4653 research outputs found
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An information geometrical evaluation of Shannon information metrics on a discrete n-dimensional digital manifold
No full textThe definition and nature of information have perplexed scientists due to its dual nature in measurements. The information is discrete and continuous when evaluated on a metric scale, and the Laplace-Beltrami operator and Gauss-Bonnet Theorem can map one to another. On the other hand, defining the information as a discrete entity on the surface area of an n-dimensional discrete digital manifold provides a unique way of calculating the entropy of a manifold. The software simulation shows that the surface area of the discrete n-dimensional digital manifold is an effectively computable function. Moreover, it also provides the information-geometrical evaluation of Shannon information metrics.Multidisciplinary Science
Analysis of Value Creation Disclosures in Logistics Industry: Evidence From Integrated Reports
No full textThis study aimed to determine reporting compliance by measuring the extent to which Integrated Reporting Framework content element is linked to value creation. The sample of the logistics industry study was gathered from Integrated Reporting Examples Database. Sentence-by-sentence content analysis was conducted on 11 integrated reports of logistics companies using a multi-weighted scoring tool and an Integrated Reporting Value Creation Checklist (IRVC) based on the literature and the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) Integrated Reporting (IR) framework. Additionally, descriptive statistics were performed for subtitles of IRVC, Value Creation Scores, and the Integrated Report Specific Feature Scores. In the end, IR content disclosures of logistics companies were presented. The scoring results of the Content Analysis were interpreted in terms of each content element and each company scores. Additionally, descriptive statistics were applied for IRVC scores. The findings indicated that content items were highly aligned with value creation links, with the highest scores being determined in business model and the lowest scores in performance, outlook, and risks and opportunities. In addition, it has been observed that there are noticeable differences among the company value creation scores in the current practice.Managemen
Transforming E-Waste into Opportunities: Driving Organizational Actions to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals
No full textWith technological advancements, there has been a significant increase in the generation of electronic waste (e-waste), leading to severe environmental consequences. Inadequate e-waste management poses obstacles to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and results in detrimental effects such as pollution, health risks, and resource depletion. Recycling and reusing are vital due to the presence of toxic and valuable elements in e-waste. However, several barriers impede effective management, including limited collection points, insufficient awareness, and inadequate policies. For this reason, this paper aims to propose drivers for developing and improving organizational actions that enhance e-waste management, enabling companies to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs. Content analysis was employed as the research method to identify booster elements and systematize e-waste management drivers. Thirty-six booster elements related to SDGs 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, and 17 were identified based on 30 relevant scientific articles from Scopus and 16 sustainability reports from well-ranked companies on the New York Stock Exchange. The systematized drivers encompass recycling and treatment techniques, sustainable manufacturing and consumption, e-waste management technologies, and cooperation networks. The scientific contribution of this work lies in incorporating empirical elements into the literature and enriching the theory of sustainable practices in the electronic equipment industry. In an applied manner, this article contributes to managers who can use the proposed drivers to improve the management of e-waste, thus reducing costs and enhancing the socio-environmental performance of their companies.Green & Sustainable Science & Technology || Environmental Sciences || Environmental Studie
Encrypted quantum state tomography with phase estimation for quantum Internet
No full textQuantum state tomography (QST) is a fundamental tool requiring privacy in future distributed systems where unknown states are measured for extracting information. Gentle measurement and differential privacy (DP)-based privacy solutions minimize the damage on unknown state and leakage about the quantum information, respectively. In this article, we propose a fundamentally different design for privacy-preserving QST in a multi-party setting. We assume that Alice delegates QST task of a distant source for which she has no access to a third-party player Bob accessing to the source while preserving the source privacy against the operations realized by Bob. Encrypted QST algorithm is proposed which encodes or maps source computational basis states by exploiting phase estimation and feature mapping concept of quantum machine learning (QML). Bob maps basis states to eigenvalues of a specially designed unitary operator in an entangled manner with his ancillary qubits while teleporting the source qubits back to Alice before applying conventional QST. Encoding mechanism is conjectured as having NP-hard decoding complexity based on difficulty of subset-sum problem combined with Hadamard transform. Linear optical design and quantum circuit implementations are presented for future experiments in noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. Theoretical and numerical supporting evidences are proposed supporting the proposed eigenstructure. EQST promises further applications for multiple source classification tasks and as a novel feature mapping method for future data embedding tasks in QML.Quantum Science & Technology || Physics, Multidisciplinary || Physics, Mathematica
Exploring antecedents for the circular economy capability of micro, small and medium enterprises: An empirical study
No full textMicro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) play an important role in the economies of developing countries. The circular economy (CE) is considered a long-term initiative for protecting the environment by reducing waste and greenhouse gas emissions, recycling and ending planned obsolescence. This research aims to explore antecedents for the CE capability in the context of the Indian MSMEs. The current study used the extended theory of planned behaviour and institutional theory to measure CE capabilities. Seven hypotheses are developed in this study. The survey-based research is carried out with 296 responses from the MSMEs of different sectors in India. Hypothesis testing is done using the structural equation modelling approach. Major constructs identified for this study are green economic incentives (GEIs), social pressure (SP) and attitude. These constructs have a significant association with the CE capability of MSMEs. Environmental commitment (EC) and sustainable supply chain design (SSCD) act as mediators. Insights from this study will help the top management of MSMEs to understand antecedents for CE capability. The findings show that SP and GEIs are positively associated with EC and SSCD. It is found that EC and SSCD play a complimentary mediation role. The research findings will provide a solid foundation for understanding the importance of CE capability in MSMEs and developing strategic plans to facilitate implementing CE in these small sized firms.Business || Environmental Studies || Managemen
Application of net zero extended exergy buildings concept for sustainable buildings analysis
No full textDifferent Zero-Energy Building (ZEB)-related definitions considering its four main dimensions, such as zero energy, zero carbon, zero exergy and zero cost, have been proposed by different investigators. Among these, exergy-based definitions are relatively low in numbers. In this regard, the main objective of this present study is to propose net zero extended exergy buildings as a new concept, which combines extended exergy and net zero exergy building concepts and is a measure of the exergetic footprint. This concept setups a balance between extended exergy accounting of electricity from the grid and electricity generated in building. The proposed methodology is applied to a building available in the literature for heating and cooling seasons. Results show that 450Wp peak power and 44.181 kWh electrical energy must be obtained for meeting the electricity demand of the building. Another novel result is that the extended exergy accounting of the electricity generated by PV panels is bigger than the extended exergy of the electricity taken from the gird meaning that exergetic footprint of the electricity generated by PV panels is bigger. However, this result must be interpreted for the whole life time of the system.Construction & Building Technology || Engineering, Civi
Energy, exergy, economic, environmental and sustainability (4ES) analyses of a wastewater source heat pump system for district heating applications based on real operational data
No full textIn recent years, worldwide interest in utilizing the heat energy from wastewater (WW) has increased signifi-cantly, concurrently with establishing policies and strategies for the sustainable management of WW. This study evaluated the 4ES performance of a photovoltaic-thermal powered WW source heat pump system for district heating applications with a series of Engineering Equation Solver (EES) simulations based on 20 different cases using actual data. The results indicated that the WW might have an energy rate potential of up to 25470 kW and an exergy rate potential of up to 2263 kW in January in a Koppen-Geiger-classified Dfb (warm-summer humid continental) climate. The highest and lowest exergy efficiency values ranged from 2.85 % to 98.24 % and from 74.80 % to 94.54 %, respectively for the employed components and the entire system. The environmental and sustainability studies utilized these simulated results to derive environmental effect factor (EEF) and exergy based-sustainability index (ExSI) values in the ranges of 0.58x10(-5) to 4.95x10(-5) and 3.97 to 18.32, respectively. In addition, the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) was modeled to be between 0.0801 cent/kWh and 0.1341 cent/kWh. In terms of sustainability, the proposed system demonstrated superior performance than the most common heating solution on the market (i.e. natural gas-fired heating system).Green & Sustainable Science & Technology || Energy & Fuel
A Joint Evaluation of Streamflow Drought and Standard Precipitation Indices in Aegean Region, Turkey
No full textWater is an invaluable substance that ensures the life cycle and causes hydrologic events worldwide. Water deficit, also known as drought, is a naturally occurring disaster that affects the hydrometeorologic and/or climatic responses in time and space. In this study, the meteorologic and hydrologic droughts in Buyuk Menderes, Kucuk Menderes, and Gediz basins in Turkey are investigated. The streamflow drought index (SDI) and standard precipitation index (SPI) are used considering different time windows. To achieve this, the monthly streamflow at Cicekli-Nif, Besdegirmenler-Dandalas, Bebekler-Rahmanlar, and Kocarli-Koprubasi hydrometric stations together with monthly precipitation at 14 meteorologic stations during 1973-2020 (47 years) are used. The SDI and SPI with 1, 3, 6, and 12 months moving average are then used to express the association between the meteorologic and hydrologic droughts in the basin. Results showed that the SDI depicts no abnormal situations, while the SPI rates in the 1980s and 2010s indicated severe droughts. It was concluded that the inner parts of the basins are prone to frequent droughts, and there is a concordance between SPI and SDI patterns at the basin level. However, minor discrepancies between SPI and SDI do exist and probably originated from temporal delays and water abstraction.Geochemistry & Geophysic
Strong simulation of tracking single photons with which-way-detectors in linear optics
No full textWhich-way-detectors (WWDs) are path-entangled detectors characterizing mutual exclusivity between path information and interference visibility in wave-particle duality experiments. We show surprisingly that WWDs allow to utilize single photons distinguishable in time domain to realize linear optical circuits where tracking their paths is exponentially hard for strong simulation analogous to rectangular lattice based Ising models. Distinguishable photons have scalability advantages of generation and detection compared with indistinguishable photons by promising both theoretical and experimental improvements in linear optical computing including boson sampling. We calculate strong simulation complexities by using variable elimination (VE) method for undirected graphs related to tensor network contraction for quantum circuits and recursive Feynman path-integral (RFPI) method to reduce space complexity. Two designs include either a single photon touring m times or m single photons propagating sequentially through an optical circuit composed of n beam splitters and phase shifters entangled with n WWDs. VE method for tracking results in undirected graphs matching with (2m - 1) x (n + 1) and m x (n + 1) lattice Ising models with computational complexities of O(m n 2(min)((2 m - 1), (n + 1))) and O(m n 2(min(m, n + 1))) in time and O(2(min(2 m - 1, n + 1))) and O(2(min(m, n + 1))) in space for single and multi-photon based designs, respectively. We exploit RFPI method for m >> n to reduce space complexities to polynomial levels with respect to n and log m. Probability amplitude of specific cases of multi-photon design is represented in terms of Ising partition function with purely imaginary weights to characterize sampling complexity. Open issues about sampling complexity and experimental implementation of multi-WWD set-ups are discussed.Quantum Science & Technology || Physics, Multidisciplinar
Strategic issues of big data analytics applications for managing health-care sector: a systematic literature review and future research agenda
No full textPurposeThe proposed article is aimed at exploring the opportunities, challenges and possible outcomes of incorporating big data analytics (BDA) into health-care sector. The purpose of this study is to find the research gaps in the literature and to investigate the scope of incorporating new strategies in the health-care sector for increasing the efficiency of the system.Design/methodology/approachFora state-of-the-art literature review, a systematic literature review has been carried out to find out research gaps in the field of healthcare using big data (BD) applications. A detailed research methodology including material collection, descriptive analysis and categorization is utilized to carry out the literature review.FindingsBD analysis is rapidly being adopted in health-care sector for utilizing precious information available in terms of BD. However, it puts forth certain challenges that need to be focused upon. The article identifies and explains the challenges thoroughly.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed study will provide useful guidance to the health-care sector professionals for managing health-care system. It will help academicians and physicians for evaluating, improving and benchmarking the health-care strategies through BDA in the health-care sector. One of the limitations of the study is that it is based on literature review and more in-depth studies may be carried out for the generalization of results.Originality/valueThere are certain effective tools available in the market today that are currently being used by both small and large businesses and corporations. One of them is BD, which may be very useful for health-care sector. A comprehensive literature review is carried out for research papers published between 1974 and 2021.Managemen