Search results for "Goal"
showing 10 items of 848 documents
The Effect of Periodontal Treatment on the Reactive Hyperemia Index. A 1-Year Follow-Up Pilot Study
2022
BackgroundPeriodontitis is a chronic multifactorial inflammatory disease of the supportive tissues of the teeth. In more recent years, remarkable epidemiological and pathophysiological associations between periodontitis and cardiovascular disease (CVD) have been presented. Whether or not treatment of periodontitis is valuable for primary or secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, has not yet been fully established. In this practice-based pilot study we focused on primary prevention of cardiovascular disease, by investigating the effect of periodontal treatment on the earliest detectable stage of CVD; endothelial dysfunction.MethodsOtherwise healthy periodontitis and non-periodontiti…
Multicriteria evaluation of carbon-neutral heat-only production technologies for district heating
2018
Climate change mitigation requires reducing dependence on fossil fuels and transition to low carbon energy production technologies. Nearly half of the global final energy consumption is thermal energy produced from technologies with high carbon dioxide emission. As such, it is imperative to employ carbon-neutral heat production to achieve a sustainable energy system. This paper presents a real-life case of applying multicriteria decision analysis for evaluating carbon-neutral heat-only production technologies in a major district heating system in Finland. A group of 10 experts from the energy company contributed in defining the alternative technologies and multiple economic, technological, …
A model of goal dynamics in technology-based organizations
2011
The purpose of the present work is to build a suitable system dynamics model for goal dynamics in organizations, as proposed by Barlas and Yasarcan (2008). The proposed model does not bear any ambition of being exhaustive: the main objective of this paper is to propose a model of goal dynamics in which Goal Setting, Management by Objectives and Training are viewed as human resource practices able to enhance workers' goal commitment, and therefore, improve organizational performance. In the first part of this paper, an analysis of the Goal Setting Theory and the role of goal setting practices, in bettering worker's performance, are stressed. In the second part, a case-study, the causal loop …
A Multi-Objective Approach to Optimize a Periodic Maintenance Policy
2012
The present paper proposes a multi-objective approach to find out an optimal periodic maintenance policy for a repairable and stochastically deteriorating multi-component system over a finite time horizon. The tackled problem concerns the determination of the system elements to replace at each scheduled and periodical system inspection by ensuring the simultaneous minimization of both the expected total maintenance cost and the expected global system unavailability time. It is assumed that in the case of system elements failure they are instantaneously detected and repaired by means of minimal repair actions in order to rapidly restore the system. A nonlinear integer mathematical programmi…
Engineering multi-agent systems: State of affairs and the road ahead
2019
International audience; The continuous integration of software-intensive systems together with the ever-increasing computing power offer a breeding ground for intelligent agents and multi-agent systems (MAS) more than ever before. Over the past two decades, a wide variety of languages, models, techniques and methodologies have been proposed to engineer agents and MAS. Despite this substantial body of knowledge and expertise, the systematic engineering of large-scale and open MAS still poses many challenges. Researchers and engineers still face fundamental questions regarding theories, architectures, languages, processes, and platforms for designing, implementing, running, maintaining, and e…
A proposal to elicit usability requirements within a model-driven development environment
2014
[EN] Nowadays there are sound Model-Driven Development (MDD) methods that deal with functional requirements, but in general, usability is not considered from the early stages of the development. Analysts that work with MDD implement usability features manually once the code has been generated. This manual implementation contradicts the MDD paradigm and it may involve much rework. This paper proposes a method to elicit usability requirements at early stages of the software development process such a way non-experts at usability can use it. The approach consists of organizing several interface design guidelines and usability guidelines in a tree structure. These guidelines are shown to the an…
The Influence of Goal Orientation, Past Language Studies, Overseas Experiences, and Gender Differences on Japanese EFL Learners’ Beliefs, Anxiety, an…
2012
The purpose of this study was to examine how Japanese students’ past language studies, in formal classroom settings during their elementary school years and their overseas experiences before entering university, affected their affective and strategic aspects of English learning in university level English classes within the framework of Goal Theory (Dweck 1986). The participants consisted of 556 EFL learners at two national universities, who were asked to report their age, gender and experience – or lack thereof – with English learning during elementary school, the period of overseas experiences, goal orientations, learning strategy preferences, beliefs, anxiety, and how much time they spen…
Sustainable Development Goals in Strategy and Practice: Businesses in Colombia and Egypt
2021
Businesses may adopt strategies and practices that support sustainable development goals. Such strategies include considering social and environmental impacts as well as prioritizing socio-environmental benefits at a higher level than profits. Supportive practices comprise enhancing social benefits and limiting environmental harm. What SDG-related strategies and practices are businesses pursuing? Are businesses implementing practices and strategies? Do the practices and strategies differ across societies? A survey of representative samples of 399 businesses in Colombia and 413 businesses in Egypt was conducted in 2021, by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. The owner-managers reported that…
Environmental and biological factors influencing trace elemental and microstructural properties of Arctica islandica shells
2018
Long-term and high-resolution environmental proxy data are crucial to contextualize current climate change. The extremely long-lived bivalve, Arctica islandica, , is one of the most widely used paleoclimate archives of the northern Atlantic because of its fine temporal resolution. However, the interpretation of environmental histories from microstructures and elemental impurities of A. islandica, shells is still a challenge. Vital effects (metabolic rate, ontogenetic age, and growth rate) can modify the way in which physiochemical changes of the ambient environment are recorded by the shells. To quantify the degree to which microstructural properties and element incorporation into A. island…
Evaluating the citywide Edinburgh 20mph speed limit intervention effects on traffic speed and volume: A pre-post observational evaluation.
2021
Objectives Traffic speed is important to public health as it is a major contributory factor to collision risk and casualty severity. 20mph (32km/h) speed limit interventions are an increasingly common approach to address this transport and health challenge, but a more developed evidence base is needed to understand their effects. This study describes the changes in traffic speed and traffic volume in the City of Edinburgh, pre- and 12 months post-implementation of phased city-wide 20mph speed limits from 2016–2018. Methods The City of Edinburgh Council collected speed and volume data across one full week (24 hours a day) pre- and post-20mph speed limits for 66 streets. The pre- and post-sp…