A Design Methodology for Energy-Aware Processing in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have rapidly become popular for monitoring, delivery, and actuation in many application domains such as environmental management, disaster mitigation, homeland security, energy, transportation, and manufacturing. However, the UAV perception and navigation intelligence (PNI) designs are still in their infancy and demand fundamental performance and energy optimizations to be eligible for mass adoption. In this article, we present a generalizable three-stage optimization framework for PNI systems that (i) abstracts the high-level programs representing the perception, mining, processing, and decision making of UAVs into complex weighted networks tracking the interdependencies between universal low-level intermediate representations; (ii) exploits a differential geometry approach to schedule and map the discovered PNI tasks onto an underlying manycore architecture. To mine the complexity of optimal parallelization of perception and decision modules in UAVs, this proposed design methodology relies on an Ollivier-Ricci curvature-based load-balancing strategy that detects the parallel communities of the PNI applications for maximum parallel execution, while minimizing the inter-core communication; and (iii) relies on an energy-aware mapping scheme to minimize the energy dissipation when assigning the communities onto tile-based networks-on-chip. We validate this approach based on various drone PNI designs including flight controller, path planning, and visual navigation. The experimental results confirm that the proposed framework achieves 23% flight time reduction and up to 34% energy savings for the flight controller application. In addition, the optimization on a 16-core platform improves the on-time visit rate of the path planning algorithm by 14% while reducing 81% of run time for ConvNet visual navigation.

Creating the right climate: how servant leadership can drive employee creativity

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings The authors of the study find that servant leadership encourages employee creativity by supporting the development of a climate of creativity, which sets the right conditions for employees to engage in creative behaviors. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Intergenerational factors and satisfaction with work

Purpose Satisfaction with work among employees has important implications for organizational performance. Firms can achieve optimal results by identifying which types of person-environment fit are most appropriate to different generations of workers. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings Satisfaction with work among employees has important implications for organizational performance. Firms can achieve optimal results by identifying which types of person-environment fit are most appropriate to different generations of workers. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers’ hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Increasing learning capacity in higher education institutions

Purpose Higher education institutions need to increase their capacity to learn in order to respond effectively to unanticipated major crises. Exploiting knowledge of past situations can help them exploit governance structures and adjust policies in order to create effective strategies to help deal with challenges and boost well-being and resilience going forward. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings Higher education institutions need to increase their capacity to learn in order to respond effectively to unanticipated major crises. Exploiting knowledge of past situations can help them exploit governance structures and adjust policies in order to create effective strategies to help deal with challenges and boost well-being and resilience going forward. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers’ hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Reducing early retirement intention among older workers

Purpose Retirement of older workers results in a damaging loss of important knowledge and capabilities. By focusing on work goals, generating work passion and providing flexible work arrangements, firms can help reduce early retirement intention. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings Retirement of older workers results in a damaging loss of important knowledge and capabilities. By focusing on work goals, generating work passion and providing flexible work arrangements, firms can help reduce early retirement intention. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers’ hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Why are we doing this? Teacher and student perspectives on literary reading

Purpose This paper aims to examine the extent to which students’ experiences and perceptions of their literature classroom align with their teacher’s instructional goals for literary inquiry and what teachers can learn from gaining access to students’ perspectives on their classroom experiences. Design/methodology/approach Thematic analyses were used to examine the data sources: mid-year and end-of-year interviews with six students, audio recordings of the teacher’s rationale for her instructional designs and a reflective discussion with the teacher upon reading the student interviews three years later. Findings Much of what the teacher intended students to get out of her instruction was what they expressed learning and experiencing in the class, yet some understood the purpose of the class to be far from her intentions. All the interviewed students had deeply personal and varied ways of relating what they learned in class to the world and their own lives. The teacher’s reflection on the interviews highlighted the importance of making space for multiple meanings and perspectives on literary works. Originality/value This paper speaks to the importance of surfacing students’ individual and varied ways of making sense of literary texts as part of instruction that values students’ thinking as well as the epistemic commitments of literary reading.

Weaknesses of Malaysian public procurement: a review of auditor general’s reports

Purpose This paper aims to systematically analyze the weaknesses of public procurement in Malaysia as reported in the Auditor General’s Reports from 2011 until 2018. Specifically, the study examines the types of weaknesses, the modes of public procurement involved with the weaknesses, the procurement categories involved with the weaknesses and the key recommendations to mitigate the weaknesses in public procurement. Design/methodology/approach A document analysis was adopted in achieving the objective. The Auditor General’s reports and the reports of activities of federal ministries/departments published by the National Audit Department, Malaysia from the year 2011 until 2018 are the main documents used in this study. The data gathered were analyzed using frequency distribution and displayed with descriptive statistics and relevant graphs. Findings The findings of the study revealed that the top five reported are non-compliance to scope, specifications and terms of contracts; delayed completion/non-completion of project; poor documentation; low quality of products, service and work; and little or no prior planning. It is also found that direct negotiation mode was reported with the highest issues of public procurement, while the procurement mode with the least public procurement weaknesses is direct purchase. Moreover, it was found that work category is the highest with public procurement issues reported compared to supplies and services. The top recommendations given by the Auditor General were to improve internal control, to enhance monitoring, to establish planning in details, to improve assets management and to take appropriate actions toward contractors and procurement officers when needed. Originality/value This is among a few studies that attempted to systematically examine the main issues regarding the public procurement activities in Malaysia. This study highlighted pertinent aspects of the public procurement activities, which need close attention by the relevant authorities to ensure efficient and effective public procurement.

Key audit risks and audit procedures during the initial year of the COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of audit reports 2019-2020

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore audit procedure disclosures related to key audit risks, during the prior year and the initial year of the COVID-19 outbreak, by reporting on matters published in over 3,000 Australian statutory audit reports during 2019 and 2020. Design/methodology/approach This study partially uses latent semantic analysis methods to apply textual and readability analyses to external audit reports in Australia. The authors measure the tone of the audit reports using the Loughran and McDonald (2011) approach. Findings The authors find that 3% of audit procedures undertaken during 2020 were designed to address audit risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. As a percentage of total audit procedures undertaken during 2020, the authors find that smaller practitioners reported much less audit procedures related to COVID-19 audit risks than most larger audit firms. Finally, the textual analysis further found differences in the sentiment or tone of words used by different auditors in 2020, but differences in sentiment or tone were not found when 2020 was compared to the prior year 2019. Originality/value This study provides early evidence on whether auditors designed audit procedures to deal specifically with audit risks that arose due to the COVID-19 pandemic and on the extent and nature of those audit procedures. The study will help policymakers to better understand whether Key Audit Matters provided informational value to investors during a time of global crisis.

Information disclosing willingness in mobile internet contexts

Purpose This paper aims to learn about consumers’ information disclosing patterns in the mobile internet context by investigating how demographic, geographic and psychological factors influence their information disclosing willingness (IDW).Design/methodology/approach Drawing on self-disclosure theory, the authors carried out simple linear regression analyses on a Chinese sample of 10,000 participants.Findings The results revealed that significant gender differences exist between males and females in their IDW in mobile internet context, and females have higher IDW than males do. And the authors also found that first-tier (third tier) citizens have the lowest (highest) IDW in their mobile internet usage.Originality/value This study offers three implications. First, this paper captures the insight of IDW within the mobile internet context, while previous studies mostly focus on the desktop internet context. Second, the results show that females have higher willingness to disclose than males do in the context of mobile internet, which is different from the findings of prior studies that females have higher privacy concerns and lower disclosing willingness in the context of desktop internet. Thirdly, this research introduces city tiers as a new approach to the study of IDW, which is one of the first studies exploring the geographical effect on information privacy.