Search results for: Corporate Group Networks

Authors: S. da Costa, D. Páez, E. Martínez, A. Torres, M. Beramendi, D. Hermosilla, M. Muratori

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This study examined the association between creative performance, organizational climate and leadership, affectivity, shared flow, and group decision making. The sample consisted of 315 cadets of a military academic unit of South America. Satisfaction with the decision-making process during a creative task was associated with the usefulness and effectiveness of the ideas generated by the teams with a weighted average correlation of r = .18. Organizational emotional climate, positive and innovation leadership were associated with this group decision-making process r = .25, with shared flow, r = .29 and with positive affect felt during the performance of the creative task, r = .12. In a sequential mediational analysis positive organizational leadership styles were significantly associated with decision-making process and trough cohesion with utility and efficacy of the solution of a creative task. Satisfactory decision-making was related to shared flow during the creative task at collective or group level, and positive affect with flow at individual level.This study examined the association between creative performance, organizational climate and leadership, affectivity, shared flow, and group decision making. The sample consisted of 315 cadets of a military academic unit of South America. Satisfaction with the decision-making process during a creative task was associated with the usefulness and effectiveness of the ideas generated by the teams with a weighted average correlation of r = .18. Organizational emotional climate, positive and innovation leadership were associated with this group decision-making process r = .25, with shared flow, r = .29 and with positive affect felt during the performance of the creative task, r = .12. In a sequential mediational analysis positive organizational leadership styles were significantly associated with decision-making process and trough cohesion with utility and efficacy of the solution of a creative task. Satisfactory decision-making was related to shared flow during the creative task at collective or group level, and positive affect with flow at individual level.

Keywords: Creativity, innovation, military, organization, teams.

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Authors: Shadrack Mambo, Karim Djouani, Yskandar Hamam, Barend van Wyk, Patrick Siarry

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This paper discusses the current trends in medical image registration techniques and addresses the need to provide a solid theoretical foundation for research endeavours. Methodological analysis and synthesis of quality literature was done, providing a platform for developing a good foundation for research study in this field which is crucial in understanding the existing levels of knowledge. Research on medical image registration techniques assists clinical and medical practitioners in diagnosis of tumours and lesion in anatomical organs, thereby enhancing fast and accurate curative treatment of patients. Literature review aims to provide a solid theoretical foundation for research endeavours in image registration techniques. Developing a solid foundation for a research study is possible through a methodological analysis and synthesis of existing contributions. Out of these considerations, the aim of this paper is to enhance the scientific community’s understanding of the current status of research in medical image registration techniques and also communicate to them, the contribution of this research in the field of image processing. The gaps identified in current techniques can be closed by use of artificial neural networks that form learning systems designed to minimise error function. The paper also suggests several areas of future research in the image registration.

Keywords: Image registration techniques, medical images, neural networks, optimisation, transformation.

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Authors: Marcelo R. G. Duarte, Marcilio Alves

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Pedestrians are the fourth group among road traffic users that most suffer accidents. Their death rate is even higher than the motorcyclists group. This gives motivation for the development of an urban vehicle capable of complying with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe pedestrian regulations. The conceptual vehicle is capable of transporting two passengers and small parcels for 100 km at a maximum speed of 90 km/h. This paper presents the design of this vehicle using the finite element method specially in connection with frontal crash test and car to pedestrian collision. The simulation is based in a human body FE.

Keywords: Electric urban vehicle, finite element method, global human body model, pedestrian safety, road safety.

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Authors: Al-bdour, A. Ali., Ellisha Nasruddin., Soh Keng Lin

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This study attempts to investigate the relationship between internal CSR practices and organizational commitment based on the social exchange theory (SET). Specifically, we examine the impact of five dimensions of internal CSR practices on organizational commitment: health and safety, human rights, training and education, work life balance and workplace diversity. The proposed model was tested on a sample of 336 frontline employees within the banking sector in Jordan. Results showed that all internal CSR dimensions are significantly and positively related to affective and normative commitment. In addition, the findings of this study indicate that all internal CSR dimensions did not have a significant relationship with continuance commitment. Limitations of the study, directions for future research, and implications of the findings are discussed.

Keywords: Internal CSR, organizational commitment, Jordan, banking sector.

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Authors: Nikolaos Sariannidis, Grigoris Giannarakis, Nikolaos Litinas, Nikos Kartalis

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This study investigates the relationship between 10 year bond value, Yen/U.S dollar exchange rate, non-farm payrolls (all employs) and crude oil to U.S. Dow Jones Sustainability Index. A GARCH model is used to test these relationships for the period January 1st 1999 to January 31st 2008 using monthly data. Results show that an increase of the 10 year bond and non farm payrolls (all employs) lead to an increase of the D.J.S.I returns. On the contrary the volatility of the Yen/U.S dollar exchange rates as well as the increase of crude oil returns has negative effects on the U.S D.J.S.I returns. This study aims at assisting investors to understand the influences certain macroeconomic indicators have on the companies- stock returns as reported by the D.J.S.I.

Keywords: Bond value, Corporate Social Responsibility, Crudeoil, D.J.S.I United States, Exchange rate, GARCH, Non-farmpayrolls.

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Authors: Muthatakul Metasit, Setthasakko Watchaneeporn

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At present, increased concerns about global environmental problems have magnified the importance of sustainability management. To move towards sustainability, companies need to look at everything from a holistic perspective in order to understand the interconnections between economic growth and environmental and social sustainability. This paper aims to gain an understanding of key determinants that drive sustainability management and barriers that hinder its development. It employs semi-structured interviews with key informants, site observation and documentation. The informants are production, marketing and environmental managers of the leading wine producer, which aims to become an Asia-s leader in wine & wine based products. It is found that corporate image and top management leadership are the primary factors influencing the adoption of sustainability management. Lack of environmental knowledge and inefficient communication are identified as barriers.

Keywords: Environmental, knowledge; Sustainability management; Top management leadership; Wine industry

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Authors: Zhou Luchen, Wu Yubing, Burra Venkata Durga Kumar

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As the scale of the network becomes larger and more complex than before, the density of user devices is also increasing. The development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) networks is able to collect and transform data in an efficient way by using software-defined networks (SDN) technology. This paper proposed a three-layer distributed and dynamic cluster architecture to manage UAVs by using an AI-based resource allocation calculation algorithm to address the overloading network problem. Through separating services of each UAV, the UAV hierarchical cluster system performs the main function of reducing the network load and transferring user requests, with three sub-tasks including data collection, communication channel organization, and data relaying. In this cluster, a head node and a vice head node UAV are selected considering the CPU, RAM, and ROM memory of devices, battery charge, and capacity. The vice head node acts as a backup that stores all the data in the head node. The k-means clustering algorithm is used in order to detect high load regions and form the UAV layered clusters. The whole process of detecting high load areas, forming and selecting UAV clusters, and moving the selected UAV cluster to that area is proposed as offloading traffic algorithm.

Keywords: k-means, resource allocation, SDN, UAV network, unmanned aerial vehicles.

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Authors: A. Doaa M. Atia, Faten H. Fahmy, Ninet M. Ahmed, Hassen T. Dorrah

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Temperature is one of the most principle factors affects aquaculture system. It can cause stress and mortality or superior environment for growth and reproduction. This paper presents the control of pond water temperature using artificial intelligence technique. The water temperature is very important parameter for shrimp growth. The required temperature for optimal growth is 34oC, if temperature increase up to 38oC it cause death of the shrimp, so it is important to control water temperature. Solar thermal water heating system is designed to supply an aquaculture pond with the required hot water in Mersa Matruh in Egypt. Neural networks are massively parallel processors that have the ability to learn patterns through a training experience. Because of this feature, they are often well suited for modeling complex and non-linear processes such as those commonly found in the heating system. Artificial neural network is proposed to control water temperature due to Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques are becoming useful as alternate approaches to conventional techniques. They have been used to solve complicated practical problems. Moreover this paper introduces a complete mathematical modeling and MATLAB SIMULINK model for the aquaculture system. The simulation results indicate that, the control unit success in keeping water temperature constant at the desired temperature by controlling the hot water flow rate.

Keywords: artificial neural networks, aquaculture, forced circulation hot water system,

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Authors: Sotirios Raptis

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Linking social needs to social classes using different criteria may lead to social services misuse. The paper discusses using ML and Neural Networks (NNs) in linking public services in Scotland in the long term and advocates, this can result in a reduction of the services cost connecting resources needed in groups for similar services. The paper combines typical regression models with clustering and cross-correlation as complementary constituents to predict the demand. Insurance companies and public policymakers can pack linked services such as those offered to the elderly or to low-income people in the longer term. The work is based on public data from 22 services offered by Public Health Services (PHS) Scotland and from the Scottish Government (SG) from 1981 to 2019 that are broken into 110 years series called factors and uses Linear Regression (LR), Autoregression (ARMA) and 3 types of back-propagation (BP) Neural Networks (BPNN) to link them under specific conditions. Relationships found were between smoking related healthcare provision, mental health-related health services, and epidemiological weight in Primary 1(Education) Body Mass Index (BMI) in children. Primary component analysis (PCA) found 11 significant factors while C-Means (CM) clustering gave 5 major factors clusters.

Keywords: Probability, cohorts, data frames, services, prediction.

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Authors: Salim Cerig, Fatime Geyikoglu, Murat Bakir, Suat Colak, Merve Sonmez, Kubra Koc

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Cisplatin (CIS) is one of the most effective an anticancer drug and also toxic to cells by activating oxidative stress. Oleuropein (OLE) has key role against oxidative stress in mammalian cells, but the role of this antioxidant in the toxicity of CIS remains unknown. The aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of OLE on CIS-induced liver damages in male rats. With this aim, male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly assigned to one of eight groups: Control group; the group treated with 7 mg/kg/day CIS; the groups treated with 50, 100 and 200 mg/kg/day OLE (i.p.); and the groups treated with OLE for three days starting at 24 h following CIS injection. After 4 days of injections, serum was provided to assess the blood AST, ALT and LDH values. The liver tissues were removed for histological, biochemical (TAC, TOS and MDA) and genotoxic evaluations. In the CIS treated group, the whole liver tissue showed significant histological changes. Also, CIS significantly increased both the incidence of oxidative stress and the induction of 8-hydroxy-deoxyguanosine (8-OH-dG). Moreover, the rats taking CIS have abnormal results on liver function tests. However, these parameters reached to the normal range after administration of OLE for 3 days. Finally, OLE demonstrated an acceptable high potential and was effective in attenuating CIS-induced liver injury. In this trial, the 200 mg/kg dose of OLE firstly appeared to induce the most optimal protective response.

Keywords: Antioxidant response, cisplatin, histology, liver, oleuropein, 8-OhdG.

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Authors: Ebtehag Tolba

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The study presents a proposed program for nursery school children in Egypt. The program consists of a collection of artistic activities and aims to develop the language, mathematical, and artistic skills of preschool children. Furthermore, the researcher has presented a questionnaire to experts about the link between the target group and the content. Finally, the proposed program was applied to group of 30 children. In addition, the researcher has prepared another questionnaire for measuring the effect of the program. This questionnaire was used as a pre-test and post-test, and at the end of the study, a significant difference was determined in favour of the post-test results.

Keywords: Developing, concepts, nursery, children, artistic activities.

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Authors: Humaira Liaquat, Nadeem Iftikhar, Shaukat Ali, Zohaib Zafar Iqbal

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In the current age, retrieval of relevant information from massive amount of data is a challenging job. Over the years, precise and relevant retrieval of information has attained high significance. There is a growing need in the market to build systems, which can retrieve multimedia information that precisely meets the user's current needs. In this paper, we have introduced a framework for refining query results before showing it to the user, using ambient intelligence, user profile, group profile, user location, time, day, user device type and extracted features. A prototypic tool was also developed to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.

Keywords: Context aware retrieval, Information retrieval, Ambient Intelligence, Multimedia databases, User and group profile.

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Authors: Mona Yacoub, Ahmed Amin Mousa

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The current work presents a program for children in Egypt. This program involved a collection of artistic activities that purposes to improve some language, artistic skills of kindergarten children. The researchers have prepared a questionnaire for the link between the target group and the content. The questionnaire has been presented to experts for adjudicating. The program was applied to a group of 30 children. Another questionnaire has been prepared by the researchers for measuring the activities’ effect on the children. The second questionnaire was considered as the pre-test and post-test. Finally, after applying the activities and the questionnaire, the researchers detected a significant difference in favor of the post-test results.

Keywords: Developing, concepts, kindergarten, children, graphic activities.

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Authors: Suzana Basaruddin, Haryani Haron, Siti Arpah Noodin

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Managing knowledge of research is one way to ensure just in time information and knowledge to support research strategist and activities. Unfortunately researcher found the vital research knowledge in IHL (Institutions of Higher Learning) are scattered, unstructured and unorganized. Aiming on lay aside conceptual foundations for understanding and developing OMS (Organizational Memory System) to facilitate research in IHL, this research revealed ten factors contributed to the needs of research in the IHL and seven internal challenges of IHL in promoting research to their academic members. This study then suggested a comprehensive support of managing research knowledge using Organizational Memory System (OMS). Eight OMS characteristics to support research were identified. Finally the initial work in designing OMS was projected using knowledge taxonomy. All analysis is derived from pertinent research paper related to research in IHL and OMS. Further study can be conducted to validate and verify results presented.

Keywords: corporate memory, Institutions of Higher Learning, organizational memory system, research

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Authors: V. Murugan, R. Balasubramanian

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Image enhancement is a challenging issue in many applications. In the last two decades, there are various filters developed. This paper proposes a novel method which removes Gaussian noise from the gray scale images. The proposed technique is compared with Enhanced Fuzzy Peer Group Filter (EFPGF) for various noise levels. Experimental results proved that the proposed filter achieves better Peak-Signal-to-Noise-Ratio PSNR than the existing techniques. The proposed technique achieves 1.736dB gain in PSNR than the EFPGF technique.

Keywords: Gaussian noise, adaptive bilateral filter, fuzzy peer group filter, switching bilateral filter, PSNR

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Authors: Jong-Moon Chung, Hyung-Weon Cho, Ki-Yong Jin, Min-Hee Cho

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In this paper, we present an analytical framework for the evaluation of the uplink performance of multihop cellular networks based on dynamic time division duplex (TDD). New wireless broadband protocols, such as WiMAX, WiBro, and 3G-LTE apply TDD, and mobile communication protocols under standardization (e.g., IEEE802.16j) are investigating mobile multihop relay (MMR) as a future technology. In this paper a novel MMR TDD scheme is presented, where the dynamic range of the frame is shared to traffic resources of asymmetric nature and multihop relaying. The mobile communication channel interference model comprises of inner and co-channel interference (CCI). The performance analysis focuses on the uplink due to the fact that the effects of dynamic resource allocation show significant performance degradation only in the uplink compared to time division multiple access (TDMA) schemes due to CCI [1-3], where the downlink results to be the same or better.The analysis was based on the signal to interference power ratio (SIR) outage probability of dynamic TDD (D-TDD) and TDMA systems,which are the most widespread mobile communication multi-user control techniques. This paper presents the uplink SIR outage probability with multihop results and shows that the dynamic TDD scheme applying MMR can provide a performance improvement compared to single hop applications if executed properly.

Keywords: Co-Channel Interference, Dynamic TDD, MobileMultihop Reply, Cellular Network, Time Division Multiple Access.

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Authors: R. N. Begum, Ambalika Sharma, G. K. Singh

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Identity theft has serious ramifications beyond data and personal information loss. This necessitates the implementation of robust and efficient user identification systems. Therefore, automatic biometric recognition systems are the need of the hour, and electrocardiogram (ECG)-based systems are unquestionably the best choice due to their appealing inherent characteristics. The Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are the recent state-of-the-art techniques for ECG-based user identification systems. However, the results obtained are significantly below standards, and the situation worsens as the number of users and types of heartbeats in the dataset grows. As a result, this study proposes a highly accurate and resilient ECG-based person identification system using CNN's dense learning framework. The proposed research explores explicitly the caliber of dense CNNs in the field of ECG-based human recognition. The study tests four different configurations of dense CNN which are trained on a dataset of recordings collected from eight popular ECG databases. With the highest False Acceptance Rate (FAR)  of 0.04% and the highest False Rejection Rate (FRR)  of 5%, the best performing network achieved an identification accuracy of 99.94%. The best network is also tested with various train/test split ratios. The findings show that DenseNets are not only extremely reliable, but also highly efficient. Thus, they might also be implemented in real-time ECG-based human recognition systems.

Keywords: Biometrics, dense networks, identification rate, train/test split ratio.

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Authors: Mehtap Dursun, Zeynep Şener

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Supplier selection is considered as one of the most critical issues encountered by operations and purchasing managers to sharpen the company’s competitive advantage. In this paper, a novel fuzzy multi-criteria group decision making approach integrating quality function deployment (QFD) and decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method is proposed for supplier selection. The proposed methodology enables to consider the impacts of inner dependence among supplier assessment criteria. A house of quality (HOQ) which translates purchased product features into supplier assessment criteria is built using the weights obtained by DEMATEL approach to determine the desired levels of supplier assessment criteria. Supplier alternatives are ranked by a distance-based method.

Keywords: DEMATEL, Group decision making, QFD, Supplier selection.

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Authors: Liping Jing, Michael K. Ng, Tieyong Zeng

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Microarray data profiles gene expression on a whole genome scale, therefore, it provides a good way to study associations between gene expression and occurrence or progression of cancer. More and more researchers realized that microarray data is helpful to predict cancer sample. However, the high dimension of gene expressions is much larger than the sample size, which makes this task very difficult. Therefore, how to identify the significant genes causing cancer becomes emergency and also a hot and hard research topic. Many feature selection algorithms have been proposed in the past focusing on improving cancer predictive accuracy at the expense of ignoring the correlations between the features. In this work, a novel framework (named by SGS) is presented for stable gene selection and efficient cancer prediction . The proposed framework first performs clustering algorithm to find the gene groups where genes in each group have higher correlation coefficient, and then selects the significant genes in each group with Bayesian Lasso and important gene groups with group Lasso, and finally builds prediction model based on the shrinkage gene space with efficient classification algorithm (such as, SVM, 1NN, Regression and etc.). Experiment results on real world data show that the proposed framework often outperforms the existing feature selection and prediction methods, say SAM, IG and Lasso-type prediction model.

Keywords: Gene Selection, Cancer Prediction, Lasso, Clustering, Classification.

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Authors: Nuridayanti Che Khalib, Kaliyaperumal Thanigaimani, Suhana Arshad, Ibrahim Abdul Razak

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The 1:1 cocrystal of 2-amino-4-chloro-6- methylpyrimidine (2A4C6MP) with 4-methylbenzoic acid (4MBA) (I) has been prepared by slow evaporation method in methanol, which was crystallized in monoclinic C2/c space group, Z = 8, and a = 28.431 (2) Å, b = 7.3098 (5) Å, c = 14.2622 (10) Å and β = 109.618 (3)°. The presence of unionized –COOH functional group in cocrystal I was identified both by spectral methods (1H and 13C NMR, FTIR) and X-ray diffraction structural analysis. The 2A4C6MP molecule interact with the carboxylic group of the respective 4MBA molecule through N—H⋯O and O—H⋯N hydrogen bonds, forming a cyclic hydrogen–bonded motif R2 2(8). The crystal structure was stabilized by Npyrimidine—H⋯O=C and C=O—H⋯Npyrimidine types hydrogen bonding interactions. Theoretical investigations have been computed by HF and density function (B3LYP) method with 6–311+G (d,p)basis set. The vibrational frequencies together with 1H and 13C NMR chemical shifts have been calculated on the fully optimized geometry of cocrystal I. Theoretical calculations are in good agreement with the experimental results. Solvent–free formation of this cocrystal I is confirmed by powder X-ray diffraction analysis.

Keywords: Supramolecular Cocrystal, 2-amino-4-chloro-6- methylpyrimidine, Hartree-Fock and DFT Studies, Spectroscopic Analysis.

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Authors: Shigeaki Sakurai, Ryohei Orihara

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This paper proposes an improvement method of classification efficiency in a classification model. The model is used in a risk search system and extracts specific labels from articles posted at bulletin board sites. The system can analyze the important discussions composed of the articles. The improvement method introduces ensemble learning methods that use multiple classification models. Also, it introduces expressions related to the specific labels into generation of word vectors. The paper applies the improvement method to articles collected from three bulletin board sites selected by users and verifies the effectiveness of the improvement method.

Keywords: Text mining, Risk search system, Corporate reputation, Bulletin board site, Ensemble learning

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Authors: Pavol Molnar, Martin Dolinsky

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Paper deals with environmental metrics and assessment systems devoted to Small and Medium Sized Enterprises. Authors are presenting proposed assessment model which has an ability to discover current environmental strengths and weaknesses of Small and Middle Sized Enterprise. Suggested model has also an ambition to become a Sustainability Decision Tool. Model is able to identify "best environmental devision" in the company, and to quantify how this decision contributed into overall environmental improvement. Authors understand environmental improvements as environmental innovations (product, process and organizational). Suggested model is based on its own concept; however, authors are also utilizing already existing environmental assessment tools.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, (e)IMPACT model, Environmental metrics, , Small and Middle Sized Enterprises

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Authors: Seyed Habib A. Rahmati, Arash Haji Karimi, Reza Saffari, Zeeya Rashvand

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An important official knowledge in each country is to have a comprehensive knowledge about markets of each group of products. Drink markets are one the most important markets of each country as a sub-group of nourishment markets. This paper is going to study these markets in Iran. To do so, first, two drink products are selected as pilot, including milk and concentrate. Then, for each product, two groups of information are estimated for the last five years, including 1) total consumption (demand) and 2) total production. Finally, the two groups of productions are compared statistically by means of two statistical tests called t test and Mann- Whitney test. The implemented Different related tables and figures are also illustrated to show the method more explicitly.

Keywords: Market evaluation, Drink, Estimation, Mann- Whitney test

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Authors: Mehdi Shami Zanjani, Roshanak Rouzbehani, Hosein Dabbagh

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Although current competitive challenges induced by today-s digital economy place their main emphasis on organizational knowledge, customer knowledge has been overlooked. On the other hand, the business community has finally begun to realize the important role customer knowledge can play in the organizational boundaries of the corporate arena. As a result, there is an emerging market for the tools and utilities whose objective is to provide the intelligence for knowledge sharing between the businesses and their customers. In this paper, we present a conceptual model of customer knowledge management by identifying and analyzing the existing tools in the market. The focus will be upon the emerging British dotcom industry whose customer based B2C behavior has been an influential part of the knowledge based intelligence tools in existence today.

Keywords: Customer knowledge, customer knowledge management, knowledge management, B2C E-commerce.

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Authors: Raquel P. F. Guiné, Daniela V. T. A. Costa, Paula M. R. Correia, Moisés Castro, Luis T. Guerra, Cristina A. Costa

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The aim of this work was to characterize a potential target group of people interested in participating into a training program in organic farming in the context of mobile-learning. The information sought addressed in particular, but not exclusively, possible contents, formats and forms of evaluation that will contribute to define the course objectives and curriculum, as well as to ensure that the course meets the needs of the learners and their preferences. The sample was selected among different European countries. The questionnaires were delivered electronically for answering on-line and in the end 135 consented valid questionnaires were obtained. The results allowed characterizing the target group and identifying their training needs and preferences towards m-learning formats, giving valuable tools to design the training offer.

Keywords: Mobile-learning, organic farming, rural development, survey.

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Authors: T. Maruyama, T. Saida, S. Naritsuka, S. Iijima

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Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are generally synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using Fe, Co, and Ni as catalysts. However, due to the Ostwald ripening of metal catalysts, the diameter distribution of the grown SWCNTs is considerably wide (>2 nm), which is not suitable for electronics applications. In addition, reduction in the growth temperature is desirable for fabricating SWCNT devices compatible with the LSI process. Herein, we performed SWCNT growth by alcohol catalytic CVD using platinum-group metal catalysts (Pt, Rh, and Pd) because these metals have high melting points, and the reduction in the Ostwald ripening of catalyst particles is expected. Our results revealed that web-like SWCNTs were obtained from Pt and Rh catalysts at growth temperature between 500 °C and 600 °C by optimizing the ethanol pressure. The SWCNT yield from Pd catalysts was considerably low. By decreasing the growth temperature, the diameter and chirality distribution of SWCNTs from Pt and Rh catalysts became small and narrow. In particular, the diameters of most SWCNTs grown using Pt catalysts were below 1 nm and their diameter distribution was considerably narrow. On the contrary, SWCNTs can grow from Rh catalysts even at 300 °C by optimizing the growth condition, which is the lowest temperature recorded for SWCNT growth. Our results demonstrated that platinum-group metals are useful for the growth of small-diameter SWCNTs and facilitate low-temperature growth.

Keywords: Carbon nanotube, chemical vapor deposition, catalyst, Pt, Rh, Pd.

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Authors: Mario Spremić

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Despite the financial crisis and ongoing need for cost cutting, companies all around the world heavily invest in Information Systems (IS) and underlying Information Technology (IT). Proliferation of governance of enterprise IT helps companies manage, or rather, governs IS as a primary business function with executive management involved in making decision about IS and IT. The business value of IT is raising with the involvement of the executive management in IT decision making process and quality IT governance mechanisms in place. In this paper the practice of governing the enterprise IT will be investigated on a sample of the largest 100 Croatian companies. Research questions posed here will reveal if there are some formal IT governance mechanisms, are there any differences in perceived role of IS and IT between CIOs (Chief Information Officers) and CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) of the sampled companies and what are the mechanisms to govern massive investment in enterprise IT.

Keywords: IT governance, governance of enterprise IT, information system auditing, IT maturity.

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Authors: Justinian Anatory, Ekael Stephen Manase

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In recent years, the adoption of mobile phones has been exceptionally rapid in many parts of the world, and Tanzania is not exceptional. We are witnessing a number of new mobile network operators being licensed from time to time by Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA). This makes competition in the telecommunications market very stiff. All mobile phone companies are struggling to earn more new customers into their networks. This trend courses a stiff competition. The various measures are being taken by different companies including, lowering tariff, and introducing free short messages within and out of their networks, and free calls during off-peak periods. This paper is aimed at investigating the influence of tariffs on students’ mobile customers in selecting their mobile network operators. About seventy seven students from high learning institutions in Dodoma Municipality, Tanzania, participated in responding to the prepared questionnaires. The sought information was aimed at determining if tariffs influenced students into selection of their current mobile operators. The results indicate that tariffs were the major driving factor in selection of mobile operators. However, female mobile customers were found to be more easily attracted into subscribing to a mobile operator due to low tariffs, a bigger number of free short messages or discounted call charges than their fellow male customers.

Keywords: Consumer Buying, mobile operators, tariff.

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Authors: A. Lubis, S. S. Pasulu, Z. Hikmah, A. Endaryanto, A. Harsono

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Infection by group A streptococci (GAS) can trigger an autoantibody that cause a poststreptococcal reactive arthritis (PSRA). Four patients with PSRA aged 10 years to 14 years old with the main complaint of joint pain for five days to 10 days after suffering a fever and sore throat. The joint pain was persistent, additive, and non migratory. All patients revealed an increase in erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and anti-streptolysin O (ASLO), but the chest x-ray, electrocardiography, and echocardiography were normal. Bone imaging showed no destruction on the affected joint. Jones Criteria were not fulfilled in all patients. Erythromycin and ibuprofen were given in all patients and an improvement was shown. Erythromycin was continued for one year and routine controls were conducted for cardiac evaluation. The prognosis of all the patients was good.

Keywords: Arthritis, group A streptococcus, autoantibody, Jones criteria.

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Authors: Konstantinos C. Giotopoulos, Christos E. Alexakos, Grigorios N. Beligiannis, Spiridon D.Likothanassis

Abstract:

In this contribution an innovative platform is being presented that integrates intelligent agents and evolutionary computation techniques in legacy e-learning environments. It introduces the design and development of a scalable and interoperable integration platform supporting: I) various assessment agents for e-learning environments, II) a specific resource retrieval agent for the provision of additional information from Internet sources matching the needs and profile of the specific user and III) a genetic algorithm designed to extract efficient information (classifying rules) based on the students- answering input data. The agents are implemented in order to provide intelligent assessment services based on computational intelligence techniques such as Bayesian Networks and Genetic Algorithms. The proposed Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used in order to extract efficient information (classifying rules) based on the students- answering input data. The idea of using a GA in order to fulfil this difficult task came from the fact that GAs have been widely used in applications including classification of unknown data. The utilization of new and emerging technologies like web services allows integrating the provided services to any web based legacy e-learning environment.

Keywords: Bayesian Networks, Computational Intelligencetechniques, E-learning legacy systems, Service Oriented Integration, Intelligent Agents, Genetic Algorithms.

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