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Vertical cylindrical welded steel tanks are typical thin-walled structures that are very susceptible to buckling under settlement. The major concern in the design of these thin-walled structures is buckling failure. On this basis and by considering the findings of the previously reported research works, the stability performance of open-top steel tanks with various industrial applications under local support edge settlement is further investigated in this paper. This study aims to contribute to the current state-of-the-art in the design and retrofit of such thin-walled structures.

The buckling behaviors of numerous cylindrical shell models with various height-to-radius, radius-to-thickness and settlement span ratios are investigated through linear and nonlinear buckling analyses. The effects of addition of a top stiffening ring on the buckling behavior of cylindrical steel tanks are studied as well.

This parametric study demonstrates that the choice of the height-to-radius, radius-to-thickness and settlement span ratios as well as addition of the top stiffening ring can be quite effective on the stiffness and strength performances, deformations and stress distribution as well as intensity of vertical cylindrical welded steel tanks subjected to local support edge settlement.

This research endeavor was formulated on the basis of a comprehensive literature survey and demonstrates the relationship between geometrical as well as stiffening features and buckling stability performance of open-top tanks subjected to local support edge settlement and also provides practical recommendations for design and retrofit purposes.

Modeling electric machines is one of the powerful approaches for analyzing their performance. A dynamic model and a steady-state model are introduced for each electric machine. Permanent magnet induction machine (PMIM) is a dual-rotor electric machine, which has various advantages such as high-power factor and low magnetizing current. Studying PMIM and its modeling might be valuable. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a simple and accurate method for dynamic and steady-state modeling of PMIM.

In this paper, arbitrary dqo reference frame is used to model PMIM. First, three-phase dynamic equations of stator and rotors are introduced. Then, they are transferred to an arbitrary reference frame. The voltage and magnetic flux equations aligned at dqo axes are obtained. These equations give the dynamic model. To investigate the results, PMIM simulation is performed according to obtained dynamic equations. Simulation results verify the analytic calculations.

In this paper, dynamic equations of PMIM are obtained. These equations are used to determine dynamic equivalent circuits of PMIM. Steady-state equations and one phase equivalent circuit of the PMIM using phasor relations are also extracted.

PMIM equations along dqo axes and their dynamic and steady-state equivalent circuits are determined. These equations and the equivalent circuits can be transformed to different reference frames and analyzed easily.

After graduation, many female accountants tend to ordinarily have professional work experience to obtain an ideal position in the career; but under the influence of both internal (in the profession) and external (in life) adverse conditions, the application of their potential talent would be failed and they cannot utilize their abilities to progress in the career. Relevant studies in this field are in developed countries with minimal attention to females in other countries. This study contributes to the literature by examining the case in a developing country–Iran.

A mixed-method study was undertaken to gather data by a postal questionnaire distributed in 2016–2017 and structured interviews with females who assuredly have working experience in the corporate finance department of firms listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange.

It is concluded that the primary issue affecting the career vision of women is to achieve a better working environment. This issue admittedly can be considered as a reason for women to change their employer. The salaries and benefits are also the least important to them. Most women prefer to work in the educational part because of flexible working hours, and they broadly obtain almost no desire to work in the field of tax and cost accounting.

When answering the questionnaire or during the interviews, women are supposed to think about events that happened in the past, so it is recognized that they may selectively remember such events and interpret them with reference to the intervening events and the values that they hold at the time of the data collection. Moreover, all selected respondents may be naturally influenced by a desire to provide socially acceptable answers. Accordingly, the inherent limitations of the results are acknowledged. However, the prime focus of this paper is to consider and give voice to the female experience, which may or may not replicate the experience of their male counterparts.

This paper contributes meaningfully to the debate on the issues affecting the career vision of women and may result in their departure.

The impact of the dual work–life burden of women on career progression is assessed which contributes to the extant literature on the career progression of women in the context of developing countries such as Iran.

In a world characterised by increasing environmental and social awareness, the number of corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives has significantly grown. Among these, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) is one of the most important, involving more than 12,000 companies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the UNGC’s worldwide diffusion, both at country and industry level, to understand the reasons leading to the highlighted dissemination patterns, and to propose various future projections.

The study pursues its objectives by applying the logistic curve model to data provided by the United Nations. The analysis is complemented by adopting instability and concentration indexes.

Results suggest that, while human rights and environmental safeguard in some areas and industries will remain a controversial issue, UNGC adoption will continue growing and giving the participants the required legitimacy to compete in worldwide markets.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that analyses the UNGC’s worldwide diffusion and proposes a prediction model for its future dissemination. The findings are of considerable importance in extending the knowledge of the initiative and in understanding the potential values of its adoption.

The human resource (HR) allocation problem is one of the critical dimensions of the project management process. Due to this nature of the problem, researchers are continually optimizing one or more critical scheduling and allocation challenges in different ways. This study aims to optimize two goals, increasing customer satisfaction and reducing costs using the imperialist competitive algorithm.

Cloud-based e-commerce applications are preferred to conventional systems because they can save money in many areas, including resource use, running expenses, capital costs, maintenance and operation costs. In web applications, its core functionality of performance enhancement and automated device recovery is important. HR knowledge, expertise and competencies are becoming increasingly valuable carriers for organizational competitive advantage. As a result, HR management is becoming more relevant, as it seeks to channel all of the workers’ energy into meeting the organizational strategic objectives. The allocation of resources to maximize benefit or minimize cost is known as the resource allocation problem. Since discovering solutions in polynomial time is complicated, HR allocation in cloud-based e-commerce is an Nondeterministic Polynomial time (NP)-hard problem. In this paper, to promote the respective strengths and minimize the weaknesses, the imperialist competitive algorithm is suggested to solve these issues. The imperialist competitive algorithm is tested by comparing it to the literature’s novel algorithms using a simulation.

Empirical outcomes have illustrated that the suggested hybrid method achieves higher performance in discovering the appropriate HR allocation than some modern techniques.

The paper presents a useful method for improving HR allocation methods. The MATLAB-based simulation results have indicated that costs and waiting time have been improved compared to other algorithms, which cause the high application of this method in practical projects.

The main novelty of this paper is using an imperialist competitive algorithm for finding the best solution to the HR allocation problem in cloud-based e-commerce.

The main objective of this research is to investigate the factors that influence consumer purchase decisions for halal products before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on the Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (EKB) theory.

The research was conducted as a survey. The influencing factors were determined based on the grey relational analysis (GRA) approach.

The findings indicate before the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers mainly purchased halal products based on four key factors: purchasing experience, certification label, Internet searches and past consumption experience. However, during the pandemic, the ranking and factors have changed to six indicators, which are past consumption experience, purchasing experience, certification labels, standardized specifications, Internet searches and halal certification labels.

The study was limited by the sample size and geographical area. Nevertheless, the findings could be further explored by expanding related theories toward understand human decisions based on spiritual beliefs.

The findings of this study have important implications for research, practice and society. Understanding the factors influencing halal purchase decisions before and during the pandemic can help businesses, policymakers and halal certification bodies to better cater to consumers' needs and preferences and ensure the continued growth and development of the halal industry.

This study evaluates halal purchasing decisions between periods of certainty and uncertainty by using the GRA. Changes in halal consumption and purchase decisions in response to COVID-19 pandemic have become an emerging topic of discovery. The study addresses the gap in the literature regarding changes in consumer decision pattern.

A set of routers that are connected over communication channels can from network-on-chip (NoC). High performance, scalability, modularity and the ability to parallel the structure of the communications are some of its advantages. Because of the growing number of cores of NoC, their arrangement has got more valuable. The mapping action is done based on assigning different functional units to different nodes on the NoC, and the way it is done contains a significant effect on implementation and network power utilization. The NoC mapping issue is one of the NP-hard problems. Therefore, for achieving optimal or near-optimal answers, meta-heuristic algorithms are the perfect choices. The purpose of this paper is to design a novel procedure for mapping process cores for reducing communication delays and cost parameters. A multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm standing on crowding distance (MOPSO-CD) has been used for this purpose.

In the proposed approach, in which the two-dimensional mesh topology has been used as base construction, the mapping operation is divided into two stages as follows: allocating the tasks to suitable cores of intellectual property; and plotting the map of these cores in a specific tile on the platform of NoC.

The proposed method has dramatically improved the related problems and limitations of meta-heuristic algorithms. This algorithm performs better than the particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic algorithm in convergence to the Pareto, producing a proficiently divided collection of solving ways and the computational time. The results of the simulation also show that the delay parameter of the proposed method is 1.1 per cent better than the genetic algorithm and 0.5 per cent better than the PSO algorithm. Also, in the communication cost parameter, the proposed method has 2.7 per cent better action than a genetic algorithm and 0.16 per cent better action than the PSO algorithm.

As yet, the MOPSO-CD algorithm has not been used for solving the task mapping issue in the NoC.

The production of sleeve grouting in prefabricated construction is routinely plagued by a variety of factors, and lack of mass data and complex environmental conditions over time make problems inevitable. Thus, a dynamic risk control system is a valuable support for the successful completion of the sleeve grouting process. This study aims to develop an entropy-based sleeve grouting risk dynamic control system.

First, static risk assessment was conducted through the structured interview survey using the entropy weight method, followed by a dynamic risk control technique, where indicators were simulated through system dynamics containing causal loop diagrams and stock-and-flow diagrams.

Finally, three types of risk control models, namely, “tortuous type”, “stable type” and “peak loop type”, were developed in the entropy-based sleeve grouting risk dynamic control system and simulated using system dynamics in a real case.

Compared to traditional sleeve grouting risk management, the developed system enabled dynamic control over time.

This research identifies the supply chain performance indices and designs an evaluation framework to assess and compare the Indian petroleum supply chain performance. We presented a case study of three Indian petroleum companies. For this purpose, we identified fifteen performance criteria extracted from previous literature and expert inputs and classified them into four groups.

A fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) method is employed for evaluating the performance of the Indian petroleum supply chain.

The design and evaluation framework suggests that the top three performance measurement criteria, the purity of the products, compliance with environmental laws, and new technology adoption. The result findings also indicate that company C contributes to a maximum satisfaction level of 77%. Simultaneously, companies A and B hold satisfaction levels of 72% and 67%.

The managers should ensure that environmental standards, new technology adoption, and quality are significant concerns in the petroleum supply chain. The managers should follow national and international policies to preserve the environment and ensure safety in operational activities.

This paper makes two contributions in the domain of performance measurement of the petroleum supply chain. First, it identifies the prominent supply chain performance indices. Second, it proposes a model to assess and compare the performance of Indian petroleum companies.