Chi-Chung Chen, Li Ping Shen, Chien-Feng Huang and Bao-Rong Chang
The purpose of this paper is to propose a new population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm, assimilation-accommodation mixed continuous ant colony optimization (ACACO)…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a new population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm, assimilation-accommodation mixed continuous ant colony optimization (ACACO), to improve the accuracy of Takagi-Sugeno-Kang-type fuzzy systems design.
Design/methodology/approach
The original N solution vectors in ACACO are sorted and categorized into three groups according to their ranks. The Research Learning scheme provides the local search capability for the best-ranked group. The Basic Learning scheme uses the ant colony optimization (ACO) technique for the worst-ranked group to approach the best solution. The operations of assimilation, accommodation, and mutation in Mutual Learning scheme are used for the middle-ranked group to exchange and accommodate the partial information between groups and, globally, search information. Only the N top-best-performance solutions are reserved after each iteration of learning.
Findings
The proposed algorithm outperforms some reported ACO algorithms for the fuzzy system design with the same number of rules. The performance comparison with various previously published neural fuzzy systems also shows its superiority even with a smaller number of fuzzy rules to those neural fuzzy systems.
Research limitations/implications
Future work will consider the application of the proposed ACACO to the recurrent fuzzy network.
Originality/value
The originality of this work is to mix the work of the well-known psychologist Jean Piaget and the continuous ACO to propose a new population-based optimization algorithm whose superiority is demonstrated.
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Chih-Chun Kung, Bruce McCarl, Xiaoyong Cao and Hualin Xie
This study aims to explore Taiwan's potential for bioenergy production using feedstocks grown on set-aside land and discusses the consequent effects on Taiwan's energy security…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore Taiwan's potential for bioenergy production using feedstocks grown on set-aside land and discusses the consequent effects on Taiwan's energy security plus benefits and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission.
Design/methodology/approach
The Modified Taiwan Agricultural Sector Model (Modified TASM), based on price endogenous mathematical programming, was used to simulate different agricultural policies related to bioenergy production. To do this simulation, the TASM model was extended to include additional bioenergy production possibilities and GHG accounting.
Findings
Taiwan's bioenergy production portfolio depends on prices of ethanol, electricity and GHG. When GHG prices go up, ethanol production decreases and electricity production increases because of the relatively stronger GHG offset power of biopower.
Originality/value
Taiwan is interested in producing bioenergy but only limited information is available. This study provides the information on potential bioethanol and bioelectricity production from various energy crops, GHG emission offset from bioenergy, and regional energy security.
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Pooja Goel, Simarjeet Singh and Nidhi Walia
Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to synthesize and organize existing literature on contagious diseases and tourism. This systematic mapping of the literature helps to…
Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to synthesize and organize existing literature on contagious diseases and tourism. This systematic mapping of the literature helps to identify various mature and emerging themes around the research domain in the literature.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The study uses systematic methodology along with bibliometric and content analysis. Using a combination of electronic database searching and forward and backward references searching, the study identifies 160 suitable published studies.
Findings: Initial bibliometric analysis reveals that Tourism Geographies and Tourism Management are most influential journals and Law and Lee are most influential authors working on this field. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Universiti Sains Malaysia are among the top contributing educational and research organizations. Further, the content analysis reveals that literature on contagious diseases and tourism industry revolves around three prominent themes namely SARS and other contagious diseases, crisis management and tourism forecasting.
Research Limitations/Implications: The study does not consider ‘grey literature’ and conference proceedings.
Originality and Value: Present study is one of the early attempts that analyzes the literature on contagious diseases and tourism using bibliometric analysis and contributes to the literature by identifying various mature and emerging on contagious diseases and tourism literature. These insights provide a robust map for future investigation in this field and also offer implications for practitioners.
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Bao-Rong Chang, Hsiu-Fen Tsai, Yun-Che Tsai, Chin-Fu Kuo and Chi-Chung Chen
The purpose of this paper is to integrate and optimize a multiple big data processing platform with the features of high performance, high availability and high scalability in big…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to integrate and optimize a multiple big data processing platform with the features of high performance, high availability and high scalability in big data environment.
Design/methodology/approach
First, the integration of Apache Hive, Cloudera Impala and BDAS Shark make the platform support SQL-like query. Next, users can access a single interface and select the best performance of big data warehouse platform automatically by the proposed optimizer. Finally, the distributed memory storage system Memcached incorporated into the distributed file system, Apache HDFS, is employed for fast caching query results. Therefore, if users query the same SQL command, the same result responds rapidly from the cache system instead of suffering the repeated searches in a big data warehouse and taking a longer time to retrieve.
Findings
As a result the proposed approach significantly improves the overall performance and dramatically reduces the search time as querying a database, especially applying for the high-repeatable SQL commands under multi-user mode.
Research limitations/implications
Currently, Shark’s latest stable version 0.9.1 does not support the latest versions of Spark and Hive. In addition, this series of software only supports Oracle JDK7. Using Oracle JDK8 or Open JDK will cause serious errors, and some software will be unable to run.
Practical implications
The problem with this system is that some blocks are missing when too many blocks are stored in one result (about 100,000 records). Another problem is that the sequential writing into In-memory cache wastes time.
Originality/value
When the remaining memory capacity is 2 GB or less on each server, Impala and Shark will have a lot of page swapping, causing extremely low performance. When the data scale is larger, it may cause the JVM I/O exception and make the program crash. However, when the remaining memory capacity is sufficient, Shark is faster than Hive and Impala. Impala’s consumption of memory resources is between those of Shark and Hive. This amount of remaining memory is sufficient for Impala’s maximum performance. In this study, each server allocates 20 GB of memory for cluster computing and sets the amount of remaining memory as Level 1: 3 percent (0.6 GB), Level 2: 15 percent (3 GB) and Level 3: 75 percent (15 GB) as the critical points. The program automatically selects Hive when memory is less than 15 percent, Impala at 15 to 75 percent and Shark at more than 75 percent.
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In his autobiography, Chen Shui-bian (1999, p. 40) condemned the Koumintang's (KMT's) corruption and praised the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for being free from money…
Abstract
In his autobiography, Chen Shui-bian (1999, p. 40) condemned the Koumintang's (KMT's) corruption and praised the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for being free from money politics and corruption. The DPP fought the 1992 Legislative Yuan election campaign effectively on an anticorruption platform and used the same strategy in subsequent elections. If Chen Shui-bian had criticized the KMT for its involvement with “black gold” politics and had won the 2000 presidential election on his anticorruption platform, why was he and his family found guilty of corruption after his second term of office? The short answer is that even though he had promised to curb corruption, President Chen himself had succumbed to corruption after assuming office. In June 2002, Keesing's Contemporary Archives cited a poll in Taiwan that indicated that more respondents had perceived the DPP to be more corrupt than the KMT (Copper, 2006, p. 14).
Wen-Hung Huang, Kenneth Bicol Dy, Ching-Cheng Chang and Shih-Hsun Hsu
This study deals with attenuating the risk of relying on a single export market, which was heightened by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on Taiwanese atemoya (a…
Abstract
Purpose
This study deals with attenuating the risk of relying on a single export market, which was heightened by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on Taiwanese atemoya (a fruit with short storage life) and the adoption of active controlled atmosphere (CA) containers, a new technology which lengthens storage time for other export markets. This study looks at the financial feasibility of the technology's first ever use in atemoya exports.
Design/methodology/approach
Apart from the standard financial assessment tools—like net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), benefit-cost ratio (BCR) and payback period (PBP)—this study calibrated five different scenarios based on data gathered from relevant market agents including suppliers, exporters, customs brokers and technology developer.
Findings
Due to the high profit margin and low investment cost, the use of active CA containers for long-haul exports of this highly perishable fruit is found both technically and financially feasible, despite the generally higher operational cost during the pandemic.
Research limitations/implications
This study looked at three specific export markets: Malaysia, Dubai and Canada. Results here may lack generalizability in other markets, although it is believed that slight deviations would not invalidate the conclusions of this research because short, medium and long distances were all covered therein.
Originality/value
This paper studies the first time that active CA is used for export of atemoyas to expand existing markets.
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This chapter sets out to analyze the impact of the Covid-19 virus on the holidays provided by UK group tour operators (GTOs) and the implications for overtourism. With tourism…
Abstract
This chapter sets out to analyze the impact of the Covid-19 virus on the holidays provided by UK group tour operators (GTOs) and the implications for overtourism. With tourism arrivals expected to fall by up to 30% in 2020 and a slow return to pre-Covid-19 levels for 2021 and beyond, the industry is possibly suffering the loss of up to 100 million travel-related jobs (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2020). GTOs will need to assess and possibly change the way they do business to initially survive and subsequently build up tourism numbers in the coming years.
This chapter identifies how GTOs could alter their holiday proposition to reassure travellers including the challenges of operating international tours when airlines have reduced capacity, the need to consider alternative age demographics who are more likely to travel and assessing existing itineraries to visit rural or small town locations rather than cities where numerous itineraries travel to now.
Finally, this chapter discusses and describes the significance of the findings with insights about possible opportunities based upon the approaches taken by various countries to target potential holidaymakers and the need to create a ‘crisis management plan’ for current and future countries. This may result in operational adjustments to meet these new requirements including the changing outlook of potential customers and the possibility of offering domestic tours to meet the current demand.
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Chia-Nan Wang, Tran Thi Bich Chau Vo, Hsien-Pin Hsu, Yu-Chi Chung, Nhut Tien Nguyen and Nhat-Luong Nhieu
Business Process Reengineering (BPR) eliminates non-value-added (NVA) and essential non-value-added (ENVA) waste through radical process redesign to improve organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
Business Process Reengineering (BPR) eliminates non-value-added (NVA) and essential non-value-added (ENVA) waste through radical process redesign to improve organizational operations. Comprehensive research integrating BPR tools is needed to understand their benefits for manufacturing firms. This research presents an integrated BPR-simulation framework tailored to the manufacturing sector to maximize process improvements and operational excellence.
Design/methodology/approach
The BPR design methodology adopts a systematic, multi-stage approach. The first phase involves identifying a specific improvement process aligned with BPR's core objectives. This phase analyses and redesigns workflows to optimize task sequences, roles, and stakeholder interactions while eliminating redundancies and inefficiencies via Workflow Process Reengineering. Visual process mapping tools, including VSM and simulation, pinpoint areas of waste, delay, and potential enhancement. The second phase follows the workflow analysis and aims to improve efficiency and effectiveness by redefining roles, rearranging tasks, and integrating automation and technology solutions. The redesigned process undergoes evaluation against key performance indicators to ensure measurable improvements are achieved. The final phase validates the proposed changes through simulation models, assesses the impact on key performance metrics, and establishes the necessary infrastructure for successful implementation. The proposed model is empirically validated through a case study of a leading apparel company in Vietnam, confirming its effectiveness.
Findings
The findings reveal that NVA activities are being eliminated, and ENVA activities in key departments are significantly reduced. This yielded a substantial improvement, reducing 25 out of 186 combined ENVA and NVA operations in the sewing facility, involving a decrease of 15 ENVA operations and the removal of 10 NVA operations. Consequently, this led to an 8.5% reduction in the proportion of ENVA operations, accompanied by a complete 100% elimination of NVA activities.
Research limitations/implications
The single case study limits generalizability; thus, expanded implementation across diverse manufacturing sub-sectors is required to establish validity and broader applicability of the integrated framework.
Originality/value
The experimental results highlight the proposed model's effectiveness in optimizing resource utilization and its practical implementation potential. This structured BPR methodology enables organizations to validate, evaluate, and establish proposed process changes to enhance operational performance and productivity.
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This study proposes a multilevel framework to test the mechanisms and boundary conditions of the relationships between positive group affective tone (PGAT) and individual/team…
Abstract
Purpose
This study proposes a multilevel framework to test the mechanisms and boundary conditions of the relationships between positive group affective tone (PGAT) and individual/team creativity.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Data are collected from 122 research and development (R&D) teams (including 305 members and 122 team leaders). Hierarchical linear modeling analyses and hierarchical regression analyses are performed to test hypotheses.
Findings
The results show that PGAT facilitates individual creativity via enhanced work engagement, and increases team creativity via team information exchange. Supporting the substituting perspective, we found that the positive indirect effects of PGAT on individual/team creativity were attenuated when supervisory support is high.
Research Limitations/Implications
Although all variables were collected at the same time and the individual-level variables were collected from the same source, our findings highlight the mechanisms explaining the beneficial effects of PGAT on individual/team creativity, and how supervisory support can substitute for such effects.
Practical Implications
In order to make the individuals and teams more creative, the organizations need to promote PGAT via the selection of appropriated leader and members or team social events. Moreover, supervisors support is particularly salient in enhancing team creativity when PGAT is low.
Originality/Value
This study is the one of the first study to test the motivational/social mechanisms linking the relationship between PGAT and individual/team creativity, and the competing theoretical perspectives regarding how supervisory support can moderate the PGAT–creativity linkage.