1,721,065 research outputs found
Lean behavior impact towards lean management: a case study
No full textLean behavior is an essential element to create a continuous improvement culture in the service organization. Meanwhile, continuous improvement is defined as the never-ending efforts for improvement involving everyone in organization. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the changes of behavior practices after the introduction of lean tools and to discuss on how lean behavior in developing the continuous improvement culture in an office environment. This study focuses on self-administered questionnaire method to obtain the real time data for the analysis of behavior practices. Ford Questionnaire is used and distributed to the employees of different management levels in Business Development and IT department. The obtained results are analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The same questionnaire survey is conducted after the introduction of lean tools. The expected outcomes of this study is to determine the level of lean behavior practices in the office department and to provide a clear understanding on some lean behavior practices that need to be nurtured among the employees in order to produce a healthy work environment
Development of explicit finite difference-based simulation system for impact studies
Full text linkDevelopment of numerical method-based simulation systems is presented. Two types of system development are shown. The former system is developed using conventional structured programming technique. The system incorporates a classical FD hydrocode. The latter system incorporates object-oriented design concept and numerous novel elements are included.
Two explicit finite difference models for large deformation of several material characteristics are developed. The models are capable of handling impulsive and constant load, impact and gravitational force, etc. Their capabilities of handling relatively complex shapes, which are not possible to deal with using classical FD models, are shown and discussed. A robust algorithm is suggested to describe general stress-strain relationship, ranging from elastic-perfecdy plastic to multiple elastic modulii and plastic modulii with or without strain rate sensitivity. Hysteresis and Bauschinger effects are included as well.
Development of contact-impact treatments is presented. Three novel contact elements are designed, developed and validated. Node-node and node-element contacts are formulated with all the elements developed. The contact-impact treatments include a novel method in handling potential voids and overlaps at contact intersection. Rigid Coulomb’s friction model is incorporated to handle sliding conditions.
Formulation of a novel revolute joint element is illustrated and several possible methods are suggested for handling bending limits. Incorporation of resistive moment and damping effects are presented. The numerical stability of the revolute element is discussed and a stability criterion is proposed.
The latter simulation system is used to model an idealised human body. Information from literatures, such as height and weight ratio of human segments, and resistive moment of human joints, is incorporated into the human model. Simulations are carried out according to a 2k factorial design of experiment to find the main effect(s) contributed to human head/brain injury when subjected to frontal collision. A simple motorcycle model based on Malaysian KRISS 110 motorcycle is developed as well. The human model is successfully integrated into the motorcycle model. Possibility of solving such model with the developed simulation system is studied
Effect of energy losses during an impact event on the dynamic flow stress
No full textDetermination of stress-strain properties of material and formulation of suitable constitutive laws is very important on the study of: (i) the elastic-plastic response and collapse mode of structures can be analysed for improving subsequent design, and (ii) high speed metal cutting and metal forming processes may be analysed for better estimation of the process parameters and better understanding of material flow behaviour. This paper is devoted to establish the energy losses in an existing ballistic rig. The effect of energy losses due to impact into the study of dynamic flow stress of a material is examined. Results assuming loss of kinetic energy varying from 1 to 20% of the initial energy are presented and discussed for En-9 steel. The effects of friction, inertia, and temperature rise during the dynamic compression tests are also presented and discussed. © 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V
The influence of humidity on the deformation and fracture behaviour of PMMA
No full textThe effect of relative humidity on the tensile deformation and fracture of poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) has been studied. Seven sets of samples were conditioned under different environment: as-received specimens; dry specimens (zero moisture content); outdoor exposed specimens; water saturated specimens; specimens conditioned at three different relative humidities (75.5, 85.1, and 94.6%) using saturated salt solutions (NaCl, KCl, and KNO3, respectively). The main objective of this study is to investigate the effects of sorbed water on tensile mechanical properties of PMMA. Properties investigated include development of crazing, tensile fracture stress, strain to fracture and fracture surface morphology
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Optimization of fuzzy rules design using genetic algorithm
No full textFuzzy rules optimization is a crucial step in the development of a fuzzy model. A simple two inputs fuzzy model will have more than ten thousand possible combinations of fuzzy rules. A fuzzy designer normally uses intuition and trial and error method for the rules assignment. This paper is devoted to the development and implementation of genetic optimization library (GOL) to obtain the optimum set of fuzzy rules. In this context, a fitness calculation to handle maximization and minimization problem is employed. A new fitness-scaling mechanism named as Fitness Mapping is also developed. The developed GOL is applied to a case study involving fuzzy expert system for machinability data selection. The main characteristics of genetic optimization in fuzzy rule design are presented and discussed. The effect of constraint (rules violation) application is also presented and discussed. Finally, the developed GOL replaces the tedious process of trial and error for better combination of fuzzy rules
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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