Noel Scott, Brent Moyle, Ana Cláudia Campos, Liubov Skavronskaya and Biqiang Liu
There is significant amount of literature tackling different issues related to the port industry. The present chapter focuses on a single business unit of seaports aiming at the…
Abstract
There is significant amount of literature tackling different issues related to the port industry. The present chapter focuses on a single business unit of seaports aiming at the documentation of works related to container terminals.
An effort to review, collect and present the majority of the works present in the last 30 years, between 1980 and 2010, has been made in order to picture the problems dealt and methods used by the authors in the specific research field. To facilitate the reader, studies have been grouped under five categories of addressed problems (productivity and competitiveness, yard and equipment utilization, equipment scheduling, berth planning, loading/unloading) and four modelling methodologies (mathematics and operations research, management and economics, simulation, stochastic modelling).
The analysis shows that most works focus on productivity and competitiveness issues followed by yard and equipment utilisation and equipment scheduling. In reference to the methodologies used managerial and economic approaches lead, followed by mathematics and operations research.
In reference to future research, two fields have been identified where there is scope of significant contribution by the academic community: container terminal security and container terminal supply chain integration.
The present chapter provides the framework for researchers in the field of port container terminals to picture the so far works in this research area and enables the identification of gaps at both research question and methodology level for further research.
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Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the…
Abstract
Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the theoretical as well as practical points of view. The range of applications of FEMs in this area is wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore aims to give the reader an encyclopaedic view on the subject. The bibliography at the end of the paper contains 2,025 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the analysis of beams, columns, rods, bars, cables, discs, blades, shafts, membranes, plates and shells that were published in 1992‐1995.
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Julian Benavides Franco, Julio César Alonso Cifuentes, Jaime Andrés Carabalí Mosquera and Anibal Sosa
The Colombian Government proposed a reverse mortgage mechanism to complement retirement income in Colombia. This paper aims to study its feasibility by valuing its premia.
Abstract
Purpose
The Colombian Government proposed a reverse mortgage mechanism to complement retirement income in Colombia. This paper aims to study its feasibility by valuing its premia.
Design/methodology/approach
Under a reverse mortgage scheme, banks issue put options on an owner’s home. To value the option, the authors apply a risk-neutral canonical approach modeling its three sources of risk: home future value, interest rate levels and homeowner life expectancy.
Findings
In all, premia values do not seem too high. However, if future interest rates are above the simulations or home appreciation is below its historical behavior, the premia could sharply increase, jeopardizing the system viability. Limiting the loan-to-home-value ratio or fixed-term annuities are feasible alternatives to keep premium increases at bay. Complementary mechanisms may also help.
Research limitations/implications
The home price and interest rate path estimation do not include inflation dynamics; in recent years inflation level was very low. However, the future does not offer any warrants. Future research also should cap the maximum loss the bank can endure. The pandemic may cause demographic changes affecting the viability of the reverse mortgage (R.M.) program in Colombia.
Practical implications
Based on the analysis, this work suggests possible government policies to help creditors and to maintain bank risks at a reasonable level.
Social implications
An adequate reverse mortgage program may help the policymakers in Colombia to face the adverse environment for Colombia’s housing market and the pressure of its pension system. A good R.M. program generates incentives to purchase homes, given the possibility of receiving an additional rent after retirement.
Originality/value
The paper develops an econometrical improvement over previous work. The authors present a time-series analysis that includes stationarity and co-integration information to model the data-generation process of house prices and interest rates in a multivariate fashion. The authors also improve the valuation formula. Moreover, the paper presents a novel application to Colombia. The authors obtain our demographic data from the United Nations Population Division applying the Lee-Carter method to model mortality rates, which provides ample possibilities to extend reverse mortgage assessment to additional. Finally, this is the first scholarly effort to evaluate the R.M. for the Colombian case.
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Tessa Withorn, Jillian Eslami, Hannah Lee, Maggie Clarke, Carolyn Caffrey, Cristina Springfield, Dana Ospina, Anthony Andora, Amalia Castañeda, Alexandra Mitchell, Joanna Messer Kimmitt, Wendolyn Vermeer and Aric Haas
This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2020.
Findings
The paper provides a brief description of all 440 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.
Originality/value
The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested in a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.
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Yi-Cheng Chen and Yen-Liang Chen
In this “Info-plosion” era, recommendation systems (or recommenders) play a significant role in finding interesting items in the surge of online digital activity and e-commerce…
Abstract
Purpose
In this “Info-plosion” era, recommendation systems (or recommenders) play a significant role in finding interesting items in the surge of online digital activity and e-commerce. The purpose of this paper is to model users' preference evolution to recommend potential items which users may be interested in.
Design/methodology/approach
A novel recommendation system, namely evolution-learning recommendation (ELR), is developed to precisely predict user interest for making recommendations. Differing from prior related methods, the authors integrate the matrix factorization (MF) and recurrent neural network (RNN) to effectively describe the variation of user preferences over time.
Findings
A novel cumulative factorization technique is proposed to efficiently decompose a rating matrix for discovering latent user preferences. Compared to traditional MF-based methods, the cumulative MF could reduce the utilization of computation resources. Furthermore, the authors depict the significance of long- and short-term effects in the memory cell of RNN for evolution patterns. With the context awareness, a learning model, V-LSTM, is developed to dynamically capture the evolution pattern of user interests. By using a well-trained learning model, the authors predict future user preferences and recommend related items.
Originality/value
Based on the relations among users and items for recommendation, the authors introduce a novel concept, virtual communication, to effectively learn and estimate the correlation among users and items. By incorporating the discovered latent features of users and items in an evolved manner, the proposed ELR model could promote “right” things to “right” users at the “right” time. In addition, several extensive experiments are performed on real datasets and are discussed. Empirical results show that ELR significantly outperforms the prior recommendation models. The proposed ELR exhibits great generalization and robustness in real datasets, including e-commerce, industrial retail and streaming service, with all discussed metrics.
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In this chapter, we consider the possibility that a firm may use costly resources to improve its technical efficiency. Results from static analyses imply that technical efficiency…
Abstract
In this chapter, we consider the possibility that a firm may use costly resources to improve its technical efficiency. Results from static analyses imply that technical efficiency is determined by the configuration of factor prices. A dynamic model of the firm is developed under the assumption that managerial skill contributes to technical efficiency. Dynamic analysis shows that the firm can never be technically efficient if it maximizes profits, the steady state is always inefficient, and it is locally stable. In terms of empirical analysis, we show how likelihood-based methods can be used to uncover, in a semi-non-parametric manner, important features of the inefficiency-management relationship using a flexible functional form accounting for the endogeneity of inputs in a production function. Managerial compensation can also be identified and estimated using the new techniques. The new empirical methodology is applied in a data set previously analyzed by Bloom and van Reenen (2007) on managerial practices of manufacturing firms in the UK, US, France and Germany.
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Mohd Atif Siddiqui, Md Nishat Anwar and Shahedul Haque Laskar
This paper aims to present an efficient and simplified proportional-integral/proportional-integral and derivative controller design method for the higher-order stable and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present an efficient and simplified proportional-integral/proportional-integral and derivative controller design method for the higher-order stable and integrating processes with time delay in the cascade control structure (CCS).
Design/methodology/approach
Two approaches based on model matching in the frequency domain have been proposed for tuning the controllers of the CCS. The first approach is based on achieving the desired load disturbance rejection performance, whereas the second approach is proposed to achieve the desired setpoint performance. In both the approaches, matching between the desired model and the closed-loop system with the controller is done at a low-frequency point. Model matching at low-frequency points yields a linear algebraic equation and the solution to these equations yields the controller parameters.
Findings
Simulations have been conducted on several examples covering high order stable, integrating, double integrating processes with time delay and nonlinear continuous stirred tank reactor. The performance of the proposed scheme has been compared with recently reported work having modified cascade control configurations, sliding mode control, model predictive control and fractional order control. The performance of both the proposed schemes is either better or comparable with the recently reported methods. However, the proposed method based on desired load disturbance rejection performance outperforms among all these schemes.
Originality/value
The main advantages of the proposed approaches are that they are directly applicable to any order processes, as they are free from time delay approximation and plant order reduction. In addition to this, the proposed schemes are capable of handling a wide range of different dynamical processes in a unified way.