Utopian Environment Research Articles

Exploring incisive decision for performance assessment of materials under utopian environment: A pluri-disciplinary approach

Exploring incisive decision for performance assessment of materials under utopian environment: A pluri-disciplinary approach

Extensible VR Emergency Preparedness Platform

Emergency preparedness is a cardinal skill required in today's fragile world. Conventionally, individuals acquire knowledge of procedures that they are required to take during an emergency situation through a regimen of training-drills, tabletop exercises, functional exercises and full-scale exercises. These procedures are usually far from reality as these are structured training schedules happening in a utopian environment. To bridge this gap, we developed a generic virtual learning framework. This framework is extensible across multiple scenarios and locations. The proposed platform can complement the conventional emergency training methods to enhance the overall emergency preparedness of private organizations (e.g. workplaces, commercial buildings, etc.) and also indirectly benefit wider communities.

Failure Prediction for Scientific Workflows Using Nature-Inspired Machine Learning Approach

Scientific workflows have gained the emerging attention in sophisticated large-scale scientific problem-solving environments. The pay-per-use model of cloud, its scalability and dynamic deployment enables it suited for executing scientific workflow applications. Since the cloud is not a utopian environment, failures are inevitable that may result in experiencing fluctuations in the delivered performance. Though a single task failure occurs in workflow based applications, due to its task dependency nature, the reliability of the overall system will be affected drastically. Hence rather than reactive fault-tolerant approaches, proactive measures are vital in scientific workflows. This work puts forth an attempt to concentrate on the exploration issue of structuring a nature inspired metaheuristics-Intelligent Water Drops Algorithm (IWDA) combined with an efficient machine learning approach-Support Vector Regression (SVR) for task failure prognostication which facilitates proactive fault-tolerance in the scheduling of scientific workflow applications. The failure prediction models in this study have been implemented through SVR-based machine learning approaches and the precision accuracy of prediction is optimized by IWDA and several performance metrics were evaluated on various benchmark workflows. The experimental results prove that the proposed proactive fault-tolerant approach performs better compared with the other existing techniques.

An exploratory analysis of biofuel under the utopian environment

This paper addresses the application of MCDM in the selection of biofuel as discussed elaborately here which encompasses different aspects like fuel properties, engine performances, and emissions. Selection of the right kind of biofuel is essential in so far as technical, social, environmental and economic benefits are concerned. The authors here opine that selection of biofuel is strategically as well as inevitably important when different biofuel performances exhibit a conflicting scenario or performances of different blends of biofuel(s) seem almost the same. Further, it is also stated that the selection of any biofuel arbitrarily can call for erratic performances. The highest beneficial effect of biofuel has been explored here by taking a strategic decision. The authors also highlight here the importance of applying decision-making method under the fuzzy environment using the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method. Five types of biofuels have been examined here for the present studies together with petrodiesel as a reference one. Real life experimental data have been taken into consideration for this present decision making calculation excluding analysis of experimental results in case of each biofuel under experiment. Ranking of the alternatives obtained has been further studied through sensitivity analysis here keeping an eye on finding out of the most robust biofuel. Fuzzy TOPSIS method applied here helps selects decisively that the neem-petrodiesel blend is the most preferred one and also establishes by applying sensitivity analysis that this blend is the most robust one.

Enhancing Reliability of Workflow Execution Using Task Replication and Spot Instances

Cloud environments offer low-cost computing resources as a subscription-based service. These resources are elastically scalable and dynamically provisioned. Furthermore, cloud providers have also pioneered new pricing models like spot instances that are cost-effective. As a result, scientific workflows are increasingly adopting cloud computing. However, spot instances are terminated when the market price exceeds the users bid price. Likewise, cloud is not a utopian environment. Failures are inevitable in such large complex distributed systems. It is also well studied that cloud resources experience fluctuations in the delivered performance. These challenges make fault tolerance an important criterion in workflow scheduling. This article presents an adaptive, just-in-time scheduling algorithm for scientific workflows. This algorithm judiciously uses both spot and on-demand instances to reduce cost and provide fault tolerance. The proposed scheduling algorithm also consolidates resources to further minimize execution time and cost. Extensive simulations show that the proposed heuristics are fault tolerant and are effective, especially under short deadlines, providing robust schedules with minimal makespan and cost.

Imagining the Canadian Agrarian Landscape: Prairie Settler Life Writing as Colonial Discourse

This essay discusses the power of settler life writing to replace Indigenous conceptions of the prairies with colonial visions in southern Alberta. Pioneer memoirs promote myths of the prairie as a fertile utopian environment or a hostile frontier. Both myths are founded on the georgic mode, which Virgil established circa 34 BCE and which emerges in English literature that emphasizes land and labour. By accentuating their social status and the labour they have performed to improve their ranches and farms, pioneer life writers support their claims of entitlement to colonize land.

A hybrid fuzzy technique for the selection of warehouse location in a supply chain under a utopian environment

This paper proposes a novel hybrid fuzzy multi criteria decision-making technique for warehouse location selection in a supply chain under a utopian environment. In the proposed methodology, the concept of fuzzy set theory is used to measure subjective performance ratings of warehouse locations and weights of criteria. The simple additive weighting method and factor rating systems are combined to calculate the final fuzzy values (FFVs) of each warehouse location. FFVs are implemented to evaluate preference relationships between the alternatives. Pairwise comparison of the preference relationships generate a fuzzy preference relation matrix (FPRM). This investigation introduces four key selection parameters computed from the FPRM, viz. row sum, column sum, row sum − column sum difference and row sum–column sum ratio to select the best warehouse location. The proposed algorithm is illustrated with the solution of a real life problem of warehouse location selection. A comparative analysis is accomplished to show the acceptability and effectiveness of the proposed method. The result of this study clearly establishes the proposed methodology as one of the most erudite decision-making tools in a supply chain.

Interdisciplinary Reflections in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland

Our paper credits Gilman for creating a utopian environment where tolerance, interdependence and mutual respect characterize intergender relationships. The premises of this utopia are drawn from Darwin’s observations of social evolution which Gilman thinks refute the biological inferiority of women and alternately relate their oppression and subordination to socio-economic determinants. The paper also dramatizes Foucault’s theorization of the panoptic powers of surveillance and discipline, and historicization of the genealogical relations between knowledge and power on account of which Gilman provokes women to unlearn the dominant discourse of patriarchy and initiate an inclusive reconciliatory discourse that recognizes men and women as equal human beings and gives equal value to both of them. Likewise, we recognize Gilman as a socialist for desexualizing paid and domestic labor and considering women as equal partners in terms of productivity and performance. Building on these presumptions, we conclude that the interdisciplinary resonances in Gilman’s Herland enrich feminist studies and help reform social and gender relations. Key words: Reformed feminism; Reformed socialism; Social evolution; Gender reconciliation; Interdependence.

Outsourcing decision under Utopian environment

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to develop and demonstrate an outsourcing decision model in which constraint resource prevents the throughput of the organization.Design/methodology/approachAn integrated model is proposed by incorporating the weighted product model (WPM) of AHP in estimating the priority of each product in a multi‐product constraint resource environment. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of this model. The outsourcing decision model compares four alternatives: Standard cost accounting, standard theory‐of‐constraints (TOC), LP analysis and an original solution.FindingsThe numerical results show that the proposed model is superior and more realistically optimizes resource allocation and measures the performance of the model.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is limited to the production processes that do not have multiple constraints.Practical implicationsThis research is applicable to the companies which produce multi‐products in a situation in which market demand exceed the company's production capacity.Originality/valueThis is the first time that the WPM of AHP/TOC has been used to maximize the product throughput. Instead of calculating $return per constraint minute, it decides the priority of product that maximizes the product throughput in the constraint resource environment. It makes a significant contribution to the manufacturing organization where one can compare the financial performance of the organization by selecting the right decision model.

The Architecture of Control: Shaker Dwelling Houses and the Reform Movement in Early-Nineteenth-Century America

By comparing the development of Shaker dwelling houses with the Quaker-led reform of prisons and insane asylums during the Second Great Awakening, this article places Shaker architecture into a larger context of reform in early-nineteenth-century America. In it, I demonstrate how and why the Shakers incorporated ideas from the outside world and applied them to their own buildings as a means to shape and control behavior. An examination of specific structures and contemporary discourses on reform architecture reveals similarities between Shaker buildings and those of mainstream society. In all its villages, the sect reproduced architectural forms largely developed by Shaker leaders in New Lebanon, New York, albeit with regional variations. Dwelling houses, in particular, provide a good idea of what the Shakers hoped to accomplish through their architecture. As the focus of Shaker daily life and worship, the dwellings tell us much about how the Shakers used their buildings and the spaces created by them to try to construct a Utopian environment in which all members strove for perfection and individuals subordinated themselves to the good of the whole.

The Gang's All Here: Generic versus Racial Integration in the 1940s Musical by Sean Griffin

The integrated musical of the late 1940s (led by MGM) often excluded minority performers in an attempt to create a utopian environment. In contrast, Fox's nonintegrated musicals of the early 1940s negotiated a space for these performers, which, while problematic, created opportunities for individual agency.

Sin as Uncleanness

Sin was a rare topic during the first twenty of the last thirty years of analytic philosophy of religion. That it came up at all was due to the popularity of Free Will approaches to the problem of evil, which fix on traditional doctrines of the Fall and assert their logical possibility or truth as the explanation of evil's origin and/or Divine permission of it. Such Free Will approaches envision an original position in which incompatibilist free creatures are competent choosers placed in a utopian environment: that is, they have enough cognitive and emotional maturity to grasp and accurately apply relevant normative principles, while (on the occasion of choice) their exercise of these abilities is unfettered by unruly passions or external determinants of any kind. The possibility envisioned is that such creatures should choose contrary to their normative judgments, thereby introducing evil into the world. Even so, Free-Will-Defending philosophers such as Alvin Plantingal have chosen not to speak of sin, but of moral agency and responsibility, of moral goodness or turpitude. And this preference is of a piece with the widespread but unspoken agreement to discuss both the concept of God and the problem of evil within the parameters of religion neutral valuetheory.2 Little wonder if the relation between the concepts of sin and immorality should seem puzzling now!3 One obvious way to connect them starts with a religion-neutral view of human beings and the norms pertaining to them, and then

The Utopian design policy of the Shakers

This paper reviews some aspects of the nineteenth-century religious communitarian sect, the Shakers. It concentrates particularly on the environmental and other technical design aspects of the Shaker communities, setting these within the context of Shaker life and beliefs. Their design policy produced not just individual artefacts (such as the furniture for which the Shakers are particularly well known) but a total, Utopian environment which reflected and embodied their beliefs.