Research

22 pages, 2823 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Computer Vision Algorithms, Remote Sensing Data Fusion Techniques, and Mapping and Navigation Tools in the Industry 4.0-Based Slovak Automotive Sector

by Marek Nagy and George Lăzăroiu

Mathematics 2022, 10(19), 3543; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math10193543 - 28 Sep 2022

Cited by 61 | Viewed by 3780

Abstract

The objectives of this paper, and the novelty brought to the topic of the Industry 4.0 manufacturing systems, are related to the integration of computer vision algorithms, remote sensing data fusion techniques, and mapping and navigation tools in the Slovak automotive sector. We [...] Read more.

The objectives of this paper, and the novelty brought to the topic of the Industry 4.0 manufacturing systems, are related to the integration of computer vision algorithms, remote sensing data fusion techniques, and mapping and navigation tools in the Slovak automotive sector. We conducted a thorough examination of Industry 4.0-based value and supply chains, clarifying how cyber-physical production systems operate in relation to collision avoidance technologies, environment mapping algorithms, and mobility simulation tools in network connectivity systems through vehicle navigation data. The Citroen C3 and Peugeot 208 automobiles are two examples of high-tech products whose worldwide value and supply chain development trends were examined in this study by determining countries and their contributions to production. The fundamental components of the research—statistical analysis and visual analysis—were utilized in conjunction with a variety of syntheses, comparisons, and analytical methodologies. A case study was developed using PSA Group SVK data. The graphical analysis revealed that Slovakia offers the second-highest added value to the chosen items, but it also highlighted the country’s slow-growing research and development (R&D) infrastructure, which could lead to a subsequent loss of investment and business as usual. Slovakia can generate better export added value by optimizing Industry 4.0-based manufacturing systems in the automotive sector. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Business and Industry: Mathematical Analysis, Sustainability Assessment Instruments and Methods)

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28 pages, 2322 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

The Interplay between Digital Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development in the Context of the EU Digital Economy: A Multivariate Analysis

by Emilia Herman

Mathematics 2022, 10(10), 1682; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math10101682 - 14 May 2022

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3408

Abstract

A real challenge for the EU economy and society is to achieve both green and digital transitions in order to tackle the major economic, social and environmental issues faced by EU member states. In this context, digital entrepreneurship, which lies at the intersection [...] Read more.

A real challenge for the EU economy and society is to achieve both green and digital transitions in order to tackle the major economic, social and environmental issues faced by EU member states. In this context, digital entrepreneurship, which lies at the intersection of digital technologies and entrepreneurship, has recently benefited from increasing attention both in theoretical and empirical research and in strategic policies. Given these aspects, the aim of this article was to investigate the interrelationship between digital entrepreneurship and productive and innovative entrepreneurship and its impact on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in EU countries. The results of correlation and regression analysis revealed that digital entrepreneurship, which implies productive and innovative entrepreneurial activities, is positively influenced by the degree of a country’s digitalization and, in turn, has a positive impact on the achievement of the SDGs (Total SDGs, SDG 8 and SDG 9). Furthermore, the findings of the principal component analysis and cluster analysis emphasize that there are differences and common features between EU countries in terms of the interrelationship between digital entrepreneurship, digitalization, economic development, national competitiveness and achievement of the SDGs. Therefore, specific measures should be implemented to boost digital entrepreneurship (especially in some central and eastern EU countries) so that this will be the key driver for sustainable development. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Business and Industry: Mathematical Analysis, Sustainability Assessment Instruments and Methods)

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17 pages, 654 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Mathematical Modeling of Manufacturing Lines with Distribution by Process: A Markov Chain Approach

by Gilberto Pérez-Lechuga, Francisco Venegas-Martínez and José Francisco Martínez-Sánchez

Mathematics 2021, 9(24), 3269; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math9243269 - 16 Dec 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3621

Abstract

Today, there are a wide variety of ways to produce goods in a manufacturing company. Among the most common are mass or line production and process production, both of which are antagonists. In an online production system, materials move from station to station, [...] Read more.

Today, there are a wide variety of ways to produce goods in a manufacturing company. Among the most common are mass or line production and process production, both of which are antagonists. In an online production system, materials move from station to station, receiving added value on a well-defined layout. In a production line by process, the materials randomly visit a set of machines strategically located in order to receive a treatment, almost always through metalwork machines, according to the final product of which they will be part. In this case, there is not a predefined layout, as the incoming materials are sectioned and each piece forms a continuous flow through different workstations to receive some process. This activity depends on the function of the product and its final destination as a component of a finished product. In this proposal, Markov chain theory is used to model a manufacturing system by process in order to obtain the expected values of the average production per machine, the total expected production in all the facilities, the leisure per machine and the total productive efficiency of the system, among other indicators. In this research, we assume the existence of historical information about the use of the equipment, its failures, the causes of failure and their repair times; in any factory, this information is available in the area of manufacturing engineering and plant engineering. From this information, statistical frequency indicators are constructed to estimate transition probabilities, from which the results presented here are derived. The proposal is complemented with a numerical example of a real case obtained from a refrigerator factory established in Mexico in order to illustrate the results derived from this research. The results obtained show their feasibility when successfully implemented in the company. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Business and Industry: Mathematical Analysis, Sustainability Assessment Instruments and Methods)

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31 pages, 1492 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Fusion Framework for Forecasting Financial Market Direction Using Enhanced Ensemble Models and Technical Indicators

by Dushmanta Kumar Padhi, Neelamadhab Padhy, Akash Kumar Bhoi, Jana Shafi and Muhammad Fazal Ijaz

Mathematics 2021, 9(21), 2646; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math9212646 - 20 Oct 2021

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2969

Abstract

People continuously hunt for a precise and productive strategy to control the stock exchange because the monetary trade is recognised for its unbelievably different character and unpredictability. Even a minor gain in predicting performance will be extremely profitable and significant. Our novel study [...] Read more.

People continuously hunt for a precise and productive strategy to control the stock exchange because the monetary trade is recognised for its unbelievably different character and unpredictability. Even a minor gain in predicting performance will be extremely profitable and significant. Our novel study implemented six boosting techniques, i.e., XGBoost, AdaBoost, Gradient Boosting, LightGBM, CatBoost, and Histogram-based Gradient Boosting, and these boosting techniques were hybridised using a stacking framework to find out the direction of the stock market. Five different stock datasets were selected from four different countries and were used for our experiment. We used two-way overfitting protection during our model building process, i.e., dynamic reduction technique and cross-validation technique. For model evaluation purposes, we used the performance metrics, i.e., accuracy, ROC curve (AUC), F-score, precision, and recall. The aim of our study was to propose and select a predictive model whose training and testing accuracy difference was minimal in all stocks. The findings revealed that the meta-classifier Meta-LightGBM had training and testing accuracy differences that were very low among all stocks. As a result, a proper model selection might allow investors the freedom to invest in a certain stock in order to successfully control risk and create short-term, sustainable profits. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Business and Industry: Mathematical Analysis, Sustainability Assessment Instruments and Methods)

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21 pages, 483 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Unsustainability Risk of Bid Bonds in Public Tenders

by Jacopo Giacomelli and Luca Passalacqua

Mathematics 2021, 9(19), 2385; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math9192385 - 25 Sep 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2429

Abstract

Public works contracts are commonly priced and awarded through a tender process. Each bidder joining the tender must underwrite a bid bond that guarantees their fitness as contractors in case of a win. The winning contractor also needs to underwrite a performance bond [...] Read more.

Public works contracts are commonly priced and awarded through a tender process. Each bidder joining the tender must underwrite a bid bond that guarantees their fitness as contractors in case of a win. The winning contractor also needs to underwrite a performance bond before entering the contract to protect the procuring entity against the performance risk arising during the execution phase. This study addresses the case when sureties refuse to issue the performance bond, despite having issued a bid bond to the same subject. A creditworthiness variation of the contractor during the tender or an excessive discount of the contract’s price may lead to this outcome. In that case, all the subjects involved are damaged. The surety who issued the bid bond has to indemnify the procuring entity. The contract award is nullified, which is financially harmful to both the contractor and the procuring entity. We show that sureties adopting a forward-looking risk appetite framework may prevent the demand for unsustainable performance bonds instead of addressing it by rejecting the bidders’ requests. The Solvency II regulatory framework, the Italian bidding law, and actual historical data available from the Italian construction sector are considered to specify a simplified model. The probability of unsustainable tender outcomes is numerically estimated by the model, together with the mitigating impact of a surety’s proper strategy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Business and Industry: Mathematical Analysis, Sustainability Assessment Instruments and Methods)

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20 pages, 1593 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Instruments and Methods for Identifying Indicators of a Digital Entrepreneurial System

by Jelena Raut, Đorđe Ćelić, Branislav Dudić, Jelena Ćulibrk and Darko Stefanović

Mathematics 2021, 9(17), 2151; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math9172151 - 03 Sep 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2055

Abstract

Entrepreneurial ecosystems are the main driver of the widespread trend of digitalization, and they open opportunities for the advancement of the digital economy. The digital economy makes its progress through innovative enterprises that can ensure global progress. In order to effectively use the [...] Read more.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems are the main driver of the widespread trend of digitalization, and they open opportunities for the advancement of the digital economy. The digital economy makes its progress through innovative enterprises that can ensure global progress. In order to effectively use the opportunities that open up the process of digitalization, information is needed on how much the Republic of Serbia is able to support the process of discovering entrepreneurship, which is stimulated by digitalization, which is the subject of this paper. The aim of this paper is to analyze the digital entrepreneurial system of the Republic of Serbia, as well as to identify indicators that hinder the development of this system, using appropriate instruments and methods that will be presented in detail in the paper. The results have demonstrated that the starting point for improvement of the digital entrepreneurial system is in the field of finance, with a particular focus on companies in the startup and stand-up phases. Furthermore, a comparative analysis will showcase the digital entrepreneurial system of the Republic of Serbia and the member states of the European Union, where it will be seen that the digital entrepreneurial system of the Republic of Serbia is lagging behind the member states of the European Union in its growth and development. The results will serve as the starting point for policymakers to improve the process of digitalization and the digital entrepreneurial system as a whole. The results show the starting point for the improvement of entrepreneurship in the Republic of Serbia, that is, how small, and medium-sized enterprises can be encouraged on the path to their successful management. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Business and Industry: Mathematical Analysis, Sustainability Assessment Instruments and Methods)

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15 pages, 2261 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Finance for the Environment: A Scientometrics Analysis of Green Finance

by Rui Cai and Jianluan Guo

Mathematics 2021, 9(13), 1537; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math9131537 - 01 Jul 2021

Cited by 30 | Viewed by 6291

Abstract

To protect environmental sustainability, organizations are moving their focus towards greening the business process. Similarly to any other business function, financial management has also turned to environmentally friendly activities. Green finance is a new financial pattern that integrates environmental protection and economic profits. [...] Read more.

To protect environmental sustainability, organizations are moving their focus towards greening the business process. Similarly to any other business function, financial management has also turned to environmentally friendly activities. Green finance is a new financial pattern that integrates environmental protection and economic profits. This paper analyses the publications on green finance, and their intellectual structure and networking. The bibliometric data on green finance research have been extracted from the Scopus database. This study finds the most productive countries, universities, authors, journals, and most prolific publications in green finance, through examining the published works. Also, the study visualizes the intellectual network by mapping bibliographic coupling (BC) and co-citation. The study’s essential contribution is the analysis of green finance developments and trajectories that can help scholars and practitioners to appreciate the trend and future studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Business and Industry: Mathematical Analysis, Sustainability Assessment Instruments and Methods)

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20 pages, 1223 KiB

Open AccessArticle

How Sustainability Is Defined: An Analysis of 100 Theoretical Approximations

by Arturo Luque González, Jesús Ángel Coronado Martín, Ana Cecilia Vaca-Tapia and Francklin Rivas

Mathematics 2021, 9(11), 1308; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/math9111308 - 07 Jun 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2809

Abstract

Sustainability processes are imperfect, hence there is a need to analyze their construction, evolution and deployment. To this end, a sample of one hundred sustainability constructs was taken, together with their conceptual approaches, in order to gauge their impact and to ascertain the [...] Read more.

Sustainability processes are imperfect, hence there is a need to analyze their construction, evolution and deployment. To this end, a sample of one hundred sustainability constructs was taken, together with their conceptual approaches, in order to gauge their impact and to ascertain the dimensions to which they belong. A frequency count and categorization were carried out using Google, which saturated in seven dimensions: economic, social, environmental, legal, political, ethical and cultural. A higher-order association of these hierarchies was then proposed, establishing a triad model that indicated only the most representative combinations of dimensions resulting from the extraction of the most significant definitions. From these definitions and in accordance with their frequency of use in Google, it is inferred that the current concept of sustainability is based on the economic-social-ethical category. This highlights the distance between what, a priori, seems to implicitly allow any definition of sustainability and the existing reality. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Business and Industry: Mathematical Analysis, Sustainability Assessment Instruments and Methods)

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