Search

Integrated management systems (IMSs) involve a strategy to manage multiple systems while meeting the needs and expectations of stakeholders. There are various management standards used for the development of IMS. This study aims to undertake research focused on how to develop an IMS. In this context, management standards, including the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI), consider alternatives and integration potential at multiple levels (i.e., strategic, tactical, and operational). We assess criteria including continuous improvement, systematic management, integration, organizational learning, standardization, and ability to cut through bureaucracy before a deeper dive into 28 subcriteria. We then use an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) approach to prioritize the main criteria and subcriteria. Next, we include the use of fuzzy VlseKriterijuska Optimizacija I Komoromisno Resenje (F‐VIKOR) methods to prioritize alternatives. The contributions of this study reveal that systematic management and standardization are the most influencing criteria among six guiding principles. The ISO standard and GRI are the most suitable standards for the development of dynamic IMS. This study is the first of its kind to prioritize guiding principles of IMS. The outcomes of this study will assist business managers, organizations, and policymakers in their decision making regarding management standards for IMS development as well as improve sustainable business practices. Researchers will find new IMS insights and constructs for further empirical investigation.

Cadmium (Cd) toxicity is a serious threat to future food security and health safety. To identify genetic factors contributing to Cd uptake in wheat, we conducted a genome-wide association study with genotyping from 90K SNP array. A spring wheat diversity panel was planted under normal conditions and Cd stress (50 mg Cd/kg soil). the impact of Cd stress on agronomic traits ranged from a reduction of 16% in plant height to 93% in grain iron content. Individual genotypes showed a considerable variation for Cd uptake and translocation subdividing the panel into three groups: (1) hyper-accumulators (i.e. high Leaf(_Cd) and low Seed(_Cd)), (2) hyper-translocators (i.e. low Leaf(_Cd) and high Seed(_Cd)), and (3) moderate lines (i.e. low Leaf(_Cd) and low Seed(_Cd)). Two lines (SKD-1 and TD-1) maintained an optimum grain yield under Cd stress and were therefore considered as Cd resistant lines. Genome-wide association identified 179 SNP-trait associations for various traits including 16 for Cd uptake at a significance level of P < .001. However, only five SNPs were significant after applying multiple testing correction. These loci were associated with seed-cadmium, grain-iron, and grain-zinc: qSCd-1A, qSCd-1D, qZn-2B1, qZn-2B2, and qFe-6D. These five loci had not been identified in the previously reported studies for Cd uptake in wheat. These loci and the underlying genes should be further investigated using molecular biology techniques to identify Cd resistant genes in wheat., National Key Research and Development Program of China [2016YFD0101001]; Higher Education Commision, Pakistan [HECNRPU-3825], The National Key Research and Development Program of China, Grant/Award Number: 2016YFD0101001; Higher Education Commision, Pakistan, Grant/Award Number: HECNRPU-3825

The authors would like to acknowledge the support provided by the Deanship of Graduate Research (DSR) at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, under grant number FT161001.

In this work, a switched-beam 2-element multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system is proposed at mm-wave bands for 5G applications. The antenna system consists of a 4 × 4 connected slot antennas for each MIMO element forming the connected antenna array (CAA). A feed network based on a Butler matrix is used to excite the CAA, in addition to steer the beam at different locations which enhance the diversity performances. The mm-wave MIMO antenna system operates at 28 GHz with at least −10 dB measured bandwidth of 830 MHz (27.4 GHZ–28.23 GHz). It is fabricated on a commercially available RO3003 substrate with dielectric constant of 3.3 and height of 0.13 mm, respectively. The dimensions of the board are equal to 150 mm × 100 mm × 0.13 mm. The proposed design is compact, low profile, and suitable for future 5G-enabled tablet PCs.

This project was supported in part by the Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR) at KFUPM through project number KAUST002 and in part by KAUST Award No. OSR 2016-KKI-2899.

The luminous efficiency of inorganic white light-emitting diodes, to be used by the next generation as light initiators, is continuously progressing and is an emerging interest for researchers. However, low color-rendering index (Ra), high correlated color temperature (CCT), and poor stability limit its wider application. Herein, it is reported that Sm3+ - and Eu3+ -doped calcium scandate (CaSc2 O4 (CSO)) are an emerging deep-red-emitting material with promising light absorption, enhanced emission properties, and excellent thermal stability that make it a promising candidate with potential applications in emission display, solid-state white lighting, and the device performance of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). The average crystal structures of Sm3+ -doped CSO are studied by synchrotron X-ray data that correspond to an extremely rigid host structure. Samarium ion is incorporated as a sensitizer that enhances the emission intensity up to 30%, with a high color purity of 88.9% with a 6% increment. The impacts of hosting the sensitizer are studied by quantifying the lifetime curves. The CaSc2 O4 :0.15Eu3+ ,0.03Sm3+ phosphor offers significant resistance to thermal quenching. The incorporation of lanthanide ion-doped phosphors CSOE into PSCs is investigated along with their potential applications. The CSOE-coated PSCs devices exhibit a high current density and a high power conversion efficiency (15.96%) when compared to the uncoated control devices.

The shortage of kidney donors has led to broadening of the acceptance criteria for deceased donor organs beyond the traditional use of young donors. We determined long-term post-transplant outcomes in recipients of dual expanded criteria donor kidneys (dECD, n = 44) and compared them to recipients of standard criteria donor kidneys (SCD, n = 194) and single expanded criteria donor kidneys (sECD, n = 62). We retrospectively reviewed these 300 deceased donor kidney transplants without primary non-function (PNF) or death in the first two wk, at our center from 1996 to 2003. The three groups were similar in baseline characteristics. Kidney allograft survival and patient survival (nine yr) were similar in the three respective donor groups, SCD, sECD and dECD (60% vs. 59% vs. 64% and 82% vs. 73% vs. 73%). Acute rejection in the first three months was 23.2%, 16.1%, and 22.7% in SCD, sECD and dECD, respectively (p = 0.49) and delayed graft function was 25.2%, 31.9% and 17.1% in the three groups, respectively (p = 0.28). When PNF and death within the first two wk was included, there was no significant difference in graft survival between the three groups. In our population, recipients of dECD transplants have acceptable patient and graft survival with kidneys that would have usually been discarded.

This paper studies the transmission of MPEG-2 video bit streams over HIPERLAN/2 based wireless local area networks (WLANs). HIPERLAN/2, a WLAN standard introduced by ETSI (the European Telecommunications Standards Institute), is well known for its ability to operate under different physical (PHY) modes (modulation schemes) and adaptively switch its modes within a single transmission session. Each physical mode has certain throughput and error resilience associated with it. The presence of multiple physical modes can be exploited to achieve Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees for application parameters such as throughput, bit error rate (BER), jitter etc. In this paper, we first study the relationship of different PHY modes with BER and throughput. Based on this study, different content based marking algorithms are presented and analyzed that partitions the input video bitstream into multiple segments, where each segment is deemed suitable for transmission over HIPERLAN/2 operating under a specific PHY mode. We show that for a given video bit stream, the use of multiple PHY modes chosen based on the characteristics of underlying video data yields superior throughput and better picture quality in terms of pixel signal to noise ratio (PSNR). From the power consumption point of view, the marking algorithms can achieve desired throughput or PSNR with lower signal to interference ratio (SIR) levels thus saving battery power and extending the overall battery life. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A cross-correlation based method is proposed for blind separation of statistically uncorrelated i.i.d. signals. In contrast to much of the existing work in the area, the proposed method allows the separation of more sources than sensors and the sensors are not restricted to have non-Gaussian distributions. The mixed signals are modelled as a sum of attenuated and delayed source signals. As compared to the delayless mixture model commonly employed in the literature, incorporating delays in the model may offer better fit to practical applications, such as source separation in an anechoic environment. We estimate the delay and attenuation parameters from the peak locations and strengths of the cross-correlation function, respectively. Using these parameters, we then discuss the use of four methods for the recovery of source signals. These methods are compared and their usage is proposed under different operating conditions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A novel catalytic route for the cyclization of dicumarols to obtain pyran derivatives using a tin organometallic compound as catalyst is reported.