Drawbacks Of Implementation Research Articles

Status of the Implementation of Citizen’s Charter at Public Offices in Bangladesh: An Assessment

Citizen’s Charter is one of the important and commendable governance tools in Public Administration of Bangladesh. In 2007, the Cabinet Division took initiative to introduce Citizen’s Charter in different public offices. This study was conducted to assess the implementation status of Citizen’s Charter in Ministry and field level offices of Bangladesh with its challenges. To achieve the research objectives, this study followed both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Sample survey with semi-structured questionnaires was used for collecting primary data while secondary data were collected from all relevant sources. The study showed that the implementation status of Citizen’s Charter at public offices in Bangladesh is still in its infancy. The service providers are not strictly following their Citizen’s Charter in their routine work. There are a number of drawbacks in implementation of Citizen’s Charter in the public offices. Lack of adequate public awareness is the leading cause of poor implementation of Citizen’s Charter. In addition, lack of proper knowledge among the citizens or service recipients, lack of positive attitude of service providers, communication gap between the service receivers and the service providers and lack of proper monitoring and feedback mechanism were other barriers. The study has come up with the conclusion that, institutionalization of the awareness-building programme, capacity building of the service providers and strengthening monitoring mechanisms are essential to overcome these challenges

Status of the Implementation of Citizen’s Charter at Public Offices in Bangladesh: An Assessment

Citizen’s Charter is one of the important and commendable governance tools in Public Administration of Bangladesh. In 2007, the Cabinet Division took initiative to introduce Citizen’s Charter in different public offices. This study was conducted to assess the implementation status of Citizen’s Charter in Ministry and field level offices of Bangladesh with its challenges. To achieve the research objectives, this study followed both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Sample survey with semi-structured questionnaires was used for collecting primary data while secondary data were collected from all relevant sources. The study showed that the implementation status of Citizen’s Charter at public offices in Bangladesh is still in its infancy. The service providers are not strictly following their Citizen’s Charter in their routine work. There are a number of drawbacks in implementation of Citizen’s Charter in the public offices. Lack of adequate public awareness is the leading cause of poor implementation of Citizen’s Charter. In addition, lack of proper knowledge among the citizens or service recipients, lack of positive attitude of service providers, communication gap between the service receivers and the service providers and lack of proper monitoring and feedback mechanism were other barriers. The study has come up with the conclusion that, institutionalization of the awareness-building programme, capacity building of the service providers and strengthening monitoring mechanisms are essential to overcome these challenges

Numerical analysis of high-speed water jet spot welding using the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method

The high-speed water jet is used for different manufacturing processes such as cutting, shot peening, cleaning, machining, and spot welding. As water jet spot welding is a concise time welding process, numerical analysis can optimize it and examine the effect of input parameters on plastic deformation and stress distribution that would be difficult to measure experimentally. In this study, the entire water jet spot welding process of aluminum HS30 is modeled through ABAQUS/EXPLICIT based on an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) formulation which helps to alleviate many of the traditional Lagrangian-based implementation drawbacks. Three-dimensional (3D) models are used to evaluate the effect of water jet velocity, flyer stand-off distance (SD), and flyer thicknesses during the process. The weld’s quality in terms of failure or success is also investigated by using stress and strain measures. Numerical analysis of influence factors can be a promising avenue to avoid high-cost post-production inspection, which is intended for mass production.

THE STRENGTHS AND DRAWBACKS OF LYRICSTRAINING IMPLEMENTATION IN BASIC LISTENING COURSE

Development in ICT has resulted in innovations in terms of new applications and software to use in education, one of them is in the English language teaching. This study aims to find out the strengths and drawbacks of LyricsTraining implementation as one example of the web-based CALL in the Basic Listening course, one of the obligatory courses in the English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. LyricsTraining is a website that integrates audio and video taken from YouTube with the song lyrics. It allows the students to play the music video and requires them to type in the missing lyrics or choose from the options provided. Survey was used as the method of this study, involving 30 first semester students from one class of Basic Listening course as the participants. Questionnaire with close and open-ended questions was used to gather the data. The results of this study describe the strengths as well as the drawbacks of the implementation of LyricsTraining in the Basic Listening course experienced by the students.

Preparedness of European diagnostic microbiology labs for detection of SARS-CoV-2, March 2020.

BackgroundTo track the European spread of SARS-CoV-2, decentralized testing became necessary and test capacity needed to be expanded outside reference laboratories rapidly.MethodsWe assessed via an online questionnaire the preparedness of European hospital laboratories for detection of SARS-CoV-2 and listed the main drawbacks for implementation.ResultsForty-five percent of the surveyed labs had a test in place by March 26th which is well into the first wave of the pandemic in most countries.ConclusionsThe main implementation barriers for introduction of a SARSCoV-2 molecular assay in European diagnostic laboratories were availability of positive controls and a specificity panel.

Integrated Project Delivery Implementation Challenges in the Construction Industry

Huge financial resources are spent in the construction industry all over the world, which are frequently wasted largely due to a lack of proper planning. In recent decades, in an attempt to overcome challenges, various contractual and administrative systems have been used by construction owners/clients. One such system has been Integrated Project Delivery (IPD). Its implementation has, however, experienced drawbacks. Identifying such drawbacks is an initial step in attempting to resolve them, and this paper aims to identify and prioritize the IPD implementation drawbacks in the context of the Iranian construction industry. A comprehensive list of IPD implementation drawbacks is prepared using a questionnaire survey. An in-depth literature review of the IPD concept has been combined with a review of various case studies applying the IPD system. The results were analyzed using the Robust Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) method. 22 drawbacks in the Construction Industry were categorized under four themes; contractual, environmental, managerial, and technical. Results show that contractual drawbacks are the most significant. The implication of this research is that identifying and classifying IPD implementation drawbacks provides a useful reference to managers and owners of the construction industry, for identifying and codifying solutions to overcome them.

Establishing the Level of BIM implementation – A Case Study in Melaka, Malaysia

The implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Malaysian construction industry is considered very challenging. Although there is significant support from the government to enhance BIM adoption, the implementation of BIM is still in a very low level. Therefore, this paper is evaluating the level of BIM use among Malaysian construction companies. The research is based on a survey and observation conducted in the state of Melaka in which 90 Malaysian companies were surveyed. Based on the evaluation of 90 construction companies, 63 questionnaires were returned and only 46 were valid for further analysis which covered the main objectives of this research. Result revealed that there is a significant drawback of BIM implementation among construction companies due to the lack of awareness of application process and technology concept. The main factor responsible for the lack of awareness was found to be the delay of organizations to use BIM on their project practices. Hence, it is recommended that organizations should be practicing the BIM process within their company. Also, organizations should have the initiative to develop their roadmap for implementation and development of individual transformation plan that gradually overcomes challenges.

Local Scale Prioritisation of Green Infrastructure for Enhancing Biodiversity in Peri-Urban Agroecosystems: A Multi-Step Process Applied in the Metropolitan City of Rome (Italy)

Urban–rural interfaces represent complex systems that require complex solutions for sustainable development and resilience against pollution, habitat fragmentation, biodiversity loss and impaired flux of ecosystem services (ES). Green infrastructure (GI) is increasingly recognised as an effective tool for addressing such a complexity, but needs priority setting to maximise benefits and minimise drawbacks of implementation. Therefore, a prioritisation approach focused on biodiversity and ES in peri-urban areas is required. In the present work, a systematic and hierarchical framework is proposed for setting priority GI objectives, location and actions aimed at enhancing local biodiversity, ES flux and farming sustainability in urban peripheries. By means of a case study in the Metropolitan City of Rome, the framework allowed identification of the main demand for ES and biodiversity; the most suitable location for GI implementation; and the best cost-effective actions. The GI implementation showed an improvement in terms of wooded hedgerow density, an increase regarding the ecological connectivity of riparian ecosystems, and an increment of agroecosystems designated to enhance the ecological network and wildlife support. Finally, the prioritisation framework contributes to fostering environmental benefits while complying with regulations and management practices from the regional to the farm/field decision level.

Silent Pumpers: A Comparative Topical Overview of the Peristaltic Pumping Principle in Living Nature, Engineering, and Biomimetics

This synopsis presents the state‐of‐the‐art of peristaltic pump systems in biomimetics and living nature, and allows for a comparison by highlighting the differences in structure and function, as well as advantages and drawbacks for technical implementation. For the first time, data of selected biological examples are collected in one study to give a comprehensive overview of the performance of biological peristaltic pumps. The developed biomimetic pumping systems not only mimic the biological principle and by this inherit its advantages, but also show the usability of the principle in various pumping applications and medical research. A direct comparison of peristaltic pump systems in nature, biomimetics, and technology highlights their similarities, differences, and allows for proposing new fields of application.

A Numerical Study on Travel Time Based Hydraulic Tomography Using the SIRT Algorithm with Cimmino Iteration

Travel time based hydraulic tomography is a technique for reconstructing the spatial distribution of aquifer hydraulic properties (e.g., hydraulic diffusivity). Simultaneous Iterative Reconstruction Technique (SIRT) is a widely used algorithm for travel time related inversions. Due to the drawbacks of SIRT implementation in practice, a modified SIRT with Cimmino iteration (SIRT-Cimmino) is proposed in this study. The incremental correction is adjusted, and an iteration-dependent relaxation parameter is introduced. These two modifications enable an appropriate speed of convergence, and the stability of the inversion process. Furthermore, a new result selection rule is suggested to determine the optimal iteration step and its corresponding result. SIRT-Cimmino and SIRT are implemented and verified by using two numerical aquifer models with different predefined (“true”) diffusivity distributions, where high diffusivity zones are embedded in a homogenous low diffusivity field. Visual comparison of the reconstructions shows that the reconstruction based on SIRT-Cimmino demonstrates the aquifer’s hydraulic features better than the conventional SIRT algorithm. Root mean square errors and correlation coefficients are also used to quantitatively evaluate the performance of the inversion. The reconstructions based on SIRT-Cimmino are found to preserve the connectivity of the high diffusivity zones and to provide a higher structural similarity to the “true” distribution.

MPI+X: task-based parallelisation and dynamic load balance of finite element assembly

ABSTRACTThe main computing phases of numerical methods for solving partial differential equations are the algebraic system assembly and the iterative solver. This work focuses on the first task, in the context of a hybrid MPI+X paradigm. The matrix assembly consists of a loop over the elements, faces, edges or nodes of the MPI partitions to compute element matrices and vectors and then of their assemblies. In a MPI+X hybrid parallelism context, X has consisted traditionally of loop parallelism using OpenMP, with different techniques to avoid the race condition, but presenting efficiency or implementation drawbacks. We propose an alternative, based on task parallelism using some extensions to the OpenMP programming model. In addition, dynamic load balance will be applied, especially efficient in the presence of hybrid meshes. This paper presents the proposed methodology, its implementation and its validation through the solution of large computational mechanics problems up to 16k cores.

The impact of higher voltage and current harmonics on the operation of electrical systems

The article deals with the assessment of impact of higher harmonics on the operation of variablefrequency electric drive systems used in processing units at mining enterprises. Beyond that, energy efficiency and operation experience of variable-frequency electric drive usage at mining enterprises were studied. The advantages and drawbacks of implementation of variable-frequency electric drive systems were found. They include energy saving and reducing maintenance costs for processing units on one hand, as well as losses due to their incorrect selection and electromagnetic compatibility distortion on the other hand.

Environmental and economic assessment of leachate concentrate treatment technologies using analytic hierarchy process

Representing one of the most challenging operational tasks for landfill management, municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill leachate varies widely in composition and needs to be treated effectively before being discharged into the environment. To maximise resources recycling with the least negative environmental impacts, regulations on both landfill management and leachate discharge are becoming more and more stringent throughout the world. Membrane separation processes, e.g. Nano Filtration (NF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO), are becoming quite popular at most leachate treatment plants (LTPs), given high removal efficiencies, low cost, and easy operation. However, the need for further treatment of the concentrate from NF/RO has been identified as a major drawback for implementation of membrane processes at landfills. This study aims to evaluate current membrane concentrate treatment technologies, which include advanced oxidation and evaporation. An assessment indicator system for leachate concentrate treatment was developed, taking into consideration treatment efficiencies, operational costs, environmental benefits, and process stability. An analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was applied to the evaluation of leachate concentrate treatment performance. The weight of each index was determined through expert evaluation. Typical treatment technologies were evaluated and ranked based on data collected from full scale treatment plants. These results are helpful in designing cost effective concentrate treatment processes.

Optimizing conventional DMARD therapy for Sjögren's syndrome.

Abstract Primary Sjogren's syndrome (pSS) is an auto immune disorder characterized by exocrine dysfunction as a result of chronic inflammation of the glands. Part of the patients also develops inflammation in other organs. In a complex interplay of different cell types such as T-cells, B-cells, dendritic cells, monocytes/macrophages and NK cells and their effector molecules, all contribute to one of the ultimate hallmarks of pSS: B-cell hyperactivity, subsequent autoantibody production and eventually formation of germinal center-like structures in the salivary gland. Effective treatment options for this disease are currently lacking. Biological DMARDs (bDMARDs) including those targeting B-cells or B-cell activation (directly or indirectly) have been studied, so far with limited efficacy. Besides that, their high costs provide a major drawback for implementation. Relatively inexpensive conventional DMARDs (cDMARDs) with well-known safety profiles have been shown efficacious in numerous clinical studies in multiple (rheumatic) diseases. cDMARDs target several pathways that are crucial in pSS immunopathology and some have proven to effectively inhibit B-cell hyperactivity and immune activation when given to patients. However, strong conclusions about potential efficacy are hampered by lack of standardization of inclusion criteria and outcome measures, dosing and validated biomarkers for patient selection. Proper implementation of these could help to optimize the use of cDMARDs in pSS treatment. In analogy with effective treatment strategies in for example rheumatoid arthritis, combination of two cDMARDs targeting different dysregulated pathways might result in additive or synergistic inhibition of immune activation. In view of this and the unique and potent mechanisms of action to target immunopathology in pSS, optimizing cDMARDs for treatment of pSS is worthwhile.

Drawbacks of Financial Control Legal Regulation (on the Example of Interbudgetary Transfers)

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the legal regulation of state financial control in the Russian Federation. The author, not having the purpose to consider all the components of financial control, scrutinizes only certain drawbacks of organization and implementation of budget control. Thus, the paper examines the issues of allocation of budgetary powers between the bodies of financial control of different levels of governmental and departmental affiliation, of interaction and coordination of plans for carrying out inspections of financial control bodies, and of directions of budget control. The author makes suggestions for the improvement of the budget legislation in the field in question. In particular, it is proposed to detail the competence of certain bodies of budget control, to establish barriers to the duplication of control measures, to clarify the wording of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation in the part of vertical differentiation of budgetary powers of bodies of financial control. The study is based on financial control analysis in the field of inter-budget transfers.

Scintillator materials for x-ray detectors and beam monitors

Abstract

A code-independent generalized actuator line model for wind farm aerodynamics over simple and complex terrain

Actuator line model representations of wind turbines reduce the simulation cost of wind farm aerodynamics relative to blade geometry resolving simulations. However, most implementations are code specific and may not have proper load balancing when run in parallel. Here, a generalized actuator line model (GALM) is developed to overcome this implementation drawback of existing approaches. The GALM can be coupled to any existing microscale solver with minimal or no modifications. The coupling of our GALM model with the open-source microscale code CgWind is used to demonstrate both its ease of use and fidelity. The results obtained from the coupled-model simulations are validated for both isolated turbine in wind tunnel experiments and measurements in offshore wind farm. Finally, an operational wind farm over complex terrain is demonstrated. The simulations show that wake meandering and power production are strongly influenced by terrain impacts. Access information for obtaining the code is provided.

A Mechanobiological model for damage-induced growth in arterial tissue with application to in-stent restenosis

In-stent restenosis (ISR) is one of the main drawbacks of stent implementation which limits the long-term success of the procedure. Morphological changes occurring within the arterial wall due to stent-induced mechanical injury are a major cause for activation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs), and the subsequent development of ISR. Considering the theory of volumetric mass growth and adopting a multiplicative decomposition of the deformation gradient into an elastic part and a growth part, we present a mechanobiological model for ISR. An evolution equation is developed for mass growth of the neointima, in which the activation of VSMCs due to stent-induced damage (injury) and the proliferation rate of the activated cells are considered. By introducing the mass evolution into the mass balance equation, we obtain the evolution of the growth tensor over time. The model is implemented in a finite element code and the procedure of angioplasty is simulated, whereby the features of the proposed growth model are illustrated.

Exploitation and conservation of coastal and marine fisheries in Bangladesh: Do the fishery laws matter?

The present study analysed the major features of two important acts and an ordinance in Bangladesh that govern coastal and marine fishery exploitation and conservation. The problems with the implementation of these regulations were identified, and the level of compliance among fishers and reasons for their noncompliance were assessed. Based on two case studies on coastal and marine ecosystems, the findings revealed that the level of noncompliance is highly prevalent, particularly in hilsa sanctuaries in the Meghna River estuary. The study identified coastal poverty, the inadequate and improper distribution of incentives, insufficient logistic support, limited alternative occupations, political interference and a lack of awareness regarding fishery regulations as the major limitations in the implementation. The drawbacks of proper implementation and the noncompliance of fishery regulations lead to fishery degradation, directly affect the sustainability of the coastal and marine ecosystem of Bangladesh and may be barriers to achieving Goal 14 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Establishing a co-management mechanism for sanctuary management, creating economic opportunities outside of fishery sectors, declaring more protected areas in the coastal and marine ecosystem, enhancing logistic support to the enforcing agencies and building awareness are critical to improving the compliance level among fishers. Finally, the study submits that understanding the fishers’ reasons for compliance and noncompliance of the regulations is important for devising fishery policies through the consultation and engagement of stakeholders at all levels.

Magnetoelectric domain wall dynamics and its implications for magnetoelectric memory

Domain wall dynamics in a magnetoelectric antiferromagnet is analyzed, and its implications for magnetoelectric memory applications are discussed. Cr2O3 is used in the estimates of the materials parameters. It is found that the domain wall mobility has a maximum as a function of the electric field due to the gyrotropic coupling induced by it. In Cr2O3, the maximal mobility of 0.1 m/(s Oe) is reached at E≈0.06 V/nm. Fields of this order may be too weak to overcome the intrinsic depinning field, which is estimated for B-doped Cr2O3. These major drawbacks for device implementation can be overcome by applying a small in-plane shear strain, which blocks the domain wall precession. Domain wall mobility of about 0.7 m/(s Oe) can then be achieved at E = 0.2 V/nm. A split-gate scheme is proposed for the domain-wall controlled bit element; its extension to multiple-gate linear arrays can offer advantages in memory density, programmability, and logic functionality.