Math. Comput. Appl., Volume 22, Issue 4 (December 2017) – 8 articles

The current paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to benchmark the leadership efficiency of civil engineers based on the leadership flexibility space diagram. Since the traditional DEA model does not fit for this problem, a simple modification has been made to enhance the L₁-Norm and CCR models to tackle the problem. The engineers are considered to be the decision making unit (DMU). Questionnaires were prepared and responses were received from engineers in an Iranian construction company (MD-2 Corporation) as a case study. The leadership flexibility space diagram uses two basic parameters: (1) a decision-making authority and; (2) data input to a group for decision-making. These parameters are considered as the output, and the model has no input-parameter. The assessment of DEA measures the proximity of the DMUs from the active management. Finally, a correlation among the attributes with leadership efficiency has been considered. Full article

This study analyzes the effects of employee satisfaction and demographic indicators on employee commitment to organizational culture at the enterprise level. With data from a survey of 3029 employees from 27 state-owned enterprises (SOEs), a hierarchical linear model (HLM) is used to identify the influencing factors of employee commitment to organizational culture at the enterprise level. An empirical study indicates that apart from the factors of employee satisfaction and demographic background, four contextual variables of enterprises, namely, comprehensive management, energy intensity, cost-income ratio, and capacity-load ratio, also influence commitment to organizational culture levels. Results show that applying HLM can substantially improve the explanatory power of employee satisfaction factors on commitment to organizational culture using nested enterprise contextual variables. Although measurement scales and satisfaction models have been proposed over the years, only a few studies have addressed the particular nature inherent in Chinese SOEs. HLM, which accounts for the nested data structure and determines the effects of employee satisfaction factors on commitment to organizational culture without bias, is developed in this study. Through an insider view based on empirical work, this research can improve the ability of senior managers to understand the culture and dynamics of organizations, to deliver strong leadership, and to enhance corporate internal management. Full article

The success of data transaction in a company largely depends on the intelligence system used in its database and application system. The complex and heterogeneous data in the log file make it more difficult for users to manage data effectively. Therefore, this paper creates an application system that can manage data from the log file. A sample was collected from an image editing company in Cambodia by interviewing five customers and seven operators, who worked on the data files for 300 images. This paper found two results: first, the agent script was used for retrieving data from the log file, classifying data, and inserting data into a database; and second, the web interface was used for the viewing of results by the users. The intelligence capabilities of our application, together with a friendly web-based and window-based experience, allow the users to easily acquire, manage, and access the data in an image editing company. Full article

This paper studied the nonlinear vibrations of top-tensioned cantilevered pipes conveying pressurized steady two-phase flow under thermal loading. The coupled axial and transverse governing partial differential equations of motion of the system were derived based on Hamilton’s mechanics, with the centerline assumed to be extensible. Using the multiple-scale perturbation technique, natural frequencies, mode shapes, and first order approximate solutions of the steady-state response of the pipes were obtained. The multiple-scale assessment reveals that at some frequencies the system is uncoupled, while at some frequencies a 1:2 coupling exists between the axial and the transverse frequencies of the pipe. Nonlinear frequencies versus the amplitude displacement of the cantilever pipe, conveying two-phase flow at super-critical mixture velocity for the uncoupled scenario, exhibit a nonlinear hardening behavior; an increment in the void fractions of the two-phase flow results in a reduction in the pipe’s transverse vibration frequencies and the coupled amplitude of the system. However, increases in the temperature difference, pressure, and the presence of top tension were observed to increase the pipe’s transverse vibration frequencies without a significant change in the coupled amplitude of the system. Full article

The main purpose of this study was to develop and apply a neural network (NN) approach and an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) model for forecasting the attendance rates at soccer games. The models were designed based on the characteristics of the problem. Past real data was used. Training data was used for training the models, and the testing data was used for evaluating the performance of the forecasting models. The obtained forecasting results were compared to the actual data and to each other. To evaluate the performance of the models, two statistical indicators, Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) and mean absolute percent error (MAPE), were used. Based on the results, the proposed neural network approach and the ANFIS model were shown to be effective in forecasting attendance at soccer games. The neural network approach performed better than the ANFIS model. The main contribution of this study is to introduce two effective techniques for estimating attendance at sports games. This is the first attempt to use an ANFIS model for that purpose. Full article

This paper presents a new scientific contribution to the two-dimensional red(2-D) subdomain technique in polar coordinates taking into account the finite relative permeability of the ferromagnetic material. The constant relative permeability corresponds to the linear part of the nonlinear $B\left(H\right)$ curve. As in the conventional technique, the separation of variables method and the Fourier series are used for the resolution of magnetostatic Maxwell equations in each region. The general solutions of the magnetic field in subdomains, as well as the boundary conditions (BCs) between regions are different from the conventional method. In the proposed method, the magnetic field solution in each subdomain is a superposition of two magnetic quantities in the two directions (i.e., r- and $\Theta$ -axis), and the BCs between two regions are also in both directions. For example, the scientific contribution has been applied to an air- or iron-cored coil supplied by a constant current. The distribution of local quantities (i.e., the magnetic vector potential and flux density) has been validated by a corresponding 2-D finite-element analysis (FEA). The obtained semi-analytical results are in very good agreement with those of the numerical method. Full article

This computational research study will analyze the multi-physics of lithium ion insertion into a silicon nanowire in an attempt to explain the electrochemical kinetics at the nanoscale and quantum level. The electron coherent states and a quantum field version of photon density waves will be the joining theories that will explain the electron-photon interaction within the lithium-silicon lattice structure. These two quantum particles will be responsible for the photon absorption rate of silicon atoms that are hypothesized to be the leading cause of breaking diatomic silicon covalent bonds that ultimately leads to volume expansion. It will be demonstrated through the combination of Maxwell stress tensor, optical amplification and path integrals that a stochastic analyze using a variety of Poisson distributions that the anisotropic expansion rates in the <110>, <111> and <112> orthogonal directions confirms the findings ascertained in previous works made by other research groups. The computational findings presented in this work are similar to those which were discovered experimentally using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and simulation models that used density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD). The refractive index and electric susceptibility parameters of lithiated silicon are interwoven in the first principle theoretical equations and appears frequently throughout this research presentation, which should serve to demonstrate the importance of these parameters in the understanding of this component in lithium ion batteries. Full article

Sensitivity analysis is widely applied in financial risk management and engineering; it describes the variations brought by the changes of parameters. Since the integration by parts technique for Markov chains is well developed in recent years, in this paper we apply it for computation of sensitivity and show the closed-form expressions for two commonly-used time-continuous Markovian models. By comparison, we conclude that our approach outperforms the existing technique of computing sensitivity on Markovian models. Full article