Project risk: Theoretical concepts and stakeholders' perspectives

Past empirical studies on risk conceptions in general management of developed countries provide compelling evidence to the discrepancy between practitioners' perspectives on ‘risk’ and the principles of the normative decision theory on which risk analysis tools are based. This study provides a similar investigation for a specific context of project management within a developing country setting. It aims at identifying stakeholders' perspectives on project risks in Indonesia and comparing them against assumptions of rational, normative theories and past findings from general management in developed countries. Two separate cross-sectional surveys were carried out with respondents composed of project contractors (n = 96, response rate = 38.4%) and clients (n = 99, rate = 69.7%), respectively. Empirical results identify significant gaps of risk-related concepts between project stakeholders' perspectives and the rational assumptions of the normative decision theories. For instance, risk is widely viewed by practitioners from the negative domain while the rational theory would suggest a more neutral perspective of risk. The pattern of findings is similar to those from previous empirical studies of developed countries within a general management context.     

Electrical and thermal conductivities of porous SiC/SiO2/C composites with different morphology from carbonized wood

Porous SiC/SiO₂/C composites exhibiting a wide range of high thermal and electrical conductivities were developed from carbonized wood infiltrated with SiO₂. As a pre-treatment, the samples were either heated at 100 °C or kept at room temperature followed by sintering in the temperature range 1200–1800 °C. The microstructure, the morphology, and the electrical and thermal conductivities of the composites were investigated. Pre-treatment at room temperature followed by sintering up to 1800 °C produced composites exhibiting a greater size of carbon crystallites, a higher ordering of the microstructure of carbon and β-SiC and a smaller amount of SiO₂, resulting in electrical and thermal conductivities of 1.17 × 10⁴ Ω⁻¹ m⁻¹ and 25 W/mK, respectively. The thermal conductivity could be further improved to 101 W/mK by increasing the density of the composite to 1.82 g/cm³. In contrast, the pre-treatment at 100 °C produced composites possessing a lower thermal conductivity of 2 W/mK.     

SINR and throughput improvement for VANET using fuzzy power control

This paper proposes transmission power control for vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) using fuzzy system. Despite the potential advantages of VANET especially for safety and intelligent transportation system, some challenges are discovered during the implementation of VANET. Main challenges emerge because of the dynamic environment and high mobility of vehicle. Furthermore, the interference due to the shared‐spectrum usage can significantly decrease the quality of signal. Fuzzy system is implemented to control the transmission power based on the signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) difference with the targeted value of the receiver vehicle and the interference inflicted by the transmitter vehicle. The algorithm of fuzzy power control for VANET is proposed, and the performance is evaluated through the simulations. The results of simulations show that the proposed algorithm can increase SINR of vehicles especially the vehicles with SINR value below the target. Thus, the average of SINR and the throughput of the system can be increased as well.     

Performance study and optimization of multi-channel allocation in VANET under physical channel model

Wireless Networks - Vehicular networking has a promising potential as a communication medium to relay the information related with the road safety, traffic efficiency and infotainment and thus many...     

Anisotropic thermal conductivity of three-layer laminated carbon-graphite composites from carbonized wood

Composites with characteristics of anisotropic thermal conductivity for thermal management in Solar Power Satellite (SPS), to discharge the heat that was generated when solar energy was not converted to electricity, were developed by alternating layers of laminated graphite and carbonized wood. The effects of the weight fraction of carbonized wood, particle size, interlayer interfaces, and environment temperature on the thermal conductivity and the ratio of thermal conductivity between horizontal and vertical directions (H/V ratio) to the plain surface of samples were discussed. The thermal conductivities of carbon–graphite (C/G) composites were measured using the laser flash method. Laminated C/G composites improved the anisotropic thermal conductivity. The highest H/V ratio of 10.17 was obtained at 10 wt% of carbonized wood. Particle size and interlayer interfaces were found to affect the anisotropic thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity of C/G composites increased with increasing temperature from 25 °C to 150 °C.