation of compounds which are involved in the process of garnets synthesis. Gibbs energy of formation is presented as temperature function ΔGfor(T) for the range 300-1600K. The necessary starting thermodynamic data were obtained from calorimetric study of heat capacity – temperature functions and by using the semi-empirical method for calculation of ΔH298.15 of formation. Thermodynamic functions for standard temperature – enthalpy, entropy and Gibbs energy - are recommended as reference data for technological evaluations. Through the structural series of rare earth-iron garnets the correlation between thermodynamic properties and characteristics of lanthanide ions are elucidated.

Keywords: Calorimetry, entropy, enthalpy, heat capacity, gibbs energy of formation, rare earth iron garnets.

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Authors: Vivek Agrawal, Vikas Tripathi, Nitin Seth

Abstract:

This study examines several critical dimensions of eservice quality overlooked in the existing literature and proposes a model and instrument framework for measuring customer perceived e-service quality in the banking sector. The initial design was derived from a pool of instrument dimensions and their items from the existing literature review by content analysis. Based on focused group discussion, nine dimensions were extracted. An exploratory factor analysis approach was applied to data from a survey of 323 respondents. The instrument has been designed specifically for the banking sector. Research data was collected from bank customers who use electronic banking in a developing economy. A nine-factor instrument has been proposed to measure the e-service quality. The instrument has been checked for reliability. The validity and sample place limited the applicability of the instrument across economies and service categories. Future research must be conducted to check the validity. This instrument can help bankers in developing economies like India to measure the e-service quality and make improvements. The present study offers a systematic procedure that provides insights on to the conceptual and empirical comprehension of customer perceived e-service quality and its constituents.

Keywords: Testing, instrument, e-service quality, factor analysis.

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Authors: G. M. Mir, N. A. Shah, Moinuddin

Abstract:

Guard channels improve the probability of successful handoffs by reserving a number of channels exclusively for handoffs. This concept has the risk of underutilization of radio spectrum due to the fact that fewer channels are granted to originating calls even if these guard channels are not always used, when originating calls are starving for the want of channels. The penalty is the reduction of total carried traffic. The optimum number of guard channels can help reduce this problem. This paper presents fuzzy logic based guard channel scheme wherein guard channels are reorganized on the basis of traffic density, so that guard channels are provided on need basis. This will help in incorporating more originating calls and hence high throughput of the radio spectrum

Keywords: Free channels, fuzzy logic, guard channels, Handoff

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Authors: Mustafa M. Donma, Orkide Donma

Abstract:

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a severe health problem caused by morbid obesity, the severest form of obesity. The components of MetS are rather stable in adults. However, the diagnosis of MetS in morbid obese (MO) children still constitutes a matter of discussion. The aim of this study was to develop a formula, which facilitated the diagnosis of MetS in MO children and was capable of discriminating MO children with and without MetS findings. The study population comprised MO children. Age and sex-dependent body mass index (BMI) percentiles of the children were above 99. Increased blood pressure, elevated fasting blood glucose (FBG), elevated triglycerides (TRG) and/or decreased high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) in addition to central obesity were listed as MetS components for each child. Two groups were constituted. In the first group, there were 42 MO children without MetS components. Second group was composed of 44 MO children with at least two MetS components. Anthropometric measurements including weight, height, waist and hip circumferences were performed during physical examination. BMI and homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) values were calculated. Informed consent forms were obtained from the parents of the children. Institutional Non-Interventional Clinical Studies Ethics Committee approved the study design. Routine biochemical analyses including FBG, insulin (INS), TRG, HDL-C were performed. The performance and the clinical utility of Diagnostic Obesity Notation Model Assessment Metabolic Syndrome Index (DONMA MetS index) [(INS/FBG)/(HDL-C/TRG)*100] was tested. Appropriate statistical tests were applied to the study data. p value smaller than 0.05 was defined as significant. MetS index values were 41.6 ± 5.1 in MO group and 104.4 ± 12.8 in MetS group. Corresponding values for HDL-C values were 54.5 ± 13.2 mg/dl and 44.2 ± 11.5 mg/dl. There was a statistically significant difference between the groups (p < 0.001). Upon evaluation of the correlations between MetS index and HDL-C values, a much stronger negative correlation was found in MetS group (r = -0.515; p = 0.001) in comparison with the correlation detected in MO group (r = -0.371; p = 0.016). From these findings, it was concluded that the statistical significance degree of the difference between MO and MetS groups was highly acceptable for this recently introduced MetS index. This was due to the involvement of all of the biochemically defined MetS components into the index. This is particularly important because each of these four parameters used in the formula is a cardiac risk factor. Aside from discriminating MO children with and without MetS findings, MetS index introduced in this study is important from the cardiovascular risk point of view in MetS group of children.

Keywords: Fasting blood glucose, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, insulin, metabolic syndrome, morbid obesity, triglycerides.

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