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Property tax continues to be the most viable, steady, progressive and genuine source of income for an independent local government administration in India. Kerala has one of the most complex cadastral and property taxation systems in the country. In 2008, the Kerala government introduced “Fair value of land” for all landed property in Kerala, which is calculated per Are and notified by the Government of Kerala on the website. This paper presents the outcome of the spatial mapping of the fair value of land in Kerala and its comparison with actual land value collected through advertisements and surveys.

The methodology used in this study analyzed the existing fair value system of land valuation in Kerala and identified its drawbacks. Fair value is integrated into cadastral data in geographical information system (GIS) and spatially analyzed to identify the discrepancies in fair value fixation. The actual land value for 837 locations is collected from online advertisements and verified through a field survey. A paired t-test analysis follows this to compare the fair value and actual land value of the study area.

The disparity between the original land value and the registration value in Kerala has resulted in the undervaluation of land resources by the government. The fair value fixed by the government is significantly lower than the actual land value based on the statistical comparison results. It is observed that the actual land value is multiple times higher than the government fixed land value. Also, the spatial distribution of the village level fair value shows the randomness in fixation and abnormalities existing at numerous locations.

The results indicate that the traditional comparison method used for fair value calculation by the Kerala government is not suitable in Indian scenarios due to the unreliability of registration values. The study thus points to the importance of developing a scientific method for determining the land value that would consider various spatially influencing parameters.

The current study provided an in-depth analysis of the land valuation system of the Kerala government. The strengths and weaknesses of the existing system are analyzed through statistical methods.

This research aims to compare website-based investor relations (WIR) in developed and developing economies, represented by the US, UK, Hong Kong and mainland China.

A WIR level evaluation index consisting of 82 items was constructed, based on website content analysis. Item discrepancies caused by local contexts were considered in order to make the items applicable to all economies. Data were collected from the websites of companies listed in the Dow Jones Industry Average, the biggest 30 companies on the FTSE100, Hang Seng Index and China CNINFO40. The WIR levels of developed and developing economies were evaluated and compared under the index system. T-tests of differences between means were used to evaluate significance.

Listed companies' WIR levels were very similar between Hong Kong and mainland China as well as between the US and UK, but companies listed in the US and UK have a much higher level of WIR. The differences of WIR between developed and developing economies were very significant. Developed economies' WIR show many advanced features such as using real-time and being more complete, convenient, user-friendly, accurate and fair.

As a comparative study of WIR between developed and developing economies, the study is among the first in this field, especially in including mainland China.

Predicting the inactivity and the repeat transaction frequency of a firm's customer base is critical for customer relationship management. The literature offers two main approaches to such predictions: stochastic modeling efforts represented by Pareto/NBD and machine learning represented by neural network analysis. As these two approaches have been developed and applied in parallel, this study systematically compares the two approaches in their prediction accuracy and defines the relatively appropriate implementation scenarios of each model.

By designing a rolling exploration scheme with moving calibration/holdout combinations of customer data, this research explores the two approaches' relative performance by first utilizing three real world datasets and then a wide range of simulated datasets.

The empirical result indicates that neither approach is dominant and identifies patterns of relative applicability between the two. Such patterns are consistent across the empirical and the simulated datasets.

This study contributes to the literature by bridging two previously parallel analytical approaches applicable to customer base predictions. No prior research has rendered a comprehensive comparison on the two approaches' relative performance in customer base predictions as this study has done. The patterns identified in the two approaches' relative prediction performance provide practitioners with a clear-cut menu upon selecting approaches for customer base predictions. The findings further urge marketing scientists to reevaluate prior modeling efforts during the past half century by assessing what can be replaced by black boxes such as NNA and what cannot.

Performance appraisal based on a forced distribution system (FDS) is widely used in large corporate sectors around the globe. Though many researchers have pointed out several drawbacks in FDS, due to the absence of any suitable alternative, it has been (and continues to be) adopted by many industries over a long period of time. The purpose of this paper is to point out some serious limitations of this system and propose a simple modification to overcome these limitations.

FDS determines the relative positions of the employees involved in similar work by comparing them against one another, and based on their performance, the employees receive different grades. Here the authors use the Likert's scaling method to convert these grades into numerical scores, then these scores are used to estimate the average performance of each group of employees, which is referred to as the group index. Taking these group indices into consideration, the authors propose a modified performance score of each employee for their final evaluation. Efficiencies of the existing FDS and the proposed modified version are compared using a simple measure of rank correlation known as the Kendall's tau‐statistic.

Extensive simulation studies show that the modified algorithm is uniformly better than the existing one over different schemes for allocations of employees to different projects, and depending on the allocation scheme, it can lead to substantial improvement.

This paper can be considered as the first to mathematically demonstrate the problems lying in the appraisal system based on a forced distribution and the first that provides a simple but effective solution which can be adopted by the organizations using FDS for performance appraisal.

The purpose of this paper is to show an efficient method for the detection of signs of early lung cancer. Various image processing algorithms are presented for different types of lesions, and a scheme is proposed for the combination of results.

A computer aided detection (CAD) scheme was developed for detection of lung cancer. It enables different lesion enhancer algorithms, sensitive to specific lesion subtypes, to be used simultaneously. Three image processing algorithms are presented for the detection of small nodules, large ones, and infiltrated areas. The outputs are merged, the false detection rate is reduced with four separated support vector machine (SVM) classifiers. The classifier input comes from a feature selection algorithm selecting from various textural and geometric features. A total of 761 images were used for testing, including the database of the Japanese Society of Radiological Technology (JSRT).

The fusion of algorithms reduced false positives on average by 0.6 per image, while the sensitivity remained 80 per cent. On the JSRT database the system managed to find 60.2 per cent of lesions at an average of 2.0 false positives per image. The effect of using different result evaluation criteria was tested and a difference as high as 4 percentage points in sensitivity was measured. The system was compared to other published methods.

The study described in the paper proves the usefulness of lesion enhancement decomposition, while proposing a scheme for the fusion of algorithms. Furthermore, a new algorithm is introduced for the detection of infiltrated areas, possible signs of lung cancer, neglected by previous solutions.

Starting with 1997 applications, both the US Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards and the Canada Awards for Excellence have undergone changes to the evaluation categories as well as to the point systems in order to increase the emphasis on business results. Over the past several years there has been an increasingly perceived need to emphasize organizational successes owing to an overall quality management approach as opposed to celebrating specific quality improvement initiatives within establishments. The enthusiasm of management to highlight gains made in certain portions of their organization in the name of quality requires tempering by due consideration within the general context of the impact on business results. The emphasis has been shifted to ensure further that an overall balance in applying TQM throughout the organization will be required to achieve national award status.

Portugal has been experiencing a continuous growth in tourism activity, with hospitality industry as one of the main tourism sectors. Therefore, the assessment of hotel companies’ performance is very important to assist decision processes. The purpose of this paper is to assess the financial performance (FP) of 570 hotel companies operating hotel units in Portugal in 2017. To explore the question of brand affiliation, a comparison was made between hotel companies with similar stars rating and market orientation. In addition, this paper intends to fill a gap in literature studying the Portuguese reality on the subject of brand affiliation.

The present study uses a methodology based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess the overall performance for each company, which further decomposed into the within-group performance and the technological gap. The performance of the hotel company is assessed through the aggregation of multiple financial indicators using the composite indicator (CI) derived from the DEA model. A bivariate analysis based on the Tobit regression to test the robustness of brand effect on FP of hotel companies (HC) was also included.

The empirical results show that branded companies, on average, have significantly better overall FP than non-branded companies. On the one hand, the brand effect tends to improve the within-group FP of HCs and the brand presents a statistically significant positive effect on the FP. On the other hand, the best practices are observed in both branded and non-branded companies.

The results of this study illustrate that, globally, the better FP of the branded companies is because of their individual relative companies’ performance and a better model of operation given by the brand effect. Brand affiliation will generally allow for a better FP and essentially a better profitability for invested equity, a higher return on sales and a higher value added per employee.

The study provides important theoretical and practical contributions that can assist the strategic decision of the HCs in choosing to operate independently or to adopt brand affiliation. Also, it is innovative because the FP of branded and non-branded HCs is measured not using a set of individual financial ratios but through a single CI that aggregates those financial ratios, using a DEA model.

This paper focuses on a conceptual methodology for an integrated simulation model dubbed as dynamic simulation modelling system (DSMS) for proactive and optimal decision making within a project management framework. Due to the uncertainties in project environment, the technical and operational functionality of a facility needs to be assessed during development and operation phases of the project. The simulation model is used for optimising the investment decisions vis‐à‐vis evaluation of functionalities on project facilities in early stages of the project. Project life cycle objective functions (LCOFs) are employed as a set of decision criteria throughout the project’s life. The discussion is being extended on the need for setting up an integrated and user‐friendly model to encompass the processes in the entire life cycle of the project. Details of the system are described and a hypothetical case study is used to demonstrate its capabilities. Possible extensions are then outlined. The C++ programming language in association with the object‐oriented database management system is used to achieve the aforementioned objectives.

The purpose of this study is to improve the control performance of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) inverters with inductive-capacitive-inductive (LCL) filters by proposing a new robust current control based on uncertainty and disturbance estimator (UDE).

The control strategy combines the capacitor current feedback with a UDE-based control to solve robust stability issues in the presence of parametric uncertainties and disturbances.

This paper provides guidelines for tuning the controller parameters where it is shown to be easy to implement by simply selecting the appropriate feedback coefficient, the reference model and an approximate lumped disturbance bandwidth. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller in terms of resonance damping, tracking performance and robust stability under grid uncertainties and disturbances.

This paper offers a new approach for designing implementable robust controllers for LCL-filtered grid-connected PV inverters.

A new UDE-based current control is proposed to improve the stability performance of grid-connected PV inverters. The advantages of UDE-based control are its simple structure, easy tuning and robustness under parameter uncertainties and disturbances. Simulation and experimental results support the theoretical findings.