Foresight: a new approach based on the Z-number cognitive map

Foresight has recently emerged as one of the most attractive and practical fields of study, while being used to draw up a preferable future and formulate appropriate strategies for achieving predetermined goals. The present research aimed at providing a framework for foresight with a primary focus on the role of a cognitive approach and its combination with the concept of fuzzy cognitive map in the environments of uncertainty and ambiguity. The proposed framework consisted of the 3 phases: pre-foresight, foresight, and post-foresight. The main stage (foresight) focused on the role of imagination and intuition in drawing the future in the experts’ minds and depicting their perceptions above perceptions in the form of a fuzzy cognitive map influenced by variables related to the subject under study in order to determine a preferable future. The use of a Z-number concept and integrating it with fuzzy cognitive maps in the foresight-oriented decision-making space, which was mainly saturated with uncertainty and ambiguity, was one of the main strengths of the proposed framework in the current investigation. The present paper focused primarily on the evolution of expert’s knowledge with regard to the topic of foresight. The role of Z-number in various processes, from data collection to illustration, analysis, and aggregation of cognitive maps, was considered for gaining knowledge and understanding into the nature of future. Moreover, an ultimate objective was realized through identifying, aggregating, and selecting the variables from each expert’s perspective and then the relationship between each variable was determined in the main stage of foresight. Finally, the proposed framework was presented and explicated in the form of a case study, which revealed satisfactory results.

Modeling Bitcoin plus Ethereum as an Open System of Systems of Public Blockchains to Improve Their Resilience against Intentional Risk

In this article, we model the two most market-capitalised public, open and permissionless blockchain implementations, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), as a System of Systems (SoS) of public blockchains. We study the concepts of blockchain, BTC, ETH, complex networks, SoS Engineering and intentional risk. We analyse BTC and ETH from an open SoS perspective through the main properties that seminal System of Systems Engineering (SoSE) references propose. This article demonstrates that these public blockchain implementations create networks that grow in complexity and connect with each other. We propose a methodology based on a complexity management lever such as SoSE to better understand public blockchains such as BTC and ETH and manage their evolution. Our ultimate objective is to improve the resilience of public blockchains against intentional risk: a key requirement for their mass adoption. We conclude with specific measures, based on this novel systems engineering approach, to effectively improve the resilience against intentional risk of the open SoS of public blockchains, composed of a non-inflationary money system, “sound money”, such as BTC, and of a world financial computer system, “a financial conduit”, such as ETH. The goal of this paper is to formulate a SoS that transfers digital value and aspires to position itself as a distributed alternative to the fiat currency-based financial system.

Expressing Lesser Relevance in Academic Conference Presentations

While marking importance and relevance in academic discourse has been a widely researched topic, markers of lesser significance have so far been understudied. The article therefore focuses on some of the discoursal means of expressing lesser importance in conference presentations. The corpus of the study comprises recordings of 20 presentations in English at international linguistics conferences by speakers of various cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The methodology follows Deroey and Taverniers’s (2012) study of lecture discourse, whereby depending on the way lesser importance is expressed, the markers are grouped under five categories. Their methodology is checked against the data provided by the transcriptions of the conference recordings to ascertain the extent to which it is applicable to other spoken academic genres. The ultimate objective is to provide steppingstones for interpreting information and distinguishing between what is important and relevant and less so in conference presentations, as well as for the identification of presenters’ motivation for employing this type of metadiscourse.

SENTIMENT(ALITY) AS A MEANS OF PERSUASION: ON THE THIN ICE OF MANIPULATION IN PROTESTANT SERMONS

Religious discourse represents an area of human communication in which persuasion plays a vital role; religious texts seem to be essentially related to the ultimate objective of religion: to create, mediate and legitimise ideology in order to persuade the reader of the veracity of the religious doctrine (Fairclough 1989, Cotterell & Turner 1989: 26-33, van Dijk 1998: 317). The paper seeks to investigate the persuasive strategies and linguistic means employed to convey persuasion in English Protestant sermons. The analysis focuses on the rhetorical role of pathos, which is purposefully evoked by the preacher via wilful employment of aff ect and emotions. Attention will also be paid to the blurred borderline between the intentional use of sentiment and sentimentality, and manipulation.

Can competitors cooperate? The impact of formal institution agents in promoting coopetition among emerging market exporters

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the effects of formal institution agents on export performance, mediated by coopetition. It presents novel scales for evaluating firms’ adherence to cooperation agreements with competitors, identifying coopetition networks’ main motives and goals. The study also focuses on the relationship between the export performance of small and medium enterprises from emerging markets and coopetition strategies. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a quantitative methodology using multivariate and confirmatory methods. The sample comprised 166 firms from three different industries in an emerging market (Brazil). Findings The results indicate that adherence to formal institution agents promotes cooperation among competitors and that such coopetition tends to improve export performance. The role played by formal institution agents minimizes the paradoxical tension and fosters coopetitive performance. Firms in developing markets look to mediated coopetition to achieve coopetitive advantages. They cooperate to create collective advantages from shared resources, but they do not lose sight of the ultimate objective of appropriating these advantages. The cycle of creation and appropriation of advantages is fostered by the formal institution agent, acting as the conductor of an orchestra, coordinating movements and setting the rhythm for the partners. The institutional agent, thus, constitutes an important hub of the coopetition network. Originality/value The paper contributes to understanding a type of coopetition that has hitherto been underexplored in the literature – mediated coopetition.

Overview on Renovascular Hypertension: Review Article

Renovascular hypertension (RVH) is a prevalent cause of secondary hypertension that frequently develops to resistant hypertension. It is characterised as systemic hypertension that develops as a result of a restricted blood supply to the kidneys. Patients cannot be recognized clinically from those with essential hypertension; therefore, diagnosis requires arteriography, however urography and isotope renography may hint to the diagnosis. Atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis (ARAS) and fibromuscular dysplasia are the two most prevalent causes of RVH. The ultimate objective of controlling RVH, like with other kinds of hypertension, is to minimize the morbidity and mortality associated with high blood pressure The widespread use of effective antihypertensive medication treatment, statins, and other strategies to control vascular disease has resulted in remarkable improvements. In this review we will be looking at etiology, pathogenesis and treatment or RVH.

Hyperelastic Material Parameter Determination and Numerical Study of TPU and PDMS Dampers

Dampers provide safety by controlling unwanted motion that is caused due to the conversion of mechanical work into another form of energy (e.g., heat). State-of-the-art materials are elastomers and include thermoplastic elastomers. For the polymer-appropriate replacement of multi-component shock absorbers comprising mounts, rods, hydraulic fluids, pneumatic devices, or electro-magnetic devices, among others, in-depth insights into the mechanical characteristics of damper materials are required. The ultimate objective is to reduce complexity by utilizing inherent material damping rather than structural (multi-component) damping properties. The objective of this work was to compare the damping behavior of different elastomeric materials including thermoplastic poly(urethane) (TPU) and silicone rubber blends (mixtures of different poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)). Therefore, the materials were hyper- and viscoelastic characterized, a finite element calculation of a ball drop test was performed, and for validation, the rebound resilience was measured experimentally. The results revealed that the material parameter determination methodology is reliable, and the data that were applied for simulation led to realistic predictions. Interestingly, the rebound resilience of the mixture of soft and hard PDMS (50:50) wt% was the highest, and the lowest values were measured for TPU.

Sustainability of Agriculture: An Analysis Based on Financial Performance and Good Governance

Strategy to achieve food security is crucial for all countries around the world. This becomes more important for Indonesia as the fourth most populous country. This study evaluates Indonesia’s agricultural sustainability as one of the food security programs. In specific, the evaluation is based on micro-economics point of view by analysing the financial performance of the agricultural industries. This study also examines the role of ownership and external auditors as corporate governance instruments controlling a company achieving its ultimate objective. Conducting a quantitative study and examining Indonesia listed companies for the period of 2003-2018, the results show that most of Indonesia’s listed agricultural companies are not sustained as they were in bankruptcy zone. The ability of companies to manage the costs and commitment to do investments create value for the future, and the role of foreign ownership as one of governance instruments is found to be able to prevent agricultural companies from bankruptcy. The findings bring practical implications on the importance of financial literacy for managers of agricultural industries and good corporate governance practice to ensure the sustainability of agriculture.

Determining the Influence of Casing Vibrational Behaviour On Rotordynamics

Casings of machinery and support structures have an influence on the rotordynamic behaviour which is commonly considered by simplified models (e.g. one degree of freedom models). These are in many cases insufficient. Hence, more accurate modelling approaches are required which can be used in the design process or the rotordynamic calculation to achieve a better representation of the overall vibrational behaviour. To study the effects of casing and supporting structures on rotordynamics, the casing modal parameters of an axial compressor are determined by an experimental modal analysis. In parallel, a numerical model is established. As experimental data are rarely found in the literature, this work focuses on the parameter identification of the casing structure. The results are subsequently incorporated into a model updating strategy, in order to tune and improve the numerical model. Experimental and numerical data are compared to assess the quality of the data and the results gained. The ultimate objective is a reduced order model, which can be integrated in existing rotordynamic tools via an interface while keeping the calculation time low.

Studying the effect of design parameters on riverbank filtration performance for drinking water supply in Egypt: a case study

Riverbank filtration (RBF) is an affordable technique to provide drinking water with adequate quality. The ultimate objective of this study is to facilitate the transferability and application of this sustainable technique in Egypt. In this work, a numerical model was constructed using Groundwater Modeling System (GMS) to study the effect of four design parameters on the RBF performance parameters (i.e., river filtrate portion and travel time) with the aid of MODPATH and ZONEBUDGET. The design parameters were; (1) the pumping rates of the RBF wells, (2) number of operating wells, (3) distance between wells and the river, and (4) the spacing between wells. This study was focused on the hydraulic aspects of the technique. The results demonstrated that; (1) the river filtrate portion exceeds 75% regardless the design conditions. (2) The hydraulic performance of RBF technique is highly controlled by the production capacity of the wells and their positions relative to the surface water systems; the spacing between wells has a minimum effect. Two equations were developed to estimate the river filtrate portion and minimum travel time as functions of pumping rate and distance between the pumping well and the river.