Search results for: Financial decision making

Authors: Ali E. Abbas

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Industrial Engineering is a broad multidisciplinary field with intersections and applications in numerous areas. When designing a product, it is important to determine the appropriate attributes of value and the preference function for which the product is optimized. This paper provides some guidelines on appropriate selection of attributes for preference and value functions for engineering design.

Keywords: Decision analysis, engineering design, direct vs. indirect values.

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Authors: James A. Nelson

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The history of technology and banking is examined as it relates to risk and technological determinism. It is proposed that the services that banks offer are determined by technology and that banks must adopt new technologies to be competitive. The adoption of technologies paradoxically forces the adoption of other new technologies to protect the bank from the increased risk of technology. This cycle will lead to bank examiners and regulators to focus on human behavior, not on the ever changing technology.

Keywords: Banking, information security, risk, technologicaldeterminism.

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Authors: Safak Isik, Ozalp Vayvay

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Strategic partnerships with suppliers play a vital role for the long-term value-based supply chain. This strategic collaboration keeps still being one of the top priority of many business organizations in order to create more additional value; benefiting mainly from supplier’s specialization, capacity and innovative power, securing supply and better managing costs and quality. However, many organizations encounter difficulties in initiating, developing and managing those partnerships and many attempts result in failures. One of the reasons for such failure is the incompatibility of members of this partnership or in other words wrong supplier selection which emphasize the significance of the selection process since it is the beginning stage. An effective selection process of strategic suppliers is critical to the success of the partnership. Although there are several research studies to select the suppliers in literature, only a few of them is related to strategic supplier selection for long-term partnership. The purpose of this study is to propose a conceptual model for the selection of strategic partnership suppliers. A two-stage approach has been used in proposed model incorporating first segmentation and second selection. In the first stage; considering the fact that not all suppliers are strategically equal and instead of a long list of potential suppliers, Kraljic’s purchasing portfolio matrix can be used for segmentation. This supplier segmentation is the process of categorizing suppliers based on a defined set of criteria in order to identify types of suppliers and determine potential suppliers for strategic partnership. In the second stage, from a pool of potential suppliers defined at first phase, a comprehensive evaluation and selection can be performed to finally define strategic suppliers considering various tangible and intangible criteria. Since a long-term relationship with strategic suppliers is anticipated, criteria should consider both current and future status of the supplier. Based on an extensive literature review; strategical, operational and organizational criteria have been determined and elaborated. The result of the selection can also be used to determine suppliers who are not ready for a partnership but to be developed for strategic partnership. Since the model is based on multiple criteria for both stages, it provides a framework for further utilization of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques. The model may also be applied to a wide range of industries and involve managerial features in business organizations.

Keywords: Kraljic’s matrix, purchasing portfolio, strategic supplier selection, supplier collaboration, supplier partnership, supplier segmentation.

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Authors: Mohd Fikri Azli bin Abdullah, Khairul Anwar bin Kamarul Hatta, Esther Jeganathan

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WiFi has become an essential technology that is widely used nowadays. It is famous due to its convenience to be used with mobile devices. This is especially true for Internet users worldwide that use WiFi connections. There are many location based services that are available nowadays which uses Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) signal fingerprinting. A common example that is gaining popularity in this era would be Foursquare. In this work, the WiFi signal would be used to estimate the user or client’s location. Similar to GPS, fingerprinting method needs a floor plan to increase the accuracy of location estimation. Still, the factor of inconsistent WiFi signal makes the estimation defer at different time intervals. Given so, an adaptive method is needed to obtain the most accurate signal at all times. WiFi signals are heavily distorted by external factors such as physical objects, radio frequency interference, electrical interference, and environmental factors to name a few. Due to these factors, this work uses a method of reducing the signal noise and estimation using the Nearest Neighbour based on past activities of the signal to increase the signal accuracy up to more than 80%. The repository yet increases the accuracy by using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) pattern matching. The repository acts as the server cum support of the client side application decision. Numerous previous works has adapted the methods of collecting signal strengths in the repository over the years, but mostly were just static. In this work, proposed solutions on how the adaptive method is done to match the signal received to the data in the repository are highlighted. With the said approach, location estimation can be done more accurately. Adaptive update allows the latest location fingerprint to be stored in the repository. Furthermore, any redundant location fingerprints are removed and only the updated version of the fingerprint is stored in the repository. How the location estimation of the user can be predicted would be highlighted more in the proposed solution section. After some studies on previous works, it is found that the Artificial Neural Network is the most feasible method to deploy in updating the repository and making it adaptive. The Artificial Neural Network functions are to do the pattern matching of the WiFi signal to the existing data available in the repository.

Keywords: Adaptive Repository, Artificial Neural Network, Location Estimation, Nearest Neighbour Euclidean Distance, WiFi RSSI Fingerprinting.

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Authors: Alanoud Moraya Aldalan, Abdulaziz Almaleh

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A crucial part of maintaining a customer-oriented business in the telecommunications industry is understanding the reasons and factors that lead to customer churn. Competition between telecom companies has greatly increased in recent years, which has made it more important to understand customers’ needs in this strong market. For those who are looking to turn over their service providers, understanding their needs is especially important. Predictive churn is now a mandatory requirement for retaining customers in the telecommunications industry. Machine learning can be used to accomplish this. Churn Prediction has become a very important topic in terms of machine learning classification in the telecommunications industry. Understanding the factors of customer churn and how they behave is very important to building an effective churn prediction model. This paper aims to predict churn and identify factors of customers’ churn based on their past service usage history. Aiming at this objective, the study makes use of feature selection, normalization, and feature engineering. Then, this study compared the performance of four different machine learning algorithms on the Orange dataset: Logistic Regression, Random Forest, Decision Tree, and Gradient Boosting. Evaluation of the performance was conducted by using the F1 score and ROC-AUC. Comparing the results of this study with existing models has proven to produce better results. The results showed the Gradients Boosting with feature selection technique outperformed in this study by achieving a 99% F1-score and 99% AUC, and all other experiments achieved good results as well.

Keywords: Machine Learning, Gradient Boosting, Logistic Regression, Churn, Random Forest, Decision Tree, ROC, AUC, F1-score.

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Authors: Marie Paseková, Jiří Strouhal, Lehte Alver, Arturs Praulinš

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During last decades is widely discussed the international harmonization of financial reporting. This harmonization is also affected by national tax systems in analyzed countries. This paper provides some evidence on current national tax systems in selected countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The linkage of accounting profit as a tax base might decrease the administrative burden for majority of SMEs, which are the most important engine of each national economy.

Keywords: International harmonization, tax system, SMEs, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia

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Authors: Konstantinos Liagkouras, Konstantinos Metaxiotis

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In this paper we present a classification of the various technologies applied for the solution of the portfolio selection problem according to the discipline and the methodological framework followed. We provide a concise presentation of the emerged categories and we are trying to identify which methods considered obsolete and which lie at the heart of the debate. On top of that, we provide a comparative study of the different technologies applied for efficient portfolio construction and we suggest potential paths for future work that lie at the intersection of the presented techniques.

Keywords: Portfolio selection, optimization techniques, financial models, stochastics, heuristics.

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Authors: P. G. Siddheshwar, R. K. Vanishree, C. Kanchana

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A local nonlinear stability analysis using a eight-mode expansion is performed in arriving at the coupled amplitude equations for Rayleigh-Bénard-Brinkman convection (RBBC) in the presence of LTNE effects. Streamlines and isotherms are obtained in the two-dimensional unsteady finite-amplitude convection regime. The parameters’ influence on heat transport is found to be more pronounced at small time than at long times. Results of the Rayleigh-Bénard convection is obtained as a particular case of the present study. Additional modes are shown not to significantly influence the heat transport thus leading us to infer that five minimal modes are sufficient to make a study of RBBC. The present problem that uses rolls as a pattern of manifestation of instability is a needed first step in the direction of making a very general non-local study of two-dimensional unsteady convection. The results may be useful in determining the preferred range of parameters’ values while making rheometric measurements in fluids to ascertain fluid properties such as viscosity. The results of LTE are obtained as a limiting case of the results of LTNE obtained in the paper.

Keywords: Rayleigh-Bénard convection, heat transport, porous media, generalized Lorenz model, coupled Ginzburg-Landau model.

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Authors: R.M. Kainkwa

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The African Great Lakes Region refers to the zone around lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, Albert, Edward, Kivu, and Malawi. The main source of electricity in this region is hydropower whose systems are generally characterized by relatively weak, isolated power schemes, poor maintenance and technical deficiencies with limited electricity infrastructures. Most of the hydro sources are rain fed, and as such there is normally a deficiency of water during the dry seasons and extended droughts. In such calamities fossil fuels sources, in particular petroleum products and natural gas, are normally used to rescue the situation but apart from them being nonrenewable, they also release huge amount of green house gases to our environment which in turn accelerates the global warming that has at present reached an amazing stage. Wind power is ample, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and free energy source that does not consume or pollute water. Wind generated electricity is one of the most practical and commercially viable option for grid quality and utility scale electricity production. However, the main shortcoming associated with electric wind power generation is fluctuation in its output both in space and time. Before making a decision to establish a wind park at a site, the wind speed features there should therefore be known thoroughly as well as local demand or transmission capacity. The main objective of this paper is to utilise monthly average wind speed data collected from one prospective site within the African Great Lakes Region to demonstrate that the available wind power there is high enough to generate electricity. The mean monthly values were calculated from records gathered on hourly basis for a period of 5 years (2001 to 2005) from a site in Tanzania. The documentations that were collected at a height of 2 m were projected to a height of 50 m which is the standard hub height of wind turbines. The overall monthly average wind speed was found to be 12.11 m/s whereas June to November was established to be the windy season as the wind speed during the session is above the overall monthly wind speed. The available wind power density corresponding to the overall mean monthly wind speed was evaluated to be 1072 W/m2, a potential that is worthwhile harvesting for the purpose of electric generation.

Keywords: Hydro power, windy season, available wind powerdensity.

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Authors: Yananda Siraphatthada

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The objectives of this research were to study the level of influencing factors, leadership, supply chain management, innovation, competitive advantages, business success, and affecting factors to the business success of the mobile phone system service providers in Bangkok Metropolitan. This research was done by the quantitative approach and the qualitative approach. The quantitative approach was used for questionnaires to collect data from the 331 mobile service shop managers franchised by AIS, Dtac and TrueMove. The mobile phone system service providers/shop managers were randomly stratified and proportionally allocated into subgroups exclusive to the number of the providers in each network. In terms of qualitative method, there were in-depth interviews of 6 mobile service providers/managers of Telewiz and Dtac and TrueMove shop to find the agreement or disagreement with the content analysis method. Descriptive Statistics, including Frequency, Percentage, Means and Standard Deviation were employed; also, the Structural Equation Model (SEM) was used as a tool for data analysis. The content analysis method was applied to identify key patterns emerging from the interview responses. The two data sets were brought together for comparing and contrasting to make the findings, providing triangulation to enrich result interpretation. It revealed that the level of the influencing factors – leadership, innovation management, supply chain management, and business competitiveness had an impact at a great level, but that the level of factors, innovation and the business, financial success and nonbusiness financial success of the mobile phone system service providers in Bangkok Metropolitan, is at the highest level. Moreover, the business influencing factors, competitive advantages in the business of mobile system service providers which were leadership, supply chain management, innovation management, business advantages, and business success, had statistical significance at .01 which corresponded to the data from the interviews.

Keywords: Business success, mobile service providers.

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Authors: Chin Wen Cheong

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This study employs a bivariate asymmetric GARCH model to reveal the hidden dynamics price changes and volatility among the emerging markets of Thailand and Malaysian after the Asian financial crisis from January 2001 to December 2008. Our results indicated that the equity markets are sharing the common information (shock) that transmitted among each others. These empirical findings are used to demonstrate the importance of shock and volatility dynamic transmissions in the cross-market hedging and market risk.

Keywords: multivariate ARCH, structural change, value at risk.

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Authors: Sachin Bhalekar

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In this paper we propose a necessary condition for the existence of chaos in delay differential equations of fractional order. To explain the proposed theory, we discuss fractional order Liu system and financial system involving delay.

Keywords: Caputo derivative, delay, stability, chaos.

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Authors: Ali E. Abbas

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This paper highlights some of the normative issues that might result by setting independent thresholds in risk analyses and particularly with safety regions. A second objective is to explain how such regions can be specified appropriately in a meaningful way. We start with a review of the importance of setting deterministic trade-offs among target requirements. We then show how to determine safety regions for risk analysis appropriately using utility functions.

Keywords: Decision analysis, thresholds, risk, reliability.

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Authors: Denise Levy, Anna Lucia C. H. Villavicencio

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Food irradiation is a processing and preservation technique to eliminate insects and parasites and reduce disease-causing microorganisms. Moreover, the process helps to inhibit sprouting and delay ripening, extending fresh fruits and vegetables shelf-life. Nevertheless, most Brazilian consumers seem to misunderstand the difference between irradiated food and radioactive food and the general public has major concerns about the negative health effects and environmental contamination. Society´s judgment and decision making are directly linked to perceived benefits and risks. The web-based project entitled ‘Scientific information about food irradiation: Internet as a tool to approach science and society’ was created by the Nuclear and Energetic Research Institute (IPEN), in order to offer an interdisciplinary approach to science education, integrating economic, ethical, social and political aspects of food irradiation. This project takes into account that, misinformation and unfounded preconceived ideas impact heavily on the acceptance of irradiated food and purchase intention by the Brazilian consumer. Taking advantage of the potential value of the Internet to enhance communication and education among general public, a research study was carried out regarding the possibilities and trends of Information and Communication Technologies among the Brazilian population. The content includes concepts, definitions and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about processes, safety, advantages, limitations and the possibilities of food irradiation, including health issues, as well as its impacts on the environment. The project counts on eight self-instructional interactive web courses, situating scientific content in relevant social contexts in order to encourage self-learning and further reflections. Communication is a must to improve public understanding of science. The use of information technology for quality scientific divulgation shall contribute greatly to provide information throughout the country, spreading information to as many people as possible, minimizing geographic distances and stimulating communication and development.

Keywords: Food irradiation, multimedia learning tools, nuclear science, society and education.

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Authors: Mária Csernoch, Piroska Biró

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The legends about “user-friendly” and “easy-to-use” birotical tools (computer-related office tools) have been spreading and misleading end-users. This approach has led us to the extremely high number of incorrect documents, causing serious financial losses in the creating, modifying, and retrieving processes. Our research proved that there are at least two sources of this underachievement: (1) The lack of the definition of the correctly edited, formatted documents. Consequently, end-users do not know whether their methods and results are correct or not. They are not aware of their ignorance. They are so ignorant that their ignorance does not allow them to realize their lack of knowledge. (2) The end-users’ problem solving methods. We have found that in non-traditional programming environments end-users apply, almost exclusively, surface approach metacognitive methods to carry out their computer related activities, which are proved less effective than deep approach methods. Based on these findings we have developed deep approach methods which are based on and adapted from traditional programming languages. In this study, we focus on the most popular type of birotical documents, the text based documents. We have provided the definition of the correctly edited text, and based on this definition, adapted the debugging method known in programming. According to the method, before the realization of text editing, a thorough debugging of already existing texts and the categorization of errors are carried out. With this method in advance to real text editing users learn the requirements of text based documents and also of the correctly formatted text. The method has been proved much more effective than the previously applied surface approach methods. The advantages of the method are that the real text handling requires much less human and computer sources than clicking aimlessly in the GUI (Graphical User Interface), and the data retrieval is much more effective than from error-prone documents.

Keywords: Deep approach metacognitive methods, error-prone birotical documents, financial losses, human and computer resources.

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Authors: Dchieche Amina, Aboulaich Rajae

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Profit and loss sharing suggests an equitable sharing of risks and profits between the parts involved in a financial transaction. Salam is a contract in which advance payment is made for goods to be delivered at a future date. The purpose of this work is to price a new contract for profit and loss sharing based on Salam contract, using Khiyar Al Ghabn which is an agreement of choice in case of misrepresent facts.

Keywords: Islamic finance, Shariah compliance, profit and loss sharing, derivatives, risks, hedging, salam contract.

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Authors: Emily Kislik, Gabriel Mantilla Saltos, Gladys Torres, Mercy Borbor-Córdova

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The Galápagos Marine Reserve (GMR) is an internationally-recognized region of consistent upwelling events, high productivity, and rich biodiversity. Despite its high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll condition, the archipelago has experienced phytoplankton blooms, especially in the western section between Isabela and Fernandina Islands. However, little is known about how climate variability will affect future phytoplankton standing stock in the Galápagos, and no consistent protocols currently exist to quantify phytoplankton biomass, identify species, or monitor for potential harmful algal blooms (HABs) within the archipelago. This analysis investigates physical, chemical, and biological oceanic variables that contribute to algal blooms within the GMR, using 4 km Aqua MODIS satellite imagery and 0.125-degree wind stress data from January 2003 to December 2016. Furthermore, this study analyzes chlorophyll-a concentrations at varying spatial scales— within the greater archipelago, as well as within five smaller bioregions based on species biodiversity in the GMR. Seasonal and interannual trend analyses, correlations, and hotspot identification were performed. Results demonstrate that chlorophyll-a is expressed in two seasons throughout the year in the GMR, most frequently in September and March, with a notable hotspot in the Elizabeth Bay bioregion. Interannual chlorophyll-a trend analyses revealed highest peaks in 2003, 2007, 2013, and 2016, and variables that correlate highly with chlorophyll-a include surface temperature and particulate organic carbon. This study recommends future in situ sampling locations for phytoplankton monitoring, including the Elizabeth Bay bioregion. Conclusions from this study contribute to the knowledge of oceanic drivers that catalyze primary productivity and consequently affect species biodiversity within the GMR. Additionally, this research can inform policy and decision-making strategies for species conservation and management within bioregions of the Galápagos.

Keywords: Bioregions, ecological monitoring, phytoplankton, remote sensing.

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Authors: Aspasia Koutsokosta, Stefanos Katsavounis

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This paper reviews the model-based qualitative and quantitative Operations Management research in the context of Construction Supply Chain Management (CSCM). Construction industry has been traditionally blamed for low productivity, cost and time overruns, waste, high fragmentation and adversarial relationships. The construction industry has been slower than other industries to employ the Supply Chain Management (SCM) concept and develop models that support the decision-making and planning. However the last decade there is a distinct shift from a project-based to a supply-based approach of construction management. CSCM comes up as a new promising management tool of construction operations and improves the performance of construction projects in terms of cost, time and quality. Modeling the Construction Supply Chain (CSC) offers the means to reap the benefits of SCM, make informed decisions and gain competitive advantage. Different modeling approaches and methodologies have been applied in the multi-disciplinary and heterogeneous research field of CSCM. The literature review reveals that a considerable percentage of the CSC modeling research accommodates conceptual or process models which present general management frameworks and do not relate to acknowledged soft Operations Research methods. We particularly focus on the model-based quantitative research and categorize the CSCM models depending on their scope, objectives, modeling approach, solution methods and software used. Although over the last few years there has been clearly an increase of research papers on quantitative CSC models, we identify that the relevant literature is very fragmented with limited applications of simulation, mathematical programming and simulation-based optimization. Most applications are project-specific or study only parts of the supply system. Thus, some complex interdependencies within construction are neglected and the implementation of the integrated supply chain management is hindered. We conclude this paper by giving future research directions and emphasizing the need to develop optimization models for integrated CSCM. We stress that CSC modeling needs a multi-dimensional, system-wide and long-term perspective. Finally, prior applications of SCM to other industries have to be taken into account in order to model CSCs, but not without translating the generic concepts to the context of construction industry.

Keywords: Construction supply chain management, modeling, operations research, optimization and simulation.

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Authors: Brennan Lodge

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Amidst a complex regulatory landscape, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) emerges as a transformative tool for Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) officers. This paper details the application of RAG in synthesizing Large Language Models (LLMs) with external knowledge bases, offering GRC professionals an advanced means to adapt to rapid changes in compliance requirements. While the development for standalone LLMs is exciting, such models do have their downsides. LLMs cannot easily expand or revise their memory, and they cannot straightforwardly provide insight into their predictions, and may produce “hallucinations.” Leveraging a pre-trained seq2seq transformer and a dense vector index of domain-specific data, this approach integrates real-time data retrieval into the generative process, enabling gap analysis and the dynamic generation of compliance and risk management content. We delve into the mechanics of RAG, focusing on its dual structure that pairs parametric knowledge contained within the transformer model with non-parametric data extracted from an updatable corpus. This hybrid model enhances decision-making through context-rich insights, drawing from the most current and relevant information, thereby enabling GRC officers to maintain a proactive compliance stance. Our methodology aligns with the latest advances in neural network fine-tuning, providing a granular, token-level application of retrieved information to inform and generate compliance narratives. By employing RAG, we exhibit a scalable solution that can adapt to novel regulatory challenges and cybersecurity threats, offering GRC officers a robust, predictive tool that augments their expertise. The granular application of RAG’s dual structure not only improves compliance and risk management protocols but also informs the development of compliance narratives with pinpoint accuracy. It underscores AI’s emerging role in strategic risk mitigation and proactive policy formation, positioning GRC officers to anticipate and navigate the complexities of regulatory evolution confidently.

Keywords: Retrieval Augmented Generation, Governance Risk and Compliance, Cybersecurity, AI-driven Compliance, Risk Management, Generative AI.

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Authors: John Hadden, Ashutosh Tiwari, Rajkumar Roy, Dymitr Ruta

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The aim of this paper is to identify the most suitable model for churn prediction based on three different techniques. The paper identifies the variables that affect churn in reverence of customer complaints data and provides a comparative analysis of neural networks, regression trees and regression in their capabilities of predicting customer churn.

Keywords: Churn, Decision Trees, Neural Networks, Regression.

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Authors: Yi-Chun Kuo, Jo-Chieh Lin

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The objective of a supply chain strategy is to reduce waste and increase efficiency to attain cost benefits, and to guarantee supply chain flexibility when facing the ever-changing market environment in order to meet customer requirements. Strategy implementation aims to fulfill common goals and attain benefits by integrating upstream and downstream enterprises, sharing information, conducting common planning, and taking part in decision making, so as to enhance the overall performance of the supply chain. With the rise of outsourcing and globalization, the increasing dependence on suppliers and customers and the rapid development of information technology, the complexity and uncertainty of the supply chain have intensified, and supply chain vulnerability has surged, resulting in adverse effects on supply chain performance. Thus, this study aims to use supply chain vulnerability as a moderating variable and apply structural equation modeling (SEM) to determine the relationships among supply chain strategy, supply chain integration, and supply chain performance, as well as the moderating effect of supply chain vulnerability on supply chain performance. The data investigation of this study was questionnaires which were collected from the management level of enterprises in Taiwan and China, 149 questionnaires were received. The result of confirmatory factor analysis shows that the path coefficients of supply chain strategy on supply chain integration and supply chain performance are positive (0.497, t= 4.914; 0.748, t= 5.919), having a significantly positive effect. Supply chain integration is also significantly positively correlated to supply chain performance (0.192, t = 2.273). The moderating effects of supply chain vulnerability on supply chain strategy and supply chain integration to supply chain performance are significant (7.407; 4.687). In Taiwan, 97.73% of enterprises are small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) focusing on receiving original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and original design manufacturer (ODM) orders. In order to meet the needs of customers and to respond to market changes, these enterprises especially focus on supply chain flexibility and their integration with the upstream and downstream enterprises. According to the observation of this research, the effect of supply chain vulnerability on supply chain performance is significant, and so enterprises need to attach great importance to the management of supply chain risk and conduct risk analysis on their suppliers in order to formulate response strategies when facing emergency situations. At the same time, risk management is incorporated into the supply chain so as to reduce the effect of supply chain vulnerability on the overall supply chain performance.

Keywords: Supply chain integration, supply chain performance, supply chain vulnerability, structural equation modeling.

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Authors: Syed Muhammad Aqil Burney, Tahseen Ahmed Jilani, C. Ardil

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Financial forecasting is an example of signal processing problems. A number of ways to train/learn the network are available. We have used Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm for error back-propagation for weight adjustment. Pre-processing of data has reduced much of the variation at large scale to small scale, reducing the variation of training data.

Keywords: Gradient descent method, jacobian matrix.Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, quadratic error surfaces,

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Authors: Abdel-Samad M. Ali, Ali A. Hadi Al-Shawi

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Discrimination against women and girls impairs progress in all domains of development articulated either in the framework of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) or in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Paper aspires to create greater awareness among researchers and policy makers of the challenges posed by gender gaps and the opportunities created by reducing them within the Arab region. The study reveals how Arab countries are closing in on gender-oriented targets of the third and fifth MDGs. While some countries can claim remarkable achievements particularly in girls’ equality in education, there is still a long way to go to keep Arab’s commitments to current and future generations in other countries and subregions especially in the economic participation or in the political empowerment of women. No country has closed or even expected to close the economic participation gap or the political empowerment gap. This should provide the incentive to keep moving forward in the Post-2015 Agenda. Findings of the study prove that while Arab states have uneven achievements in reducing maternal mortality, Arab women remain at a disadvantage in the labour market. For Arab region especially LDCs, improving maternal health is part of the unmet agenda for the post-2015 period and still calls for intensified efforts and procedures. While antenatal care coverage is improving across the Arab region, progress is marginal in LDCs. To achieve proper realization of gender equality and empowerment of women in the Arab region in the post-2015 agenda, the study presents critical key challenges to be addressed. These challenges include: Negative cultural norms and stereotypes; violence against women and girls; early marriage and child labour; women’s limited control over their own bodies; limited ability of women to generate their own income and control assets and property; gender-based discrimination in law and in practice; women’s unequal participation in private and public decision making autonomy; and limitations in data. However, in all Arab states, gender equality must be integrated as a goal across all issues, particularly those that affect the future of a country.

Keywords: Gender, equity, millennium development goals, post-2015 development agenda.

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Authors: Şahin Emrah Amrahov, Fatih Aybar, Serhat Doğan

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In this paper we consider the rule reduct generation problem. Rule Reduct Generation (RG) and Modified Rule Generation (MRG) algorithms, that are used to solve this problem, are well-known. Alternative to these algorithms, we develop Pruning Rule Generation (PRG) algorithm. We compare the PRG algorithm with RG and MRG.

Keywords: Rough sets, Decision rules, Rule induction, Classification.

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Authors: Phusit Phukamchanoad

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The research studies the behaviors based on sufficiency economy philosophy at individual and community levelsas well as the satisfaction of the urban community leaders by collecting data with purposive sampling technique. For in-depth interviews with 26 urban community leaders, the result shows that the urban community leaders have good knowledge and understanding about sufficiency economy philosophy. Especially in terms of money spending, they must consider the need for living and be economical. The activities in the community or society should not take advantage of the others as well as colleagues. At present, most of the urban community leaders live in sufficient way. They often spend time with public service, but many families are dealing with debt. Many communities have some political conflict and high family allowances because of living in the urban communities with rapid social and economic changes. However, there are many communities that leaders have applied their wisdom in development for their people by gathering and grouping the professionals to form activities such as making chilli sauce, textile organization, making artificial flowers to worship the sanctity. The most prominent group is the foot massage business in Wat Pracha Rabue Tham. This professional group is supported continuously by the government. One of the factors in terms of satisfaction used for evaluating community leaders is the customary administration in brotherly, interdependent way rather than using the absolute power or controlling power, but using the roles of leader to perform the activities with their people intently, determinedly and having public mind for people.

Keywords: Performance and Activities, Sufficiency Economy, Urban Communities Leader.

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Authors: S. Anastasiou, C. Nathanailides, P. Logothetis, G. Kanlis

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The purpose of the present work is to review some data for the management challenges that the aquaculture industry in Greece is currently facing. The results indicate that Greek aquaculture fish farms apply Human Resources Management (HRM) practices which can increase motivation, commitment and job satisfaction of their personnel. In turn, these practices can increase the productivity of the business. The Greek fish farms appear to invest in research and technological innovation with a good record in research activities and the generation of patents. Interestingly, the results of the present work were carried out during the period of the recent economic crisis in Greece. Several sectors of the Greek economy were severely affected by the financial problems of the Greek government and the Greek banks. Under the adverse economical conditions created by the Greek economic crisis, even the Greek aquaculture industry, which historically is considered as a thriving national exporting business sector, experienced harsh economic and market conditions. As a result of the global, European and national economic crisis, consumption of fish dropped while companies had to hold most of their stocked fish in order to regulated the flow to the market and the price. This occurred at a time where Banks in Greece had their own financial crisis – banking crisis - which resulted in limited access to lending for the all business sectors of the national economy including the Greek aquaculture industry. In spite of these economic conditions, the Greek aquaculture industry, after a series of mergers and acquisitions, has now stabilized production and exhibits very good prospects for future growth. Evidently, the firms had to cut salaries and on some occasions even pay their staff in arrears. Nevertheless, the results presented in this paper indicate that during the economic crisis, the surveyed fish farms maintained their HRM practices, investing in their human capital and technological input. In fact, human capital and technological input are the ticket for future success of companies in any business sector.

Keywords: Aquaculture, Human Resources Management.

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Authors: S. L. Tulasi Devi, R. N. Rao

Abstract:

This paper focuses attention on specific aspects of entrepreneurial decisions relating to investment, both in the total fixed investments and plant & machinery (separately). Demand and financial factors, internal and external, are considered in the investment analysis. Finally the influence of determinants of fixed investment and investment plans are examined in Electric Power industry in India.

Keywords: Determinants, Electric Power Industry, Fixed Assets, Econometric Analysis.

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Authors: Khushboo Gokani, Renu Josan

Abstract:

Mahasweta Devi and Toni Morrison are the two stalwarts of the Indian English and the Afro-American literature respectively. The writings of these two novelists are authentic and powerful records of the lives of the people because much of their personal experiences have gone into the making of their works. Devi, a representative force of the Indian English literature, is also a social activist working with the tribals of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal. Most of her works echo the lives and struggles of the subalterns as is evident in her “best beloved book” Chotti Munda and His Arrow. The novelist focuses on the struggle of the tribals against the colonial and the feudal powers to create their own identity, thereby, embarking on the ideological project of ‘setting the record straight’. The Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, on the other hand, brings to the fore the crucial issues of gender, race and class in many of her significant works. In one of her representative works Sula, the protagonist emerges as a non- conformist and directly confronts the notion of a ‘good woman’ nurtured by the community of the Blacks. In addition to this, the struggle of the Blacks against the White domination, also become an important theme of the text. The thrust of the paper lies in making a critical analysis of the portrayal of the heroic attempts of the subaltern protagonist and the artistic endeavor of the novelists in challenging the stereotypes.

Keywords: Subaltern, The Centre And The Periphery, Struggle Of The Muted Groups.

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Authors: Sagir M. Yusuf, Chris Baber

Abstract:

In this paper, we describe how to achieve knowledge understanding and prediction (Situation Awareness (SA)) for multiple-agents conducting searching activity using Bayesian inferential reasoning and learning. Bayesian Belief Network was used to monitor agents' knowledge about their environment, and cases are recorded for the network training using expectation-maximisation or gradient descent algorithm. The well trained network will be used for decision making and environmental situation prediction. Forest fire searching by multiple UAVs was the use case. UAVs are tasked to explore a forest and find a fire for urgent actions by the fire wardens. The paper focused on two problems: (i) effective agents’ path planning strategy and (ii) knowledge understanding and prediction (SA). The path planning problem by inspiring animal mode of foraging using Lévy distribution augmented with Bayesian reasoning was fully described in this paper. Results proof that the Lévy flight strategy performs better than the previous fixed-pattern (e.g., parallel sweeps) approaches in terms of energy and time utilisation. We also introduced a waypoint assessment strategy called k-previous waypoints assessment. It improves the performance of the ordinary levy flight by saving agent’s resources and mission time through redundant search avoidance. The agents (UAVs) are to report their mission knowledge at the central server for interpretation and prediction purposes. Bayesian reasoning and learning were used for the SA and results proof effectiveness in different environments scenario in terms of prediction and effective knowledge representation. The prediction accuracy was measured using learning error rate, logarithm loss, and Brier score and the result proves that little agents mission that can be used for prediction within the same or different environment. Finally, we described a situation-based knowledge visualization and prediction technique for heterogeneous multi-UAV mission. While this paper proves linkage of Bayesian reasoning and learning with SA and effective searching strategy, future works is focusing on simplifying the architecture.

Keywords: Lèvy flight, situation awareness, multi-agent system, multi-robot coordination, autonomous system, swarm intelligence.

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Authors: Omer Farooq, Salman Ahmed Khan, Sadaf Khalid

Abstract:

Modern day stock markets have almost entirely became automated. Even though it means increased profits for the investors by algorithms acting upon the slightest price change in order of microseconds, it also has given birth to many ethical dilemmas in the sense that slightest mistake can cause people to lose all of their livelihoods. This paper reviews one such event that happened on May 06, 2010 in which $1 trillion dollars disappeared from the Dow Jones Industrial Average. We are going to discuss its various aspects and the ethical dilemmas that have arisen due to it.

Keywords: Flash Crash, Market Crash, Stock Market, Stock Market Crash.

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