Studies on some aspects of agility appraisement: empirical research and case studies in Indian perspective

The thesis highlights decision-making problems in relation to agility evaluation as well as appraisement of agile enterprises followed be suppliers’ selection in agile supply chain. Various aspects have been covered (i) Supply Chain Agility Appraisement and (ii) Appraisement of Agility in Mass Customized Product Manufacturing (iii) Organizational Agility and Benchmarking of Agile Enterprises, (iv) Interrelationship amongst Agile Capabilities/Enablers, (v) Identification of Agile Barriers etc. Appraisement modules (appraisement index systems) have been proposed utilizing the concept of generalized fuzzy numbers, Interval-Valued Fuzzy Numbers (IVFNs) as well as grey numbers. The study provides in-depth understanding on hierarchical interrelationship amongst various agility dimensions required to assess organizational as well as supply chain agility. Agility appraisement modules have been proposed to perform both in fuzzy as well as grey environment. Agility barriers have been identified as well. The outcome of the empirical research as well as case study conducted in two Indian industries (automotive and railway construction at eastern India) have been critically analyzed. The influence of decision-makers’ risk bearing attitude over agility assessment and related decision-making has also been focused in this work. An efficient fuzzy embedded performance appraisement module has been proposed to facilitate suppliers’ evaluation cum selection process in agile supply chain. There exist a number of agility indices (metrics) that influence the extent of organizational agility. By evaluating these indices, appropriate ranking order of alternative agile enterprises can be determined. This being the basic fundamental of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM), it can effectively be explored towards benchmarking of agile enterprises. Evaluating the candidate agile alternatives and comparing across them, the best practices of the efficient organization can easily be identified and transferred to different organizations. Indian manufacturing industries prefer to maintain status-quo and hardly go for changes (or transformation). However, today’s market compulsion due to liberalization and globalization of demands that manufacturing firms must be agile enough to serve continuously changing unpredicted needs of the customers in an effective manner. The changes in terms of being agile are not easy enough due to several environmental, managerial and technical considerations. Analysis of drivers of agile manufacturing and their interaction with various aspects in integrative planning can be a valuable source of information to the decision-makers (DMs) for its successful implementation. In doing so, the managers can derive important insights into the problem and explore the said drivers efficiently to overcome those obstacles. Agility evaluation problem can be viewed as a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem involving qualitative as well as quantitative evaluation criterions. Quantitative criterions (attributes) can be tackled by traditional tools and approaches. Difficulty arises in dealing with subjective qualitative selection criterions. In this thesis, fuzzy logic (as well as grey theory) has been proposed to tackle decision-makers’ subjective information/judgment in relation to agility appraisement and related decision-making vi problems. Literature is rich enough in addressing various decision-modeling problems using generalized fuzzy numbers; therefore, fruitful incorporation of Interval-Valued Fuzzy Numbers theory and grey theory definitely added value (contribution) pursued in data analysis (empirical as well as case studies) in this thesis. Use of ‘Fuzzy Degree of Similarity’ concept in identifying weak (ill-performing) areas (called agile barriers) in an agile supply chain appears to be a unique contribution in this work

Reviews and Perspectives on Smart and Sustainable Metropolitan and Regional Cities

The notion of smart and sustainable cities offers an integrated and holistic approach to urbanism by aiming to achieve the long-term goals of urban sustainability and resilience. In essence, a smart and sustainable city is an urban locality that functions as a robust system of systems with sustainable practices to generate desired outcomes and futures for all humans and non-humans. This book contributes to improving research and practice in smart and sustainable metropolitan as well as regional cities and urbanism by bringing together literature reviews and scholarly perspective pieces, forming an open access knowledge warehouse. It contains contributions that offer insights into research and practice in smart and sustainable metropolitan and regional cities by producing in-depth conceptual debates and perspectives, insights from the literature and best practice, and thoroughly identified research themes and development trends. This book serves as a repository of relevant information, material, and knowledge to support research, policymaking, practice, and the transferability of experiences to address challenges in establishing smart and sustainable metropolitan as well as regional cities and urbanism in the era of climate change, biodiversity collapse, natural disasters, pandemics, and socioeconomic inequalities

Representations of unmarried women in the Hong Kong reality television series Bride Wannabes

Over the past decade, with the increasing gender imbalance in Hong Kong, unmarried women in their 30s and 40s are often stigmatised as ‘leftover women’. Despite being a popular media topic, this phenomenon has attracted little scholarly attention. My research illuminates this under-researched topic by unmasking ideologies through which unmarried women are stigmatised and the media’s role in reproducing such ideologies. Informed by feminist theories, especially Gill (2007a, b), and critical discourse studies, especially van Dijk (1998a), I examine representations of unmarried women in the Hong Kong reality television series Bride Wannabes (all ten episodes), in which five single women look for a boyfriend under some ‘experts’’ guidance. First, I look at how they are talked about in relation to how they are referred to and the types of actions involving them using van Leeuwen’s social actor framework (2008) and the transitivity system in systemic-functional grammar (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014), respectively. Second, I investigate how they talk about themselves in terms of self-appraisals using Martin and White’s appraisal framework (2005). Last, I explore how they are talked to in terms of impoliteness using Culpeper’s impoliteness model (2011). The analysis demonstrates that the series characterises the participants as different kinds of women and shapes views on them vis-à-vis their marriageability. The only participant who could find a partner in the show is characterised as a ‘hyperfeminine’ woman and a success story, whereas the other participants, who deviate from traditional femininity differently, are represented as undesirable for men. Concerning how unmarried women talk about themselves, while some mainly express their worries about their marriage prospects or problematise themselves according to traditional gender expectations, some articulate resistance to traditional gender norms. As regards how unmarried women are talked to, the analysis indicates that impoliteness is mainly used by the ‘experts’ to transform the participants. However, Bride Wannabes is exploitative in that only several participants are targeted for humiliation, and the show seems to deliberately include only impolite exchanges leading to the participant’s submission, in which case impoliteness also functions to foster traditional femininity and promote the beauty centre involved. The findings suggest that representations of unmarried women in Bride Wannabes are underpinned by the ideologies of patriarchy, postfeminism and ageism. While egalitarianism can be identified in the self-representations of the participants higher on the socio-economic ladder, it is clearly suppressed. The programme fosters sexism against social changes favouring women. I think the stigmatisation of unmarried women in Bride Wannabes relates to (1) women’s shrinking ‘marriage market’; (2) the enduring force of the conventional heterosexual life script, despite its waning influence; and (3) the impact of cultural globalisation

Bioinspired metaheuristic algorithms for global optimization

This paper presents concise comparison study of newly developed bioinspired algorithms for global optimization problems. Three different metaheuristic techniques, namely Accelerated Particle Swarm Optimization (APSO), Firefly Algorithm (FA), and Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) are investigated and implemented in Matlab environment. These methods are compared on four unimodal and multimodal nonlinear functions in order to find global optimum values. Computational results indicate that GWO outperforms other intelligent techniques, and that all aforementioned algorithms can be successfully used for optimization of continuous functions

Experimental Evaluation of Growing and Pruning Hyper Basis Function Neural Networks Trained with Extended Information Filter

In this paper we test Extended Information Filter (EIF) for sequential training of Hyper Basis Function Neural Networks with growing and pruning ability (HBF-GP). The HBF neuron allows different scaling of input dimensions to provide better generalization property when dealing with complex nonlinear problems in engineering practice. The main intuition behind HBF is in generalization of Gaussian type of neuron that applies Mahalanobis-like distance as a distance metrics between input training sample and prototype vector. We exploit concept of neuron’s significance and allow growing and pruning of HBF neurons during sequential learning process. From engineer’s perspective, EIF is attractive for training of neural networks because it allows a designer to have scarce initial knowledge of the system/problem. Extensive experimental study shows that HBF neural network trained with EIF achieves same prediction error and compactness of network topology when compared to EKF, but without the need to know initial state uncertainty, which is its main advantage over EKF

State of the Art and Future Perspectives in Smart and Sustainable Urban Development

This book contributes to the conceptual and practical knowledge pools in order to improve the research and practice on smart and sustainable urban development by presenting an informed understanding of the subject to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. This book presents contributions—in the form of research articles, literature reviews, case reports, and short communications—offering insights into the smart and sustainable urban development by conducting in-depth conceptual debates, detailed case study descriptions, thorough empirical investigations, systematic literature reviews, or forecasting analyses. This way, the book forms a repository of relevant information, material, and knowledge to support research, policymaking, practice, and the transferability of experiences to address urbanization and other planetary challenges

Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Journal, Volume 10

Where Theory Meets Practice October 1-2, 2020 Panel 1: Where Theory Meets Practice: A Tribute to Henry E. Smith Panel 2: The Housing Crisis Lunch Roundtable: Emerging Issues in Takings and Eminent Domain Law Panel 3: The Reach of Government\u27s Confiscatory Powers Over Exigencies and Emergencies Panel 4: The Risk of Unjust Compensationhttps://scholarship.law.wm.edu/propertyjournal/1010/thumbnail.jp

World Multidisciplinary Civil Engineering- Architecture- Urban Planning symposium

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all 900+ submissions by 600+ participants of WMCAUS 2018 from 60+ different countries all over the world for their interests and contributions in WMCAUS 2018. We wish you enjoy the World Multidisciplinary Civil Engineering-Architecture-Urban Planning Symposium – WMCAUS 2018 and have a pleasant stay in the city of romance Prague. We hope to see you again during next event WMCAUS 2019 which will be held in Prague (Czech Republic) approximately in the similar period

Montana Constitutional Convention Proceedings, 1971-1972, Volume 5

This volume includes a verbatim transcript of the Montana Constitutional Convention from March 1, 1972 to March 9, 1972.https://scholarworks.umt.edu/montanaconstitution/1041/thumbnail.jp