Search results for: Customer experience management

Authors: Byung-Kon Kim

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According as the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry projects have grown more complex and larger, the number of utilization of BIM for 3D design and simulation is increasing significantly. Therefore, typical applications of BIM such as clash detection and alternative measures based on 3-dimenstional planning are expanded to process management, cost and quantity management, structural analysis, check for regulation, and various domains for virtual design and construction. Presently, commercial BIM software is operated on single-user environment, so initial cost is so high and the investment may be wasted frequently. Cloud computing that is a next-generation internet technology enables simple internet devices (such as PC, Tablet, Smart phone etc) to use services and resources of BIM software. In this paper, we suggested developing method of the BIM software based on cloud computing environment in order to expand utilization of BIM and reduce cost of BIM software. First, for the benchmarking, we surveyed successful case of BIM and cloud computing. And we analyzed needs and opportunities of BIM and cloud computing in AEC Industry. Finally, we suggested main functions of BIM software based on cloud computing environment and developed a simple prototype of cloud computing BIM software for basic BIM model viewing.

Keywords: Construction IT, BIM(Building Information Modeling), Cloud Computing, BIM Service Based Cloud Computing, Viewer Based BIM Server, 3D Design.

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Authors: Ç. Erdoğan, T. Turan

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Pediatric cancer patients experience multiple distressing, challenges, physical symptom such as fatigue, pain, sleep disturbance, and balance impairment that continue years after treatment completion. In recent years, yoga is often used in children with cancer to cope with these symptoms. Yoga practice is defined as a unique physical activity that combines physical practice, breath work and mindfulness/meditation. Yoga is an increasingly popular mind-body practice also characterized as a mindfulness mode of exercise. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of yoga intervention of children with cancer. This article planned searching the literature in this field. It has been determined that individualized yoga is feasible and provides benefits for inpatient children, improves health-related quality of life, physical activity levels, physical fitness. After yoga program, children anxiety score decreases significantly. Additionally, individualized yoga is feasible for inpatient children receiving intensive chemotherapy. As a result, yoga is an alternative and complementary medicine that can be safely used in children with cancer.

Keywords: Cancer treatment, children, nursing, yoga.

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Authors: Faisal Bin Alam

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Most of the manufacturing entities cause negative footprint to nature that demand due attention. Textile industries have one of the longest supply chains and bear the liability of significant environmental impact to our planet. Issues of environmental safety, scarcity of energy and resources, and demand for eco-friendly products have driven research to search for safe and suitable alternatives in apparel processing. Consumer awareness, increased pressure from fashion brands and actions from local legislative authorities have somewhat been able to improve the practices. Objective of this paper is to reveal the best selection of raw materials and methods of production, taking environmental sustainability into account. Methodology used in this study is exploratory in nature based on personal experience, field visits in the factories of Bangladesh and secondary sources. Findings are limited to exploring better alternatives to conventional operations of a Readymade Garment manufacturing, from fibre selection to final product delivery, therefore showing some ways of achieving greener environment in the supply chain of a clothing industry.

Keywords: Textile and apparel, environment, sustainability, supply chain, production, clothing.

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Authors: Leila Rashidian

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Temperature rise on Earth has had harmful effects on the Earth's surface and has led to change in precipitation patterns all around the world. The present research was aimed to study the process of climate change according to the data simulation in future and compare these parameters with current situation in the studied stations in Semnan province including Garmsar, Shahrood and Semnan. In this regard, LARS-WG software, HADCM₃ model and A₂ scenario were used for the 2010-2030 period. In this model, climatic parameters such as maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation and radiation were used daily. The obtained results indicated that there will be a 4.4% increase in precipitation in Semnan province compared with the observed data, and in general, there will be a 1.9% increase in temperature. This temperature rise has significant impact on precipitation patterns. Most of precipitation will be raining (torrential rains in some cases). According to the results, from west to east, the country will experience more temperature rise and will be warmer.

Keywords: Climate change, Semnan province, LARS-WG model, climate parameters, HADCM3 model.

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Authors: Shakirat Abimbola Adesola, Shuaib Akintunde Asifat, Jelili Olalekan Amoo

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This paper presented the impact of students’ emotions on learning when receiving lectures and when taking tests. It was observed during the study that students experience different types of emotions, and this was found to have a significant effect on their academic performance. A total of 1675 students from the department of Computer Science in two Colleges of Education in South-West Nigeria took part in this study. The students were randomly selected for the research. The sample comprises of 968 males representing 58%, and 707 females representing 42%. A structured questionnaire, of Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was distributed to the participants to obtain their opinions. Data gathered were analyzed using the IBM SPSS 20 to obtain ANOVA, descriptive analysis, stepwise regression, and reliability tests. The results revealed that emotion moderately shape students’ motivation and engagement in learning; and that self-regulation and self-determination do have significant impact on academic performance. It was further revealed that test anxiety has a significant correlation with academic performance.

Keywords: Motivation, self-determination, test anxiety, academic performance, academic engagement.

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Authors: XhevrieMamaqi

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Organization capacity learning is a process referring to the sum total of individual and collective learning through training programs, experience and experimentation, among others. Today, in-business ongoing training is one of the most important strategies for human capital development and it is crucial to sustain and improve workers’ knowledge and skills. Many organizations, firms and business are adopting a strategy of continuous learning, encouraging employees to learn new skills continually to be innovative and to try new processes and work in order to achieve a competitive advantage and superior business results. This paper uses the Resource Based View and Capacities (RBV) approach to construct a hypothetical relationships model between training and business results. The test of the model is applied on transversal data. A sample of 266 business of Spanish sector service has been selected. A Structural Equation Model (SEM) is used to estimate the relationship between ongoing training, represented by two latent dimension denominated Human and Social Capital resources and economic business results. The coefficients estimated have shown the efficient of some training aspectsexplaining the variation in business results.

Keywords: Business results, Human and Social Capital resources, training, RBV Theory, SEM.

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Authors: S. Chuenchooklin, S. Taweepong, U. Pangnakorn

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This research was conducted in the Mae Sot Watershed where located in the Moei River Basin at the Upper Salween River Basin in Tak Province, Thailand. The Mae Sot Municipality is the largest urban area in Tak Province and situated in the midstream of the Mae Sot Watershed. It usually faces flash flood problem after heavy rain due to poor flood management has been reported since economic rapidly bloom up in recent years. Its catchment can be classified as ungauged basin with lack of rainfall data and no any stream gaging station was reported. It was attached by most severely flood events in 2013 as the worst studied case for all those communities in this municipality. Moreover, other problems are also faced in this watershed, such shortage water supply for domestic consumption and agriculture utilizations including a deterioration of water quality and landslide as well. The research aimed to increase capability building and strengthening the participation of those local community leaders and related agencies to conduct better water management in urban area was started by mean of the data collection and illustration of the appropriated application of some short period rainfall forecasting model as they aim for better flood relief plan and management through the hydrologic model system and river analysis system programs. The authors intended to apply the global rainfall data via the integrated data viewer (IDV) program from the Unidata with the aim for rainfall forecasting in a short period of 7-10 days in advance during rainy season instead of real time record. The IDV product can be present in an advance period of rainfall with time step of 3-6 hours was introduced to the communities. The result can be used as input data to the hydrologic modeling system model (HEC-HMS) for synthesizing flood hydrographs and use for flood forecasting as well. The authors applied the river analysis system model (HEC-RAS) to present flood flow behaviors in the reach of the Mae Sot stream via the downtown of the Mae Sot City as flood extents as the water surface level at every cross-sectional profiles of the stream. Both models of HMS and RAS were tested in 2013 with observed rainfall and inflow-outflow data from the Mae Sot Dam. The result of HMS showed fit to the observed data at the dam and applied at upstream boundary discharge to RAS in order to simulate flood extents and tested in the field, and the result found satisfying. The product of rainfall from IDV was fair while compared with observed data. However, it is an appropriate tool to use in the ungauged catchment to use with flood hydrograph and river analysis models for future efficient flood relief plan and management.

Keywords: Global rainfall, flood forecasting, hydrologic modeling system, river analysis system.

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Authors: Antoni Grau, Yolanda Bolea, Alberto Sanfeliu

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Embedding Sustainability in technological curricula has become a crucial factor for educating engineers with competences in sustainability. The Technical University of Catalonia UPC, in 2008, designed the Sustainable Technology Excellence Program STEP 2015 in order to assure a successful Sustainability Embedding. This Program takes advantage of the opportunity that the redesign of all Bachelor and Master Degrees in Spain by 2010 under the European Higher Education Area framework offered. The STEP program goals are: to design compulsory courses in each degree; to develop the conceptual base and identify reference models in sustainability for all specialties at UPC; to create an internal interdisciplinary network of faculty from all the schools; to initiate new transdisciplinary research activities in technology-sustainability-education; to spread the know/how attained; to achieve international scientific excellence in technology-sustainability-education and to graduate the first engineers/architects of the new EHEA bachelors with sustainability as a generic competence. Specifically, in this paper authors explain their experience in leading the STEP program, and two examples are presented: Industrial Robotics subject and the curriculum for the School of Architecture.

Keywords: Sustainability, curricula improvement, robotics.

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Authors: Mpho A. Mbeo, Patient Rambe

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The 13th year of the Central University of Technology, Free State’s (CUT) transition from a vocational and professional training orientation institution (i.e. a technikon) into a university with a strong research focus has neither been a smooth nor an easy one. At the heart of this transition was the need to transform the psychological faculties of academic and research staffs compliment who were accustomed to training graduates for industrial placement. The lack of a research culture that fully embraces the strong solid ethos of conducting cutting-edge research needs to be addressed. The induction and socialisation of academic staff into the development and execution of cutting-edge research also required the provision of research support and the creation of a conducive academic environment for research, both for emerging and non-research active academics. Drawing on ten cases, consisting of four heads of departments, three seasoned researchers, and three novice researchers, this study explores the challenges faced in establishing a strong research culture at the university. Furthermore, it gives an account of the extent to which the current research interventions have addressed the perceivably “missing research culture”, and the implications of these interventions for knowledge management. Evidence suggests that the capability of an ideal institutional research environment, consisting of mentorship of novice researchers by seasoned researchers, balanced effort into teaching and research responsibilities, should be supported by strong research-oriented leadership. Furthermore, recruitment of research passionate staff, adoption of a salary structure that encourages the retention of excellent scholars should be matched by a coherent research incentive culture to growth research publication outputs. This is critical for building new knowledge and entrenching knowledge management founded on communities of practice and scholarly networking through the documentation and communication of research findings. The study concludes that the multiple policy documents set for the different domains of research may be creating pressure on researchers to engage research activities and increase output at the expense of research quality.

Keywords: Central University of Technology, performance, publication, research culture, university.

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Authors: K. Lee

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Many teachers are experienced; however, experience does not necessarily equate to excellence. Excellence in teaching is the single most powerful influence on student achievement. This qualitative, interpretivist case study investigates the practices of one of the nation’s most acknowledged teachers in enterprise education. In a number of semi-structured interviews, and observational visits, this remote regional teacher talked freely about what skills and strategies she used to achieve this success. Findings from this study were compared to key ideas developed by Professor John Hattie with regards to differences between expert, excellent and experienced teachers. Key findings showed the ‘expert teacher’ central to this study; ensured learning was engaging, challenging yet achievable for all (for both teacher and student of all abilities), authentic and driven by local needs, involved community supports; and ensured the process and learning was constantly monitored and teaching adjusted accordingly. It is anticipated that the data collected via observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis will help others to support students to gain greater success (in whatever form that may take).

Keywords: Expert teacher, enterprise education, excellence, skills and strategies.

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Authors: Kevin Wongleedee

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Culinary culture differences can cause health problems for international tourists in Thailand. This paper drew upon data collected from an international tourist survey conducted in Bangkok, Thailand during summer of 2012. Summer is the period that a variety food safety issues and incidents are often publicized in Thailand. The survey targeted European Union tourists- concerns toward a variety of food safety issues that they encountered during their trip in Thailand. A total of 400 respondents were elicited as data input for t-test, and one way ANOVA test. The findings revealed an astonishing result that up to 46.5 percent of respondents were sick at least one time or more in Thailand. However, the majority of respondents trusted that the Thai hotel and Thai restaurants would ensure food safety, but they did not trust street vendors to ensure food safety. The level of food safety concern can be ranked from most concern to least concern by using the value of mean scores as follows: 1) artificial coloring, 2) use of preservatives, 3) antibiotics, 4) growth hormones, 5) chemical residues, and 6) bacterial contamination. The overall mean score for level of concerns was 3.493 with standard deviation of 1.677 which did not indicate a very high level of concern. In addition, the result for t-test and one way ANOVA test revealed that there was not much effect from the demographic differences to level of food safety concerns.

Keywords: Concerns, European Union Tourists, Food Safety Management.

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Authors: Marco Sernaglia, Augusto M. P. Carreira, Helena M. L. Carvalho, Pedro B. Água, Armindo Frias, Manuel Carrasqueira

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The existence of mismatches between the qualification requirements of professionals in the maritime industry and existing higher education offers was verified within the scope of the European project MarLEM (Maritime Logistics Engineering and Management). Professionals in the maritime industry today and in the future face additional obstacles as a result of the sector's global nature as well as the sector's rapid technological and social evolution. As a result, they feel the need to update their skills and knowledge. A professional-oriented master's program was developed to fill this gap. The NOVA School of Science and Technology and the Portuguese Naval School co-developed this Master's program with the active participation of MarLEM project partners from academia and industry. In this work, the principles and approach used to design the master's program are presented. Its design and a concise synopsis of the courses' content are shown. In addition, other international courses covering the same topic are compared. As a result of this work, the teaching materials related to maritime logistics are improved and the assumptions and methodology that guided the creation of an international master's program in maritime logistics are disseminated.

Keywords: Education, maritime logistics, shipping, industrial engineering, management, soft skills.

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Authors: Jung-Lo Park, Sung-Sik Kim, Sun-Young Choi, Ju-Hyung Kim, Jae-Jun Kim

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Sub-prime mortgage crisis which began in the US is regarded as the most economic crisis since the Great Depression in the early 20th century. Especially, hidden problems on efficient operation of a business were disclosed at a time and many financial institutions went bankrupt and filed for court receivership. The collapses of physical market lead to bankruptcy of manufacturing and construction businesses. This study is to analyze dynamic efficiency of construction businesses during the five years at the turn of the global financial crisis. By discovering the trend and stability of efficiency of a construction business, this study-s objective is to improve management efficiency of a construction business in the ever-changing construction market. Variables were selected by analyzing corporate information on top 20 construction businesses in Korea and analyzed for static efficiency in 2008 and dynamic efficiency between 2006 and 2010. Unlike other studies, this study succeeded in deducing efficiency trend and stability of a construction business for five years by using the DEA/Window model. Using the analysis result, efficient and inefficient companies could be figured out. In addition, relative efficiency among DMU was measured by comparing the relationship between input and output variables of construction businesses. This study can be used as a literature to improve management efficiency for companies with low efficiency based on efficiency analysis of construction businesses.

Keywords: Construction Company, DEA, DEA/Window, Efficiency Analysis

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Authors: Yishu Gong, Liangliang Yang, Jianyu Zhang, Zhengyu Chen, Sihong He, Xusheng Zhang, Wei Zhang

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Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects millions of people worldwide and is characterized by cognitive decline and behavioral changes. People living with Alzheimer’s disease often find it hard to complete routine tasks. However, there are limited objective assessments that aim to quantify the difficulty of certain tasks for AD patients compared to non-AD people. In this study, we propose to use speech emotion recognition (SER), especially the frustration level as a potential biomarker for quantifying the difficulty patients experience when describing a picture. We build an SER model using data from the IEMOCAP dataset and apply the model to the DementiaBank data to detect the AD/non-AD group difference and perform longitudinal analysis to track the AD disease progression. Our results show that the frustration level detected from the SER model can possibly be used as a cost-effective tool for objective tracking of AD progression in addition to the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, Speech Emotion Recognition, longitudinal biomarker, machine learning.

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Authors: Josua K. Junias, Fillemon N. Nangolo, Petrina T. Johaness

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The deterioration of pavement can lead to the formation of potholes, which cause the wheels of a vehicle to experience unusual and uneven movement. In addition, improper loading practices of heavy vehicles can result in dynamic loading of the pavement due to the vehicle's response to the irregular movement caused by the potholes. The combined effects of asymmetrical vehicle loading and uneven road surfaces has an effect on pavement dynamic loading. This study aimed to model the pavement's dynamic response to heavy vehicles under different loading configurations and wheel movements. A sample of 225 cases with symmetrical and asymmetrical loading and kinematic movements was used, and 27 validated 3D pavement-vehicle interactive models were developed using SIMWISE 4D. The study found that the type of kinematic movement experienced by the heavy vehicle affects the pavement's dynamic loading, with eccentrically loaded, asymmetrically kinematic heavy vehicles having a statistically significant impact. The study also suggests that the mass of the vehicle's suspension system plays a role in the pavement's dynamic loading.

Keywords: Eccentricities, pavement dynamic loading, vertical displacement dynamic response, heavy vehicles.

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Authors: A. Bouzabata, A. Boukhari

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Curcuma longa L. (Zingiberaceae), commonly known as turmeric, has a long history of traditional uses for culinary purposes as a spice and a food colorant. The present study aimed to document the ethnobotanical knowledge about Curcuma longa, and to assess the variation in the herbalists’ experience in Northeastern Algeria. Data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires and direct interviews with 30 herbalists. Ethnobotanical indices, including the fidelity level (FL%), the relative frequency citation (RFC), and use value (UV) were determined by quantitative methods. Diversity in the level of knowledge was analyzed using univariate, non-parametric, and multivariate statistical methods. Three main categories of uses were recorded for C. longa: for food, for medicine, and for cosmetic purposes. As a medicine, turmeric was used for the treatment of gastrointestinal, dermatological, and hepatic diseases. Medicinal and food uses were correlated with both forms of preparation (rhizome and powder). The age group did not influence the use. Multivariate analyses showed a significant variation in traditional knowledge, associated with the use value, origin, quality, and efficacy of the drug. The findings suggested that the geographical origin of C. longa affected the use in Algeria.

Keywords: Curcuma longa, curcuma indices, ethnobotanical knowledge, variation.

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Authors: R. Varalakshmi

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For the last decade, researchers have started to focus their interest on Multicast Group Key Management Framework. The central research challenge is secure and efficient group key distribution. The present paper is based on the Bit model based Secure Multicast Group key distribution scheme using the most popular absolute encoder output type code named Gray Code. The focus is of two folds. The first fold deals with the reduction of computation complexity which is achieved in our scheme by performing fewer multiplication operations during the key updating process. To optimize the number of multiplication operations, an O(1) time algorithm to multiply two N-bit binary numbers which could be used in an N x N bit-model of reconfigurable mesh is used in this proposed work. The second fold aims at reducing the amount of information stored in the Group Center and group members while performing the update operation in the key content. Comparative analysis to illustrate the performance of various key distribution schemes is shown in this paper and it has been observed that this proposed algorithm reduces the computation and storage complexity significantly. Our proposed algorithm is suitable for high performance computing environment.

Keywords: Multicast Group key distribution, Bit model, Integer Multiplications, reconfigurable mesh, optimal algorithm, Gray Code, Computation Complexity, Storage Complexity.

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Authors: Francisco Ben, Tracey Price, Chad Morrison, Victoria Warren, Willy Gollan, Robyn Dunbar, Frank Davies, Mark Sorrell

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This paper focuses particularly on the educational aspects that contribute to the overall educational satisfaction rated by Tabor School of Education students who participated in the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in 2010, 2012 and 2013. In all three years of participation, Tabor ranked first especially in the area of overall student satisfaction. By using a single level path analysis in relation to the AUSSE datasets collected using the Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ) for Tabor School of Education, seven aspects that contribute to overall student satisfaction have been identified. There appears to be a direct causal link between aspects of the Supportive Learning Environment, Work Integrated Learning, Career Readiness, Academic Challenge, and overall educational satisfaction levels. A further three aspects, being Student and Staff Interactions, Active Learning, and Enriching Educational Experiences, indirectly influence overall educational satisfaction levels.

Keywords: Tertiary student satisfaction, tertiary educational experience, pre-service teacher education, path analysis.

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Authors: M. A. Karim

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In countries with hot climates, air-conditioning forms a large proportion of annual peak electrical demand, requiring expansion of power plants to meet the peak demand, which goes unused most of the time. Use of well-designed cool storage can offset the peak demand to a large extent. In this study, an air conditioning system with naturally stratified storage tank was designed, constructed and tested. A new type of diffuser was designed and used in this study. Factors that influence the performance of chilled water storage tanks were investigated. The results indicated that stratified storage tank consistently stratified well without any physical barrier. Investigation also showed that storage efficiency decreased with increasing flow rate due to increased mixing of warm and chilled water. Diffuser design and layout primarily affected the mixing near the inlet diffuser and the extent of this mixing had primary influence on the shape of the thermocline. The heat conduction through tank walls and through the thermocline caused widening of mixed volume. Thermal efficiency of stratified storage tanks was as high as 90 percent, which indicates that stratified tanks can effectively be used as a load management technique.

Keywords: Cool Thermal Storage, Diffuser, Natural Stratification, Efficiency Improvement, Load management.

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Authors: R. Tlili Yaakoubi, H. Nakouri, O. Blanpain, S. Lallahem

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The current tools for real time management of sewer systems are based on two software tools: the software of weather forecast and the software of hydraulic simulation. The use of the first ones is an important cause of imprecision and uncertainty, the use of the second requires temporal important steps of decision because of their need in times of calculation. This way of proceeding fact that the obtained results are generally different from those waited. The major idea of this project is to change the basic paradigm by approaching the problem by the "automatic" face rather than by that "hydrology". The objective is to make possible the realization of a large number of simulations at very short times (a few seconds) allowing to take place weather forecasts by using directly the real time meditative pluviometric data. The aim is to reach a system where the decision-making is realized from reliable data and where the correction of the error is permanent. A first model of control laws was realized and tested with different return-period rainfalls. The gains obtained in rejecting volume vary from 19 to 100 %. The development of a new algorithm was then used to optimize calculation time and thus to overcome the subsequent combinatorial problem in our first approach. Finally, this new algorithm was tested with 16- year-rainfall series. The obtained gains are 40 % of total volume rejected to the natural environment and of 65 % in the number of discharges.

Keywords: Automation, optimization, paradigm, RTC.

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Authors: Mehmet Ozcan

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This study was designed to investigate the relationship between language and children’s construction of the concept of objects, actions, and states. Participants of this study are 120 children whose ages range from 3 to 14 years. Ten children participated from each age group and 10 adults participated as normative group. Data were collected using 28 words which were identified and grouped according to the purpose of this study. Participants were asked the question “What is x?’ for each word in a reserved room. The audio recorded data were transcribed and coded. The data were analyzed primarily qualitatively but quantitatively as well to support qualitative findings. The findings reveal that younger children rely more on their perceptual experience and linguistic input while 7-year-olds and older ones rely more on instructional language in the construction of the concepts related to objects, actions and states. Adults differ from all age groups with their usage of metaphors to refer to objects. It has been noted that linguistic, perceptual and instructional experiences work in an interwoven way but each one seems to be dominant at certain ages.

Keywords: Cognition, concept construction, first language acquisition, language, thought.

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Authors: Luís Antonio de Almeida Rodriguez, José Maria Parente de Oliveira, Ednelson Oliveira

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In the last two decades, the world’s aviation authorities have made several attempts to create consensus about a global and accepted approach for applying semantics to web services registry descriptions. This problem has led communities to face a fat and disorganized infrastructure to describe aeronautical web services. It is usual for developers to implement ad-hoc connections among consumers and providers and manually create non-standardized service compositions, which need some particular approach to compose and semantically discover a desired web service. Current practices are not precise and tend to focus on lightweight specifications of some parts of the OWL-S and embed them into syntactic descriptions (SOAP artifacts and OWL language). It is necessary to have the ability to manage the use of both technologies. This paper presents an implementation of the ontology OWL-S that describes a Brazilian Aeronautical Web Service Registry, which makes it able to publish, advertise, make multi-criteria semantic discovery aligned with the ideas of the System Wide Information Management (SWIM) Program, and invoke web services within the Air Traffic Management context. The proposal’s best finding is a generic approach to describe semantic web services. The paper also presents a set of functional requirements to guide the ontology development and to compare them to the results to validate the implementation of the OWL-S Ontology.

Keywords: Aeronautical Web Services, OWL-S, Semantic Web Services Discovery, Ontologies.

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Authors: A. Elbaz, K. Spang

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Infrastructure projects are often subjected to delays and cost overruns and mistakenly described as unsuccessful projects. These projects have many peculiarities such as public attention, impact on the environment, subjected to special regulations, etc. They also deal with several stakeholders with different motivations and face unique risks. With this in mind we need to reconsider our approach to manage them, define their success factors and implement these success factors. Infrastructure projects are not only lacking a unified meaning of project success or a definition of success factors, but also a clear method to implement these factors. This paper investigates this gap and introduces a concept to implement success factors in an efficient way, taking into consideration the specific characteristics of infrastructure projects. This concept consists of six enablers such as project organization, project team, project management workflow, contract management, communication and knowledge transfer and project documentations. These enablers allow other success factors to be efficiently implemented in projects. In conclusion, this paper provides project managers as well as company managers with a tool to define and implement success factors efficiently in their projects, along with upgrading their assets for the coming projects. This tool consists of processes and validated checklists to ensure the best use of company resources and knowledge. Due to the special features of infrastructure projects this tool will be tested in the German infrastructure market. However, it is meant to be adaptable to other markets and industries.

Keywords: Infrastructure projects, enablers, project success, success factors, transportation projects.

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Authors: Rizwan Hameed, Obaidullah Nadeem

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Master plan is a tool to guide and manage the growth of cities in a planned manner. The soul of a master plan lies in its implementation framework. If not implemented, people are trapped in a mess of urban problems and laissez-faire development having serious long term repercussions. Unfortunately, Master Plans prepared for several major cities of Pakistan could not be fully implemented due to host of reasons and Lahore is no exception. Being the second largest city of Pakistan with a population of over 7 million people, Lahore holds the distinction that the first ever Master Plan in the country was prepared for this city in 1966. Recently in 2004, a new plan titled `Integrated Master Plan for Lahore-2021- has been approved for implementation. This paper provides a comprehensive account of the weaknesses and constraints in the plan preparation process and implementation strategies of Master Plans prepared for Lahore. It also critically reviews the new Master Plan particularly with respect to the proposed implementation framework. The paper discusses the prospects and pre-conditions for successful implementation of the new Plan in the light of historic analysis, interviews with stakeholders and the new institutional context under the devolution plan.

Keywords: City District Government, Implementation of plan, Lahore Development Authority, Master Planning.

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Authors: Eakong Atiptamvaree, Twittie Senivongse

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A new paradigm for software design and development models software by its business process, translates the model into a process execution language, and has it run by a supporting execution engine. This process-oriented paradigm promotes modeling of software by less technical users or business analysts as well as rapid development. Since business process models may be shared by different organizations and sometimes even by different business domains, it is interesting to apply a technique used in traditional software component technology to design reusable business processes. This paper discusses an approach to apply a technique for software component fabrication to the design of process-oriented software units, called process components. These process components result from decomposing a business process of a particular application domain into subprocesses with an aim that the process components can be reusable in different process-based software models. The approach is quantitative because the quality of process component design is measured from technical features of the process components. The approach is also strategic because the measured quality is determined against business-oriented component management goals. A software tool has been developed to measure how good a process component design is, according to the required managerial goals and comparing to other designs. We also discuss how we benefit from reusable process components.

Keywords: Business process model, process component, component management goals, measurement

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Authors: Osuagwu Justine Ugochukwu, Sazali Abd Wahab, Sunday Sunday Akpan

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Investigating the effects of transformational and transactional leadership styles on the performance of healthcare employees at the University Teaching Hospital (UNTH) in Enugu, Nigeria, was the goal of the research. The respondents were asked to fill out a structured questionnaire. The respondents were chosen using a straightforward random sampling technique and consisted of 370 health workers at the hospital. The result of the analysis revealed that transactional and transformational leadership style has a positive while ambidextrous leadership has a negative effect on healthcare workers' performance in UNTH, Enugu. Therefore, the management of public hospitals that have the capacity to change their top management approach to leadership styles will gain substantial support from their employees’ thereby increasing organizational commitment and performance among health workers. This will have remarkable social implications, one of which is a change in the work culture and attitude of medical personnel from the seemingly anti-community of patients to friendly engagement and treatment of patients leading to a harmonious coexistence among these individuals in society. Investigating ambidextrous leadership and the use of nonparametric analysis is unique and has brought knowledge to leadership literature.

Keywords: Workers’ performance, transformational leadership, transactional leadership, governance quality, ambidextrous leadership.

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Authors: Raja Asad Zaheer, Aisha Tanveer, Hafza Mehreen Fatima

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Global Software Development (GSD) is becoming a common norm in software industry, despite of the fact that global distribution of the teams presents special issues for effective communication and coordination of the teams. Now trends are changing and project management for distributed teams is no longer in a limbo. GSD can be effectively established using agile and project managers can use different agile techniques/tools for solving the problems associated with distributed teams. Agile methodologies like scrum and XP have been successfully used with distributed teams. We have employed exploratory research method to analyze different recent studies related to challenges of GSD and their proposed solutions. In our study, we had deep insight in six commonly faced challenges: communication and coordination, temporal differences, cultural differences, knowledge sharing/group awareness, speed and communication tools. We have established that each of these challenges cannot be neglected for distributed teams of any kind. They are interlinked and as an aggregated whole can cause the failure of projects. In this paper we have focused on creating a scalable framework for detecting and overcoming these commonly faced challenges. In the proposed solution, our objective is to suggest agile techniques/tools relevant to a particular problem faced by the organizations related to the management of distributed teams. We focused mainly on scrum and XP techniques/tools because they are widely accepted and used in the industry. Our solution identifies the problem and suggests an appropriate technique/tool to help solve the problem based on globally shared knowledgebase. We can establish a cause and effect relationship using a fishbone diagram based on the inputs provided for issues commonly faced by organizations. Based on the identified cause, suitable tool is suggested, our framework suggests a suitable tool. Hence, a scalable, extensible, self-learning, intelligent framework proposed will help implement and assess GSD to achieve maximum out of it. Globally shared knowledgebase will help new organizations to easily adapt best practices set forth by the practicing organizations.

Keywords: Agile project management, agile framework, distributed teams, global software development.

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Authors: Cheng Seong Khor, Xiao Qi Yeoh

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This work concerns the topological optimization problem for determining the optimal petroleum refinery configuration. We are interested in further investigating and hopefully advancing the existing optimization approaches and strategies employing logic propositions to conceptual process synthesis problems. In particular, we seek to contribute to this increasingly exciting area of chemical process modeling by addressing the following potentially important issues: (a) how the formulation of design specifications in a mixed-logical-and-integer optimization model can be employed in a synthesis problem to enrich the problem representation by incorporating past design experience, engineering knowledge, and heuristics; and (b) how structural specifications on the interconnectivity relationships by space (states) and by function (tasks) in a superstructure should be properly formulated within a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model. The proposed modeling technique is illustrated on a case study involving the alternative processing routes of naphtha, in which significant improvement in the solution quality is obtained.

Keywords: Mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), petroleum refinery, process synthesis, superstructure.

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Authors: Eylem Koç, Hasan Arda Burhan

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Location selection presents a crucial decision problem in today’s business world where strategic decision making processes have critical importance. Thus, location selection has strategic importance for companies in boosting their strength regarding competition, increasing corporate performances and efficiency in addition to lowering production and transportation costs. A right choice in location selection has a direct impact on companies’ commercial success. In this study, a store location selection problem of Carglass Turkey which operates in vehicle glass branch is handled. As this problem includes both tangible and intangible criteria, Analytic Network Process (ANP) was accepted as the main methodology. The model consists of control hierarchy and BOCR subnetworks which include clusters of actors, alternatives and criteria. In accordance with the management’s choices, five different locations were selected. In addition to the literature review, a strict cooperation with the actor group was ensured and maintained while determining the criteria and during whole process. Obtained results were presented to the management as a report and its feasibility was confirmed accordingly.

Keywords: Analytic Network Process, BOCR, location selection, multi-actor decision making, multi-criteria decision making, real life problem.

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Authors: A. Knezović

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21st century has transformed the labor market landscape in a way of posing new and different demands on university graduates as well as university lecturers, which means that the knowledge and academic skills students acquire in the course of their studies should be applicable and transferable from the higher education context to their future professional careers. Given the context of the Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) classroom, the teachers’ objective is not only to teach the language itself, but also to prepare students to use that language as a medium to develop generic skills and competences. These include media and information literacy, critical and creative thinking, problem-solving and analytical skills, effective written and oral communication, as well as collaborative work and social skills, all of which are necessary to make university graduates more competitive in everyday professional environments. On the other hand, due to limitations of time and large numbers of students in classes, the frequently topic-centered syllabus of LSP courses places considerable focus on acquiring the subject matter and specialist vocabulary instead of sufficient development of skills and competences required by students’ prospective employers. This paper intends to explore some of those issues as viewed both by LSP lecturers and by business professionals in their respective surveys. The surveys were conducted among more than 50 LSP lecturers at higher education institutions in Croatia, more than 40 HR professionals and more than 60 university graduates with degrees in economics and/or business working in management positions in mainly large and medium-sized companies in Croatia. Various elements of LSP course content have been taken into consideration in this research, including reading and listening comprehension of specialist texts, acquisition of specialist vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as presentation and negotiation skills. The ability to hold meetings, conduct business correspondence, write reports, academic texts, case studies and take part in debates were also taken into consideration, as well as informal business communication, business etiquette and core courses delivered in a foreign language. The results of the surveys conducted among LSP lecturers will be analyzed with reference to what extent those elements are included in their courses and how consistently and thoroughly they are evaluated according to their course requirements. Their opinions will be compared to the results of the surveys conducted among professionals from a range of industries in Croatia so as to examine how useful and important they perceive the same elements of the LSP course content in their working environments. Such comparative analysis will thus show to what extent the syllabi of LSP courses meet the demands of the employment market when it comes to the students’ language skills and competences, as well as transferable skills. Finally, the findings will also be compared to the observations based on practical teaching experience and the relevant sources that have been used in this research. In conclusion, the ideas and observations in this paper are merely open-ended questions that do not have conclusive answers, but might prompt LSP lecturers to re-evaluate the content and objectives of their course syllabi.

Keywords: Languages for specific purposes (LSP), language skills, topic-centered syllabus, transferable skills.

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