An Investigation into the Implications of Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) in the Workplace

There has been an increasing interest on the work ethics and its various aspects among the academicians and practitioners. This is partly because of the ethical scandals that have occurred in the recent years and got attention from media and public and therefore raised the questions regarding ethical standards of companies and its practical use in the business life. This interest has prompted several research into the topic both theoretical and practical levels. Although the studies have accumulated in the Western World, the studies coming from the developing countries are limited and thus call for the studies to further investigate the dynamics and implications of the work ethics. This study particularly pays attention to Islamic work ethic and aims to identify whether Islamic work ethic values differ across various demographic variables and firm characteristics. The study also investigates the relationship between the Islamic work ethic and innovation capability and firm performance. The study is supported with a field study conducted on the firms operating in KahramanmaraÅŸ in Turkey. The obtained data was analyzed by using Correlation, ANOVA, T-test and Regression in SPSS. The results showed that IWE values differ across some characteristic of the respondents and firms. The results also indicate the positive influence of IWE values on innovation capability and firm performance

Robust control of shunt active power filter using interval type-2 fuzzy logic controller for power quality improvement

Dobro je poznato da se usporedno aktivni filtar snage (SAPF - Shunt Active Power Filter) uvelike koristi za smanjenje harmonijske distorzije i kompenzaciju reaktivne snage u elektroenergetskim sustavima. Regulator napona sabirnice istosmjerne struje SAPF-a vrlo je važan za odličnu kvalitetu snage. U reguliranju SAPF-a, napon sabirnice istosmjerne struje regulira se konvencionalnim metodama kao što su PI i PID regulatori. Međutim, ti regulatori ne mogu dati dobre rezultate u prijelaznim i stacionarnim uvjetima. Robusni i inteligentni regulatori potrebni su za poboljšanje performansi SAPF-a. U ovom radu, sustav neizrazite logike intervala tipa-2 (T2FLS) koji ne zahtijeva matematički model kao kontrolni sustav preferira se za reguliranje napona sabirnice istosmjerne struje SAPF-a i uspoređuje sa sustavom neizrazite logike tipa-1(T1FLS). Konstruirane su i simulirane strukture SAPF-a s oba regulatora primjenom MATLAB /Simulink okruženja. Rezultati simulacije su pokazali da SAPF struktura s predloženim regulatorom ima bolje karakteristike od T1FLS-a u odnosu na fiksni napon sabirnice istosmjerne struje, ukupno harmoničko izobličenje i kvalitetu snage.It is well-known that shunt active power filter (SAPF) is widely used to reduce harmonic distortion and to compensate reactive power in electrical power systems. DC bus voltage control of SAPF is very important for excellent power quality. In the control of SAPF, DC bus voltage is controlled by conventional control methods such as PI and PID controllers. However, these controllers cannot give good results under transient and steady state conditions. Robust and intelligent controllers are required in order to improve performance of SAPF. In this paper, interval type-2 fuzzy logic system (T2FLS) that does not require mathematical model to be controlled system is preferred for control of DC bus voltage of SAPF and compared with type-1 fuzzy logic system (T1FLS). SAPF structures with both controllers are designed and simulated using MATLAB /Simulink environment. Simulation results have shown that SAPF structure with proposed controller has superior features than T1FLS in terms of fixed DC bus voltage, total harmonic distortion and power quality

Management Problems in Sekkeli Construction Ltd

The founder, Ahmet Sekkeli is an architect and has mainly focused on architectural services. After realizing that there was a big need to involve into the competition, Sekkeli Construction Limited Company was founded. In order to solve the management problems in the corporation, knowledge management practices are used as the core principle.BscManagement and Business Administrationv

An optimization model for wind turbine micro-siting in Wind Power Plant installation

The wind turbine micro-siting is one of the most important agenda topics in Wind Power Plant (WPP) installations. An appropriate siting of wind turbines increases the amount of energy produced by the WPP. In this study, an optimization model is developed for WPP installation consisting of 10 wind turbines. In the first stage of the study, the wind speed distribution in WPP installation region is modeled. In this model; wind measurements taken from the WPP installation region, topographic map of the WPP installation region and WASP (Wind Atlas Analysis and Application Program) software are used. In the second stage, a general method has been formed for calculating the total energy produced by the wind turbines to be placed randomly in the region. A real power curve belong to the wind turbine is used for the energy calculation to be close to real production. This power curve belongs to the Bonus brand wind turbine, which has an output power of 2 MW. In the third stage of the study, the optimization model is solved by using the Genetic Algorithm (GA) method and 10 number optimal turbine coordinates is determined. In order to evaluate the results, wind turbines are placed in these coordinates using WASP software. According to the results from the software, the annual energy production of the wind turbines is found as 56553.5 kWh. Furthermore, it has been observed that wind turbine placements are made to the regions, which have high energy production potential in the mean wind speed map. This result showed that the proposed model is placed turbines effectively in WPP installation

Tracking algorithm for suitcase that follows its owner autonomously

4th International Conference on Virtual Reality (ICVR) -- FEB 24-26, 2018 -- Hong Kong, HONG KONGWOS:000471068800011This paper presents an application of human tracking suitcase with the help of a small camera. This application aimed to make the travels more comfortable. The heavy suitcases can be difficult to carry for most of us and disabled. Under favor of this application, people can travel without thinking about heavy suitcases anymore. This application contains two technical stages as image processing and control. Motor control of the suitcase has been done by using motion information. The suitcase can track colorful objects with the help of the camera which is located on the handlebar. In this project, we developed a tracking algorithm that gives better results than single color tracking. Distance sensors are also used to escape from obstacles. This travel mate is also trustable because when the unit cannot catch the person anymore, the alarm starts to warn the owner. As a result, when a suitcase combined with this designed unit, suitcases are no longer a problem to carry during the travel.IACSI

A methodology of integrating affective design with defining engineering specifications for product design

Affective design and the determination of engineering specifications are commonly conducted separately in early product design stage. Generally, designers and engineers are required to determine the settings of design attributes (for affective design) and engineering requirements (for engineering design), respectively, for new products. Some design attributes and some engineering requirements could be common. However, the settings of the design attributes and engineering requirements could be different because of the separation of the two processes. In previous studies, a methodology that considers the determination of the settings of the design attributes and engineering requirements simultaneously was not found. To bridge this gap, a methodology for considering affective design and the determination of engineering specifications of a new product simultaneously is proposed. The proposed methodology mainly involves generation of customer satisfaction models, formulation of a multi-objective optimisation model and its solving using a chaos-based NSGA-II. To illustrate and validate the proposed methodology, a case study of mobile phone design was conducted. A validation test was conducted and the test results showed that the customer satisfaction values obtained based on the proposed methodology were higher than those obtained based on the combined standalone quality function deployment and standalone affective design approach

A forward selection based fuzzy regression for new product development that correlates engineering characteristics with consumer preferences

© 2016 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved. Fuzzy regression models have commonly been used to correlate engineering characteristics with consumer preferences regarding a new product. Based on the models, product developers can determine optimal engineering characteristics of the new product in order to satisfy consumer preferences. However, they have a common limitation in that they cannot guarantee to include significant regressors with significant engineering characteristics or significant nonlinear terms. The generalization capability of the model can be reduced, when too few significant regressors are included and too many insignificant regressors are included. In this paper, a forward selection based fuzzy regression (FS-FR) is proposed based on the statistical forward selection to determine significant regressors. After the significant regressors are determined, the fuzzy regression is used to generate the fuzzy coefficients which address the uncertainties due to fuzziness and randomness caused by consumer preference evaluations. The developed model includes only significant regressors which attempt to improve the generalization capability. A case study of a tea maker design demonstrated that the FS-FR was able to generate consumer preference models with better generalization capabilities than the other tested fuzzy regressions. Also simpler consumer preference models can be provided for the new product development