• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• 제8권3호
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• pp.11-22
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• 2007

Nowadays, the competitiveness of any organisations rests dominantly on how they can manage their performance, A host of performance variables such as quality, reliability, and efficiency are recognised as competitive priorities. This paper reviews the criteria and dimensions of performance measures, and discusses six core performance indicators in agribusiness operations with particular reference to the poultry/broiler farms. Besides, a holistic "Quality, Reliability and Efficiency" view of performance is proposed when developing measures for poultry agribusiness operations.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제9권8호
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• pp.2984-3004
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• 2015

Designing a new reversible data hiding technique with a high embedding rate and a low compression rate for vector quantization (VQ) compressed images is encouraged. This paper proposes a novel lossless data hiding scheme for VQ-compressed images based on the joint neighboring coding technique. The proposed method uses the difference values between a current VQ index and its left and upper neighboring VQ indexes to embed n secret bits into one VQ index, where n = 1, 2, 3, or 4. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme achieves the embedding rates of 1, 2, 3, and 4 bits per index (bpi) with the corresponding average compression rates of 0.420, 0.483, 0.545, and 0.608 bit per pixel (bpp) for a 256 sized codebook. These results confirm that our scheme performs better than other selected reversible data hiding schemes.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• 제6권3호
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• pp.190-203
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• 2005

This paper empirically determines the extent to which ISO 9001 certified small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were able to attain the eight quality management principles on which the ISO 9004:2000 Standard is based. It employs the Analytic Hierarchy Process approach in determining the percent weightings of these principles and the self-assessment questions which form part of the ISO 9004:2000 Standards. Of particular interest is a weakness of these enterprises in formulating policies addressing the needs and expectations of shareholders and the society in terms of the community and the public affected by the organisations or its products. This paper makes a contribution to the body of knowledge in the field of quality management in Trinidad and Tobago where such work is limited. It adds value by empirically measuring TQM implementation through determining the extent to which its criteria are implemented in ISO 9001 certified SMEs.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• 제8권3호
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• pp.35-45
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• 2007

This paper describes the development of a scale for measuring top management commitment towards continual quality performance improvement in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A set of self-assessment questions of the ISO 9004: 2000 Standard was used to assess the adoption status of quality management practices. This paper investigates the inter-item reliability and the content validity of the Quality Management Principles Scale (QMPS) in an integrated improvement process in SMEs. An empirical study was conducted to acquire senior management views on the use of the QMPS in manufacturing sectors in Trinidad and Tobago. Based on 328 responses from 110 SMEs, statistical software packages were used to analyse the empirical data and determine the reliability and validity of the QMPS. The paper contributes to develop a self-assessment scale that can be used to measure top management commitment. It is anticipated that the findings would provide practical insights for evaluating the levels of maturity on performance improvement in SMEs.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• 제4권1호
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• pp.175-190
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• 2003

This paper discusses the determinants of green practices and incorporates some empirical findings from a recent study in the petrochemical sector in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The study was comprised of a survey and follow-up interviews with senior executives who participated in the survey. Of fourteen companies involved, the findings affirmed that the investigation of accidents, provision of an emergency response, employee training, decreasing the production of wastes, and pre-treating wastes before disposal should be stressed. Government requirement, the economic reasons and public pressures were the driving forces of green practices. The five most important determinants identified include performance evaluation, financial justification, impacts on company, management leadership and operations integration. Implementing environmental management systems as a feasible approach to green practices in the petrochemical sector was explored. The findings provide guidance that helps organisations to accommodate the determinants of green practices into achieving sustainable environmental goals.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• 제6권3호
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• pp.204-215
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• 2005

This paper explores innovative manufacturing processes, which can be used to manufacture the national musical instrument of Trinidad and Tobago, the Musical Steel Drum or Steel Pan. The main manufacturing process used today is the manual hand-forming technique. In order to achieve more consistent and deeper formed components while maintaining the high quality of the instrument, it is proposed that the Marforming process and the Flow-forming process, an adaptation of the Spinforming process, be used more frequently in the future to replace the traditional Hand-forming method. In the traditional Spinforming technique material is pushed from the outer circumference of the metal disc to the center in progressive passes of the former. This results in a thinning of the outer region of the formed component with thickening of the center, however the opposite is required for the musical steel drum and by adapting the process the required strain distributions were achieved. Evaluation took the form of strain analyses of pre-formed steel drums and visual inspection of the quality of the surface finish. It was found that the Marformed components had the smallest range of strain values while the Spinformed components had the largest range.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.98-106
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• 2006

Nowadays, agro-firms are confronted with competition from global suppliers in both domestic and export markets. Such competition in sustainable agro-operations is expected to intensify. The survival of these firms in developing countries urgently requires a significant transformation to be competitive. This paper discusses the rationale of adopting a national innovation (NI) approach from an industry-wide perspective. In order to attain sustainable agro-operations in developing countries, the approach stresses appropriate scientific and technological applications and effective linkages of technology transfer via the network between public and private institutions, universities and other research institutions. Central to this approach is the development of the agro-industrial sector whereby agri-chains are formed. An illustrated case of the NI approach is presented with respect to a small island developing state, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.742-751
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• 2018

Electric vehicles (EV) are emerging as the future transportation vehicle reflecting their potential safe environmental advantages. Vehicle to Grid (V2G) system describes the hybrid system in which the EV can communicate with the utility grid and the energy flows with insignificant effect between the utility grid and the EV. The paper presents an optimal power control and energy management strategy for Plug-In Electric Vehicle (PEV) charging stations using Wind-PV-FC-Battery renewable energy sources. The energy management optimization is structured and solved using Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) to determine and distribute at each time step the charging power among all accessible vehicles. The Model-Based Predictive (MPC) control strategy is used to plan PEV charging energy to increase the utilization of the wind, the FC and solar energy, decrease power taken from the power grid, and fulfil the charging power requirement of all vehicles. Desired features for EV battery chargers such as the near unity power factor with negligible harmonics for the ac source, well-regulated charging current for the battery, maximum output power, high efficiency, and high reliability are fully confirmed by the proposed solution.