Amount Of Available Resources Research Articles

Encoding a T-RBAC Model for E-Learning Platform on ORBAC Model

with rapid development and increase in the amount of available resources in E-learning platforms, the need to design new architecture for such systems has become inevitable to improve the search quality and simplifying ways to take online courses. The integration of multi-agent systems has played a very important role in developing open, interactive and distributed learning systems. A lot of research in E-learning and multi-agent system have been put into developing infrastructure and providing content, security and trust issues have hardly ever been considered worth knowing that security issues may endanger the success of these platforms. The application of a control access policy, as one of the most important aspects of security, in E-learning platform based on multi agent systems , plays an important role to secure interaction with agents/users and reinforcing it with the integration of trust level .The work of this paper is to encode a new access control model developed in previous works based on ‘’ role based access control model ‘’ and trust level, on ‘’Organization based access control model’’ to improve the security level in E-learning platforms based on multi-agent systems. The encoded model is implemented and evaluated by “MotOrbac” tool, in order to define its validity context and limitations for a large and extended deployment.

A Cost Based Correlated Logical Methodology for Choosing Optimum Lean Tools and Techniques based on Lean Survey in Garment Manufacturing Industries

The lean is becoming one of the widely recognized continuous improvement tools available to various garments manufacturing industries. All industrialist manufacturers meet difficulties to choose optimum lean tools and techniques within their resource constraints and to find the perceived value of manufacturing waste elimination in garment manufacturing process and will be benefited more by adopting the idea of this research work. lean survey from garment industries results stating that four types of waste which seriously affects garment firms. Mathematical models and waste relations matrix were formulated and logical methodology was developed for calculating the perceived value of lean tools and techniques to manufacturing waste elimination and a stage-by-stage methodology is provided for choosing optimum lean tools and techniques to maximize the manufacturing performance within their limited amount of available resources (cost) constraints to eliminate their determined wastes by relative ranks allotted in waste relation matrix based on ranking of lean survey as a inputs in the C programme.

Constrained Multi-Issue Rationing Problems

We study a variant of the multi-issue rationing model, where agents claim for several issues. In this variant, the available amount of resource intended for each issue is constrained to an amount fixed a priori according to exogenous criteria. The aim is to distribute the amount corresponding to each issue taking into account the allocation for the rest of issues (issue-allocation interdependence). We name these problems constrained multi-issue allocation situations (CMIA). In order to tackle the solution to these problems, we first reinterpret some single-issue egalitarian rationing rules as a minimization program based on the idea of finding the feasible allocation as close as possible to a specific reference point. We extend this family of egalitarian rules to the CMIA framework. In particular, we extend the constrained equal awards rule, the constrained equal losses rule and the reverse Talmud rule to the multi-issue rationing setting, which turn out to be particular cases of a family of rules, namely the extended α-egalitarian family. This family is analysed and characterized by using consistency principles (over agents and over issues) and a property based on the Lorenz dominance criterion.

Longitudinal comparison between CSR implementation and CSR function’s resource access

In order to determine if firms implement Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) symbolically or substantively, the CSR management function’s access to resources has been used as a proxy for how entrenched CSR is within an organization. This multiple case study examines how seven firms take symbolic versus substantive responses over time and how this relates to the CSR function. The findings suggest that substantive CSR is associated with the CSR function’s decreased access to resources as CSR is incrementally taken over by business units. Their mounting involvement leads to the function’s disengagement and gradual reduction of its resource access. This insight concurs with institutional theory that provides an explanation of social processes that is not reduced to resources. All in all, this research adds a temporal understanding to the relationship of the CSR function’s amount of available resources and the different levels of CSR implementation.

Statistical analysis of blocking probability and fragmentation based on Markov modeling of elastic spectrum allocation on fiber link

In Elastic Optical Network (EON), spectrum fragmentation refers to the existence of non-aligned, small-sized blocks of free subcarrier slots in the optical spectrum. Several metrics have been proposed in order to quantify a level of spectrum fragmentation. Approximation methods might be used for estimating average blocking probability and some fragmentation measures, but are so far unable to accurately evaluate the influence of different sizes of connection requests and do not allow in-depth investigation of blocking events and their relation to fragmentation. The analytical study of the effect of fragmentation on requests’ blocking probability is still under-explored. In this work, we introduce new definitions for blocking that differentiate between the reasons for the blocking events. We developed a framework based on Markov modeling to calculate steady-state probabilities for the different blocking events and to analyze fragmentation related problems in elastic optical links under dynamic traffic conditions. This framework can also be used for evaluation of different definitions of fragmentation in terms of their relation to the blocking probability. We investigate how different allocation request sizes contribute to fragmentation and blocking probability. Moreover, we show to which extend blocking events, due to insufficient amount of available resources, become inevitable and, compared to the amount of blocking events due to fragmented spectrum, we draw conclusions on the possible gains one can achieve by system defragmentation. We also show how efficient spectrum allocation policies really are in reducing the part of fragmentation that in particular leads to actual blocking events. Simulation experiments are carried out showing good match with our analytical results for blocking probability in a small scale scenario. Simulated blocking probabilities for the different blocking events are provided for a larger scale elastic optical link.

Implementation contexts of a Tuberculosis Control Program in Brazilian prisons.

OBJECTIVE To analyze the influence from context characteristics in the control of tuberculosis in prisons, and the influence from the program implementation degrees in observed effects.METHODS A multiple case study, with a qualitative approach, conducted in the prison systems of two Brazilian states in 2011 and 2012. Two prisons were analyzed in each state, and a prison hospital was analyzed in one of them. The data were submitted to a content analysis, which was based on external, political-organizational, implementation, and effect dimensions. Contextual factors and the ones in the program organization were correlated. The independent variable was the program implementation degree and the dependent one, the effects from the Tuberculosis Control Program in prisons.RESULTS The context with the highest sociodemographic vulnerability, the highest incidence rate of tuberculosis, and the smallest amount of available resources were associated with the low implementation degree of the program. The results from tuberculosis treatment in the prison system were better where the program had already been partially implemented than in the case with low implementation degree in both cases.CONCLUSIONS The implementation degree and its contexts – external and political-organizational dimensions – simultaneously contribute to the effects that are observed in the control of tuberculosis in analyzed prisons.

大学生活における主観的ソーシャル・キャピタルが，抑うつや主観的ウェルビーイングに与える影響―ネットワーク・サイズとの比較から―

Interpersonal relationships are one of the most important factors that make students resilient to stressors. In the present study, we focused on social capital as an amount of available resources derived from human relationships. We examined two aspects of social capital, namely network size and subjective social capital, to determine which of the aspects is more predictive of depressive symptoms and subjective well-being. We collected data from 1,772 undergraduate students across 38 universities. Correlational analysis showed that network size was significantly associated with depressive symptoms and subjective well-being. However, the results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that subjective social capital significantly predicted depressive symptoms and subjective well-being even after controlling for network size. These findings suggest that subjective social capital in university life is an important factor for student’s psychological adjustment and well-being.

Contrasting impacts of pesticides on butterflies and bumblebees in private gardens in France

Private gardens are an important food source and refuge for animals in urban areas because they represent a large part of the green space. It has been shown that garden management regime (water use, floral composition) may impact the species they shelter. However, due to access restrictions, lack of regulations and the difficulty of data collection on private property, the impact of management practices and in particular pesticide use has seldom been assessed in private gardens. Using data collected in the framework of a nationwide participatory monitoring scheme in France, we assess here, for the first time, the effect of private garden management on two important groups of flower-visiting insects, i.e. butterflies and bumblebees, at a large scale. We show that the correlation between butterfly and bumblebee abundance and use of insecticides and herbicides is negative, whereas the use of Bordeaux mixture (fungicide approved for organic use), fungicides and anti-slugs is positively correlated with butterfly and bumblebee abundance. We hypothesize that herbicides have an indirect negative impact on insects by limiting the amount of available resources, and that the Bordeaux mixture, fungicides and slug repellants have an indirect positive impact on these insects by fostering healthier plants, probably offering higher level of resources to pollinators. Moreover, we show that the impact of pesticides varies according to the landscape, the negative effect of insecticides being more important in highly urbanized areas. Overall, our results show that gardener practices can have a positive impact on flower-visiting insects, even in a highly anthropized, urban landscape.

Biotic and Abiotic Factors Shaping Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Assemblages in Brazilian Coastal Sand Dunes: The Case of Restinga in Santa Catarina

Species inhabiting Brazilian coastal sand dunes (restingas) may feature a number of adaptations in their development and survival in these physical stressful environments. The present study determined the effect of biotic and abiotic factors on the assemblage of grounddwelling ants in a sand dune ecosystem of the Santa Catarina coastal plain in Brazil. Both linear and quadratic models were significant, but the quadratic model fitted the obtained data better. Furthermore, we also found a relationship between plant species richness and distance from the ocean only by using the quadratic model. Ant species richness was correlated with plant species richness, litter and vegetation coverage. Different environmental factors associated with plant species richness may have influenced the ant species richness by increasing the diversity and amount of available resources. The vegetation may also offer protection from higher temperatures by providing shade, a humid microclimate and a source of water, which is a limiting factor in sand dune environments. Our results showed the importance of plant species richness, and soil cover by litter and plants as local characteristics determining ant species richness in sand dunes. Further studies should explore additional habitat components, such as biotic interactions, as determinants of ant species richness.

Primary users ON/OFF activities over MF-TDMA based Cognitive Radio networks

Spectrum underutilizations are attributed to the primary users (PUs) ON/OFF behavior, thus giving rise to spectrum holes. However, cognitive radio technology (CRT) has being a research paradigm to the identification and exploitation of TV white space (TVWS) across frequency and time. Moreover, several research focus on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) as a perfect match for CRT and little or none on Multiple Frequency Time Division Multiple Access (MF-TDMA). This paper focuses on investigating the primary/incumbent users ON/OFF markov activities over MF-TDMA platform in various channel environments (rural, urban and open space) and show the amount of available resources ( OFF mini-slots) in these areas which are very useful for cognitive users (CUs). Simulation was carried out in various scenarios (environments) to see the availability of resources (IDLE/OFF mini-slots) which are of utmost importance to the secondary users. The transition from ON to OFF was adopted from a measured data from theCommunication Research Centre, Harbin Institute of Technology. The experiment shows the state probability matrix and the state transition matrix which depicts a typical ON/OFF behaviour of primary users in the three environments. The simulation of this behavior shows that there are more available resources found in the open space with , closely followed byremote/rural environment with and lastly, by urban areas with . Thus reason being that, urban areas are jam packed with users of all kind. Keywords: cognitive radio network (CRNs), wireless channel, MF-TDMA, Primary users, ON/OFF

Technical Uncertainty in Real Options with Learning

In this article, we introduce a new approach to incorporate technical uncertainty into irreversible investment. The agent is allowed to make a one time investment, after which she receives a stream of output from a reserver. She is exposed to both price uncertainty as well as uncertainty in the amount of available resources in the reserves. She does, however, learn about the reserve levels through time. To model the technical uncertainty and learning simultaneously, we adopt a continuous time Markov chain model and investigate the incremental value that learning has prior to investment. Moreover, we demonstrate how in principle the technical uncertainty and learning parameters may be estimated.

Task ranking and allocation in list-based workflow scheduling on parallel computing platform

List-based workflow scheduling has received much research attention and been implemented in many existing workflow computing systems as more and more scientific and engineering applications need to exploit task parallelism for performance improvement. In this paper, we propose two task-ranking mechanisms and one task allocation method for the two major steps in list-based workflow scheduling. The proposed task-ranking approaches are based on innovative ideas of remaining workload and hybrid ranking, in contrast to the single path-oriented concept widely used in existing methods. The investigation of task allocation points out an important aspect, amount of available resources, which was not considered seriously in previous research. The proposed approaches were evaluated extensively with a series of simulation experiments and compared to existing widely used task-ranking and allocation methods. The experimental results show that our approaches has potential to outperform existing methods significantly in many cases, but no one single method can always achieve the best performance, which indicates a promising direction for future research work.

A generalized species-area relationship: The Poisson distribution case

Species richness is related to various factors, such as muta- tion, interaction, competition and the amount of available resources for survival, among others. Additionally, species richness is related to the size of the habitat area (species-area relationship). A major problem in ecology is to identify the best function that models this relationship. The main aim of the paper is to propose a generalized fitting formula for the species area relationship. The advantage of our model is that it leads to a unique formulation for species-area relationships, which takes into account both the effects of the minimal area and asymptotic behav- ior of the growth curve for large areas. This approach provides a unique algorithm for fitting different data sets, and choosing the best model in light of the data. The applicability of our approach was tested via a simulation study conducted to determine if two usual selection criteria are suitable to choose the best formulation to be considered to describe species-area relationships. A real data set involving a species richness of fish in 70 lakes was analysed using the proposed methodology.

Sustainable Logistics and Business Competitiveness

Competitiveness, from the point of view of the company, can be defined as the ability to provide products and services in the same, or a more efficient way, than competitors do. The competitiveness of companies is, of course influenced by many factors, until recently, it was mainly the quality and price of goods or services. For some time, often appear another important factor for consumer, when choosing goods, it is the ratio of the principles of sustainable development. Due to the assumptions of companies steady growth, and taking into account the limited amount of available resources, we should mention the assumptions of sustainable development. It promotes activities, that seek to meet the needs of our generation, not crossed the needs of future generations. At the microeconomic level, the equivalent of sustainable development is the idea of socially responsible business. Companies that decide to implement its business principles of sustainable development, they are forced to accept the principle of socialized business.

Spatio‐temporal Genetic Structure of a Tropical Bee Species Suggests High Dispersal Over a Fragmented Landscape

Habitat destruction threatens biodiversity by reducing the amount of available resources and connectivity among geographic areas. For organisms living in fragmented habitats, population persistence may depend on dispersal, which maintains gene flow among fragments and can prevent inbreeding within them. It is centrally important to understand patterns of dispersal for bees living in fragmented areas given the importance of pollination systems and recently documented declines in bee populations. We used population and landscape genetic techniques to characterize patterns of dispersal over a large fragmented area in southern Costa Rica for the orchid bee species Euglossa championi. First, we estimated levels of genetic differentiation among forest fragments as φpt, an analog to the traditional summary statistic Fst, as well as two statistics that may more adequately represent levels of differentiation, G'st and Dest . Second, we used a Bayesian approach to determine the number and composition of genetic groups in our sample. Third we investigated how genetic differentiation changes with distance. Fourth, we determined the extent to which deforested areas restrict dispersal. Finally, we estimated the extent to which there were temporal differences in allele frequencies within the same forest fragments. Within years we found low levels of differentiation even over 80 km, and no effect of land use type on level of genetic differentiation. However, we found significant genetic differentiation between years. Taken together our results suggest that there are high levels of gene flow over this geographic area, and that individuals show low site fidelity over time.

HOW DOES PSYCHIC DISTANCE IMPACT EXPORT MARKETING STRATEGY AND ITS PERFORMANCE: CONCEPTUAL INSIGHTS

Recent empirical findings indicate that psychic distance is positively associated with export marketing strategy adaptation. Also it is assumed that psychic distance may have a greater impact on the SME because such firms probably lack internal resources to reduce psychic distance in terms of obtaining relevant information. The review of the literature indicates that adaptation requires a higher degree of resources and that there is a strong link between the level of international competence and the degree of adaptation. However, smaller sized firms are usually associated with a smaller amount of available resources. Thus, the impact of psychic distance on the choice of export marketing strategy and its performance outcomes is likely to be contingent on the internal resources and international experience.The aim of the article is to develop a conceptual framework depicting the relationship between psychic distance, export marketing strategy and performance outcomes in the case of SME.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.em.18.4.5714

THE IMPORTANCE OF BIBLIOMETRIC INDICATORS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF RESEARCH PERFORMANCE IN GEORGIA

1. Introduction It is well known that scientific advance is the basis for the economic and cultural development of a country. Therefore objective evaluation of the quality of research activity of scholars, scientific and educational institutions acquires utmost importance among other characteristics necessary to understand a country's present position and its possible future development (Moed 2005, Allik 2008). At the same time, it is necessary to emphasize that the level of scientific progress of the country cannot be estimated simply by the number of people involved in scientific work or by the total of financial funds allocated by the government for the research purposes. According to contemporary scientometric and bibliometric concepts, the main indicator of a country's scientific advance is the number and quality of research works published in leading scientific journals (May 1997, Valencia 2004). Based on these publications, different quantitative characteristics of scientific research productivity, e.g. bibliometric indexes, can be calculated. These indexes are based on counting the number of articles and citations in peer-reviewed international scientific journals. It should be pointed out here that although discussions about the reliability of certain bibliometric indexes are still continuing, practically no one contests that the productivity of scientific research should be evaluated through the analysis of the amount and quality of publications as well as corresponding citation data (Aksnes 2004, Abramo et al. 2008 2009, 2011, Chirici 2012). At present, in many countries around the globe, the importance of evaluating scientific research performance is well recognized. Such data about scientific research productivity helps governmental decision-makers to build long-term strategic plans, answer questions about which research directions should be built in future or which ongoing research activity should be supported in accordance with the economic and political objectives of a country. Moreover, such bibliometric analyses are necessary to understand the country's position relative to global and domestic standards of research quality and production. From this point of view it is understandable why such analysis are carried out not only in leading economically developed countries, but also in many relatively poorer developing countries as well as countries with transitional economy (Allik 2003 2008, Wolszczak-Derlacz and Parteka 2010, Hammouti 2010, Suleymenov et al. 2011). Indeed, governmental funding of research in countries with enormous social, economic or political challenges and restricted amount of available resources should be highly effective, which cannot be achieved without correct bibliometric analyses. For the last decade the evaluation of the productivity of scientific research become common practice in former soviet republics (Allik 2003, 2008, 2013, Suleymenov et al. 2011). Georgia is one of such post-Soviet country with transitional economy. As it follows from the Scopus-Scimago ranking, Georgia is in the ninth ten of the international list of productivity of scientific researches. According to bibliometric indicators, the quality and influence of Georgian scientific research are generally low compared to the majority of former soviet bloc countries and many developing countries. Information contained in the Scopus-Elsevier publications database indicates that articles of authors claiming affiliation in Georgian research organizations rarely appear in internationally recognized journals and the number of citations is rather low (a clear indication of this situation was presented recently by J. Allik (2013) showing that Georgia is among 65 out of the analyzed 148 countries, which does not meet certain criteria of scientific productivity during the last decade). Against this background the objective assessment of scientific productivity of Georgian research institutes, universities and scholars acquires special importance. …

Competing goals draw attention to effort, which then enters cost-benefit computations as input

Different to Kurzban et al., we conceptualize the experience of mental effort as the subjective costs of goal pursuit (i.e., the amount of invested resources relative to the amount of available resources). Rather than being an output of computations that compare costs and benefits of the target and competing goals, effort enters these computations as an input.

Power-aware dynamic memory management on many-core platforms utilizing DVFS

Today multicore platforms are already prevalent solutions for modern embedded systems. In the future, embedded platforms will have an even more increased processor core count, composing many-core platforms. In addition, applications are becoming more complex and dynamic and try to efficiently utilize the amount of available resources on the embedded platforms. Efficient memory utilization is a key challenge for application developers, especially since memory is a scarce resource and often becomes the system's bottleneck. To cope with this dynamism and achieve better memory footprint utilization (low memory fragmentation) application developers resort to the usage of dynamic memory (heap) management techniques, by allocating and deallocating data at runtime. Moreover, overall power consumption is another key challenge that needs to be taken into consideration. Towards this, designers employ the usage of Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) mechanisms, adapting to the application's computational demands at runtime. In this article, we propose the combination of dynamic memory management techniques with DVFS ones. This is performed by integrating, within the memory manager, runtime monitoring mechanisms that steer the DVFS mechanisms to adjust clock frequency and voltage supply based on heap performance. The proposed approach has been evaluated on a distributed shared-memory many-core platform composed of multiple LEON3 processors interconnected by a Network-on-Chip infrastructure, supporting DVFS. Experimental results show that by using the proposed method for monitoring and applying DVFS mechanisms the power consumption concerning dynamic memory management was reduced by approximately 37%. In addition we present the trade-offs the proposed approach. Last, by combining the developed method with heap fragmentation-aware dynamic memory managers, we achieve low heap fragmentation values combined with low power consumption.

Growth or reproduction: emergence of an evolutionary optimal strategy

Modern ecology has re-emphasized the need for a quantitative understanding of the original ‘survival of the fittest theme’ based on analysis of the intricate trade-offs between competing evolutionary strategies that characterize the evolution of life. This is key to the understanding of species coexistence and ecosystem diversity under the omnipresent constraint of limited resources. In this work we propose an agent-based model replicating a community of interacting individuals, e.g. plants in a forest, where all are competing for the same finite amount of resources and each competitor is characterized by a specific growth–reproduction strategy. We show that such an evolution dynamics drives the system towards a stationary state characterized by an emergent optimal strategy, which in turn depends on the amount of available resources the ecosystem can rely on. We find that the share of resources used by individuals is power-law distributed with an exponent directly related to the optimal strategy. The model can be further generalized to devise optimal strategies in social and economical interacting systems dynamics.