Integrity Strategy Research Articles

Working Smart versus Working Hard: Wireless UT Sensors for Asset Integrity Monitoring

In the 21st century of NDE technology and deployment, monitoring technologies and strategies are completely different than inspection technologies and strategies. Monitoring is no longer sending a technician to a location to take repeated manual data – this is still inspection, just more frequently. Monitoring takes place after a manual/automated inspection has located an anomaly and instrumentation (a sensor in this case), is installed to take recurring readings at that precise location to gather a large sample size of data to be analyzed. These two strategies, when employed in concert, even only on the most critical (10%) circuits/tanks/units, are optimizing asset health, reducing unplanned downtime, and eliminating the need to have people in potentially unsafe situations to the tune of tens of millions of dollars per year. This article will provide real life examples of the ~20% of the best run refineries, chemical, paper, and power plants which have cracked the code and are successfully using an inspect to monitor strategy to change the game of how they implement asset integrity in the 21st century. As you read this article, ask yourself the question, is my facility a part of this ~20%? If not, what can I start doing, and what incremental step changes can I make to my legacy inspection & asset integrity strategy, to use technology to spend my precious budget and resources to be a part of this ~20% in 2024 and beyond? Many asset owners struggle to identify the root cause of fluctuating corrosion rates due to unreliable, infrequent, or sheer lacks of quantity (and quality) of inspection data to make informed decisions on asset health. Facilities worldwide are tasked with monitoring thousands of Condition Monitoring Locations (CMLs) with established NDE techniques such as manual ultrasonic testing and radiography. While these techniques can provide valuable “snapshots” of the condition of particular locations, limitations and inherent errors can compound leading to ill-advised decision making. Manually taken thickness data can vary greatly and result in unwarranted complacency or excessive and costly inspections. Utilizing long range wireless continuous monitoring systems have drastically improved operators understanding of how process changes influence corrosion rates. Installed UT sensors provide near real-time data with a 0.001” accuracy. This influx of data provides a trend line whereas with manually taken data, sometimes only taken a few times a year, only provides a few points scattered across a graph. Asset owners have realized they can use this wealth of new information to validate and discover the effects of operational changes on corrosion rates and make more informed decisions to impact asset extension, retirement, and increasing the efficiency of assets during its useful life.

Analysis of Culinary Business Development Strategies in The Perspective of Islamic Ethics (Case Study In Ms. Djito Batu's Catering Ambassador Business)

The potential for culinary business development in Malang City is growing rapidly, one of which is in the catering business sector. More than 100 catering businesses in Malang prove that this business is in great demand by the people of Malang City. One of the catering businesses located in Malang City is Duta Catering, Ms. Djito, which is located between the border of Malang City and Batu City. Catering Ambassador Ms. Djito is one of the best catering businesses and is ranked No. 01. For the city of Malang and No. 02 for all East Java Province. Of course, achieving this is not an easy thing, but Catering Ambassador Ms. Djito has strategies for developing her business, and they are analyzed using Islamic Ethics. From the in-depth research findings, it can be seen that the strategy used by Ambassador Catering, Mrs. Djito, uses 3 strategies. Namely vertical integrity strategy (forward integrity strategy, backward integrity strategy, and horizontal integrity strategy), intensive strategy (market penetration strategy and product development strategy), and diversification strategy implementing a related/concentric diversification strategy. If analyzed with Islamic ethics, the strategies implemented by Catering Ambassador Ms. Djito are in general in accordance with the existing theory. In this case the Catering Ambassador, Ms. Djito, does not only focus on strategies in general, but the Catering Ambassador, Ms. Djito, also does not forget matters regulated by the Islamic Religion

Stability Analysis with Game Theory in Virtual Enterprise Alliances

The emergence of virtual enterprise alliances enables enterprises to quickly seize opportunities and gain an advantage in the face of unpredictable and changeful market competition. However, the existence of opportunism poses a great threat to the successful implementation and stable development of the alliance. To address this issue, this paper analyzes the mechanisms of cooperation norms of enterprises in alliances based on the study of cooperation dilemmas. The game model of the choice of the integrity strategy with penalty constraint, reputation discounting factor and cold strategy are constructed by different divisions of the number of enterprise cooperation. The study concludes that the inclusion of three types of governance facilitates the active participation of enterprises in cooperation and ensures the stable operation of virtual business alliances under the influence of opportunism.

The “National Integrity Strategy (NIS): Shuddhachar Koushol” and the “Annual Performance Agreement (APA)” for Sustainable Excellence in Quality Nuclear Medicine Service

Abstract not available Bangladesh J. Nuclear Med. 26(1): 11-12, 2023

NESTING ECOLOGY, TERRITORIALITY AND BROOD CARE IN RED-VENTED BULBUL, Pycnonotus cafer stanfordi DEIGNAN AT LUMAMI, ZUNHEBOTO DISTRICT, NAGALAND

In the present study we have examined nesting ecology, territorial integrity and brood care strategy in red-vented bulbul, Pycnonotus cafer stanfordi Deignan at Lumami (26oN). Observations recorded on 300 nests from 2017-2021 showed that birds prepared loose textured cup-shaped nests between spring equinox and autumnal equinox with a seasonal peak appearing during May/June. Nests were made using locally available grasses within 4.50±0.25 (Table 1) days lurking into deep foliage of host plants/trees. Prior to fixing their nest, mates were seen ascertaining suitability of the site by eliciting motions of building a nest without nesting material. Entry and egress routes to the nesting sites were not common. Clutch size consisted of 2-3 pinkish-brown eggs which appeared to be regulated during nest construction. At rim level, an average diameter of nest with 3 eggs measured at 67.62±0.42 mm (n=240) which was significantly more (p<.001) as compared with nest with only 2 eggs (62.83±0.24 mm; n=60). Conversely, mean depth of nest with 3 eggs measured at 37.39±0.11 mm (n=240) and was significantly less (p<.001) as compared with nest holding only 2 eggs (42.40±0.23 mm; n=60). Basement area of nest with 2 eggs measured at 117.80±1.05 cm2 which was significantly less (p<.001) as compared to basement area of nest with 3 eggs (150.34±3.15 cm2). The bird was noticed to exhibit a strong tendency to safeguard its nest and brood against predators. Brood care began with deposition of first egg which grew progressively with completion of clutch size, incubation and hatching. Persistent predation pressure amidst incubation has led to the heightening of security concerns of mates and a consequent decline in foraging timings had triggered rejection of eggs and hatchlings appearing late. Fledglings were nourished and cared by parent birds until they had learnt to fetch nourishment for themselves and evade predation. It is suggested that red-vented bulbul is highly territorial and has a strong tendency to defend its brood vis-à-vis extending its territorial boundary.

National integrity strategy implementation in land administration to prevent corruption in Bangladesh.

Corruption in land administration is one of the challenges in implementing the national integrity strategy (NIS) in Bangladesh. Citizens visiting the Land Office have reported many instances of unpleasant experiences. In response to these issues, this study attempted to investigate the challenges of NIS implementation in land administration and possible solutions. Based on in-depth interviews with citizens and public officials, as well as document analysis, the study found that the NIS has helped to modernize land administration in recent years. The Bangladesh government, with the help of young land administration officials, has undertaken several measures to resolve this crisis. However, the improvement in service delivery is, in some ways, nominal compared to the volume of corruption in land administration. The likely reason is the nature of the country’s societal patterns. In practice, local and administrative politics continue to have a significant influence. Therefore, despite good initiatives and appropriate measures, land administration officials have failed to implement the NIS properly. Several other problems are making NIS implementation challenging, such as the lack of skilled manpower and technical support, the tendency to break rules, and other forms of corruption discussed in this study. However, the study found that an alternative approach, namely, “local solutions for local problems” could have more success than the NIS approach. Therefore, this study argues that dynamic, sustainable, and corruption-free land administration in Bangladesh requires a combined approach involving local solutions, innovation, and NIS implementation.

Regression analysis in predicting coating application lifetime on asset integrity project

The Asset Integrity project is one of the strategic priorities in maintenance to ensure the functional lifetime of an asset is well maintained to support the nickel processing. The coating protection application is one of the asset integrity strategy to maintain the structural lifetime, however the corrosive environment of nickel processing plant influences the lifetime of the coating design differently on each facility due to different process in the processing line. The objective of this study is to predict the coating design lifetime on Dryer, KILN, Furnace, and Converter facilities. The analysis used regression method for coating lifetime on each facility by considering the independent variables, i.e. SO2 Intensity, stack emission, NOx emission, rainfall intensity, and underfilm condition. By using regression model, coating design lifetime in Dryer area is 4.95 years, KILN is 5.73 years, Furnace is 6.23 years, and Converter is 6.73 years. Process plant area which having the most significant impact of corrosive environment is Dryer area, causing the coating lifetime in this area is the lowest than other area in the Process Plant area. This result can be used to set maintenance strategy for coating design lifetime lifecycle for the next Asset Integrity project.

National integrity strategy (NIS) of Bangladesh: Measures undertaken by the public institutions

National integrity strategy (NIS) of Bangladesh: Measures undertaken by the public institutions

A vision-based active learning convolutional neural network model for concrete surface crack detection

Concrete surface crack detection based on computer vision, specifically via a convolutional neural network, has drawn increasing attention for replacing manual visual inspection of bridges and buildings. This article proposes a new framework for this task and a sampling and training method based on active learning to treat class imbalances. In particular, the new framework includes a clear definition of two categories of samples, a relevant sliding window technique, data augmentation and annotation methods. The advantages of this framework are that data integrity can be ensured and a very large amount of annotation work can be saved. Training datasets generated with the proposed sampling and training method not only are representative of the original dataset but also highlight samples that are highly complex, yet informative. Based on the proposed framework and sampling and training strategy, AlexNet is re-tuned, validated, tested and compared with an existing network. The investigation revealed outstanding performances of the proposed framework in terms of the detection accuracy, precision and F1 measure due to its nonlinear learning ability, training dataset integrity and active learning strategy.

Securing the Intermediate Data of Scientific Workflows in Clouds With ACISO

Many scientific workflow applications are moving to clouds. A scientific workflow is a complicated scientific computing task consisting of many sub-tasks, and each sub-task execution can generate the intermediate data used for the successor sub-task execution. The correct execution of scientific workflows depends on the security of the intermediate data, which is transmitted frequently between virtual machines during the process of the workflow execution. In multi-tenant clouds, the intermediate data contains three attributes: availability, confidentiality and integrity. If the intermediate data is lost, stolen, or tampered with by malicious tenants, the intermediate data’s attribute will be damaged, causing workflow interruption, the leakage of secret information or incorrect workflow results. For these problems, we propose ACISO scheme to secure the intermediate data by improving its availability, confidentiality, and integrity. In the scheme, availability, confidentiality and integrity strategy pools are constructed by various erasure codes, encryption algorithms and hash functions, respectively. Then we present a security strategy optimal allocation model named SSOA, which aims to maximize the overall intermediate data security strength while meeting the constraints of the workflow makespan and storage overhead. Normally, a scientific workflow contains a large number of the intermediate data, so solving this model is NP hard. Therefore, we propose a heuristic solution to solve SSOA. The simulation results show that ACISO can effectively improve the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of the intermediate data of the scientific workflows.

Community College Academic Integrity Lessons That Put Research into Practice

Academic integrity is an educational issue requiring an educational response from all stakeholders, including faculty, students, librarians, learning support staff, and administrators. This article posits that an educational response at Suffolk County Community College (SCCC) advances progress toward an integrated academic integrity strategy at the college. As a library professor at SCCC, I collaborated with an Australian university professor to encapsulate academic integrity research in creating ready-to-use classroom materials. Research studies documented that students want academic integrity instruction at the course and assignment level. Though this article focuses on academic integrity in the community college, research from the broader higher education sector informed the development and course-level implementation of these lessons. The concise lessons provide faculty activities to engage students about ethical decision-making, academic integrity practices, and academic integrity policies.

럭셔리 브랜드 마케팅 믹스가 고객자산 형성에 미치는 영향 - 20~40대 럭셔리 브랜드 제품 소비자를 중심으로 -

This study identifies how the luxury brand marketing mix affects customer equity drivers and suggests intangible equity management strategies so that companies can make long-term profits through luxury brands based on empirical studies of Korean luxury consumers. The results of the study are as follows: First, this study classified the properties that use 8 key factors (product integrity, heritage, exclusivity, premium image, environment and consumption experience, premium price, luxury communication strategy, and brand signature). Second, it shows that product integrity and luxury communication strategy have a positive effect on all customer equity drivers, that brand signature has a positive effect on value equity and brand equity, and that premium price has a negative effect on relation equity. It is important to provide products and services equipped with high quality and luxurious designs based on excellent craftsmanship in order to establish brand equity and value equity. Brand identity needs to be maintained and unique brand signatures need to be developed based on the long history of luxury brands against a traditional backdrop. A diversified communication strategy improves brand recognition while playing a part in facilitating brand association and brand image. In order to improve relationship equity, actions such as a loyalty program to strengthen brand loyalty, need to be taken as well as measures to maintain and enhance customer trust through a reasonable price strategy.

Marine Functional Zoning Methods Based on the Three-Dimensional Subsystems - Case of Dongying Coastal Area

This paper is based on marine functional zoning and sustainable development theories; and it takes into consideration of the land-and-sea integrity strategy. Through index selection and model construction on the studies of regional marine resources and environment carrying capacity, the development density, and the development potential, the paper establishes a scientific evaluation system, and divides the studied coastal area into three function zones: optimized development zone, key development zone and restricted development zone. The paper takes four coastal regions/counties in Dongying as examples.

Product architecture and integrated manufacturing information system: a comparative study of Japanese and Korean firms

Japanese firms are known for their superior technology and excellent quality performance. However, in spite of outstanding technological competency and quality performance, global competitiveness of Japanese electronic firms has been deteriorating in 2000s. In contrast, Korean counterparts have displayed significant global competitive gains. This article presents research model that defines interrelationships among product integrity, product architecture and IT strategy. This model is examined through case study of Japanese and Korean firms. The research results suggest that Japanese selected firms have solid base of monozukuri system from product concept planning to delivery to customers. However, different from Korean firms, these selected Japanese firms do not appear to utilise full IT potential for integrated manufacturing information system (IMIS). Differences between Japanese and Korean firms are discussed along with implications and lessons of this case study.

Managing Ethical Risks and Crises: Beyond Legal Compliance

Recent interest in culture stems from its power to explain corporate and organizational failures. Such failures are both internal and external: accounting fraud, management misconduct, harassment and bullying in the workplace, racism, sexism, environmental issues, and health and safety concerns. Current theory holds that these failures are to be explained partly by the particular, poor organizational culture and unhealthy climate, poor leadership, and by the misdeeds of a few bad apples. When economic conditions are negative, organizations look to legislation, regulations, and codes, to reform their culture, and manage the risks of organizational failure. Both the compliance strategy, demanding obedience to laws, regulations and codes, and the integrity or values strategy, focusing on ethics training, education, tone at the top, and the hiring of employees with integrity and values, are the mainstay of recent legislation and regulations in North America and the European Union. We criticize the reliance on legislation, regulations and codes, the focus of a compliance solution which we find inadequate, ineffective, and unenforceable. We suggest reliance on a front-end, proactive and preventive program of best, precautionary practices, will better meet the challenge, in prosperity or poverty, of setting corporate culture on the right track.

Academic Integrity in the Twenty-First Century: A Teaching and Learning Imperative (review)

Reviewed by: Academic Integrity in the Twenty-First Century: A Teaching and Learning Imperative Tanner Chesney Tricia Bertram Gallant. Academic Integrity in the Twenty-First Century: A Teaching and Learning Imperative. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008. 144 pp. Paper: $28.00. ISBN-13: 978-0470373668. Tricia Bertram Gallant’s Academic Integrity in the Twenty-First Century is a well-developed monograph focusing on the issues of academic dishonesty and calls for a new approach to address how academia responds to violations of academic misconduct. Bertram Gallant provides a historical context for academic misconduct in the United States and very useful background information for understanding how our responses to academic dishonesty have evolved over time. Beginning with the colonial period and progressing through to our modern university, she outlines the rise of honor codes and the development and implementation of rules to confront the issues of academic dishonesty. Bertram Gallant examines the two basic strategies and their hybrids that institutions currently employ for dealing with academic dishonesty: the rule-compliance strategy and the integrity strategy. The rule-compliance strategy uses academic conduct policies and places them in the general listing of proscribed behaviors for students. It also outlines the process for which alleged violations of academic misconduct are handled (p. 35). The integrity strategy, through the use of honor codes, emphasizes the importance of committing to the principles of academic integrity as essential to the educational mission of the institution. While the rule-compliance strategy makes academic misconduct a disciplinary issue, the integrity strategy stresses both disciplinary and developmental methods for responding to academic dishonesty. Using a review of the literature, Bertram Gallant explores four dimensions—internal, organizational, institutional and societal—to provide a more detailed explanation of the academic misconduct problem. The internal dimension suggests that when a student cheats or plagiarizes, he or she chooses to do so even though he or she knows the behavior is wrong. The internal dimension states that a student’s decision to cheat stems from a moral failing. The organizational dimension suggests that it is peer norms and lack of faculty involvement in the classroom which create an environment that encourages academic misconduct. Bertram Gallant cited a study suggesting that, when there is a conflict between institutional and peer group norms, many students will choose to develop the relationship with their peers even if it means not following the campus code of conduct (p. 52). In addition, instructors play an important role: They develop lesson plans, decide what gets taught, and control the discussion in the classroom. Instructors who reuse tests from previous terms may be sending the message that academic integrity is not a priority and, therefore, are modeling behavior that is no different than students who submit the same paper to more than one class. The institutional dimension of academic misconduct holds that the institution may be complicit in creating an environment where academic dishonesty is allowed to develop. Pressure on faculty to publish and bring in more funding for the college or university has the goal of increasing its institutional prestige in the marketplace of higher education. Students are affected by a similar pressure to produce so that they can get the credits necessary to graduate and, thus, advance in their careers. This attitude creates a transactional relationship, not a transformative one, between the institution and its students and faculty (p. 54). This problem is at the root of Bertram Gallant’s work: How are schools ensuring that their students are learning? The societal dimension attempts to explain academic misconduct in the larger context beyond the internal, organizational, and institutional dimensions to the society in which students and the educational institutions reside (p. 57). Although research in this area is limited, technological forces, [End Page 544] such as the introduction of the personal computer and the internet are challenging traditional notions of authorship and original thought. Students are able to collaborate with each other without being in the same room. Bertram Gallant notes that the two strategies for dealing with academic misconduct—rule compliance and integrity—tend to focus only on the internal and organizational dimensions of academic misconduct and do not adequately address the institutional and societal forces. While...

Compliance and the Illusion of Ethical Progress

It has become common for business practitioners and management scholars to distinguish between compliance and ethics. According to the conventional distinction as expressed in Paine’s formulation of Integrity Strategy, compliance is ordinarily a necessary but insufficient condition for ethics. Now that this distinction has been institutionalized in the most significant judicial, legislative, and regulatory developments in American business conduct management since the Enron failure, it is worth asking whether the current emphasis on ethics represents progress. Does it make logical and practical sense to impose ethics as a compliance requirement, or have we come full circle? I argue that assertions of organizational ethical progress, usually involving an increase in the number and or severity of compliance restrictions, do not get the conventional distinction quite right. Moreover, under the consensus distinction, there can be no such thing as organizational ethical progress. However, our ordinary ways of talking about business conduct management often betray logical confusions about the ethics–compliance relationship. While the metaphors we employ – “higher standards,” “raising the bar,” “gray areas,” and “crossing the line,” etc. – perform a worthwhile function as standards for external evaluation of business conduct, they also have a tendency to limit and impoverish our conception of what it is to be ethical. The idea that ethics matters is fundamental to Integrity Strategy’s implicit claim, consistent with conventional wisdom and moral theory, that the objective of responsible conduct cannot be achieved solely by imposing from outside what is required but must also appeal to what is desired.

The Internal-Corrosion-Integrity Strategy on the Development of New Offshore-Production Areas in Brazil

SummaryThis paper illustrates the importance of internal-corrosion-management and -integrity strategy in the development of new offshore-production areas in shallow and ultradeep waters in Brazil, where there is no other production facility nearby. Starting production activities in these areas without any facility—especially pipelines—is a challenge because the investment necessary is high, particularly when the first area to be produced is a gas block. The financial feasibility of a small- or medium-sized gas field with very low condensate production is extremely delicate because this kind of project usually demands high initial investments, particularly with topside facilities, platform structures, and pipelines.The financial scenario worsens as the first investment must consider not only the area to be put into production, but also other potential areas nearby with exploration still under way. To foresee fluid composition and all flow-parameter scenarios is a complex but necessary exercise to reduce risk and keep the operating expenditure (OPEX) as low as possible.One of the aims of this paper is to show one experience in the design of offshore gas fields in the shallow waters of Espirito Santo, Brazil, where pipeline-corrosion management and integrity strongly affected the capital expenditure (CAPEX) and OPEX factors because the flow-rate capacity was overdesigned to transport future production from adjacent fields.This paper discusses some of the newer issues related to the CO2-corrosion-risk-assessment and -integrity strategies. The paper also briefly discusses some current key issues regarding the ultradeepwater fields related to areas of uncertainties caused by internal corrosion, such as pipelines operating under supercritical flow and steel catenary risers operating within a corrosion-fatigue environment.

Strategies and Instruments for Organising CSR by Small and Large Businesses in the Netherlands

This paper analyses the use of strategies and instruments for organising ethics by small and large business in the Netherlands. We find that large firms mostly prefer an integrity strategy to foster ethical behaviour in the organisation, whereas small enterprises prefer a dialogue strategy. Both large and small firms make least use of a compliance strategy that focuses on controlling and sanctioning the ethical behaviour of workers. The size of the business is found to have a positive impact on the use of several instruments, like code of conduct, ISO certification, social reporting, social handbook and confidential person. Also being a subsidiary of a larger firm has a significant positive influence on the use of instruments. The most popular instrument used by small firms is to let one member of the board be answerable for ethical questions, which fits the informal culture of most small firms. With respect to sectorial differences, we find that firms in the metal manufacturing and construction sectors are more actively using formal instruments than firms in the financial service sector and retail sector. The distinction between family and non-family firms hardly affects the use of instruments.

Managers Develop Moral Accountability: The Impact of Socratic Dialogue

How can organisations ‘manage for integrity’?1 Two differing approaches have been called the compliance strategy and the integrity strategy. While the first seeks to instil compliance with externally imposed standards, the integrity strategy seeks to teach ethical decision-making and values as well, so that ‘ethical thinking and awareness…[are]…part of every manager’s mental equipment’. In this paper the Dutch consultant philosopher Hans Bolten reports on how Socratic dialogue has helped managers develop ethical capacities and responsibility. Drawing on research with dialogue members he concludes that organisations that care about ethics cannot rely on abstract moral codes and rules. He argues that they need Socratic dialogue as an instrument if their managers are to shape moral guidelines they both agree upon and can apply in practice. And he shows how dialogue can foster in managers the readiness to give an account of their actions, a readiness implicit in the idea of moral action itself. Thus Socratic dialogue can help create a culture in which morally accountable action is the rule, not the exception, and in which the responsibility to give an account of one’s actions has its rightful place.2