This study provides a definition for urban big data while exploring its features and applications of Chi- na's city intelligence. The differences between city intelligence in China and the "smart city" concept in o...This study provides a definition for urban big data while exploring its features and applications of Chi- na's city intelligence. The differences between city intelligence in China and the "smart city" concept in other countries are compared to highlight and contrast the unique definition and model for China's city intelligence in this paper. Furthermore, this paper examines the role of urban big data in city intel- ligence by showing that it not only serves as the cornerstone of this trend as it also plays a core role in the diffusion of city intelligence technology and serves as an inexhaustible resource for the sustained development of city intelligence. This study also points out the challenges of shaping and developing of China's urban big data. Considering the supporting and core role that urban big data plays in city intel- ligence, the study then expounds on the key points of urban big data, including infrastructure support, urban governance, public services, and economic and industrial development. Finally, this study points out that the utility of city intelligence as an ideal policy tool for advancing the goals of China's urban de- velopment. In conclusion, it is imperative that China make full use of its unique advantages-including using the nation's current state of development and resources, geographical advantages, and good hu- man relations-in subjective and objective conditions to promote the development of city intelligence through the proper application of urban big data.展开更多
Natural monopoly,because of its spontaneous or natural characteristics, must have some mysterious causes of reasonableness.Thus,the regulations to its efficiency loss would have a different way compared to other monop...Natural monopoly,because of its spontaneous or natural characteristics, must have some mysterious causes of reasonableness.Thus,the regulations to its efficiency loss would have a different way compared to other monopolies. That the characteristics of natural monopoly,in the case of water industry, are that the infrastructure investments are very large,most of which are used to build the transportation system? The webs for transporting their products to their customers,and the products are identity goods or services.By examining the characteristics of natural monopoly,this paper proposed away to break upand remodel the industry of“natural monopoly”.The main clue of remodeling is that the governments,who represent the public and who have the power to control over public resources,should build and maintain a public web platform for the goods’ transportation uses, and break up the barrier ofthe entry so as to produce a market-oriented competitive structure.The running modeland the condition of remodeling are put forward and the cost-revenue analysis of the operation is briefly under consideration.展开更多
This paper applies the residence utility principles to the study of public housing rent and regards that the average utility of a household determines the public housing rent level. It also suggests that the governmen...This paper applies the residence utility principles to the study of public housing rent and regards that the average utility of a household determines the public housing rent level. It also suggests that the government use multi-level public housing rent to substitute for single-level in order to make the policies for public housing rent more just, equitable and effective.展开更多
Welfare and green growth rest heavily on an appropriate supply of safe water, the provision of adequate sewerage, and on energy services. These services are interdependent, as water is an integral part of electric-pow...Welfare and green growth rest heavily on an appropriate supply of safe water, the provision of adequate sewerage, and on energy services. These services are interdependent, as water is an integral part of electric-power generation; it is used directly in hydroelectric generation, and it is used extensively for cooling and emissions scrubbing in thermoelectric generation. Energy is also an integrated part of water services, as satisfying water needs for supply, purification, distribution, and treatment of wastewater requires energy sources. Water and energy utilities are however regulated without a specific focus on the interdependency of the two sectors and the possibilities to ensure sustainable use of the resources and reduction of greenhouse gasses by a better coordination. The article explains the possibilities of sustainable consumption and production of energy in the water utilities. It highlights EU legal framework that makes coordination at national level possible, and it gives examples and concludes--on the obstacles for the water utilities' future as energy-smart utilities that exist at the national level in Denmark.展开更多
Profitability ratios are a group of financial ratios that indicate how much profit a business is earning within a certain context, while asset utilization ratios indicate how efficient a business is in operating its a...Profitability ratios are a group of financial ratios that indicate how much profit a business is earning within a certain context, while asset utilization ratios indicate how efficient a business is in operating its assets to generate cash. The difference between profitability ratios and turnover ratios is the fact that turnovers are more specific. While profitability ratios measure overall performance in terms of profits, asset utilization ratios focus on specific measurements within the business) We conduct this study to verify the impact of turnover ratios on Jordanian services sectors' performance during the period from 2009 to 2012. The study showed that there is no significant impact of turnover ratios on Jordanian services sectors' profitability, and by testing the main and sub hypotheses, the study revealed that there is no significant impact of turnover ratios on Jordanian services sectors' return on assets (ROA), there is no significant impact of working capital turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROA, there is no significant impact of total asset turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROA, and there is no significant impact of fixed asset turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROA. Also, the study showed that there is no significant impact of turnover ratios on Jordanian services sectors' return on equity (ROE), there is no significant impact of working capital turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROE, there is no significant impact of total asset turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROE, and there is no significant impact of fixed asset turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROE. Moreover, the study concluded that the educational services sector has the lowest working capital turnover and healthcare services sector has the highest. In addition, we find that the hotels and tourism sector has the lowest total asset turnover ratio, while the utilities and energy sector has the highest and that the hotels and tourism sector has the lowest fixed asset turnover, while the utilities and energy sector has the highest. The transportation sector has the lowest ROA and technology and communication sector has the highest. Finally, we find that transportation sector has the lowest ROE and the technology and communication sector has the highest.展开更多
The present work aims to conduct a critical analysis of control systems and tools of performance assessment in local public services companies, with a particular reference to the public transport sector. The interest ...The present work aims to conduct a critical analysis of control systems and tools of performance assessment in local public services companies, with a particular reference to the public transport sector. The interest in this issue arises for various reasons, from the growing economic significance of the sector at a national level, measurable in terms of production value and the number of operators involved, to the spread of outsourcing policies, liberalization and privatization, and the use of the standard cost to establish the level of funding. In the field of public utilities, until a few years ago, the concept of control was intended only in a "bureaucratic" sense as the capacity to fulfill the formal obligations linked to the strong regulatory context, ignoring aspects that have become fundamental today, such as economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of management. The approach used is deductive and the study ends with the presentation of the possible implications of the use of standard cost and the presentation of an application hypothesis of a balanced scorecard (BSC) for local public transport (LPT).展开更多
Since the last century, China has carried out the reform of public utilities in the ninety time, and has achieved many positive results. The quality and efficiency of public goods supply is greatly improved. The gover...Since the last century, China has carried out the reform of public utilities in the ninety time, and has achieved many positive results. The quality and efficiency of public goods supply is greatly improved. The government has changed the role of producer and provider from the past to the role of provider and regulator, which effectively promoted the development of the privatization of public utilities. However, in the achievements there has also been some problems, such as too much emphasis on efficiency to the neglect of social justice and the government's public responsibility "efficiency generalization" problem that requires our attention.展开更多
The transformation of the development China's privatization of city public utilities? vigorously promote the government function, however, the relative monopoly administrative operation system, functions decentraliz...The transformation of the development China's privatization of city public utilities? vigorously promote the government function, however, the relative monopoly administrative operation system, functions decentralized system of government regulation and legal system construction is lagging behind, can making the privatization process easily lead to the emergence of efficient generalization, must be identified and avoided. This paper presents efficient generalization of privatization of public utility of our country city in measure, and analyzes the performance efficiency of the three resulting generalization.展开更多
In this paper, we set up continuous time model with Poisson Process to analyze demand of investment-oriented life insurance. Individual life time is assumed random, and he is received fixed income, investment-oriented...In this paper, we set up continuous time model with Poisson Process to analyze demand of investment-oriented life insurance. Individual life time is assumed random, and he is received fixed income, investment-oriented life insurance is an important financial asset under this model. Dynamic programming is applied to analyze this problem. The optimal explicit solutions are obtained in the case of CRRA utilities, and draw its demand curve with numerical simulation.展开更多
The Brazilian electric sector reform established that the remuneration of distribution utilities must be through the management of their systems. This fact increased the necessity of control and management of load flo...The Brazilian electric sector reform established that the remuneration of distribution utilities must be through the management of their systems. This fact increased the necessity of control and management of load flows through the connection points between the distribution systems and the basic grid as a function of the contracted amounts. The objective of this control is to avoid that these flows exceed some thresholds along the contracted values, avoiding monetary penalties to the utility or unnecessary amounts of contracted flows that overrates the costumers. This question highlights the necessity of forecast the flows in these connection points in sufficient time to permit the operator to take decisions to avoid flows beyond the contracted ones. In this context, this work presents the development of a neural network based load flow forecaster, being tested two time-series neural models: support vector machines and Bayesian inference applied to multilayered perceptron. The models are applied to real data from a Brazilian distribution utility.展开更多
Under the smart grid paradigm, in the near future all consumers will be exposed to variable pricing schemes introduced by utilities. Hence, there is a need to develop algorithms which could be used by the consumers to...Under the smart grid paradigm, in the near future all consumers will be exposed to variable pricing schemes introduced by utilities. Hence, there is a need to develop algorithms which could be used by the consumers to schedule their loads. In this paper, load scheduling problem is formulated as a LCP (load commitment problem). The load model is general and can model atomic and non-atomic loads. Furthermore, it can also take into consideration the relative discomfort caused by delay in scheduling any load. For this purpose, a single parameter "uric" is introduced in the load model which captures the relative discomfort caused by delay in scheduling a particular load. Guidelines for choosing this parameter are given. All the other parameters of the proposed load model can be easily specified by the consumer. The paper shows that the general LCP can be viewed as multi-stage decision making problem or a MDP (Markov decision problem). RL (reinforcement learning) based algorithm is developed to solve this problem. The efficacy of the algorithm is investigated when the price of electricity is available in advance as well as for the case when it is random. The scalability of the approach is also investigated.展开更多
Over the past several years, the Taiwan Power Company has launched two smart pricing programs to assess the demand response of residential customers: the TOU (time-of-use) rate scheme and the DRI (demand reduction...Over the past several years, the Taiwan Power Company has launched two smart pricing programs to assess the demand response of residential customers: the TOU (time-of-use) rate scheme and the DRI (demand reduction incentive) scheme. This paper discusses these two programs and evaluates their respective performances. We develop an efficient approach based on marginal cost pricing to redesign the TOU rate scheme. In our finding, the TOU price levels could be revised to encourage more customers to participate by enlarging the price gap. Moreover, the DRI scheme can be further improved in order to reach an efficient win-win solution among customers, the utility and society. This can be achieved via a careful design of incentive tariff discounts to take account of the time-of-use or location-specific features of the power supply/demand condition.展开更多
The high-performance CPC-trough (compound parabolic concentrator) collector has been developed for the utility scale generation of low temperature solar steam and hot water for low temperature process heat applicati...The high-performance CPC-trough (compound parabolic concentrator) collector has been developed for the utility scale generation of low temperature solar steam and hot water for low temperature process heat applications including solar air conditioning. With an optical concentration of 7.5:1, operating temperatures over 130 ℃ may be reached. This novel design has included a FEM (finite element modeling) validation and is compatible with the standard reflectors and evacuated tubes in the market. The peak efficiencies of 35% with unshielded and more than 45% with evacuated tube receivers were obtained. This CPC-trough collector requires intermittent tracking, i.e., tilt adjustment is only once in a week for more than eight hours collection in summer and six to seven hours in winter seasons.展开更多
Public benefit trust is of great significance to the development of social public welfare, and the cy-pres doctrine as a special principle of public benefit trust, plays an important role in protecting the continuatio...Public benefit trust is of great significance to the development of social public welfare, and the cy-pres doctrine as a special principle of public benefit trust, plays an important role in protecting the continuation of public benefit trust, and the realization and reasonable use of high-efficiency trust properties. In this paper, therefore, the origin, establishment, and development trend of the approximation principle as well as its current legislative situation in China are studied, and also its applicability of the Cy-Pres doctrine in China's public benefit trust is briefly evaluated, so as to further deepen the understanding of the Cy-Pres doctrine and develop the public benefit trust undertakings in China.展开更多
In city planning managing, the third dimension is becoming a necessity. Using 3D GIS modeling offers a flexible interactive system while providing one of the best visual interpretation of data which supports planning ...In city planning managing, the third dimension is becoming a necessity. Using 3D GIS modeling offers a flexible interactive system while providing one of the best visual interpretation of data which supports planning and decision processes for city planners. As a result, 3D GIS model expresses terrain features in an intuitive way which enhances the management and analysis of a proposed project through 3D visualization. This paper discusses the concept of 3D GIS modeling techniques using a simple procedure to generate a university campus model (real 3D GIS model) which will show the effectiveness of this approach. The 3D GIS model provides access to mapping data to support planning, design and data management. Intelligent GIS models and GIS tools help community planning and apply regional and discipline-specific standards. Integration of GIS spatial data with campus organization helps to improve quality, productivity and asset management. The following study built 3D GIS map and all utility information for AI al-Bayt University campus as an example. The primary objective is to improve data management (e.g., maps, plans, usage of facilities and services) and to develop methods using 3D spatial analysis for specific applications at the university.展开更多
Literature has revealed the existence of several external and internal disciplining mechanisms that are hypothesized as factors influencing corporate governance. This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical litera...Literature has revealed the existence of several external and internal disciplining mechanisms that are hypothesized as factors influencing corporate governance. This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on five internal mechanisms of corporate governance, namely, dividend payouts, financial leverage, institutional shareholding, board duality, and board size. These mechanisms have received the greatest deal of attention in the literature. The paper makes an original contribution to the literature as it is the first of its type, to the best of our knowledge, to provide a comprehensive idea on these five internal mechanisms of corporate governance. This study will help in investigating the relationship between internal corporate governance mechanisms and firm performance with the main aim of extending the existing literature on firm performance by empirically investigating the contribution of these mechanisms in the smooth conduct of business operations. The empirical evidence amassed favors a smaller board size, non-existence of duality and favorable dividend mechanisms as effective internal governance mechanisms affecting firm performance. At the same time, there is no conclusive evidence on the relationship between leverage and institutional ownership as internal governance mechanisms influencing agency cost and firm performance.展开更多
This article addresses the evolution of the Internet from a loosely organized, decentralized, and pluralistic system to the Next Internet, a tightly controlled, centralized and commodified system under corporate and g...This article addresses the evolution of the Internet from a loosely organized, decentralized, and pluralistic system to the Next Internet, a tightly controlled, centralized and commodified system under corporate and government control. Drawing on a political economy perspective, it begins by addressing the technologies that comprise the Next Internet. These include Cloud Computing, Big Data Analytics, and the Internet of Things whose convergence raises significant issues in the political economy of communication and society. The paper concentrates specifically on military, environmental, economic, privacy, and labor problems. It concludes by considering the significance of viewing the Next Internet as a public utility like electricity and water.展开更多
文摘This study provides a definition for urban big data while exploring its features and applications of Chi- na's city intelligence. The differences between city intelligence in China and the "smart city" concept in other countries are compared to highlight and contrast the unique definition and model for China's city intelligence in this paper. Furthermore, this paper examines the role of urban big data in city intel- ligence by showing that it not only serves as the cornerstone of this trend as it also plays a core role in the diffusion of city intelligence technology and serves as an inexhaustible resource for the sustained development of city intelligence. This study also points out the challenges of shaping and developing of China's urban big data. Considering the supporting and core role that urban big data plays in city intel- ligence, the study then expounds on the key points of urban big data, including infrastructure support, urban governance, public services, and economic and industrial development. Finally, this study points out that the utility of city intelligence as an ideal policy tool for advancing the goals of China's urban de- velopment. In conclusion, it is imperative that China make full use of its unique advantages-including using the nation's current state of development and resources, geographical advantages, and good hu- man relations-in subjective and objective conditions to promote the development of city intelligence through the proper application of urban big data.
文摘Natural monopoly,because of its spontaneous or natural characteristics, must have some mysterious causes of reasonableness.Thus,the regulations to its efficiency loss would have a different way compared to other monopolies. That the characteristics of natural monopoly,in the case of water industry, are that the infrastructure investments are very large,most of which are used to build the transportation system? The webs for transporting their products to their customers,and the products are identity goods or services.By examining the characteristics of natural monopoly,this paper proposed away to break upand remodel the industry of“natural monopoly”.The main clue of remodeling is that the governments,who represent the public and who have the power to control over public resources,should build and maintain a public web platform for the goods’ transportation uses, and break up the barrier ofthe entry so as to produce a market-oriented competitive structure.The running modeland the condition of remodeling are put forward and the cost-revenue analysis of the operation is briefly under consideration.
文摘This paper applies the residence utility principles to the study of public housing rent and regards that the average utility of a household determines the public housing rent level. It also suggests that the government use multi-level public housing rent to substitute for single-level in order to make the policies for public housing rent more just, equitable and effective.
文摘Welfare and green growth rest heavily on an appropriate supply of safe water, the provision of adequate sewerage, and on energy services. These services are interdependent, as water is an integral part of electric-power generation; it is used directly in hydroelectric generation, and it is used extensively for cooling and emissions scrubbing in thermoelectric generation. Energy is also an integrated part of water services, as satisfying water needs for supply, purification, distribution, and treatment of wastewater requires energy sources. Water and energy utilities are however regulated without a specific focus on the interdependency of the two sectors and the possibilities to ensure sustainable use of the resources and reduction of greenhouse gasses by a better coordination. The article explains the possibilities of sustainable consumption and production of energy in the water utilities. It highlights EU legal framework that makes coordination at national level possible, and it gives examples and concludes--on the obstacles for the water utilities' future as energy-smart utilities that exist at the national level in Denmark.
文摘Profitability ratios are a group of financial ratios that indicate how much profit a business is earning within a certain context, while asset utilization ratios indicate how efficient a business is in operating its assets to generate cash. The difference between profitability ratios and turnover ratios is the fact that turnovers are more specific. While profitability ratios measure overall performance in terms of profits, asset utilization ratios focus on specific measurements within the business) We conduct this study to verify the impact of turnover ratios on Jordanian services sectors' performance during the period from 2009 to 2012. The study showed that there is no significant impact of turnover ratios on Jordanian services sectors' profitability, and by testing the main and sub hypotheses, the study revealed that there is no significant impact of turnover ratios on Jordanian services sectors' return on assets (ROA), there is no significant impact of working capital turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROA, there is no significant impact of total asset turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROA, and there is no significant impact of fixed asset turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROA. Also, the study showed that there is no significant impact of turnover ratios on Jordanian services sectors' return on equity (ROE), there is no significant impact of working capital turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROE, there is no significant impact of total asset turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROE, and there is no significant impact of fixed asset turnover on Jordanian services sectors' ROE. Moreover, the study concluded that the educational services sector has the lowest working capital turnover and healthcare services sector has the highest. In addition, we find that the hotels and tourism sector has the lowest total asset turnover ratio, while the utilities and energy sector has the highest and that the hotels and tourism sector has the lowest fixed asset turnover, while the utilities and energy sector has the highest. The transportation sector has the lowest ROA and technology and communication sector has the highest. Finally, we find that transportation sector has the lowest ROE and the technology and communication sector has the highest.
文摘The present work aims to conduct a critical analysis of control systems and tools of performance assessment in local public services companies, with a particular reference to the public transport sector. The interest in this issue arises for various reasons, from the growing economic significance of the sector at a national level, measurable in terms of production value and the number of operators involved, to the spread of outsourcing policies, liberalization and privatization, and the use of the standard cost to establish the level of funding. In the field of public utilities, until a few years ago, the concept of control was intended only in a "bureaucratic" sense as the capacity to fulfill the formal obligations linked to the strong regulatory context, ignoring aspects that have become fundamental today, such as economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of management. The approach used is deductive and the study ends with the presentation of the possible implications of the use of standard cost and the presentation of an application hypothesis of a balanced scorecard (BSC) for local public transport (LPT).
文摘Since the last century, China has carried out the reform of public utilities in the ninety time, and has achieved many positive results. The quality and efficiency of public goods supply is greatly improved. The government has changed the role of producer and provider from the past to the role of provider and regulator, which effectively promoted the development of the privatization of public utilities. However, in the achievements there has also been some problems, such as too much emphasis on efficiency to the neglect of social justice and the government's public responsibility "efficiency generalization" problem that requires our attention.
文摘The transformation of the development China's privatization of city public utilities? vigorously promote the government function, however, the relative monopoly administrative operation system, functions decentralized system of government regulation and legal system construction is lagging behind, can making the privatization process easily lead to the emergence of efficient generalization, must be identified and avoided. This paper presents efficient generalization of privatization of public utility of our country city in measure, and analyzes the performance efficiency of the three resulting generalization.
文摘In this paper, we set up continuous time model with Poisson Process to analyze demand of investment-oriented life insurance. Individual life time is assumed random, and he is received fixed income, investment-oriented life insurance is an important financial asset under this model. Dynamic programming is applied to analyze this problem. The optimal explicit solutions are obtained in the case of CRRA utilities, and draw its demand curve with numerical simulation.
文摘The Brazilian electric sector reform established that the remuneration of distribution utilities must be through the management of their systems. This fact increased the necessity of control and management of load flows through the connection points between the distribution systems and the basic grid as a function of the contracted amounts. The objective of this control is to avoid that these flows exceed some thresholds along the contracted values, avoiding monetary penalties to the utility or unnecessary amounts of contracted flows that overrates the costumers. This question highlights the necessity of forecast the flows in these connection points in sufficient time to permit the operator to take decisions to avoid flows beyond the contracted ones. In this context, this work presents the development of a neural network based load flow forecaster, being tested two time-series neural models: support vector machines and Bayesian inference applied to multilayered perceptron. The models are applied to real data from a Brazilian distribution utility.
文摘Under the smart grid paradigm, in the near future all consumers will be exposed to variable pricing schemes introduced by utilities. Hence, there is a need to develop algorithms which could be used by the consumers to schedule their loads. In this paper, load scheduling problem is formulated as a LCP (load commitment problem). The load model is general and can model atomic and non-atomic loads. Furthermore, it can also take into consideration the relative discomfort caused by delay in scheduling any load. For this purpose, a single parameter "uric" is introduced in the load model which captures the relative discomfort caused by delay in scheduling a particular load. Guidelines for choosing this parameter are given. All the other parameters of the proposed load model can be easily specified by the consumer. The paper shows that the general LCP can be viewed as multi-stage decision making problem or a MDP (Markov decision problem). RL (reinforcement learning) based algorithm is developed to solve this problem. The efficacy of the algorithm is investigated when the price of electricity is available in advance as well as for the case when it is random. The scalability of the approach is also investigated.
文摘Over the past several years, the Taiwan Power Company has launched two smart pricing programs to assess the demand response of residential customers: the TOU (time-of-use) rate scheme and the DRI (demand reduction incentive) scheme. This paper discusses these two programs and evaluates their respective performances. We develop an efficient approach based on marginal cost pricing to redesign the TOU rate scheme. In our finding, the TOU price levels could be revised to encourage more customers to participate by enlarging the price gap. Moreover, the DRI scheme can be further improved in order to reach an efficient win-win solution among customers, the utility and society. This can be achieved via a careful design of incentive tariff discounts to take account of the time-of-use or location-specific features of the power supply/demand condition.
文摘The high-performance CPC-trough (compound parabolic concentrator) collector has been developed for the utility scale generation of low temperature solar steam and hot water for low temperature process heat applications including solar air conditioning. With an optical concentration of 7.5:1, operating temperatures over 130 ℃ may be reached. This novel design has included a FEM (finite element modeling) validation and is compatible with the standard reflectors and evacuated tubes in the market. The peak efficiencies of 35% with unshielded and more than 45% with evacuated tube receivers were obtained. This CPC-trough collector requires intermittent tracking, i.e., tilt adjustment is only once in a week for more than eight hours collection in summer and six to seven hours in winter seasons.
文摘Public benefit trust is of great significance to the development of social public welfare, and the cy-pres doctrine as a special principle of public benefit trust, plays an important role in protecting the continuation of public benefit trust, and the realization and reasonable use of high-efficiency trust properties. In this paper, therefore, the origin, establishment, and development trend of the approximation principle as well as its current legislative situation in China are studied, and also its applicability of the Cy-Pres doctrine in China's public benefit trust is briefly evaluated, so as to further deepen the understanding of the Cy-Pres doctrine and develop the public benefit trust undertakings in China.
文摘In city planning managing, the third dimension is becoming a necessity. Using 3D GIS modeling offers a flexible interactive system while providing one of the best visual interpretation of data which supports planning and decision processes for city planners. As a result, 3D GIS model expresses terrain features in an intuitive way which enhances the management and analysis of a proposed project through 3D visualization. This paper discusses the concept of 3D GIS modeling techniques using a simple procedure to generate a university campus model (real 3D GIS model) which will show the effectiveness of this approach. The 3D GIS model provides access to mapping data to support planning, design and data management. Intelligent GIS models and GIS tools help community planning and apply regional and discipline-specific standards. Integration of GIS spatial data with campus organization helps to improve quality, productivity and asset management. The following study built 3D GIS map and all utility information for AI al-Bayt University campus as an example. The primary objective is to improve data management (e.g., maps, plans, usage of facilities and services) and to develop methods using 3D spatial analysis for specific applications at the university.
文摘Literature has revealed the existence of several external and internal disciplining mechanisms that are hypothesized as factors influencing corporate governance. This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on five internal mechanisms of corporate governance, namely, dividend payouts, financial leverage, institutional shareholding, board duality, and board size. These mechanisms have received the greatest deal of attention in the literature. The paper makes an original contribution to the literature as it is the first of its type, to the best of our knowledge, to provide a comprehensive idea on these five internal mechanisms of corporate governance. This study will help in investigating the relationship between internal corporate governance mechanisms and firm performance with the main aim of extending the existing literature on firm performance by empirically investigating the contribution of these mechanisms in the smooth conduct of business operations. The empirical evidence amassed favors a smaller board size, non-existence of duality and favorable dividend mechanisms as effective internal governance mechanisms affecting firm performance. At the same time, there is no conclusive evidence on the relationship between leverage and institutional ownership as internal governance mechanisms influencing agency cost and firm performance.
文摘This article addresses the evolution of the Internet from a loosely organized, decentralized, and pluralistic system to the Next Internet, a tightly controlled, centralized and commodified system under corporate and government control. Drawing on a political economy perspective, it begins by addressing the technologies that comprise the Next Internet. These include Cloud Computing, Big Data Analytics, and the Internet of Things whose convergence raises significant issues in the political economy of communication and society. The paper concentrates specifically on military, environmental, economic, privacy, and labor problems. It concludes by considering the significance of viewing the Next Internet as a public utility like electricity and water.