Search results

The purpose of this paper is to describe a method that has been set up to schedule preventive maintenance (PM) tasks for power and water plants with all constraints such as production and maintenance.

The proposed methodology relies on the zero-one integer programming model that finds the maximum number of power and water units available in separate generating units. To verify this, the model was implemented and tested as a case study in Kuwait for the Cogeneration Station.

An effective solution can be achieved for scheduling the PM tasks and production at the power and water cogeneration plant.

The proposed model offers a practical method to schedule PM of power and water units, which are expensive equipment.

This proposed model is an effective decision-making tool that provides an ideal solution for preventive maintenance scheduling problems for power and water units in a cogeneration plant, effectively and complies with all constraints.

Addresses the standardization of the measurements and the labels for concepts commonly used in the study of work organizations. As a reference handbook and research tool, seeks to improve measurement in the study of work organizations and to facilitate the teaching of introductory courses in this subject. Focuses solely on work organizations, that is, social systems in which members work for money. Defines measurement and distinguishes four levels: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Selects specific measures on the basis of quality, diversity, simplicity and availability and evaluates each measure for its validity and reliability. Employs a set of 38 concepts ‐ ranging from “absenteeism” to “turnover” as the handbook’s frame of reference. Concludes by reviewing organizational measurement over the past 30 years and recommending future measurement reseach.

In this chapter, the authors enter the world of ballet to be inspired by artistic teams. This original point of view proposes a complementary understanding of the dynamics of routines replication where preserving the authenticity of the project’s intent is emphasized over economic efficiency considerations.

The authors propose that analyzing the remounting of a ballet as an in-depth extreme case study provides an opportunity to learn more about other aspects that can be relevant in transfer stories: the importance accorded to the intent of the routine to be transferred; the existence of a dialogical dynamic that engages artifacts and memories of this intent; the existence of a meta-routine that structures and enables the transfer of sub-routines across geographical distance in another context. The authors will see that, in this case, routines replication is also made possible through sharing of a routine’s ostensive aspect which is embedded in a professional culture.

The overarching priority in remounting a show is strict respect for the choreographer’s original intent. As replicator and imitator teams encounter the consequences of a new location and its characteristics, the authors will examine how they face the replication dilemma, coordinate themselves, and use innovation to achieve replication.

People with chronic conditions faced a type of double jeopardy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their pre-existing health conditions made them more likely to become severely ill – and more likely to be admitted to intensive care, intubated, and die – if infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. At the same time, access to needed screening, testing, and treatment was often limited due to the cancelation of primary care services by healthcare providers and systems overwhelmed by the need to treat patients with COVID-19. Patients with chronic conditions feared being exposed to COVID-19 while receiving care. The resulting stress, fear, and anxiety made the management of chronic diseases even more difficult. Several subsets of patients with certain medical conditions, including immunodeficiencies and disabilities, were particularly impacted. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the response to it, also impacted support and services available to caregivers and heightened stress, particularly among parents and caregivers.

The main aim of this paper is description of new apparatus and approach for contact less evaluation of surface roughness. For characterization of surface roughness, the procedures based on classical and non‐classical (complexity) parameters are proposed.

For obtaining the roughness profile in the selected direction (on the line transect of the surface), the special arrangements of textile bend around sharp edge is used. The image analysis is used for extraction of surface profile. The system of controlled movement allows one to obtain surface roughness profile in two dimensions.

By using aggregation (cut length principle), the roughness resolution is decreased and roughness profile is created without local roughness variation. After application of cut length principle, the direct combination of slices leads to the creation of roughness surface.

There exists plenty of roughness characteristics based on standard statistics or analysis of spatial processes. For evaluation of suitability of these characteristics, it will be necessary to compare results from sets of textile surfaces.

The measurement of fabric roughness by an RCM device is useful as simple tool for description of roughness in individual slices and in the whole rough plane. This method replaces the traditional contact stylus profiling methods

The reconstruction of surface roughness from individual slices. The utilization of aggregation principle for creation of micro and macro roughness. The evaluation of roughness parameters based on the geometrical characteristics, harmonic analysis and complexity indices.

The surface roughness is one of the main parts of hand prediction. Classical method of surface roughness measurements is based on the surface profile measurement. Characteristic of roughness is then variation coefficient of surface profile (surface height variation). The main aim of this work is to estimate the surface profile complexity by using variogram (structure function). The surface profile variation is classified to the group according to short‐ and long‐range dependence. The concept of fractal dimension is proposed especially for long‐term correlation cases. The applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated on the typical heat protective clothing fabrics and compared with the results of surface roughness evaluated by the KES system.

A partial differential equation for elastic vibration of connecting rod of a slider‐crank mechanism is formulated by applying Theorem of Motion of Center of Mass and viscoelastic model. The partial differential equation is discretized into two second‐order ordinary differential equations by assuming a two‐mode approximation. The two equations are transformed into the first order linear ordinary differential equations with periodical coefficients. Then the stability of elastic vibration of the connecting rod is investigated using Floquet theory. Procedures for predicting the stability are developed. Finally, a case study is analyzed by applying the procedures.

The primary objective of this paper is to understand the extent to which Australian industrial relations academics took up the different heuristic frameworks from USA and U.K. from the 1960s to the 1980s. A second objective is to begin to understand why, and in what ways ideas are transmitted in academic disciplines drawing on a “market model” for ideas. It is shown that in the years between 1960s and 1980s a modified U.S. (Dunlopian) model of interpreting industrial relations became more influential in Australia than that of U.K. scholarship, as exemplified by the British Oxford School. In part this reflects the breadth, flexibility and absence of an overt normative tenor in Dunlop’s model which thus offered lower transaction costs for scholars in an emergent discipline seeking recognition and approval from academia, practitioners and policy-makers. Despite frequent and wide-ranging criticism of Dunlop’s model, it proved a far more enduring transfer to Australian academic industrial relations than the British model, albeit in a distorted form. The market model for the diffusion of ideas illuminates the ways in which a variety of local contextual factors influenced the choices taken by Australian industrial relations academics.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze numerically the blowup in finite time of the solutions to a one-dimensional, bidirectional, nonlinear wave model equation for the propagation of small-amplitude waves in shallow water, as a function of the relaxation time, linear and nonlinear drift, power of the nonlinear advection flux, viscosity coefficient, viscous attenuation, and amplitude, smoothness and width of three types of initial conditions.

An implicit, first-order accurate in time, finite difference method valid for semipositive relaxation times has been used to solve the equation in a truncated domain for three different initial conditions, a first-order time derivative initially equal to zero and several constant wave speeds.

The numerical experiments show a very rapid transient from the initial conditions to the formation of a leading propagating wave, whose duration depends strongly on the shape, amplitude and width of the initial data as well as on the coefficients of the bidirectional equation. The blowup times for the triangular conditions have been found to be larger than those for the Gaussian ones, and the latter are larger than those for rectangular conditions, thus indicating that the blowup time decreases as the smoothness of the initial conditions decreases. The blowup time has also been found to decrease as the relaxation time, degree of nonlinearity, linear drift coefficient and amplitude of the initial conditions are increased, and as the width of the initial condition is decreased, but it increases as the viscosity coefficient is increased. No blowup has been observed for relaxation times smaller than one-hundredth, viscosity coefficients larger than ten-thousandths, quadratic and cubic nonlinearities, and initial Gaussian, triangular and rectangular conditions of unity amplitude.

The blowup of a one-dimensional, bidirectional equation that is a model for the propagation of waves in shallow water, longitudinal displacement in homogeneous viscoelastic bars, nerve conduction, nonlinear acoustics and heat transfer in very small devices and/or at very high transfer rates has been determined numerically as a function of the linear and nonlinear drift coefficients, power of the nonlinear drift, viscosity coefficient, viscous attenuation, and amplitude, smoothness and width of the initial conditions for nonzero relaxation times.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the cost and benefit of a community-based alcohol consumption control program during the Buddhist Lent (BL) period in terms of social return on investment (SROI).

The research team evaluated the program in four selected villages from four regions using standard SROI. Relevant stakeholders were involved in the evaluation design and program impact map construction. Data, including costs, were collected from literatures, official documents, stakeholder interviews and focus group discussions. Alcohol abstinence and related data during and after the 2015 BL period were gathered from a survey questionnaire. The SROI ratio presented the social benefits compared against the total social investment.

The program was effective in producing a greater social value (2.7–5.9 times) than the cost of investment in every village. Cost savings from alcohol consumption constituted a major proportion of the program’s value.

The community-based alcohol consumption control program during BL can provide value for investment. Information from this study can be used by policy makers in their decision to continue or scale up the program. The SROI approach mainly relies on stakeholders that may present a bias; however, further study such as social cost-benefit analysis could provide additional insights.