Organisational design practices for achieving environmental sustainability performance: a best-worst method

This study illustrates a ranking of organisational design practices for achieving environmental sustainability performance. Organisations can achieve environmental sustainability with production processes and operations that aim to reduce raw material and energy usage. Thus, organisations may adopt novel technologies and change work practices to achieve such outcomes. To accommo- date such changes, organisations use some organisational design practices. Since there is a lack of studies that summarises such practices illustrating the most im- portant to the least important, I decided to conduct a best-worst method. This method allows a ranking of several criteria that, in the study, are represented by organisational design practices, which are retrieved from the literature. The study results show that the development of the R&D function is the best organisational design practice to achieve environmental sustainability performance

A sociotechnical perspective of the Operator 4.0 factory: A literature review and future directions

In this study, I illustrate the sociotechnical perspective of the Operator 4.0 factory, where advanced Industry 4.0 technologies – such as robots, the internet of things, virtual reality are deployed to collaborate with operators and help them to their activities within manufacturing organisations. There is a lack of studies exploring how Operator 4.0 factory operates through the interplay between technologies and workers. I address this gap by conducting a systematic literature review employing the sociotechnical theory. This theory sees an organisation as a work system, composed of social and technical systems and helps understand how the work system operates. Thus, I portray the novel role of Operator 4.0, the enabling technologies of the Operator 4.0 factory and the challenged to implement them, and the instrumental and workforce benefits. The results show that studies are focused on both systems meaning that operator 4.0 plays a crucial role in this factory in conjunction with Industry 4.0 technologies. Organisations adopting such production systems experience instrumental benefits related to a more efficient production process and better workforce conditions. I conclude by proposing some future research avenues

The role of videoconferencing technology on middle man- agers translation of organization change

In this paper we explore the exacerbated challenges that middle man- agers experience as their translation effort is situated in virtual space, as com- pelled by the Covid-19 crisis. We draw on insights from ANT perspectives and on data obtained from interviews, online observations of WebEx meetings and focus groups with members of two units of the operation department of an inter- national bank. Findings show that the way actors (dis)engage in mutual gazing due to the positional offset between the capturing camera and display is imposing time inefficiencies that bring forth disadvantages in aligning meanings and inter- pretations, crucial to moving in a common direction. To refine responses, middle managers leverage novel technological affordances. Also, as the more intuitive and emotional components of ‘performing the translation’ are now being medi- ated from digital technology, they are found to have implications on a middle manager’s embodied understanding of performing their identity in a skilled way

The Potential Smart City Outcomes for Urban Sustainability: A Hierarchical Dirichlet Processing analysis

peer reviewedThis study explores the potential urban sustainability outcome of smart city innovation projects. Smart city concept refers to the use of digital technologies in urban planning, particularly for innovative transport systems, infrastructures, logistics and green and efficient energy systems. Urban sustainability includes three dimensions (socio-economic, economic and environmental) that need to be achieved by findings balance between the development of the urban areas and protecting the environment with an eye to equity in income. Although some studies claim a positive relationship between smart city projects and urban sustainability, we found a lack of studies that explores this relationship. We address this gap by conducting a hierarchical dirichlet processing on data retrieved ‘Intelligent Territory’ calls for projects implemented by the Wallonia Region (Belgium), where municipalities propose smart city projects to achieve urban sustainability. The study findings show that smart city innovation projects potentially support the three dimensiosn of urban sustainability following a government-led approach, where municiplaities sense societal needs and select the proper digital technolgoies to address them to achieve urban sustainability outcomes

Exploring the Smart City Adoption Process: Evidence from the Belgian urban context

peer reviewedIn this position paper, we explore the adoption of a Smart City with a socio-technical perspective. A Smart city is a transformational technological process leading to profound modifications of existing urban regimes and infrastructure components. In this study, we consider a Smart City as a socio-technical system where the interplay between technologies and users ensures the sustainable development of smart city initiatives that improve the quality of life and solve important socio-economic problems. The adoption of a Smart City required a participative approach where users are involved during the adoption process to joint optimise both systems. Thus, we contribute to socio-technical research showing how a participative approach based on press relationships to facilitate information exchange between municipal actors and citizens worked as a success factor for the smart city adoption. We also discuss the limitations of this approach

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI