Dimensions Of Flexibility Research Articles

Relación existente entre creatividad y rendimiento académico en la adolescencia: Una revisión sistemática

The relationship between creativity and academic achievement in adolescence: A systematic review. Creativity is a human capacity that serves to provide original and novel answers to problems that arise in everyday life, and therefore enhances students’ development. On the other hand, academic achievement is one of the main elements used to identify whether subjects have acquired certain knowledge. The aim of this systematic review is to analyse the relationship between creativity and academic achievement in adolescent students, as well as to examine qualitatively the differences between the different dimensions that assess creativity in academic achievement. In terms of methodology, the databases Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO and ERIC have been consulted based on search formulas elaborated using the descriptors creativity and performance which, based on the use of eligibility criteria, have given rise to a total of 15 studies. Most of the studies indicate that there is a two-way relationship between creativity and academic performance, with the dimensions of fluency, originality and flexibility being the most examined. In addition, it has been found that certain elements of creativity such as creative expressiveness act as a moderating factor in students’ performance; although there are also studies indicating that there is no significant relationship between the two variables. A series of educational strategies or resources should be implemented to enhance student learning.

COVID-19 Korkusu ve Öznel İyi Oluş: Bilişsel Esneklik ve Psikolojik Sağlamlığın Sıralı Aracı Rolü

The negative relationship between fear of COVID-19 and well-being has been revealed over the last years. However, the potential variables that affect this relationship need to be studied. This study examines the sequential mediating role of cognitive flexibility and psychological resilience in the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and subjective well-being. Six hundred and eight participants (339 females and 269 males, aged between 18-79 years) completed the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, the Brief Resilience Scale, the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale online. The path analysis was conducted using PROCESS macro in the study. The sequential mediation analyses show that the control dimension of cognitive flexibility and psychological resilience fully mediate the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and subjective well-being. In other words, fear of COVID-19 indirectly affects subjective well-being via the control dimension of cognitive flexibility and psychological resilience. In order to restrain the adverse effects of COVID-19, individuals’ cognitive flexibility and psychological resilience levels should be increased to enhance their well-being.

Everyday politics of care and exclusion: Conceptualising agency in rural south India

Confronting social exclusion is considered critical for grappling with poverty, livelihoods, inequality and participation in rural India. Studies highlight how exclusion is produced through hierarchical relations of caste, gender, class, religion, disability and ethnicity, while documenting people's agency to confront exclusions. However, the making of such agency through people's relations with ecologies and technologies is currently neglected. To address this neglect, we focus on different sociomaterial ways of relating – care and exclusion – which constitute people's agency. We argue that giving close attention to multiple ways of relating that coexist and interweave with each other, may be crucial for supporting grassroots transformations for justice and sustainability. To illustrate this ways-of-relating approach to agency, we rely on oral history narratives with three elderly people from rural Tamil Nadu, while building on insights from feminist scholars as well as science and technology studies. Central to the people's histories narrated in this article are uncertainties that yield non-linearities and loose ends. They foreground plural and flexible dimensions of each of our core concepts, from care and exclusion to intersections and relational agency. This open-ended plurality of dimensions, we conclude, may be crucial for concepts to find relevance in widely different settings.

Proposed Procedures for Developing Managerial Performance of the Faculties of Al-Azhar University in The Light of Strategic Flexibility Approach

Objectives: The study aimed to present proposed procedures for developing the managerial performance of Al-Azhar University faculties in light of strategic flexibility approach (strategic sensitivity, clarity of vision, core capabilities, selection of strategic goals, joint responsibility, and responsiveness) by recognizing the degree of the importance of practicing its dimensions from the faculty members viewpoint, and calculating the statistically significant differences among the sample members about the degree of importance of their practice, attributed to the study variables (scientific degree - college nature - college headquarters or branch).
 Methods: The study used the descriptive method, and a questionnaire consisting of (36) items, which was applied to a sample of (587) faculty members at the university to collect data.
 Results: The study concluded with the agreement of the sample members on the importance of practicing the dimensions of strategic flexibility for the development of managerial performance at Al-Azhar University faculties with a degree of “very important” and with a mean of (4.44), there are no statistically significant differences at the level (0.05) attributed to the study variables (scientific degree- the college nature- The college headquarters or branch), and the study presented proposed procedures to develop the institutional performance at Al-Azhar University.
 Conclusions: The study recommended the importance of adopting the proposed procedures to develop managerial performance through the application of the dimensions of strategic flexibility at Al-Azhar University and in other Egyptian universities, due to the similarity of structures and systems in these universities, and the importance of the university’s administrative, financial and academic independence so that it is able to adapt to various variables, and to attract qualified scientific and administrative staff.

Grading of Internet Malls Using MOORA Method

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Innovative multi-material tool use in the pant-hoot display of a chimpanzee

‘Pant-hoot displays’ are a species-typical, multi-modal communicative behaviour in chimpanzees in which pant-hoot vocalisations are combined with varied behavioural displays. In both captivity and the wild, individuals commonly incorporate striking or throwing elements of their environment into these displays. In this case study, we present five videos of an unenculturated, captive, adult male chimpanzee combining a large rubber feeding tub with excelsior (wood wool) in a multi-step process, which was then integrated into the subject’s pant-hoot displays as a percussive tool or ‘instrument’. During the construction process, the subject demonstrated an understanding of the relevant properties of these materials, ‘repairing’ the tub to be a more functional drum when necessary. We supplement these videos with a survey of care staff from the study site for additional detail and context. Although care must be taken in generalising data from a single individual, the behaviour reported here hints at three intriguing features of chimpanzee communicative cognition: (1) it suggests a degree of voluntary control over vocal production, (2) it is a so-far unique example of compound tool innovation and use in communicative behaviour and (3) it may represent an example of forward planning in communicative behaviour. Each of these would represent hitherto undocumented dimensions of flexibility in chimpanzee communication, mapping fertile ground for future research.

Optimisation Techniques for Flexible SPARQL Queries

Resource Description Framework datasets can be queried using the SPARQL language but are often irregularly structured and incomplete, which may make precise query formulation hard for users. The SPARQLARlanguage extends SPARQL 1.1 with two operators—APPROX and RELAX—to allow flexible querying over property paths. These operators encapsulate different dimensions of query flexibility, namely, approximation and generalisation, and they allow users to query complex, heterogeneous knowledge graphs without needing to know precisely how the data is structured. Earlier work has described the syntax, semantics, and complexity of SPARQLAR, has demonstrated its practical feasibility, but has also highlighted the need for improving the speed of query evaluation. In the present article, we focus on the design of two optimisation techniques targeted at speeding up the execution of SPARQLARqueries and on their empirical evaluation on three knowledge graphs: LUBM, DBpedia, and YAGO. We show that applying these optimisations can result in substantial improvements in the execution times of longer-running queries (sometimes by one or more orders of magnitude) without incurring significant performance penalties for fast queries.

Assessing to what extent smart manufacturing builds on lean principles

This study explores to what extent the adoption and performance of smart manufacturing technologies builds on the adoption of lean principles. Primary explorative survey data on the level of adoption of smart manufacturing technologies and lean principles and various operational performance outcomes were collected from a set of Dutch manufacturers and analysed using Cluster Analysis, ANOVA, and Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA). The Cluster Analysis shows that while lean is also applied without smart (“lean-only” companies), smart technologies are mostly applied in conjunction with lean (“lean and smart” companies), suggesting that the presence of lean principles is necessary for smart implementation. A third group of companies shows a low use of lean and smart (“non-adopters”). The NCAs further specify the extent of this necessity by showing that all individual smart manufacturing technologies used in our construct require presence of lean principles, with MES systems having the strongest dependency. Performance wise, lean-only and lean and smart companies have comparable superior performance compared to non-adopters when considering an aggregate operational performance measure using the dimensions of quality, delivery, flexibility and cost. When analysed separately, the aggregate level results remain true for quality and delivery performance. However, for flexibility, the superiority of lean-only companies is more apparent, while for cost, lean and smart companies are superior. This shows that implementing smart requires lean, but lean may suffice depending on the specific performance objectives strived for.

Enhancing Operational Performance of Indonesia Pine Chemical Industry Through Delivery Improvement

Pine chemical products, namely gum rosin and turpentine oil have become one of the main exported non-timber forest products (NTFPs) from Indonesia. As the biggest pine chemical producer in Indonesia, a State Owned Enterprise named Perum Perhutani is required to operate at its optimum capability. Hence, this study aims to identify and measure some dimensions of operational capability that have the most influence on increasing the export performance of Perhutani. The data are collected through online survey from 207 Perhutani employees who work in pine chemical production lines. Four-point Likert Scale questionnaires are employed to collect the data regarding respondent’s perception on seven dimensions of operational capability, namely Cost, Quality, Delivery, Flexibility, Service, Innovation, and Sustainability. R statistics software is selected to run the tests. By adopting Tukey HSD, a multiple pairwise-comparison technique, Delivery is rated as the most important dimension to enhance export performance. It is significantly proven to have the highest mean score. Another finding indicates that Delivery is found to have fair to moderate correlation to other dimension which directly involved in supply chain activities, i.e. Cost, Quality, Flexibility, and Service. Therefore, this study demonstrates a need for Perhutani top management to set minimum and expected targets of some key indicators of Delivery performance such as on-time delivery, delivery accuracy, length of lead-time, and safe inventory level. The higher the rate of on-time and in-full (OTIF) delivery fulfilled, the higher the opportunity to achieve a better export performance of pine chemical products.

Beyond Energy Efficiency: A clustering approach to embed demand flexibility into building energy benchmarking

The intermittency of carbon-free renewables and the demand changes associated with the widespread push for electrifying the transportation and building sectors provides an opportunity for buildings to go beyond energy efficiency and push towards providing demand flexibility to the electricity grid. The duality of energy efficiency and demand flexibility is necessary for success in a sustainable and reliable energy transition. Current building energy benchmarking models are limited in their ability to integrate concepts of demand flexibility and/or utilize granular smart meter data. Thus, current benchmarking methods are focused annual energy usage and fail to incorporate how the time of use of energy consumption impacts emissions in a quickly changing energy grid. Without a more comprehensive view of energy usage and associated real-time emissions, current benchmarking methods are unlikely to realize the full decarbonization potential of buildings. New emerging data streams provide an opportunity to develop a new generation of benchmarking energy models that embed dimensions of energy efficiency, grid interactivity, and demand flexibility into their analysis. In this paper, we propose a four-step method for embedding grid interactivity and demand flexibility into building benchmarking models that utilizes emerging building and time-series electricity data streams. We first engineer features to produce a mix-type dataset that encompasses many attributes of grid-interactive and efficient buildings, and then we apply K-medoids using Gower's Distance to produce peer-group clusters. We apply the method to a case study of 306 primary and secondary schools in southern California, USA. The results show that the method effectively clusters buildings by attributes of demand flexibility and energy efficiency. The clustering results reveal patterns in inefficient building operations and demand inflexibility at the building peer group level. The interpretation of clusters can serve as an integrated energy efficiency and demand flexibility benchmarking model and inform performance-specific policy targeting for buildings that go beyond traditional efficiency measures.

The Role of Strategic Flexibility in Achieving Organization Effectiveness: Analytical Research in the Directorates of the Ministry of Education

This research aims to know the role of strategic flexibility in achieving organizational effectiveness by studying the dimensions of strategic flexibility (capacity flexibility, resource flexibility, information flexibility, and coordination flexibility) on the dimensions of organization effectiveness (environmental adaptation, productivity and achieving goals) through an analytical study conducted in six directorates in the office of the Iraqi Ministry of Education.
 The research problem was represented in the form of questions, the most prominent of which was "What is the role of strategic flexibility in achieving organization effectiveness?" The descriptive analytical approach was relied on in applying the research, as the questionnaire was used as a tool for data collection and was prepared using ready-made standards, and the questionnaire was distributed to a sample of (131) individuals in (6) directorates in the Ministry of Education. The sample top management senior and middle represented by (general manager, assistant general manager, department manager, assistant department manager, division official), as the researcher used the five-point Likert scale to determine the answers to the paragraphs of the questionnaire, and then the data was analyzed and hypotheses tested using statistical tools and methods and analyzed using ready-made statistical programs(SPSS-V28) and (Excel 2010) to extract the results.
 Through the results, it is clear that there is a role of strategic flexibility in its dimensions (capabilities flexibility, resources flexibility, information flexibility and coordination flexibility) in achieving organization effectiveness

An investigation of multicultural personality traits of EFL learners in English as a medium of instruction setting: The case of Saudi Arabia.

Many studies have investigated the effect of multilingualism on improving personality traits, namely cultural empathy, open-mindedness, flexibility, emotional stability, and social initiative of international students, or students in an international degree program. However, few studies have examined such an issue for EFL learners as they further their academic levels in English as a medium of instruction (EMI) setting. The main tool used in this exploratory descriptive study was the short version (40 items) of the multicultural personality questionnaire (MPQ) that was developed by Van der Zee et al. Five hundred and seventy-seven Saudi female EFL undergraduates participated voluntarily across various academic levels (1–8), as well as recently graduated students; all of whom were exposed to various amounts of EMI. Prior to the study and before administering the questionnaire, the IELTS test was used to measure language proficiency of EFL learners to make sure that the collected data of the MPQ were analyzed statistically to generate means and standard deviations. The results of ANOVA test revealed that not only did all participants improved in cultural empathy followed by open-mindedness, but their improvement of the other dimensions of flexibility, social initiative, and emotional stability appeared to be randomly similar between only two or three groups of academic levels. The results also showed that there was no gradual sequence of developments or deterioration of any multicultural personality dimensions as students advanced in their academic levels or as a result of getting exposed to various amounts of EMI. Finally, this research provides some implications related to widening the scope of the study for further research such as comparing trilingual and bilingual learners and modifying the diagnostic ability of the MPQ.

Covid-19 Pandemi Sürecinde Evden Çalışmanın İş Stresi Üzerine Etkisi

Covid-19 salgını, dünya çapında insan yaşamının neredeyse tüm yönlerini alt üst etmiştir. Beraberinde birçok zorluğa ve tedbir amaçlı birçok değişikliğe neden olan Covid-19 pandemi süreci çalışma alanını da etkilemiş, birçok sektörde evden çalışmaya geçiş yapılmıştır. Hızlı bir şekilde evden çalışmaya geçiş sürecinin yaşanması bunun yanı sıra trajik can kayıpları, yaşanan değişikliklere uyum sağlama süreci, hastalık bulaşma riski gibi birçok kaygı ve belirsizlik insanları derinden etkilemiştir. Bu çerçevede araştırmanın amacı, Covid-19 pandemi sürecinde evden çalışmanın, iş stresi üzerine etkisinin irdelenmesidir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda toplam 169 kişiye anket uygulanarak, konuya ilişkin veriler toplanmıştır. Çalışmada verilerin analizinde SPSS 25.0 programından yararlanılmıştır. Ölçeklerin güvenilirlik ve geçerlilik analizlerinden sonra korelasyon ve regresyon analizi ile hipotezler test edilmiştir. Analiz sonucunda Covid-19 pandemi sürecinde evden çalışmanın iş stresini negatif yönde etkilediği sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. Bunun yanı sıra evden çalışma alt boyutlarından esneklik boyutunun iş stresi üzerinde istatiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkisi görülmezken, verimlilik boyutunun iş stresini pozitif etkilediği, örgütsel güven ve iş yaşam müdahalesi boyutunun ise negatif yönde iş stresini etkilediği tespit edilmiştir.

Describing social stigma of disability’s family through circumplex model on film

The biographical film, Zero to Hero, shows the true story of Hong Kong sprinter So Wa Wai who won the 1996-2008 Paralympic Olympics. This study aims to identify signs to build meaning based on speech (words), images, images and sounds, words and gestures/body language, images and gestures/body language, images and objects, and words and objects. Identification of the mother's role in controlling the balance of the dimensions of cohesion, and flexibility through the application of effective communication with family members and the community is illustrated in this study. Dimensions of cohesion and flexibility that is based on Olson's Circumplex model describing family functions. Parenting interactions through the communication dimension of the mother figure play an important role in the Circumplex model. The analytical method used is Umberto Eco's semiotics which relies on the constructivism paradigm. The results showed that the Zero to Hero film contains three meaningful signs based on Olson's Circumplex model, namely signs in the form of speech, speech and body language, and speech and objects.

Being digital and flexible to navigate the storm: How digital transformation enhances supply chain flexibility in turbulent environments

The growing environmental business uncertainties have forced companies to focus on developing more flexible supply chains. Digital transformation has been considered a key means to achieving such flexibility, but the literature lacks empirical evidence about how digital technologies effectively contribute to it. Thus, this study aims to analyze how Smart Supply Chain (i.e., a supply chain enabled by digital transformation) contributes to supply chain flexibility and operational performance in environments surrounded by customer and supplier uncertainty. We adopt the organizational information-processing theory to explain the fit between information needs to reduce these uncertainties through more supply chain flexibility (sourcing, delivery, and manufacturing) and information capabilities provided by three main dimensions of the Smart Supply Chain (digital transformation strategy, digital base technologies, and digital front-end technologies). We relate these information-processing fit between Smart Supply Chain and flexibility with the boundary conditions of environmental uncertainty and operational performance improvements. Such relationships are analyzed through moderation and mediation regression tests based on 379 manufacturing companies surveyed. Our findings show that Smart Supply Chain has a statistical association with operational performance through the sequential mediating role of the three supply chain flexibility dimensions. We also found that environments with high customer uncertainty increase the use of base technologies (IoT, cloud, big data, AI, and blockchain) to reach delivery flexibility and support manufacturing flexibility. When companies face high supplier uncertainty, they use front-end technologies (i.e., robotics, 3D printing, simulation, and augmented reality) to increase sourcing flexibility. We show new advances in supply chain flexibility through digital transformation.

Looking back and moving forward: dimensions of coping flexibility divergently predict long-term bereavement outcomes

ABSTRACT Background and Objectives Bereavement is a serious public health concern. Some people suffer prolonged and debilitating functional impairment after the death of a loved one. Evidence suggests that flexibility in coping approaches predicts resilience after stressful life events, but its long-term effects after the unique experience of bereavement are unknown. Which strategies of coping flexibility predict better—or worse—adjustment over time for bereaved people and at what times? Design and Methods The present study used path analyses to investigate longitudinal effects of forward-focus and loss-focus coping strategies on symptoms of persistent complex bereavement disorder (PCBD), depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder in a spousally bereaved adult sample (N = 248) at three time-points after the loss (∼3 months, ∼14 months, and ∼25 months). Results Forward-focus coping demonstrated adaptive utility overall, with sooner effects on PCBD than on depression. By contrast, loss-focus coping demonstrated a delayed-onset, maladaptive pattern. Conclusions The findings contribute to the coping flexibility literature by suggesting that the adaptiveness or maladaptiveness of different coping strategies may depend on the context that requires coping. In particular, forward-focus coping may be substantially more advantageous than loss-focus coping in the context of bereavement. Implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

Joint Scheduling and Trajectory Optimization of Charging UAV in Wireless Rechargeable Sensor Networks

Wireless rechargeable sensor networks with a charging unmanned aerial vehicle (CUAV) have broad application prospects in the power supply of the rechargeable sensor nodes (SNs). However, how to schedule a CUAV and design the trajectory to improve the charging efficiency of the entire system is still a vital problem. In this article, we formulate a joint-CUAV scheduling and trajectory optimization problem (JSTOP) to simultaneously minimize the hovering points of CUAV, the number of the repeatedly covered SNs, and the flying distance of CUAV for charging all SNs. Due to the complexity of JSTOP, it is decomposed into two optimization subproblems that are CUAV scheduling optimization problem (CSOP) and CUAV trajectory optimization problem (CTOP). CSOP is a hybrid optimization problem that consists of the continuous and discrete solution space, and the solution dimension in CSOP is not fixed since it should be changed with the number of hovering points of CUAV. Moreover, CTOP is a completely discrete optimization problem. Thus, we propose a particle swarm optimization (PSO) with a flexible dimension mechanism, a <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$K$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -means operator, and a punishment-compensation mechanism (PSOFKP) and a PSO with a discretization factor, a 2-opt operator, and a path crossover reduction mechanism (PSOD2P) to solve the converted CSOP and CTOP, respectively. Simulation results evaluate the benefits of PSOFKP and PSOD2P under different scales and settings of the network, and the stability of the proposed algorithms is verified.

Understanding flexibility – dimensions of employee behavior flexibility

Abstract Purpose The purpose of this article is to present a model of flexible organisational behaviour of employees [FOBE], which is a proposal for a consistent description of employee flexibility. In accordance with the assumptions adopted, the empirical analysis in this work covers the dimensions of flexibility described as a cluster of indicators, not separate incidents of behaviour. Design/methodology/approach The theoretical model is based on in-depth literary studies in the field of psychology, sociology and management. The empirical verification is based on the methodology of quantitative research. Findings The findings confirm the existence of links between the behavioural indicators assigned to individual dimensions of flexibility. In most cases, this is a statistically significant and positive correlation. It should be noted, however, that the strength of relationships between indicators in individual dimensions is diverse, and in addition, trans-dimensional statistical dependencies have also been noted. Such a state may result, among others, from the fact that diverse behaviours may have a common source in a specific organisational solution. The results of the statistical analysis also confirm the heterogeneity of behavioural flexibility and the legitimacy of separating it into four dimensions. Originality/value In the theoretical model, flexibility is treated as a heterogeneous category, thanks to which, in the empirical dimension based on identified indicators, it becomes possible not only to determine the general level of flexibility of behaviour but also the flexibility in these dimensions (task-oriented, functional, temporal, and spatial).

The Role of Supply Chain Resilience on SMEs’ Performance: The Case of an Emerging Economy

Existing studies have predominantly explored the influence of supply chain resilience on the performance of firms in the context of developed economies. This study highlights the need for SMEs to be prepared to tackle uncertainties in business operations. Background: Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a critical role in every economy, and limited studies have highlighted the significance of resilience in the firms. Therefore, this study aims to determine the impact of supply chain resilience on SMEs’ performance in Saudi Arabia based on three dimensions of resilience, namely agility, robustness, and flexibility. It aims to investigate how they relate to the dimensions of SMEs’ performance, namely production performance and market/sales performance. This study also investigates the overall impact of supply chain resilience as a construct on SMEs’ performance. Methods: This study employed a quantitative research design to answer the research questions. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. The study was based on 255 samples of managers in SMEs from Saudi Arabia. The hypothesized model has been tested using the SPSS/Amos 26. Results: Based on the findings, it has been found that supply chain agility and flexibility had a significant positive relationship with SMEs’ production and marketing/sales performances. Supply chain robustness demonstrated a significant positive relationship with SMEs’ production performance but not their marketing/sales performances. Overall, there was a significant positive relationship between supply chain resilience and SMEs’ performance. Conclusions: This study contributes to the body of literature on supply chain resilience by expounding knowledge on aspects such as agility, flexibility, and robustness. The study enhances our understanding of the role of supply chain resilience on SMEs’ performance in an emerging economy context.

Efficient binary diffusion matrix structures for dynamic key-dependent cryptographic algorithms

In this paper, we propose a new mechanism for the generation of dynamic binary diffusion matrices, with a flexible dimension (n×n), to be used in the design of new symmetric cryptographic algorithms. The proposed framework defines four primary invertible and non-invertible binary diffusion matrix forms. The advantages of these forms stem from the dynamic key approach, where each primary matrix requires the construction of two pseudo-random sub-matrices (Mu and Mv) with a size that depends on two variables (m and l). A cryptographic analysis was carried out to detect the optimal size of m and l for the construction of the matrices to achieve the best possible cryptographic performance and thus, to provide better immunity against different types of attacks. The results showed that the optimal size for m is ∈{n2−1,n2,n2+1}, and for l=n−m. Accordingly, the proposed scheme was designed with an optimal size of m and l, which resulted an acceptable linear branch number and low fixed numbers. In comparison to the existing static diffusion techniques, the proposed solution offers a higher security level since the diffusion matrices are constantly changing and they depend of the dynamic key, which is unknown to attackers.