Mobility measures have an influential impact on urban social sustainability. This has not been investigated enough in the recent urban waterfront redevelopment projects in United Arab Emirates (UAE). This research aims at first initiating an assessment method for the mobility measures on both the morphological/urban form and urban design levels. Then, it aims at applying this assessment method on Mina Zayed (Zayed Port) waterfront urban regeneration project in Abu Dhabi, as a selected case study. The assessment method relied on an established theoretical framework that defined the principles and indicators of both the mobility morphological measures including Compactness and Density, Mixed-Use Development, Accessibility, and Mobility Networks Connectivity and Integration on the one hand, and the urban design mobility measures including Comfort and Livability, Environmental Quality, Safety and Security on the other hand. The utilized qualitative/quantitative tools of the adopted Case Study method encompassed the expert analysis of the CAD design drawings, Space Syntax Theory application through the DepthmapX simulation variables of Step Depth, Choice and Integration. The initiated assessment method managed to reveal the challenges and potentials of the investigated mobility measures in the analyzed case study. Based on these outcomes, a set of enhancement strategies for mobility measures on both morphological scale and urban design scale has been recommended. These included, among other measures, improving the infrastructure for non-motorized modes of mobility, enhancing mixed land-use of the design, having a more integrated mobility grid and improving accessibility. The research findings proved the validity of the applied assessment method, with its relevant investigation tools, makes it a legitimate revising method for the waterfront urban regeneration designs in the UAE, and in other countries in the region to help significantly enhance the attainment of social sustainability in waterfront urban regeneration projects.
As a major public health emergency, the COVID-19 pandemic has some uncertainties. Coupling of the uncertainties and anti-epidemic policies easily leads to the spread of negative emotions. It is challenging to maintain the sustainability of anti-epidemic measures. Therefore, this paper aimed to analyze the challenges that the sustainability of anti-epidemic measures is faced with. A topic clustering extension method was proposed, which integrated Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic information with Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) contextual information through aspect-based sentiment analysis. In addition, this paper constructed a thesaurus of aspect words from the two stages of dynamic zero-COVID and orderly relaxation of epidemic control. This paper established the BERT-pair-ABSA model for semantic expansion of auxiliary sentences and calculated sentiment polarity to gain insight into the changes in netizens' concerns, emotional states and evolution trends at different stages. The research results showed: (1) Compared with the benchmark model, the proposed sentiment analysis model had better classification accuracy and was applicable to the sentiment classification of short texts in the epidemic situation; (2) During the dynamic zero-COVID stage, netizens paid attention to grassroots epidemic management and the scope of lockdown and epidemic control, which were closely related to both specific lockdown and control management, and the implementation of regional epidemic management; and (3) in the orderly relaxation stage of epidemic control, netizens were concerned about drug guarantee, medical care guarantee, personal health protection and health protection of special population groups, and negative emotions always dominated in drug guarantee, medical care guarantee and health protection of special groups. The negative sentiment of drug guarantee, medical care guarantee and health protection of special groups always dominated. The results provided an empirical basis for the optimization and adjustment of the anti-epidemic policies.
In today's rapidly changing economic environment, the success of organizations is largely determined by their organizational efficiency. The impact of innovation and strategic planning on organizational performance is the focus of this study, which was conducted in 2022 among middle-level managers and employees of public and private sector hospitals. A total of 63 questionnaires were collected, resulting in a response rate of approximately 72.41%. Structural equation modeling with Smart PLS3 software was utilized to examine the relationships between the variables. The results indicate that organizational performance is positively impacted by innovation. Furthermore, the study found that the performance of organizations is positively influenced by strategic planning. These findings have significant implications for managers and decision-makers in the healthcare sector and can inform the development of effective strategies for improving organizational performance.
The transport system has a crucial role in economic and social processes. In emergency conditions, a resilient infrastructure has to keep supply chains active through mobilising people and goods. Accordingly, administrations are increasingly using tools such as decision support systems to assist decisionmakers through the evolution of crisis phenomena. The most modern decision support systems will have a modular structure, where acquisition and analysis layers must be recursive. Moreover, innovative solutions let to employ a wide range of data acquired through information and communication technologies and sources of information provided by volunteers. This trend makes real-time information and monitoring a cornerstone to allow decision-makers to implement plans considering the transport system’s current conditions and the emergency phases. Thus, the present paper aims to provide a brief critical analysis of the approaches and models developed, highlighting the progress made and their limitations. Finally, the proposal for a general and flexible architecture is outlined; it allows the public administration to approach emergencies by extending the decision-making phases to the various professionals involved in the resolution for a specific instance, thus evaluating the system’s optimum solutions in managing: the evacuation process; resources allocation and displacement.
The growth of internet-connected services, known as the Internet of Things (IoT), has led to a proliferation of new applications. One such application is the smart home, where household appliances and devices can be remotely monitored and controlled. To achieve this, appropriate network architecture and standard protocols are used to connect various devices to the internet, resulting in an "IoT-based smart home." However, managing and regulating the entire system, as well as ensuring the security of servers and smart homes, present challenges. This paper presents an IoT architecture and discusses the issues and difficulties faced by IoT-enabled smart home systems while also proposing potential solutions. Smart homes simplify home automation tasks and offer greater convenience to users. The Industrial Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has already demonstrated the potential of IoT, and the integration of IoT into smart homes is a logical next step. The article explores various aspects of IoT-based smart homes and highlights the need for proper management and security protocols. In conclusion, the study investigates the integration of IoT into smart homes, highlighting the challenges and solutions associated with the development of an IoT-based smart home system. The objective is to provide a framework for the development and management of IoT-based smart homes that will enhance the quality of life for users.
Purpose: The purpose of this research is to analyze the effect of internal control and financial distress on earnings management and add the CEO’s reputation as a moderating variable. The object of this study is to determine the companies that listed on Indonesia Stock Exchanges between 2019 and 2020. The research data were tested and analyzed using panel regression analysis on SmartPLS software. Methodology: The research sample is chosen using the purposive sampling technique. Data analysis for the study employed the SmartPLS program. This research used accrual earnings management to measure the earnings management, springate model to measure financial distress, internal control index to measure internal control and CEO’s reputation index is used to measure CEO’s reputation. Findings: The research results found that financial distress and internal control positively affect earnings management. In addition, this research results also found that a CEO’s reputation can have a moderately significant and positive effect on the relationship between financial distress and earnings management. Originality/Value: This research finding is helpful for corporate governance in maximizing investment strategies. The consideration of the value of internal control is also a reference when investing. As such, it tends to assist company management in executing investment strategies to see the value of the CEO's reputation and internal controls. The novelty research provides new insight into how CEO’s reputation moderates the relationship between financial distress and earning management.
In order to investigate the development process of crack formation in shallow-buried sandstone tunnel, biaxial compression tests were conducted on a similar model of the real straight-walled arched sandstone tunnel. The results indicate that the initial crack appeared at the arch line on both sides of the tunnel and propagated downwards, eventually leading to spalling of the rock mass on the surface of the tunnel, forming a V-shaped groove. Additionally, slab cracks were observed in the straight wall on the right side of the tunnel, which were approximately parallel to the vertical load. The failure characteristics of the tunnel were closely related to the fractal dimension of the crack geometry distribution. During the tunnel compaction and elastic deformation stage, the fractal dimension of the cracks in the tunnel surface increased linearly, while during the crack propagation stage, the fractal dimension increased gradually, with a sudden increase occurring just before the rock mass reached its peak load. The acoustic emission results revealed that AE ringing counts and amplitude were inactive during the first 4239 seconds of the test. And they only increased during the crack propagation stage. The continuous decrease of the b-value and the sudden increase of the fractal dimension of cracks can serve as a reliable precursor of tunnel failure.
Purpose: Several studies have empirically investigated and measured firm growth in different aspects. Yet, no studies in Tanzania took advantage of enterprise surveys from World bank micro data to explore the effect of contingent and institutional factors on the firm's revenue growth. This paper will fill the gap by linking revenue growth with contingent and institutional factors. Methodology: By adopting the combined data sets from the World bank enterprise survey in 2006 and 2013, this paper regresses revenue growth measured by the log percentage change of sales against different kinds of contingent and institutional factors using Pooled Ordinary Least Square model. Findings: On average, contingent factors such as competition, small size and corruption positively affect revenue growth. Moreover, firms owned by a female, pressure from government regulations, tax rates, access to finance and skilled workforce are institutional factors significantly affecting the firms' revenue growth. The robust results indicate that these factors affect firms in the service industry more. Practical implications: The paper recommends that the government should have a mutual talk with firms' owners and review the regulations for firms' operations. Financial institutions should take an opportunity by giving loans to service firms to boost their liquidity, ultimately improving their revenue. Also, firms should construct a good recruitment policy that will enable them to hire skilled workers. Originality/Value: This paper used an updated World bank enterprise survey on firms in Tanzania cities. The results are robust to different categories of firms' sectors and industries.
Pingwu County, located in the north of Sichuan Province, China, was severely affected by the Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008. The county is part of the Fujiang river basin, and a large number of earthquake-induced geological hazards have developed in the area since the earthquake. Post-earthquake reconstruction in key towns and regional development is important and requires a scientific evaluation of the geological environment’s carrying capacity. In this study, geographic information system (GIS) - analytic hierarchy process (AHP) coupled analysis method is used to combine the post-earthquake geological environment background, disaster point distribution, and social development in the area to construct an evaluation system of geological environment carrying capacity based on ten evaluation indicator layers of geological environment, ecological environment and social environment. The weight of each evaluation indicator is calculated using the AHP analysis method, and the carrying capacity of the geological environment in Pingwu County for each GIS grid is calculated, thereby obtaining a division map for carrying capacity. The results of the evaluation show that the geological environment carrying capacity of the Pingwu County is balanced (critical overload) and surplus (not overloaded). Further, no overload condition is present, and the distribution of loading is related to human construction. In general, the carrying capacity of an area is low in areas with a high degree of construction and other related activities. Based on the evaluation results of the carrying capacity of the geological environment, this study provides suggestions for optimizing the construction of the central area of Pingwu County, controlling the scale of regional construction, maintaining the original nature of ecological species in the natural reserve area and prohibiting development and transformation, and providing a clear direction of development for the post-earthquake development planning of this area.
Smart phone selection involves several product attributes and brand values of the manufacturing company, and the sets of alternatives, criteria, and decision-makers may be updated multiple times during the purchasing process. In this study, a multi-index multi-criteria decision-making approach is proposed using the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) technique with intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFS) measures based on score-based measures. The purchasing of electronic gadgets is considered, and a similarity-based solution to the multi-index, multi-criteria decision-making problem is proposed. The effectiveness of the suggested approach is demonstrated through a numerical scenario. The results highlight the efficacy of the proposed method in resolving specific decision-making problems in the marketplace.
Grape leaf diseases can significantly reduce grape yield and quality, making accurate and efficient identification of these diseases crucial for improving grape production. This study proposes a novel classification method for grape leaf disease images using an improved convolutional neural network. The Xception network serves as the base model, with the original ReLU activation function replaced by Mish to improve classification accuracy. An improved channel attention mechanism is integrated into the network, enabling it to automatically learn important information from each channel, and the fully connected layer is redesigned for optimal classification performance. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model (MS-Xception) achieves high accuracy with fewer parameters, achieving a recognition accuracy of 98.61% for grape leaf disease images. Compared to other state-of-the-art models such as ResNet50 and Swim-Transformer, the proposed model shows superior classification performance, providing an efficient method for intelligent diagnosis of grape leaf diseases. The proposed method significantly improves the accuracy and efficiency of grape leaf disease diagnosis and has potential for practical application in the field of grape production.
A bibliometric analysis is presented in this paper to examine the use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in the domain of Supply Chain Management (SCM). The research trends on DEA in SCM from 2000 to 2023 are explored, using data obtained from the Web of Science database (WoS) and VOS viewer software for detailed mapping of the articles. The numerous articles that use DEA in SCM worldwide are analyzed and summarized in this bibliometric study, producing a complete assessment of DEA in the field from 352 academic papers published in high-ranking publications. The articles are classified according to the year of publication, countries of the author(s), working areas, journals, and content of studies. Based on the findings of this research, tremendous potential is shown for DEA as a suitable evaluation instrument for future studies on sustainability concerns in SCM.
The purpose of this empirical study is to evaluate and explain the fiscal performance of Indian states from 2009-10 to 2014-15 using a network DEA approach. While previous research has compared India's fiscal and developmental performance at the sub-national level, this study departs from the extant literature by evaluating state-wise performance at a disaggregated level. The states are first compared based on their tax mobilization and then evaluated in terms of development spending and overall financial performance. Censored regression analysis is also used to explore the impact of outstanding liabilities on GDP ratio, Gross Capital Formation, and GDP growth rate. The results indicate a positive association between efficiency scores and GDP growth rate and log of Gross Capital Formation. However, the linkage between efficiency and the outstanding liabilities ratio is negative. These findings suggest the need for a balanced approach to government spending to avoid the recurrence of the debt crisis in the future.
The scientific location and layout of emergency material storage and rescue points in urban areas are critical aspects of emergency management. In this study, a multi-objective programming optimization model was constructed based on related theories, incorporating multiple goal combinations with different dimensions according to various disaster scenarios and urban emergency needs. The weight factors of emergency timeliness, economy, and safety were considered, and the multi-objective model optimization problem was transformed into a single-objective comprehensive optimization model problem using the weight method. The analysis decision function was utilized to study the transformation and solution method of the urban emergency rescue point location model. Heuristic optimization algorithms were employed to perform average segmentation calculations on the preset neighborhoods, constantly changing and narrowing the neighborhood range until the algorithm termination conditions were met, approaching the domain range of the optimal solution. Additionally, another precision parameter was utilized to control the accuracy of the final solution neighborhood range. The optimization of emergency vehicle scheduling was used to synergistically solve the problem of reserve rescue point location layout and optimization solution. The results of the example demonstrate the feasibility of constructing a multi-objective model with multiple combinations of different dimensions of objectives and the rationality of the Dijkstra heuristic optimization algorithm used. This study provides multiple methodologies and alternative site selection plans for decision-makers to select the required multi-objective reserve rescue point location model based on different urban disaster situations and their own emergency rescue needs.
Smart cities, ITS, supply chains, and smart industries may all be developed with minimal human interaction thanks to the increasing prevalence of automation enabled by machine-type communication (MTC). Yet, MTC has substantial security difficulties because of diverse data, public network access, and an insufficient security mechanism. In this study, we develop a novel IIOT attack detection basis by joining the following four main steps: (a) data collection, (b) pre-processing, (c) attack detection, and (d) optimisation for high classification accuracy. At the initial stage of processing, known as "pre-processing," the collected raw data (input) is normalised. Attack detection requires the creation of an intelligent security architecture for IIoT networks. In this work, we present a learning model that can recognise previously unrecognised attacks on an IIoT network without the use of a labelled training set. An IoT network intrusion detection system-generated labelled dataset. The study also introduces a hybrid optimisation algorithm for pinpointing the optimal LSTM weight when it comes to intrusion detection. When trained on the labelled dataset provided by the proposed method, the improved LSTM outperforms the other models with a finding accuracy of 95%, as exposed in the research.
Turboprop engines are widely used in the commuter or light transport aircraft (LTA) turboprop engines, because they are more fuel efficient than the propeller, which has a low jet velocity, at flight velocities below 0.6 Mach. For short distances, turboprop engines are more fuel efficient than jet engines, because the light weight assures a high power output per unit of weight. In addition, turboprops are known for their efficiency at medium and low altitudes. Turboprop engines require an exhaust stub (or nozzle) to duct the engine exhaust flue gas outboard of the aircraft. The design of these exhaust stubs is dictated primarily by the aircraft configuration. During the exhaust stub design, full flow at bends and in diffusing sections must be realized by following the established practice for the design of internal flow ducts. Otherwise, the flow will separate from the wall, causing unnecessary pressure loss and reducing the effective flow area. This paper discusses some of the many variations in exhaust stub design, and examines how they influence the performance of the engine, the performance of the aircraft, and the manufacturing aspect. The authors carried out a detailed analysis on the influencing parameters, such as the location, orientation, flange dimension, and geometric effective area of exhaust port. On this basis, the authors determined the jet temperature at exhaust stub exit and temperature at exhaust stub exit plane and nacelle midsection were determined at both static and cruise condition, laying the data basis for further analysis on the exhaust temperature effects over the nacelle and aircraft surfaces.
Last-mile delivery (LMD) is one of the crucial phases of the shipping process. Since e-commerce rapidly evolves, there are many issues that should be addressed in city logistics. This paper specifically tackles the issue of Third-Party Logistics (3PL) provider selection for sustainable last-mile delivery. The 3PL selection problem has been solved for the e-shop company from Belgrade, which has online sales. The management of the e-shop company has identified five possible 3PL providers. Those five 3PL providers have been evaluated according to six criteria such as distribution cost, on-time delivery, flexibility of distribution, IT capability, good cultural fit, and customer satisfaction index. To evaluate and rank the 3PL providers, two multi-criteria decision-making methods were coupled. The first one is a Best-Worst Method (BWM) used to find the criteria weights, while the second one is a Combined Compromised Solution (CoCoSo) method utilized to rank the 3PL providers from best to worst one. To check the stability as well as the robustness of the applied methods, sensitivity and comparative analyses are performed. The results show high confidence in the applied methods.