Currently, around 90% of Malaysia's electricity generation depends on fossil fuels. This reliance, in a long run, is not a secure option. However, renewable energy sources can contribute to a ...sustainable electricity generation system; but diversifying fuel supply chain is a complex process. Therefore, the aim of this paper is two folds. Firstly, various renewable resources potential are reviewed, and secondly an assessment model is developed for prioritizing renewable options. Four major resources, hydropower, solar, wind, biomass (including biogas and municipal solid waste) are considered. Their electricity generation potential, along with any likely shortcoming is also discussed. Moreover, using a multi-perspective approach based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP), an assessment model is developed. AHP model employs four main criteria, technical, economical, social and environmental aspects, and twelve sub-criteria. From the review it was found that renewable resources seem to have a sufficient potential to develop a sustainable electricity system. Furthermore, AHP model prioritize those resources, revealing that solar is the most favorable resource followed by biomass. Hydropower and wind however, are ranked third and fourth, respectively. The model also shows that each resource is inclined towards a particular criterion; solar towards economical, biomass towards social, hydropower towards technical, and wind towards environmental aspect. Besides reporting AHP model for the first time in Malaysian context, the assessment performed in this study, can serve decision makers to formulate long-term energy policy aiming for sustainability.
•Review of various renewable energy sources for electricity generation is provided.•A multi criteria approach is used for the analysis of various renewable resources.•The AHP model priorities various renewable resources for electricity production.
Abstract
It is interesting to develop effective fish sampling techniques using underwater videos and image processing to automatically estimate and consequently monitor the fish biomass and ...assemblage in water bodies. Such approaches should be robust against substantial variations in scenes due to poor luminosity, orientation of fish, seabed structures, movement of aquatic plants in the background and image diversity in the shape and texture among fish of different species. Keeping this challenge in mind, we propose a unified approach to detect freely moving fish in unconstrained underwater environments using a Region-Based Convolutional Neural Network, a state-of-the-art machine learning technique used to solve generic object detection and localization problems. To train the neural network, we employ a novel approach to utilize motion information of fish in videos via background subtraction and optical flow, and subsequently combine the outcomes with the raw image to generate fish-dependent candidate regions. We use two benchmark datasets extracted from a large Fish4Knowledge underwater video repository, Complex Scenes dataset and the LifeCLEF 2015 fish dataset to validate the effectiveness of our hybrid approach. We achieve a detection accuracy (F-Score) of 87.44% and 80.02% respectively on these datasets, which advocate the utilization of our approach for fish detection task.
Leaf senescence is a degenerative process that is genetically controlled and involves nutrient remobilization prior to the death of leaf tissues. Age is a key developmental determinant of the process ...along with other senescence inducing factors. At the cellular level, different hormones, signaling molecules, and transcription factors contribute to the regulation of senescence. This review summarizes the recent progress in understanding the complexity of the senescence process with primary focuses on perception and transduction of senescence signals as well as downstream regulatory events. Future directions in this field and potential applications of related techniques in crop improvement will be discussed.
Supplier selection is vital for enterprises to operate stably and achieve and sustain a competitive advantage. However, from the initial establishment to the gradual development and maturity of the ...enterprise, the supplier selection criteria change dynamically, and decision‐makers are hardly in agreement in each stage, which creates challenges for enterprises when choosing suitable suppliers. As such, this paper proposes a multicriteria group decision‐making method based on an interaction and feedback mechanism (IFM) and q‐rung orthopair fuzzy sets theory. We introduce an IFM to achieve consensus among different decision‐makers. We then develop the q‐rung orthopair fuzzy weighted partitioned Bonferroni mean (q‐ROFWPBM) operator to address the aggregation problem of dynamic multicriteria. A group decision‐making algorithm combining the IFM and q‐ROFWPBM operator is proposed to analyze the Hongxing Erke supplier selection. The results show that the proposed method can not only account for large differences of opinion among decision‐makers during group decision‐making but also consider the dynamic changes of supplier selection criteria in different stages of enterprise development and help enterprises choose suppliers suitable for their own development characteristics.
PurposeUsing Dean's (2010) analytics of government, this research explores how regimes of governing practices are linked to the underlying policy rationalities in dealing with the UK government's ...COVID-19 testing policies as a strategy for governing at a distance, including how targets were set and operationalized.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on the UK government's policy documents, other official publications (plans) and parliamentary discourse, together with publicly available media information related to its COVID-19 policies.FindingsThis research reveals that, with respect to the governance of COVID-19 in the UK, testing has the dual role of inscription for the government's performance and classification for the pandemic risks. The analysis illustrates that the central role of testing is as a technology for classification for identifying and monitoring the virus-related risks. Moreover, our discourse analysis suggests that initially COVID-19 testing was used by the UK government more for performance communication, with the classificatory role of testing and its performativity as a strategic device evolving and only being acknowledged by government gradually as the underlying testing infrastructure was developed.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is based upon publicly available reports and other information of a single country's attempts to control COVID-19 over a relatively short period of time.Originality/valueThis paper provides a critical understanding of the role of (accounting) numbers in developing an effective government policy for governing COVID-19.
En toda la literatura árabe hay abundantes ejemplos de un fenómeno que podría llamarse “analogía de la hermosura”. Generalmente, estas comparaciones constituyen alegorías en las que reiterados rasgos ...de una mujer ideal son equiparados con características hermosas de ciertos animales, sin que el motivo de dicha asociación quede elucidado. La notable presencia de tales analogías en la tradición árabe, tanto en la poesía como en la lexicografía, denota una extensa tópica literaria más que un mero recurso estilístico aislado. Este artículo pretende exponer e identificar dichas manifestaciones literarias, así como sugerir posibles explicaciones acerca de su razón de ser en la tradición y la cultura árabes.
Throughout Arabic literature there are abundant examples of a phenomenon that could be called the “analogies of beauty”. Generally, these comparisons constitute allegories, in which certain reiterated features of an ideal woman are equated with beautiful characteristics of certain animals, without the reason for said association being elucidated. The notable presence of such analogies in the Arab tradition, both in poetry and in lexicography, denotes an extensive literary topic rather than a mere isolated stylistic device. This article tries to expose and identify these literary manifestations, suggesting possible explanations about their reason for being in the Arab tradition and culture.
Utilizing evidence from a United Kingdom (UK) road case study Private Finance Initiative (PFI) project, this article considers how the UK central government's infrastructure strategy is ...operationalized through accounting‐based performance measures and incentive systems, and articulates how the adoption of such systems is moderated by trust practices. The findings indicate that initial government policy objectives, translated as performance indicators in the case study, failed to offer adequate incentives for contractors and created tensions. However, controls were later developed through inter‐party trust practices for managing performance and relational risk. These findings have important implications for PFI policy and practice, including that negotiation can: (i) lead to pragmatic controls being introduced to foster cooperation and trust‐building; and (ii) provide opportunities for adapting the monitoring and incentive mechanisms. This study also contributes to the previous literature where PFI control systems were largely regarded as inadequate for dealing with unforeseen conflicts between parties.
In this article, Hopf bifurcation is characterized for newly proposed Bhalekar–Gejji three-dimensional chaotic dynamical system. By analytical method, a sufficient condition is established for the ...existence of Hopf bifurcation. Using numerical continuation technique, Hopf bifurcation diagram is analyzed for chaotic parameter which strengthens our analytical results. Moreover, influence of system parameters on dynamical behavior is investigated using phase portraits, Lyapunov exponents, Lyapunov dimensions and Poincaré maps. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations demonstrate the rich dynamics of the system.
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