Approach For Performance Assessment Research Articles

Value of abstraction in performance assessment – When is a higher level of detail necessary?

In this study, different approaches in performance assessment (PA) of the long-term safety of a repository for radioactive waste were examined. This investigation was carried out as part of the DECOVALEX-2023 project, an international collaborative effort for research and model comparison. One specific task of the DECOVALEX-2023 project was the Salt Performance Assessment Modelling task (Salt PA), which aimed at comparing various models and methods employed in the performance assessment of deep geological repositories in salt.In the context of the Salt PA task, three distinct teams from SNL (United States), Quintessa Ltd (United Kingdom), and GRS (Germany) examined the consequences of employing different levels of abstractions when modelling the repository's geometry and implementing various features and processes, using the example of a simple hypothetical repository structure in domal salt. Each team applied their own tools: PFLOTRAN (SNL), QPAC (Quintessa) and LOPOS (GRS). These differ essentially regarding numerical concept and degree of detail in the representation of the underlying physical processes. The discussion focused on when simplifications can be appropriately applied and what consequences result from them. Furthermore, it was explored when and if a higher level of fidelity in geometry or physical processes is required.

A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Wastewater Management and Reuse in Saudi Arabia

A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Wastewater Management and Reuse in Saudi Arabia

A sustainability-oriented approach for performance assessment of existing buildings and a case study

The practice of sustainable buildings has become a general trend in urban development. Yet, with the rapid development of urban renewal, the performance of existing buildings often fails to meet the actual needs of sustainable urban development. To improve the performance of existing buildings, it is urgently needed to transform the existing structures and upgrade their functions and facilities. However, the pertinent guidelines have often been unclear for assessing the performance of existing structures, and a sounder and quantitative sustainable performance assessment approach has been lacking to guide decisions on the restoration, protection, or demolition of existing buildings. Based on a multi-expert consultation methodology, we proposed a revised flexible comprehensive assessment system and a comprehensive sustainability assessment approach. The system includes 4 categories, 7 quantitative and 47 qualitative indicators. Specifically, the assessment system involves a series of steps: 1) building a hierarchical model, 2) defining assessment indicators/items and constructing a judgment matrix, 3) determining the weight coefficients of the indicators, 4) collecting/calculating quantitative and qualitative data, 5) analyzing the data and results, and 6) drawing the assessment conclusions. A case study was presented to demonstrate the application of the approach. Compared to current practices, this comprehensive assessment system may serve as a scientifically sounder and quantitative approach to guide sustainable development of existing urban buildings.

Performance Evaluation of a Department in the Manufacturing Industry Based on Balanced Scorecard

The success of a company, especially in the manufacturing industry, is closely linked to the performance of each department. The final objective of this research is to determine KPIs, measure department performance on each KPI based on the perspective of a Balanced Scorecard-based performance assessment approach, and then determine achievements. The process of generating Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) commences with conducting unstructured interviews to get KPIs for each perspective. Subsequently, a survey was devised to conduct a systematic evaluation of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each perspective, employing the Analytical Hierarchy Process methodology. The computations yielded weights for the four perspectives: financial, customer, learning, and internal business process. Each perspective was assigned a weight value of 0.25, 0.50, 0.125, and 0.125, respectively.

A DE Novo multi criteria heterogeneous group decision making approach for green performance assessment of CNC machine tools

In the contemporaneous sustainable manufacturing scenario and fourth industrial revolutions, requirements of most cutting-edge CNC machine tools are indispensable for finished products with high accuracy, precision and green complaints in particular. Such requirements have impelled the advanced manufacturing industries to evaluate and choose the proper CNC machine tools for best customized performances. In the face of proper and effective green evaluation, this paper incorporates a heterogeneous expert group based decision framework considering multiple significant technical and green criteria by assessing relative importance of diverse conflicting criteria having substantial contribution in performance analysis of CNC machine tools. As a demonstration of the suggested mathematical model, three real life decision making problems related to 3 axes-CNC machine tools based on the collected quantitative and linguistic data from catalogues, manufacturer’s portals, questionnaires, customer reviews etc. are established. The calculated findings are close to those obtained by previous researchers as well as are verified by well-established techniques. Besides, sensitivity and statistical analysis are performed to examine the robustness and stability of the ranking orders of the alternatives as well as to investigate the efficacy and consistency of the proposed method. Hence thus proposed formulated MCDM approach proves to be a highly effective and reliable decision making tool for choosing the most suitable CNC machine tools.

An efficient and accurate fragility approach for seismic performance assessment of structures

AbstractIn seismic risk assessment of bridges, developing fragility function is a fundamental step to characterize the structural vulnerability, which is usually derived based on the relationship between the engineering demand parameter (EDP) and intensity measure (IM). The EDP‐IM relationships are generally developed through three approaches, namely Cloud analysis (Cloud), incremental dynamic analysis (IDA), and multiple strip analysis (MSA). It is known that the Cloud method is computationally efficient while the IDA and MSA can provide the accurate fragility estimates. Thus, the present paper proposes an efficient and accurate fragility (EAF) approach which has similar computational demand as Cloud but keeps the same level of accuracy as IDA or MSA. In this proposed EAF procedure, the nonlinear time‐history responses at the intensifying duration of ground motions were used to develop the EDP‐IM curves. And these EDP‐IM curves are accurate enough to replace the IDA curves in developing fragility curves. To illustrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed EAF method, two typical bridges (a two‐span single‐frame bridge and a single‐pylon cable‐stayed bridge) were selected and modeled in OpenSees and employed as case studies. By comparing the fragility estimates of these bridges to IDA and MSA, it is demonstrated that the proposed EAF approach leads to reliable fragility results, while has similar computational time as Cloud.

An advanced Photovoltaic Thermal Collector Storage Solar Water Heating based on planar liquid vapour thermal diode: Model-based design approach for the optimal energy performance assessment

The building sector is responsible for the highest portion of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. To partly address this issue, the scientific community is placing greater emphasis on the utilization of Building Integrated Solar Systems (BISS) as a means of improving building thermophysics and decreasing primary energy demand. Within this framework, Integrated Collector Storage Solar Water Heaters (ICSSWH) have the potential to significantly decrease the costs associated with the installation and maintenance of building-integrated solar systems (BISS), all while optimizing the utilization of solar power. Nevertheless, ICSSWHs exhibit certain limitations in their capacity to retain thermal energy, particularly during nocturnal periods. One potential approach for enhancing the efficiency of ICSSWH collectors involves the integration of Thermal Diodes (TD), which have the capability to optimize heat absorption while minimizing heat retention. In this context, to advance the state-of-the-art in the field, this paper presents a novel dynamic simulation tool conceived to assess the performance of an innovative Hybrid Photovoltaic Thermal ICSSWH (the HyPVT), incorporating a cutting-edge Planar Liquid Vapour Thermal Diode (PLVTD), and purposely designed to be integrated into buildings’ envelope. By using the developed simulation tool, the performance of the proposed HyPVT collector concept is investigated with the aim of assessing its collection and retention efficiencies under different boundary and operating conditions. Furthermore, to show the effect of the Planar Liquid Vapour Thermal Diode (PLVTD) adoption, a comparative analysis is conducted between the proposed ICSSWH and a conventional one (without a thermal diode). Finally, the developed tool will be utilized in forthcoming research to determine the optimal device configuration through the utilization of a model-based design methodology.

TRANSFORMING THE FUTURE OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS: CRITICAL ROLE OF ELECTRONIC RECRUITMENT, SELECTION AND EVALUATION

Banking sector has been progressively using electronic human resource management (E-HRM) practices with aim of optimizing and rationalizing human resource operations. Investigating how electronic human resource management (E-HRM) practices affect financial institutions' operational effectiveness is the major goal of this research. Data from a small sample of financial firms that have implemented E-HRM practices is gathered for the research, which employs quantitative technique. Using electronic methods for candidate recruitment & selection and using e-evaluation approaches for employee performance assessment are examples of the aforementioned practices. According to recent research, banks' performance is significantly impacted by adoption of E-HRM practices. According to study's findings, E-Recruitment and e-selection have a significant impact on banks' overall performance. Furthermore, the results provide empirical backing for the significant impact that E-HR Evaluation has upon financial organizations' performance and effectiveness. The research is restricted toward Pakistan's conventional banks.

A structured approach for resilience-oriented human performance assessment and prediction in offshore safety-critical operations

Resilience engineering is in the ascendant across diverse disciplines and research fields. Researchers and engineers work to create resilient systems and emphasize human elements for providing resilience. It prompts a new paradigm for viewing human performance in socio-technical systems, where variability is regarded as a measure of the potential for resilient human performance. This paper proposes a structured approach for resilience-oriented human performance assessment and prediction in offshore safety-critical operations. In the structured framework, a context-based Bayesian network model is developed to evaluate the internal and external variability of operator functions. For this purpose, a taxonomy of variability shaping factors is developed for operations at sea involving human-automation collaboration. Further , this study proposes integrating the functional resonance analysis method (FRAM) and fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) to model the dynamic interaction of operator functions and simulate the coupling of operator variability in performing safety-critical operations. The integration augments both methods to tackle human performance modeling from both qualitative and quantitative aspects. A case study is presented in the context of offshore dynamic positioning operations to demonstrate the applicability of the approach. The results confirm that it provides a useful tool for managing operator variability and resilient performance to improve human-related safety.

A Novel Approach for Assessing the Performance of Offshore Ground Improvement in Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) Terminal Construction

A floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) terminal has been planned to be constructed in Saros Bay (Türkiye). This study presents the ground improvement method using jet grouting to prevent the liquefaction of marine sediments in the project area. An approach for performance assessment of jet column construction is also discussed. The study site has a liquefiable ground level with a thickness changing between 2 m and 8 m. Jet grout columns with an 80 cm diameter were constructed under the sea level, which varied between 4 m and 18 m for ground improvement. The main issue is controlling the quality and performance of these jet columns. Therefore, a practical quality control procedure containing observational, mechanical, and geophysical methods for offshore grouting operations was proposed. The factor of safety values against liquefaction varied between 0.04 and 0.29 for natural conditions, while the minimum factor of safety after jet column constructions was obtained as 1.01. The results of the numerical analyses showed that the constructed terminal has sufficient performance against liquefaction. Consequently, the results of these methods have demonstrated that the jet grout applications performed by following this procedure are a suitable and effective improvement method for offshore soils.

A novel holistic approach for the seismic-energy performance assessment of masonry infill walls

The masonry infill walls are often used in the envelopes of reinforced concrete buildings for different purposes, but a large part of them was built before the enforcement of modern seismic and/or energy codes. Due to that, the envelope of the reinforced concrete buildings is responsible for the energy consumption needed for indoor heating and cooling. At the same time, recent earthquakes proved that the infill walls located at the envelope are quite vulnerable under OOP seismic loadings resulting in extensive damage or collapse. The existing standards only provide slight provisions for designing new infill walls and do not combine their energy and seismic performance. Based on that, this research work aims to present a novel holistic performance assessment approach for masonry infill walls. This novel approach aims to classify each wall according to its seismic plus energy performance, allowing to identify which type of retrofitting is needed. A global overview of the international standards concerning the seismic design and assessment of masonry infill walls is performed. Also, the maximum and recommended U-values for external walls indicated by the national code of each European Union country are compared. After that, the new performance assessment methodology is presented and discussed. Finally, a pilot application is performed by carrying out the performance assessment of the infill walls of three buildings (with different numbers of storeys) located in different seismic-climate zones in Portugal. Several types of walls are studied according to their retrofitting type, i.e. non-retrofitted or with independent energy or seismic retrofitting or with combined seismic plus energy retrofitting. It was found that this performance assessment methodology provides important information to support future wall retrofitting. Combined seismic plus energy retrofitting is often needed in the different seismic-climate zones of the Portuguese territory.

A comparison of absolute, ratio standard and allometric approaches for bench press performance assessment in men over 60

Body mass is known to affect muscle strength and the outcome of some functional tests, so that heavier and taller people will be stronger than lighter and smaller ones. Ratio standard (RS) has been widely used to remove the body mass effect, despite long date criticism due to its inadequacy. Allometry (ALLO), in turn, has been applied as an efficient method for normalizing muscular strength. As the bench press (BP) is a well-recognized strength and conditioning exercise for older adults, the aim of the present study was to verify the influence of body mass on the performance assessment of a group of older men in the BP, by comparing the absolute, RS and ALLO approaches. Sixteen healthy old men (65.5±5.13 years old; 75.42±9.78Kg; 1.73±5.98m; 25.11±2.71 kg/m2; 24.76±4.10 %fat) volunteered to participate in the study. Maximum dynamic load was verified by individual one-repetition maximum (1-RM) tests. Comparisons of means revealed that significant 1-RM difference between lighter (54.9±8.85Kg) and heavier (66.2±8.86Kg) participants was identified only in absolute approach (p<0.05; ES=0.57). RS failed in completely remove the body mass effect, allowing correlation between normalized muscular strength and BM (r=0.23), in contraire of ALLO (r=0.03 and 0.06). Kendall's concordance coefficient revealed an absolute lack of agreement between approaches when compared their respective ordinal classifications (kw=0.003; p>0.05). In line with previous research, ALLO has shown to be the only suitable method to remove adequately the body mass effect and to provide appropriated performance scores for the older men evaluated in this study.

Handlungsnahe Kompetenzmessung in der Lehrkräftebildungsforschung – Eine Übersichtsarbeit zu Eigenschaften von Messinstrumenten in der DACH-Region.

AbstractIn recent years, a new branch of teacher competence research has emerged in which competence is measured close to teaching performance. Such so-called performance assessment approaches are gaining increasing attention, but the research field is still fragmented. A lack of overview and varying reporting practices interfere with its coherent development. This scoping literature review provides an overview of recent advances and the current state of performance assessment instruments in teacher education research in German-speaking countries. We examined assessment instruments that provide objective, standardised measurement procedures based on observable behaviour regarding teaching demands. Based on 20 assessment instruments, a category system with 14 categories was inductively developed, capturing their characteristics in terms of context, test methods, and alignment with criteria for performance assessment. Despite the considerable variation, three types of teacher performance assessment instruments could be identified through qualitative and exploratory statistical analyses. The results show continuity as well as development compared to previous reviews and provide suggestions on advancing the still-emerging research field. For example, they can be used to foster the coherence of the research field by providing information on typical instrument differences and similarities as well as essential reporting demands.

Sensitivity-based dynamic performance assessment for model predictive control with Gaussian noise

Economic model predictive control and tracking model predictive control are two popular advanced process control strategies used in various of fields. Nevertheless, for a given process, which controller should be chosen to achieve better performance is uncertain when noise exists. To this end, a sensitivity-based performance assessment approach is proposed to pre-evaluate the dynamic economic and tracking performance of them and guide the controller selection in this work. First, their controller gains around the optimal steady state are evaluated using the sensitivities of corresponding constrained dynamic programming problems. Second, the controller gains are substituted into the control loop to derive the propagation of process and measurement noise. Subsequently, the Taylor expansion is introduced to simplify the calculation of variance and mean of each variable. Finally, the tracking and economic performance surfaces are plotted and the performance indices are precisely calculated through integrating the objective functions and the probability density functions. Moreover, boundary moving (i.e., back off) and target moving can be pre-configured to guarantee the stability of controlled processes based on the proposed approach. Extensive simulations under different cases prove that the proposed approach can provide useful guidance on performance assessment and controller design.

Fundamental aspects in sensor network metrology

Sensor networks have appeared on the 'radar' of metrology only recently and a rigorous treatment and metrological assessment have not yet been established. However, sensor networks as measuring systems underpin many developments in digital transformation, with applications ranging from regulated utility networks to low-cost Internet of Things (IoT). The metrological assessment of sensor networks necessitates a fundamental revision of calibration, uncertainty propagation and performance assessment and new approaches for information and data handling regarding the individual sensors and their interactions in the network to allow a systems metrology approach to be established. This contribution introduces some initial findings from recent research and gives an outlook into future developments.

Dynamic-risk-informed safety barrier management: An application to cost-effective barrier optimization based on data from multiple sources

An integrated approach for performance assessment and management of safety barriers in a systemic manner is needed concerning the prevention and mitigation of major accidents in chemical process industries. Particularly, the effects of safety barriers on system risk reduction should be assessed in a dynamic manner to support the decision-making on safety barrier establishments and improvements. A simulation approach, named Simulink-based Safety Barrier Modeling (SSBM), is proposed in this paper to conduct dynamic risk assessment of chemical facilities with the consideration of the degradation of safety barriers. The main functional features of the SSBM include i) the basic model structures of SSBM can be determined based on bow-tie diagrams, ii) multiple data (periodic proof test data, continuous condition-monitoring data, and accident precursor data) may be combined to update barrier failure probabilities and initiating event probabilities, iii) SSBM is able to handle uncertainty propagation in probabilistic risk assessment by using Monte Carlo simulations, and iv) cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) and optimization algorithms are integrated to support the decision-making on safety barrier establishments and improvements. An illustrative case study is demonstrated to show the procedures of applying the SSBM on dynamic risk-informed safety barrier management and validate the feasibility of implementing the SSBM for cost-effective safety barrier optimization.

X-TEAM D2D Project: Designing and Validating a Concept of Operations for Door-To-Door Multimodal Transport

The project X-TEAM D2D (extended ATM for door-to-door travel) has been funded by SESAR JU in the framework of the research activities devoted to the investigation of integration of Air Traffic Management (ATM) and aviation into a wider transport system able to support the implementation of the door-to-door (D2D) travel concept. The project defines a concept for the seamless integration of ATM and Air Transport into an intermodal network, including other available transportation means, such as surface and waterways, to contribute to the 4 h door-to-door connectivity targeted by the European Commission in the ACARE SRIA FlightPath 2050 goals. In particular, the project focused on the design of a concept of operations for urban and extended urban (up to regional) integrated mobility, taking into account the evolution of transportation and passengers service scenarios for the next decades, according to baseline (2025), intermediate (2035) and final target (2050) time horizons. The designed ConOps encompassed both the transportation platforms integration concepts and the innovative seamless Mobility as a Service, integrating emerging technologies, such as Urban Air Mobility (e.g., electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles) and new mobility forms (e.g., micromobility vehicles) into the intermodal traffic network, including Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM). The developed concept has been evaluated against existing KPAs and KPIs, implementing both qualitative and quantitative performance assessment approaches, while also considering specific performance metrics related to transport integration efficiency from the passenger point of view, being the proposed solution designed to be centered around the passenger needs. The aim of this paper is to provide a description of the activities carried out in the project and to present at high level the related outcomes.

Seismic Performance Assessment of Low-Rise Unreinforced and Confined Brick Masonry School Buildings Using the Applied Element Method

Masonry buildings are generally vulnerable to seismic action, as evidenced extensively in past earthquakes. In order to improve their seismic performance, several modifications have been introduced, such as reinforcing or confining the masonry. This paper presents a seismic analysis and fragility assessment procedure for non-engineered masonry building typologies, employing the applied element method (AEM). Compared to buildings with stiff diaphragms, the conventional pushover-based procedure is challenging for the seismic assessment of masonry buildings with flexible diaphragms, due to the lack of a global box-like behaviour. This study first presents a novel and validated method for nonlinear pushover analysis, independent of the type of diaphragm action on the building, by applying incremental ground acceleration and by considering suitable engineering demand parameters for the assessment of lateral capacity. Based on the failure mechanisms, a seismic performance assessment and fragility evaluation approach is then proposed, for reliable accounting of both the in-plane and out-of-plane failure modes. Finally, the proposed methodology is applied to a number of unreinforced and confined masonry school buildings with different seismic detailing levels, as often found in the Himalayan belt and beyond.

A comprehensive assessment approach to quantify the energy and economic performance of small-scale solar homestay hotel systems

In the tourism industry, hotels and homestay facilities account for considerable amounts of energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Unlike other types of buildings, occupancy has significant fluctuations over time, while mostly being ignored or using a simple assumption based on energy use intensity or setting the occupancy levels. Due to the lack of occupancy rate information, great uncertainties exist in hotel operations, which leads to erroneous estimates of energy consumption in existing hotel buildings. This paper examines hotel operation practices in China with real occupancy rate data which is critical for reducing the uncertainty of estimating energy consumption patterns. Specifically, this study proposes a two-stage comprehensive and quantitative performance assessment approach for the homestay hotel building considering the system's energy and economic performance simultaneously. Regarding energy performance, there are two key facets to consider: renewable energy penetration and grid impact performance. Additionally, the economic performance (annual income and extra annual investment) of various energy portfolios is evaluated using break-even analysis. The impacts of large fluctuation in occupancy rate on electrical loads are considered and assessed in typical homestay hotels. The proposed assessment approach can comprehensively quantify the impacts of the photovoltaics (PV) areas and battery capacities on the system performance in terms of energy and economics. According to the results of the occupancy-based assessment, the ideal PV area and battery capacity are 400 m2 and 16 kWh, respectively, as opposed to the optimal energy portfolios (PV area 600 m2 and battery capacity 24 kWh) determined from conventional assessment results.

An Approach for Performance Assessment of Tracked Vehicle Transmission Based on the Median-Rank Weight and the Least-Square Support Vector Machine

Transmission efficiency is one of the important indicators for the performance assessment of the tracked vehicle transmission device. Considering the influence of many factors in the transmission process at the straight driving mode, an approach for constructing the normalized comprehensive performance assessment indicator is proposed based on the median rank of no-load power loss and the median rank of transmission efficiency. Then, the performance assessment of the single tracked vehicle transmission device is performed with the least-square support vector machine (LSSVM). The results show that the stable comprehensive performance assessment indicator could be obtained in the first 10 speed measurement points, and the performance state of the vehicle transmission device is identified according to the criterion.