Objective Framework Research Articles

Identifying the Complexity of the Food-Energy-Water Nexus Based on Emergy Analysis in Crop Production Systems of China

To elucidate the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus, the paper proposes a framework for multifunctional development objectives within the context of CPSs, integrating emergy analysis and the coupled coordination model. The article’s primary focus is on the utilization of blue and green water in the cultivation of a variety of food crops and the acquisition of purchased energy. The paper was evaluated according to three key indicators: stability, development, and sustainability. Furthermore, a quantitative evaluation of the trade-offs among the FEW nexus and its constituent sub-nexuses was conducted over the period from 2000 to 2022. The study revealed that China has witnessed an expansion in its total CPS inputs, with renewable inputs accounting for 32.89% and an average annual input-output ratio of 37.98%. The annual emergy values for food, energy, and water resources were 6.85 × 1023 Sej, 1.43 × 1023 Sej, and 7.91 × 1022 Sej, respectively. The annual growth rates were 2.16%, 2.11%, and 0.77%, respectively. The CPS exhibits an average proportion of green and blue water resources of 64.37% and 35.63%, respectively. The coupling coordination of the FEW nexus demonstrates a transition between years from mild dysfunctional recession to quality coordinated development, with the coordinated use of FEW resources increasing for maize, largely maintained for rice, and decreasing for wheat, soybean, and potato. The objective of this study is to provide differentiated strategies for regional food conservation and sustainable development worldwide.

Enhanced Vehicle Logo Detection Method Based on Self-Attention Mechanism for Electric Vehicle Application

Vehicle logo detection plays a crucial role in various computer vision applications, such as vehicle classification and detection. In this research, we propose an improved vehicle logo detection method leveraging the self-attention mechanism. Our feature-sampling structure integrates multiple attention mechanisms and bidirectional feature aggregation to enhance the discriminative power of the detection model. Specifically, we introduce the multi-head attention for multi-scale feature fusion module to capture multi-scale contextual information effectively. Moreover, we incorporate the bidirectional aggregation mechanism to facilitate information exchange between different layers of the detection network. Experimental results on a benchmark dataset (VLD-45 dataset) demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms baseline models in terms of both detection accuracy and efficiency. Our experimental evaluation using the VLD-45 dataset achieves a state-of-the-art result of 90.3% mAP. Our method has also improved AP by 10% for difficult samples, such as HAVAL and LAND ROVER. Our method provides a new detection framework for small-size objects, with potential applications in various fields.

Enhancing a You Only Look Once-Plated Detector via Auxiliary Textual Coding for Multi-Scale Rotating Remote Sensing Objects in Transportation Monitoring Applications

With the rapid development of intelligent information technologies, remote sensing object detection has played an important role in different field applications. Particularly in recent years, it has attracted widespread attention in assisting with food safety supervision, which still faces troubling issues between oversized parameters and low performance that are challenging to solve. Hence, this article proposes a novel remote sensing detection framework for multi-scale objects with a rotating status and mutual occlusion, defined as EYMR-Net. This proposed approach is established on the YOLO-v7 architecture with a Swin Transformer backbone, which offers multi-scale receptive fields to mine massive features. Then, an enhanced attention module is added to exploit the spatial and dimensional interrelationships among different local characteristics. Subsequently, the effective rotating frame regression mechanism via circular smoothing labels is introduced to the EYMR-Net structure, addressing the problem of horizontal YOLO (You Only Look Once) frames ignoring direction changes. Extensive experiments on DOTA datasets demonstrated the outstanding performance of EYMR-Net, which achieved an impressive mAP0.5 of up to 74.3%. Further ablation experiments verified that our proposed approach obtains a balance between performance and efficiency, which is beneficial for practical remote sensing applications in transportation monitoring and supply chain management.

Chronicles of Involuntary Career Changes: A Qualitative Longitudinal Analysis

Although extensive research on career transitions exists, little is known about the challenges and processes of involuntary career change. Building on Savickas’s theoretical framework of objective and subjective careers, we investigated the subjective experiences of involuntary career changes while apprehending their objective unfolding. Following a longitudinal qualitative design, we conducted two waves of semistructured interviews with 18 participants who had been forced to change careers due to health issues, migration, or saturated labor market in Switzerland. A four-step temporal thematic analysis covering case description, case comparison, case processes analysis, and processes comparison highlighted a spectrum of career change processes. At one end, individuals experienced synchronous progressions and regained meaning and control over their career combined with a rather linear status sequence. Conversely, some individuals underwent asynchronous developments consisting of either modest objective steps that instigated meaningful subjective experiences or status stagnation, leading to a loss of control and meaning. These findings underscore the variety of involuntary career change processes and unveil synchronicity as a key temporal element in involuntary career change processes. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Actual tasks of the development of river container transportation

The article is devoted to proposals within the framework of strategic objectives for the development of multimodality in river cargo transportation. The introduction describes the current state of river port infrastructure, assesses its readiness for containerization and provides statistics on such transportation. The materials and methods formulate strategic objectives for solving the problems of effective functioning of river transport in modern conditions. The results show the technology for reloading container cargo with portal cranes. results of calculating the travel time of container cargo along the route St. Petersburg - Kazan, taking into account transshipment by water and rail transport. The authors included scientific and practical recommendations for the discussion on the formation of a container line and the composition of ports on it. In conclusion, it was concluded that container transportation has prospects for development on river highways, which will contribute to both achieving the strategic goal of developing multimodality in transport and logistics schemes involving inland water transport, and can also lead to an increase in cargo traffic, improving the quality of transport services for clients and increasing competitiveness of river highways, which is especially important in the current conditions of the breakdown of traditional logistics connections.

Defining and Verifying New Local Climate Zones with Three-Dimensional Built Environments and Urban Metabolism

The urban heat island (UHI) effect, where the temperature in an urban area is higher than in the surrounding rural areas, is becoming a major concern. The concept of a Local Climate Zone (LCZ) system was devised to provide an objective framework for UHI research, which allows for a microscale definition of the UHI effect within urban areas by considering ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ as a continuum versus a dichotomy. However, most LCZ types are classified only by surface structure and coverings, which seem irrelevant to climatological and microscale concepts. In addition, microclimate is influenced by urban metabolism related to human activities as well as structural effects, but the LCZ-classification system does not incorporate these functional concepts. Therefore, this study proposes a novel urban-classification system that addresses the limitations of the LCZ concept by quantifying structural and functional elements of the city at the pedestrian level using S-DoT sensors and semantic segmentation techniques. This study holds significance as it suggests a New-LCZ (N-LCZ) system to support the classification framework of highly valid urban types and follow-up studies related to the UHI. Moreover, the N-LCZ offers a regional urban-planning strategy for sustainable development through a more valid classification system.

Preparing Auditors to Evaluate Blockchains Used to Track Tangible Assets

SUMMARY This article summarizes “Tracking Tangible Asset Ownership and Provenance with Blockchain” (Sheldon 2022), which introduces auditors to the risks of using blockchain’s shared repository to track assets in the physical world. The underlying challenge is keeping the status of tangible assets aligned with their digital representations on a blockchain. In response, the summary focuses on the parties, technologies, and processes that make this task complex. The summary begins with an overview of how blockchain can be used to track tangible assets, then discusses four stages of tracking tangible assets with blockchain: (1) design and governance of a blockchain, (2) asset creation, (3) asset transfer, and (4) asset retirement. Based on the risks highlighted in these four stages, the summary presents a framework of risk considerations and control objectives that auditors can use to evaluate the extent to which a blockchain serves as a reliable repository for tracking tangible assets.

A comprehensive method for error separation in hydrological modelling

AbstractEvaluation metrics play a pivotal role in the calibration process of hydrological models, serving as objective functions that directly influence the final values of model parameters and significantly affect users' perceptions of model performance. However, the choice and interpretation of evaluation metrics are subjective; therefore, this study provides a more objective framework for assessing model performance. This paper initially explored the applicability of various commonly used evaluation metrics, providing an overview of their limitations. Following this, we decomposed errors by analysing their physical significance and geometric representation in scatter plots, categorizing them into systematic and unsystematic errors. Through the decomposition and derivation of the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) formula, we established the quantitative relationship among various evaluation metrics. The soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model was utilized to simulate monthly runoff in the Baishan basin (China), for the period 1994–2017, with NSE serving as the objective function for calibration. Our findings are consistent with previous studies, indicating that the model tends to slightly underestimate high flows while significantly overestimating low flows. Further analysis through error decomposition and the examination of relationships among various evaluation metrics revealed that unsystematic errors were dominant during the spring snowmelt runoff period, while systematic errors prevailed in the dry season. By evaluating the runoff series based on the magnitude of runoff or by categorizing it according to seasons and months, a more stringent assessment of the model's performance was achieved. These findings not only highlight the necessity for careful selection of evaluation metrics but also underscore the significance of our methodological advancements in enhancing hydrological model precision and reliability.

Framework for charged compact objects admitting conformal motion in higher dimension.

We propose a new framework for spherical charged compact objects admitting conformal motion in five-dimensional spacetime. The outer spacetime is considered as Reissner-Nordström to obtain matching conditions. The behavior of model characteristics like stress, pressure, and surface tension for the specific density profile is investigated by using Einstein's Maxwell field equations in a five-dimensional framework. For the proposed solution, all physical parameters behave very well even for variations in electric charge parameters. The existence of charged compact stars is also predicted by this study.

Can we stop reinventing the wheel in blue-green infrastructure planning? Using value-focused thinking to enable transferability of a multicriteria planning support system

Strategic planning approaches are essential for addressing the complex and multi-dimensional challenges in selecting blue-green infrastructure (BGI) location. The development of planning support systems (PSS) for BGI siting often lacks a value-based approach with early stakeholder engagement. In this study, we used value-focused thinking (VFT) to adapt and develop a BGI planning support framework to the Canadian urban context, moving towards an objective-driven framework. We provide a hierarchical objectives framework for BGI planning in urban areas, aligned with stakeholder values, with three-level information: higher-level objectives, lower-level objectives and measurable spatial attributes. To assess site performance across these attributes, value scales elicitation was conducted with 17 experts. The engagement of 37 stakeholders in co-creating and validating our objectives set helped identify common concerns and refine our framework, focusing on the most relevant objectives for stakeholders. The VFT approach and the resulting framework can be easily transferred to other cities in Quebec (Canada), but also to other urban contexts looking to optimize BGI site selection to maximize benefits across the multiple functions of BGI and opportunities arising from the urban context.

Analysis of bariatric surgical complications requiring interhospital transfers using a modified Victorian Audit of Surgical Mortality framework.

Surgical audit is key in upholding the standards of surgical care but may be inadequate in capturing morbidity experienced by patients being transferred across different health systems. The aim of this study was to assess the utility of an objective framework in the evaluation of clinical issues surrounding interhospital transfers (IHTs). A retrospective cohort study was conducted at a Victorian state bariatric hospital. Patients transferred with bariatric surgery related complications between 2014 and 2021 were included. Each case was reviewed by two surgeons using an objective framework developed via a modified Delphi-process. Key issues and preventability surrounding each transfer were evaluated. Inter-observer agreement was assessed using weighted Cohen's Kappa coefficient. Seventy-three patients were included. The most common indication for transfer was proximal staple line leak post sleeve gastrectomy (34/73, 46.6%). Length of stay was 38.3 ± 58.8 days. Cost of care amounted to AUD $110 666.18 per patient. Delay in transfer and complication recognition were present in 20% of cases (Cohen's Kappa 0.51;0.61). Human factors and patient related factors were the most common principal underlying causes (Cohen's Kappa 0.59). A third of the complications (n = 25/73, 34.2%), were potentially preventable (Cohen's Kappa 0.58) and more than half (39/73, 53.4%) did not have documented objective feedback to referring clinicians. IHTs associated with bariatric surgery complications have significant morbidity and costs. A structured framework in reviewing IHT can consistently identify potentially modifiable factors that improve clinical outcomes, and constructive feedback to the referring clinician should be actively facilitated and documented.

KEMUDI’s Pursuance of Muslim Identity and its Implications to Malaysian Muslims

KEMUDI or Persatuan Kesedaran Melayu dan Islam (The Malay and Islamic Awareness Association) is a Malaysian based non-governmental organization (NGO) established in 2013. The organization aims to embrace and uphold a discreet Malay-Arab Muslim identity believed as being degraded by colonialism that introduces liberal democracy and capitalism to replace Malay monarchy. This qualitative study involves data collection from social media platforms, library research and semi-structured interviews. The descriptive analytical approach is applied within the organizational framework of Objective, Leadership Structure, Membership, Resource, Strategy and Tactic. The aim is to investigate KEMUDI’s origin, strategy and tactic as well as its variant of Muslim identity. It follows that KEMUDI’s pursuit of Muslim identity incorporates upholding a hybrid Arab ancestry (read: prophetic, ahl al-baytness) as the prerogative of Malay Muslim identity using strategical alliances and tactical series of lectures, publications as well as cultural activities. The Malay Arab Muslim identity is being pursued and maintained, symbiotically, as religiously significant and ethnically privileged to serve political, religious and social pursuits. The implication of KEMUDI’s ethno-religious identity to Malaysian Muslims focuses on three sectors of the National Integrity Plan (NIP); politics, civil society organization (CSO) and religion. It is found that the discreet dual Malay Arab Muslim identity adopted by KEMUDI has its share of commendatory and condemnatory implications on Malaysian Muslims.

Kombinasi Metode Pembobotan Entropy dan Multi-Attribute Utility Theory Dalam Penentuan Karyawan Terbaik

Selecting the best employees is an important process in a company to recognize and reward the outstanding contributions of its employees. The main purpose of this selection is to motivate other employees to continue to improve the quality of their work, as well as create a competitive and productive work culture. The problem that arises is the potential for jealousy and unfair competition among employees in the selection process is considered not transparent or unfair, this can cause a sense of dissatisfaction and demotivation in employees who feel that their contributions are ignored. The combination of entropy and MAUT weighting methods has been an interesting approach in the context of determining the best employees. This combination provides a comprehensive and objective framework for making better decisions in selecting employees who best suit the company's needs. The ranking results provide an overview of the results of selecting the best employees using a combination of entropy and MAUT methods. Employees on behalf of Titin Yuliana were ranked 1st best employees with a final score of 0.4801, employees on behalf of Jepri were ranked 2nd best employees with a final score of 0.376, and employees on behalf of Andi were ranked 3rd best employees with a final score of 0.2929. The ranking results of the combination of entropy and MAUT methods can provide a more holistic picture of the employees who best suit the company's needs. By combining objective information about employee performance (using MAUT) with an objective evaluation of the weight of criteria (using Entropy), the end result can become more accurate and trustworthy.

CRIMINAL ANALYSIS OF PREMEDITATED BANKRUPTCY: ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CRIME

The article examines theoretical and applied problems of criminal liability for deliberate bankruptcy (Article 196 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) with an emphasis on the features of doctrinal interpretation and regulatory regulation. Scientific understanding of the stated problem pursued the goal of expanding the extensive fundamental knowledge already achieved by criminal legal thought about the essential features of the elements of its composition. Within the framework of the research objectives, through systemic, functional and logical-legal analysis, a systemic relationship between intentional bankruptcy in its contradiction and unity with the categories of bankruptcy legislation was identified. The conclusion is substantiated that those provided for in Art. 196 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, a socially dangerous act is a crime committed with the aim of illegally obtaining benefits in the form of the final liquidation of an organization, or avoiding liability for non-payment of debt.

مآلات الأفعال عند الإمام السالمي من خلال كتابه الجوابات: دراسة تطبيقية في باب السياسة الشرعية

The research aims to study the consequences of actions as the objective framework that guarantees the integrity of the work of the mujtahid in downloading rulings on the actions of those who are responsible. This study came to answer the following questions: What is the reality of the concept of consequences of actions? Is it legally valid? What is the effect of the consequences of the actions in the answers of Al-Salmi in Sharia politics? What is the extent of the presence of the consequences of actions in the answers of Imam Al-Salmi and his fatwas related to Sharia politics? The research has reached results, perhaps the most important of which are: the consequences of actions derive their legitimacy from the Qur’an and Sunnah, and it is not possible to download judgment on the actions of the taxpayers and their actions by simply looking at the incident without looking at its expected results in the future, and that Al-Salmi employed the origin of the consequences of actions in his answers in directing some of the sayings of scholars And in explaining his sayings, the presence of the origin of the consequences of actions and its fundamentalist, jurisprudential, and intentional rules is noted in his various answers related to Sharia politics.

A Co-evolutionary Multi-population Evolutionary Algorithm for Dynamic Multiobjective Optimization

Dynamic multiobjective optimization problems (DMOPs) widely appear in various real-world applications and have attracted increasing attention worldwide. However, how to obtain both good population diversity and fast convergence speed to efficiently solve DMOPs are two challenging issues. Inspired by that the multiple populations for multiple objectives (MPMO) framework can provide algorithms with good population diversity and fast convergence speed, this paper proposes a new efficient algorithm called a co-evolutionary multi-population evolutionary algorithm (CMEA) based on the MPMO framework together with three novel strategies, which are helpful for solving DMOPs efficiently from two aspects. First, in the evolution control aspect, a convergence-based population evolution strategy is proposed to select the suitable population for executing the evolution in different generations, so as to accelerate the convergence speed of the algorithm. Second, in the dynamic control aspect, a multi-population-based dynamic detection strategy and a multi-population-based dynamic response strategy are proposed to help the algorithm maintain the population diversity, which are efficient for detecting and responding to the dynamic changes of environments. Integrating with the above strategies, the CMEA is proposed to solve the DMOP efficiently. The superiority of the proposed CMEA is validated in experiments on widely-used DMOP benchmark problems.

Empirical validation of integrated stock assessment models to ensuring risk equivalence: A pathway to resilient fisheries management.

The Precautionary Approach to Fisheries Management requires an assessment of the impact of uncertainty on the risk of achieving management objectives. However, the main quantities, such as spawning stock biomass (SSB) and fish mortality (F), used in management metrics cannot be directly observed. This requires the use of models to provide guidance, for which there are three paradigms: the best assessment, model ensemble, and Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE). It is important to validate the models used to provide advice. In this study, we demonstrate how stock assessment models can be validated using a diagnostic toolbox, with a specific focus on prediction skill. Prediction skill measures the precision of a predicted value, which is unknown to the model, in relation to its observed value. By evaluating the accuracy of model predictions against observed data, prediction skill establishes an objective framework for accepting or rejecting model hypotheses, as well as for assigning weights to models within an ensemble. Our analysis uncovers the limitations of traditional stock assessment methods. Through the quantification of uncertainties and the integration of multiple models, our objective is to improve the reliability of management advice considering the complex interplay of factors that influence the dynamics of fish stocks.

Sustainable Environment in Islam, Its Manifestations and Causes

This study aims to revise the Islamic law (sharia) and analyze the Islamic foundations of environmental and sustainability and how Islamic law shapes people's understanding of the sustainable environment. It looks at the morals, ethics, and conduct that Sharia law promotes in order to combat the escalating environmental issues. Involving religious organizations and making use of jurists' scientific knowledge, the project aims to improve the idea of social responsibility while offering answers to environmental problems. It also clarifies Islamic philosophical precepts, which place a strong emphasis on protecting and conserving the environment.The study emphasizes how critical it is to address environmental issues, change people's attitudes and behaviors regarding the environment, and find answers to the problems that it faces. It creates a link between environmental issues and Islamic beliefs in the framework of sustainable development objectives.

Use of a “baby bottle” to allow a “better-than-nothing” death in older adults infected by COVID-19 in Quebec retirement homes – A case study

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront profound questions surrounding dying and the concept of a “good death”. This qualitative case study, conducted in a health center in Quebec, Canada, severely affected by outbreaks during the pandemic's first wave, explores end-of-life care for older adults in retirement homes. Through thirty interviews with healthcare practitioners, researchers, and managers, we investigate the critical role of a pharmacological device referred to as the “baby bottle” in providing end-of-life care to older adults infected with COVID-19 in their homes. Drawing upon the boundary object framework, we examine the ambiguities surrounding the use of this device and explores its agency. In this unprecedented context, we argue that the device facilitated a form of death that could be described as “better than nothing”, embodying practitioners' efforts to provide some dignity to the dying person, by minimally controlling the distress and ensuring a connection between the dying person and the care team. Additionally, it served as a means of coping with the pandemic's intolerable aspects, such as the exclusion of frail older adults for the supposed common good. This study raises questions about the legitimacy and normalization of such compensatory measure within under-resourced healthcare systems for older people experiencing a loss of autonomy.

Effect of access block on emergency department crowding calculated by NEDOCS score

ObjectiveEmergency department (ED) crowding poses a significant challenge in healthcare systems globally, leading to delays in patient care and threatening public health and staff well-being. Access block, characterized by delays in admitting patients awaiting hospitalization, is a primary contributor to ED overcrowding. To address this issue, the National Emergency Department Overcrowding Study (NEDOCS) score provides an objective framework for assessing ED crowding severity. This study aims to evaluate the impact of access block on ED crowding using the NEDOCS score and to explore strategies for mitigating overcrowding through scenarios over a 39-day period. MethodsA single-center, prospective, observational study was conducted in an urban tertiary care referral center. The NEDOCS score was collected six times daily, including variables like total ED patients, ventilated patients, boarding patients, the longest waiting times, and durations of boarding patients. NEDOCS scores were recorded, and calculations were performed to assess the potential impact of eliminating access block in scenarios. ResultsNEDOCS scores ranged from 62.4 to 315, with a mean of 146, indicating consistent overcrowding. Analysis categorized ED conditions into different levels, revealing that over 81.2% of the time, the ED was at least overcrowded. The longest boarding patient's waiting duration was identified as the primary contributor to NEDOCS (48.8%). Scenarios demonstrated a significant decrease in NEDOCS when access block was eliminated through timely admissions. Shorter boarding times during non-working hours suggest the potential mitigating effect of external factors on the access barrier. Additionally, daytime measurements were associated with lower patient admissions and shorter wait times for initial assessment. ConclusionAlthough ED crowding is a multifactorial problem, our study has shown that access block contribute significantly to this problem. The study emphasizes that eliminating access block through timely admissions could substantially alleviate crowding, highlighting the importance of addressing this issue to enhance ED efficiency and overall healthcare delivery.