Generic Benchmarking Research Articles

Advancing the Prediction of MS/MS Spectra Using Machine Learning.

Tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) is an important tool for the identification of small molecules and metabolites where resultant spectra are most commonly identified by matching them with spectra in MS/MS reference libraries. While popular, this strategy is limited by the contents of existing reference libraries. In response to this limitation, various methods are being developed for the in silico generation of spectra to augment existing libraries. Recently, machine learning and deep learning techniques have been applied to predict spectra with greater speed and accuracy. Here, we investigate the challenges these algorithms face in achieving fast and accurate predictions on a wide range of small molecules. The challenges are often amplified by the use of generic machine learning benchmarking tactics, which lead to misleading accuracy scores. Curating data sets, only predicting spectra for sufficiently high collision energies, and working more closely with experimental mass spectrometrists are recommended strategies to improve overall prediction accuracy in this nuanced field.

Measuring performances and footprint of blockchains with BCTMark: a case study on Ethereum smart contracts energy consumption

A rich ecosystem of blockchain-based projects has emerged since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2008. New protocols seek to improve the performances of blockchain systems. In particular, the energy consumption of blockchains has been particularly decried. Unfortunately, those new proposals are often evaluated with ad hoc tools and experimental environments. Therefore, reproducibility and comparison of these new contributions with the state of the art of blockchain technologies are complicated. To the best of our knowledge, only a few tools partially address the design of a generic benchmarking of blockchain technologies (e.g., load generation). This paper introduces BCTMark, a generic framework for benchmarking blockchain technologies on an emulated network in a reproducible way. Based on this novel framework, we studied a key aspect of modern blockchains’ energy consumption: smart-contract execution. Based on experiments and the analysis of one year of real-world Ethereum transactions, we measured and modeled smart-contracts’ energy consumption on Ethereum. Furthermore, this study details how the replication of contract calls execution can impact their energy cost. In particular, we give insights on the energy consumed by smart-contracts on Ethereum over one year.

Designing and implementing a Big Data benchmark in a financial context: application to a cash management use case

This paper details the steps followed to benchmark a cash management platform of an investment bank using a generic benchmarking solution called BABEL. We highlight the modular design of BABEL, and present an evaluation methodology and best practices for its application on real world systems. The performance results collected with BABEL for the cash management use case enables to define the right tradeoffs in terms of consistency and availability, in a way that respects the service level agreements defined by the clients. On the other hand, we show that the overhead caused by BABEL’s integration with the platform at runtime is very negligible.

Analysis of the Role of Generic Benchmarking on Service Delivery: The perspective of Multinational Pharmaceutical Companies in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Analysis of the Role of Generic Benchmarking on Service Delivery: The perspective of Multinational Pharmaceutical Companies in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Improving the Strategic Benchmarking of Intellectual Capital Management in Logistics Service Providers

This research developed a new integrated method for addressing the deficiencies and gaps generally found in past studies on benchmarking and for benchmarking intellectual capital (IC) in the underdeveloped domain of logistics. To resolve the lack of consideration of relationships among past benchmarking concepts and the impacts of their managerial factors, as well as to examine the wide range of elements and indicators of IC influencing the sustainable development of organizations, the proposed approach integrated the analytic network process and the concept of thinking and non-thinking assets with the generic benchmarking procedure. This new hybrid method was implemented in four commercial companies in courier service. The proposed method prioritized and identified the magnitudes of the factors focused upon, including the IC elements, and their performance measures by considering the fundamental characteristics of intangible assets. The obtained results highlight that management focuses on the IC of the best performer and other companies. This benchmarked outcome showed gaps and improvement as well as sustainable development opportunities for inferior logistics companies. The improved framework provides more systematic and specific benchmarking processes to consider, obtain, and compare the in-depth details of IC management. Moreover, ours is the first research on benchmarking that specifically focused on IC management in logistics service providers.

Postcolonial Critical Pedagogy of English Language: Formulating Good Practices

Initially due to colonial invasion, and later through globalization and neocolonial power relations, the English language has increased in its all-pervasive authority. The superior status of English over other languages is maintained in all sectors, including its pedagogy, at the structural level through gatekeeping policies, at the functional level through extending its scope, and the cultural level through the normalized attitudes and professional/social practices relating the language. To mitigate this situation and to advance the cause of linguistic decolonization and linguistic human rights, I intend to derive recommendable good practices for a Postcolonial Critical Pedagogy of English Language (PCPEL). The formulation of PCPEL is carried out by using the constructive grounded theory method under the methodological framework of generic benchmarking for an eclectic selection of quality statements suitable for multiple postcolonial settings. These quality aspects are accumulated from the relevant literature in a cross-matching and iterative or constant-comparative manner through coding, conceptualizing and categorizing. The outcome is a list of twenty quality standards under four quality categories for English language teaching (ELT)—ELT policy essues, ELT principles, ELT content, and ELT methods—which may be used as a quality framework to implement and assess ELT from a postcolonial critical perspective.

Generic Benchmarking and Performance of Commercial Banks in Bungoma County, Kenya

Generic Benchmarking and Performance of Commercial Banks in Bungoma County, Kenya

A benchmarking approach for enhancing agility in manufacturing environment

The agile manufacturing companies have been putting efforts for enhancing the agility along various dimensions to sustain and grow in today's global business arena with volatile market conditions, rapid change in technology, immature and innovative products, ever changing and increasing customer expectations, and intense competition. One should understand and analyse the enablers, impediments and outcomes of agile manufacturing to develop the right strategy(s) to enhance its agility. Although few works have been reported on agility assessment and enhancement in the literature, they are mostly industry specific. Therefore, a generic benchmarking framework for enhancing agility along with step by step implementation process is proposed and discussed in detail. This proposed framework can serve as a road map to enhance agility of agile manufacturing.

Integrated MCDM for Benchmarking Techniques in Indian Service Industries

Industries need to ascend their standards for competitiveness and adopt modern methods with techniques for effectiveness of their system which occurs through convention of benchmarking techniques. The rationale of the study is to review the benchmarking techniques and moreover to rank on the basis of their application in service industries. To rank the benchmarking, analytical network process and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) methods are used. An integrated model of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is used for prioritizing the best practices in Indian service sector. The study identifies different types of benchmarking techniques among which generic benchmarking, external benchmarking and internal benchmarking occupy the first three ranks, providing basis for several critical success factors (CSFs) like planning, reliability, standardization, time behavior and usability as the more important parts of benchmarking. Thus, an endeavor has been made by authors to give a model for evaluation of benchmarking techniques through MCDM which gives confidence for executives to adopt benchmarking in their industries.

Hybrid Evolutionary Optimization/Heuristic Technique for Water System Expansion and Operation

AbstractThis paper presents a methodological solution to The Battle of Background Leakage Assessment for Water Networks (BBLAWN) competition. The methodology employs two constrained multiple-objective optimization problems and is implemented in the context of a software application for the generic hydraulic optimization and benchmarking of water distribution system (WDS) problems. The objectives are the combined infrastructure and operational costs and system-wide leakage, both to be minimized. In order to accelerate the evaluation of potential solutions, a distributed computing approach permits multiple EPANET solutions to be evaluated in parallel. A pressure-driven demand extension to EPANET assists the optimization in accurately ranking near-feasible solutions and to dynamically allocate leakage demand to nodes. Pressure-reducing valves (PRVs) have been located in two ways: a priori, with respect to the optimization analysis, and a posteriori after the infrastructure optimization to reduce excess press...

Towards a generic benchmarking platform for origin–destination flows estimation/updating algorithms: Design, demonstration and validation

Estimation/updating of Origin–Destination (OD) flows and other traffic state parameters is a classical, widely adopted procedure in transport engineering, both in off-line and in on-line contexts. Notwithstanding numerous approaches proposed in the literature, there is still room for considerable improvements, also leveraging the unprecedented opportunity offered by information and communication technologies and big data. A key issue relates to the unobservability of OD flows in real networks – except from closed highway systems – thus leading to inherent difficulties in measuring performance of OD flows estimation/updating methods and algorithms. Starting from these premises, the paper proposes a common evaluation and benchmarking framework, providing a synthetic test bed, which enables implementation and comparison of OD estimation/updating algorithms and methodologies under “standardized” conditions. The framework, implemented in a platform available to interested parties upon request, has been flexibly designed and allows comparing a variety of approaches under various settings and conditions. Specifically, the structure and the key features of the framework are presented, along with a detailed experimental design for the application of different dynamic OD flow estimation algorithms. By way of example, applications to both off-line/planning and on-line algorithms are presented, together with a demonstration of the extensibility of the presented framework to accommodate additional data sources.

Maximum Lifetime Communication Topologies of Secondary User Nodes in Cognitive Radio Ad hoc Networks

A Cognitive radio ad hoc network (CRAHN) is an ad hoc network of primary user (PU) nodes and secondaryuser (SU) nodes, wherein the SU nodes use the licensed channels of the PU nodes when not in use. As theavailability of the PU channels fluctuates with time, communication topologies spanning the SU nodes have tobe dynamically and frequently reconfigured. Given the complete knowledge of the availability of the PUchannels, we propose a generic benchmarking algorithm that determines a sequence of stable communicationtopologies spanning all of the SU nodes such that the number of transitions from one instance of the topology toanother is the global minimum. At any time instant t when we need a stable communication topology spanningthe entire network, we look for the largest value of k such that the intersection of the static SU graphs from timeinstants t to t+k, defined as the mobile graph Gt...t+k(SU) = Gt(SU) ? Gt+1(SU) ? .... ? Gt+k(SU), is connected andthat the mobile graph Gt...t+k+1(SU) is not connected. We repeat the above procedure for the entire network sessionto determine a sequence of longest-living instances of the mobile graphs and the corresponding instances of thecommunication topology of interest (say a shortest path tree rooted at a source SU node) such that the number oftopology transitions is the minimum. We prove the theoretical correctness of the algorithm and evaluate itseffectiveness by implementing it to determine a sequence of shortest path trees of the maximum lifetime.

Multicriteria model for maintenance benchmarking

Maintenance offers great scope for improvement in organizations because historically it has not been considered to have a significant effect on competitiveness. The use of benchmarking therefore would allow companies to identify aspects of maintenance functions which are susceptible of improvement when compared with other organizations. This article describes a multicriteria model constructed by a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP), utility functions and discrete probability distributions for the application of competitive and generic benchmarking in small and medium enterprises. The multicriteria model uses fuzzy AHP to assign weightings to the decision criteria and subcriteria in such a way as to include the ambiguities and uncertainties involved in the judgments of the decision makers. These weightings are converted into utility functions which will then allow the final utility of an alternative to be calculated via a multi-measure utility function. Using data from a survey carried out by the Spanish Maintenance Association, a series of discrete probability distributions were created from the appearance probability at each level of a descriptor in distinct industrial sectors. A Monte Carlo simulation was used to obtain a global maintenance assessment for each industrial sector and company, incorporating uncertainty into the results. The model described provides a global comparison of the state of maintenance in a company according to these criteria with respect to its sector and other sectors with better results. The model has been tested with a pharmaceutical company, a manufacturer of building materials and a sports center.

10.5937/industrija42-6035 = Generic benchmarking in the aim of improving clusters' performances in Serbia

By the generic benchmarking, cluster organizations can reduce risk, and allow better use of own development potentials. The purpose of this paper is to establish a methodological framework for benchmarking of cluster organizations in Serbia. The examination of the formation, functioning and development process of cluster organizations, as well as the existing benchmarking methodologies in European clusters, was used to set up a customized methodological framework for benchmarking in this paper. The applicability of the recommended methodology is verified by the realization of a comparative study between two cluster organizations in Serbia. The result of this benchmarking of clusters' performances represents, among others, determined set of measures and actions to improve the business performances of the Medical Start up Cluster. The research is useful not only to creators of regional development policies, providing a useful benchmarking methodology, but also to the management of cluster organizations in Serbia, by providing them with a tool which if continuously applied may improve the performances of cluster members and cluster organizations as a whole.

A decision support system for maintenance benchmarking in big buildings

Maintenance has not traditionally been considered an important factor in the firm’s productivity and competitiveness – until the past decade at least – so this function offers organisations considerable potential for improvement. The use of benchmarking in maintenance could consequently help firms gain a competitive advantage. This article presents a decision support system that uses the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), fuzzy AHP and utility functions to carry out competitive and generic benchmarking in big buildings. Using data on the state of maintenance in firms in the big buildings sector and in firms with more than 500 employees in other industrial sectors in Spain, the author built discrete probability distributions for each criterion evaluated and each industrial sector analysed. All the information available from the sector is used in the comparisons rather than mean values. The decision support system is tested in two big buildings: a hospital and a department store.

A Comparison of Population-based Optimization Techniques for Water Distribution System Expansion and Operation

Abstract This paper presents a water distribution system expansion and operation methodology employing population-based optimization algorithms applied to the Battle of Background Leakage Assessment for Water Networks competition. The problem is formulated as constrained single and multiple-objective optimization problems and implemented in a generic hydraulic optimization and benchmarking software application (Acquamark). To accelerate the evaluation of potential solutions, a distributed computing approach is employed, where necessary, to permit multiple solutions to be executed and evaluated in parallel. A pressure-driven demand extension to the EPANET hydraulic model is also employed to assist the optimization techniques in accurately ranking near-feasible solutions and to dynamically allocate leakage demand to the end nodes of each pipe.

Framework for benchmarking online retailing performance using fuzzy AHP and TOPSIS method

Article history: Received 25 October 2011 Received in revised form November, 2, 2011 Accepted March, 5 2012 Available online 7 March 2012 Due to increasing penetration of internet connectivity, on-line retail is growing from the pioneer phase to increasing integration within people's lives and companies' normal business practices. In the increasingly competitive environment, on-line retail service providers require systematic and structured approach to have cutting edge over the rival. Thus, the use of benchmarking has become indispensable to accomplish superior performance to support the on-line retail service providers. This paper uses the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) approach to support a generic on-line retail benchmarking process. Critical success factors for on-line retail service have been identified from a structured questionnaire and literature and prioritized using fuzzy AHP. Using these critical success factors, performance levels of the ORENET an on-line retail service provider is benchmarked along with four other on-line service providers using TOPSIS method. Based on the benchmark, their relative ranking has also been illustrated. © 2012 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved

BENCHMARKING AS A FUNCTION OF COMPETITIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY IN BUSINESS

Benchmarking is a method of comparison between its’ own and the best possible organization that would contribute to the implementation of best practice solutions, new technologies, improvement of business processes and the quality of products, cost savings, increase of productivity, creativity, innovation and competitiveness on the market, and would lead to satisfying the needs and desires of consumers, as well as achieving efficiency in its’ own business. However, the concept of benchmarking affects the creation of new ideas and lucrative solutions to improve the existing organization, process and competitive products of high quality. It is, without doubt, the easiest way of applying and achieving best practice leader for the maximization of profit in business. There are several types of benchmarking, such as: the internal, external competitive, external functional, external generic, combined internal and external benchmarking. For a successful implementation of benchmarking, it is inevitable to choose a small number or a single leadership organization suitable for comparing and increasing of competitiveness and profitability in business.

Benchmarking Framework to Measure Extent of ICT Adoption for Building Project Management

This paper discusses a component of the research study conducted to provide construction organizations with a generic benchmarking framework to assess their extent of information communication technology (ICT) adoption for building project management processes. It defines benchmarking and discusses objectives of the required benchmarking framework and development of the framework. The study focused on ICT adoption by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the construction industry and with respect to SMEs it is important to understand processes, their indicators, and measures in the local context. Structure of the suggested benchmarking framework has been derived after extensive literature survey and a questionnaire survey conducted in the Indian construction industry. The suggested benchmarking process is an iterative process divided into four stages. It can be implemented at organization and industry levels for rating the construction organizations for ICT adoption and performance measurement. The framework has a generic structure and can be generalized and applied for other countries with due considerations.

A Generic Benchmarking Approach for Research Area Output: Is Responsible Investment a Researcherrs Stepchild?

We contribute to the research policy literature by pioneering the development of a sufficiently reliable and generically applicable benchmarking approach for research area output quantity and/or quality. In our development, we overcome substantial structural problems such as the ignorance of books and monographs or the inconsistent citation behaviour differences between research areas. Our approach offers various new opportunities to stakeholders of the research process. For instance, governments, research funding bodies or researchers could benefit from a traffic light system for research area performance and competitiveness, which universities could also use for strategic decision making on their national research assessment submissions. We illustrate our approach for the interdisciplinary research area of responsible investment, which is backed by a trillion $ industry, and find it to experience under-proportional aggregated (quality weighted) research output. This signals to governments, which already legislatively support responsible investment, the need for additional research support and to researchers a less competitive but relevant research area.