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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the application of reliability engineering to oil and gas (O&G) pipeline systems with the aim of identifying means through which reliability engineering can be used to improve pipeline integrity, specifically with regard to man-made incidents (e.g. material/weld/equipment failure, corrosion, incorrect operation and excavation damages).

A literature review was carried out on the application of reliability tools to O&G pipeline systems and four case studies are presented as examples of how reliability engineering can help to improve pipeline integrity. The scope of the paper is narrowed to four stages of the pipeline life cycle; the decommissioning stage is not part of this research. A survey was also carried out using a questionnaire to check the level of application of reliability tools in the O&G industry.

Data from survey and literature show that a reliability-centred approach can be applied and will improve pipeline reliability where applied; however, there are several hindrances to the effective application of reliability tools, the current methods are time based and focus mainly on design against failure rather than design for reliability.

The tools identified do not cover the decommissioning of the pipeline system. Research validation sample size can be broadened to include more pipeline stakeholders/professionals. Pipeline integrity management systems are proprietary information and permission is required from stakeholders to do a detailed practical study.

This paper proposes the minimum applied reliability tools for application during the design, operation and maintenance phases targeted at the O&G industry. Critically, this paper provides a case for an integrated approach to applying reliability and maintenance tools that are required to reduce pipeline failure incidents in the O&G industry.

This paper aims to study the reliability of the high-speed train operation control system in the Chinese Train Control System Level 3 (CTCS-3) operating mode.

Dynamic fault tree and Bayesian network method are adopted to analyze the reliability and weakness of the CTCS-3 system.

First, a physical architecture and data flow diagram of the CTCS-3 system are established according to the typical structure and functions of the CTCS-3 system. Second, the dynamic fault tree of the CTCS-3 system is constructed. Considering the prior probability of the bottom event and the existence of dynamic redundancy, the dynamic fault tree is transformed into a Bayesian net. The reliability of the CTCS-3 system is carried out based on the prior probability and the weakness that affects the reliability of the system based on the posterior probability is also analyzed by the Bayesian network. Finally, it is disclosed that the impact of the on-board subsystem on the reliability of the CTCS-3 system is generally greater than that of the ground subsystem. The two weakest modules in the onboard subsystem are the driver-machine interface (DMI) and balise transmission module (BTM) and the weakest one in the ground subsystem is Balise. The analysis results are generally consistent with the malfunctions in the field operation of China’s high-speed railway.

(1) By reasoning, the reliability of the train operation control system in the CTCS-3 operating mode meets the standard requirements.

(2) Through backward reasoning, it is found that the failure of the onboard subsystem leads to a greater probability of failure of the train control system.

(3) The DMI, BTM and automatic train protection computer unit modules are weak components in the onboard subsystem. Vital digit input&output, train interface unit and train security gateway are rarely involved in previous research, the result in this paper shows that these three modules are also weak components in the subsystem, which requires attention.

This paper aims to investigate the reliability, availability, maintenance and safety analysis method for railway network operation.

The reliability of the railway network is proposed based on the accident frequency and the topology of the railway network. Network efficiency and capacity are proposed to evaluate the availability of the railway network. The maintenance of the railway network is analyzed from the perspective of accident recovery time. The safety index of the railway network is proposed to measure the safety of railway stations and sections and the K-means method is proposed to find the safety critical stations and sections. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated through a real-world case study.

The case study shows that the proposed model can produce a big-picture averaged view of the network-wide safety level and help us identify the safety critical stations and sections by considering both the expected reduction of network efficiency and capacity.

The potential application of the proposed model is to help the safety managers determine the investments in safety management of each section and station and then increase the safety and robustness of railway network operation.

The safety analysis of the railway network should consider the reliability, availability and maintenance of the railway network. In this paper, the reliability of the railway network is proposed based on the accident frequency and the topology of the railway network. Network efficiency and capacity are proposed to evaluate the availability of the railway network. The maintenance of the railway network is analyzed from the perspective of recovery time. Finally, the safety index of the railway network is proposed to analyze the safety critical stations and sections.

In the continuous development of high-speed railways, ensuring the safety of the operation control system is crucial. Electromagnetic interference (EMI) faults in signaling equipment may cause transportation interruptions, delays and even threaten the safety of train operations. Exploring the impact of disturbances on signaling equipment and establishing evaluation methods for the correlation between EMI and safety is urgently needed.

This paper elaborates on the necessity and significance of studying the impact of EMI as an unavoidable and widespread risk factor in the external environment of high-speed railway operations and continuous development. The current status of research methods and achievements from the perspectives of standard systems, reliability analysis and safety assessment are examined layer by layer. Additionally, it provides prospects for innovative ideas for exploring the quantitative correlation between EMI and signaling safety.

Despite certain innovative achievements in both domestic and international standard systems and related research for ensuring and evaluating railway signaling safety, there’s a lack of quantitative and strategic research on the degradation of safety performance in signaling equipment due to EMI. A quantitative correlation between EMI and safety has yet to be established. On this basis, this paper proposes considerations for research methods pertaining to the correlation between EMI and safety.

This paper overviews a series of methods and outcomes derived from domestic and international studies regarding railway signaling safety, encompassing standard systems, reliability analysis and safety assessment. Recognizing the necessity for quantitatively describing and predicting the impact of EMI on high-speed railway signaling safety, an innovative approach using risk assessment techniques as a bridge to establish the correlation between EMI and signaling safety is proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of entrepreneurial intention in promoting women entrepreneurship in Indian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This study seeks to clarify the construct of entrepreneurial intention and then reports the validation of the entrepreneurial intention instrument.

An instrument has been designed and administered on a sample of 103 respondents across India from women entrepreneurs to understand the entrepreneurial intention by using cluster and snowball sampling. The data has been streamlined and then analyzed using descriptive analysis for validity and reliability checks.

This research was aimed to determine the constructs of entrepreneurial intention. Through data analysis, it has been observed that the reliability coefficients reveal the adequacy of the sample. The Cronbach’s alpha values for all the items in the instrument were found to be greater than or equal to 0.6. Strong correlations were also found between direct and indirect measures of entrepreneurial intention and hence confirmed that all the measures in the instrument were well constructed. Analysis has also explained the relationship between various constructs of entrepreneurial intention by using Pearson’s correlation coefficients. Strong and positive values of correlation explain the existence of the convergent and discriminant validity of the instrument.

The research results obtained from the analysis of reliability and validity tests not only provides the establishment of the relationship among the various constructs but also suggests that the model provides a promising potential to measure entrepreneurial intention. This study will contribute to new knowledge of the conditions of women entrepreneurship from different perspectives by developing and validating an analytic model for promoting the women entrepreneurship in MSMEs of India.

From a government perspective, this model will help in designing training programmes for promoting women entrepreneurship in India. The obtained result also brings significant implications for practice as well as raises a broad future direction for other researchers

Extended SCCT model has recently suggested an inclusive framework of factors affecting the entrepreneurial intention, there is not much attempt made in research using this theory as background for predicting intention in the context of women entrepreneurship. This paper attempts to fill this gap by formulating a conceptual model for measuring entrepreneurial intention among women entrepreneurs by integrating and adapting the constructs of extended social cognitive career theory model and entrepreneurial potential model.

Though logistics security only took care of trading phase in the past, many countries in the world have begun to introduce logistics security system as its coverage has been extended from production stage to delivery at the final destination. Logistics security system has become indispensable element for global corporations involved in international trading and studies on logistics security keep going on. Most of the studies, however, are focused on discussion of system, cost and influence of logistics security and few of them have been specifically dealing with substantial effectiveness thereof. This study developed the models of supply chain security activities and their outcome by means of using Balanced Scorecard (BCS) which is a well known performance indicator to identify relationship between supply chain security activities and their accomplishment. In this study we have presented 8 supply chain frameworks, human resources management, information system management, facilities/freight management, security process, crisis management capability, relationship with partners, sharing of logistics information and logistics security accomplishment, with reference to standards of C-TPAT and AEO based on WCO framework, 10 supply chain security capabilities. This study further indicates that relationship with partners has more effect on logistics security accomplishment than sharing of logistic information. Just as relationship between corporations in chain of supply and sharing of information among them are important elements in management of supply chain, relationship with partners and sharing of logistic information will have positive effect on supply chain security accomplishment and raise its effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new strategic framework of Supply Chain Management (SCM) in the automobile industry. For our purpose, we first had studied about the structure of relationship between supplier and buyer in Korean automobile industry. With this study, we searched for factors which compose a strategy of SCM, and whether or not the companies’ performance that are influenced by specific SCM strategy factors. Of course, our study based on existing researches, especially Cox et al.(1995) and Venkatraman et al.(1992), but the existing researches is differentiated in this paper that is treated several power factors as resource, value, environment and relation. So, results of our paper are what a good strategy of SCM composed by these factors and how to adopt this strategy on global logistics. And our methodology has some using of statistics method by SPSS 14(v) such as factor analysis, reliability analysis, and SEM(Structural Equation Model) with AMOS.

Advising systems play an important role not only in the student development process but also in student retention. Academic scholars across the world have been emphasising the presence of an effective student advising system as one of the requirements of a standard educational set up. To ensure student satisfaction with the advising system, institutions conduct satisfaction studies to monitor the effectiveness of their system and to understand key issues such as influencing factors and the association between demographic and influencing variables. The current paper addresses these key issues. A survey was conducted during Fall 2012 with students from across the GCC at three colleges in Muscat, Oman, to identify the factors influencing student satisfaction with advising system. In our study twenty-six variables were formed into five factors. The results show that student satisfaction with the advising systems is highly influenced by ‘feel good’, ‘critical situations’ and ‘IT’ factors. It was also found that satisfaction is independent of gender but not of the education level: lower level students were found to be more satisfied with advising systems than the students at the higher level. Student satisfaction has a significant positive correlation with training/orientation on advising and perceived quickness in solving students’ problems.

This paper aims to identify the relationship between participation motivation, satisfaction and exercise adherence intention of golf range users on the basis of self-determination theory.

For this purpose, the authors proposed research questions and a conceptual research model as well. Then, the authors surveyed users of golf ranges located in Seoul Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi-do province.

By applying convenience sampling, the authors received a total of 313 questionnaires. Results were as follows. First, among the participation motivation sub-factors, health-oriented motivation, achievement motivation, pleasure-oriented motivation and self-displayed motivation had a significant effect on emotional satisfaction, while achievement motivation and pleasure-orientation motivation had a significant effect on performance satisfaction. Second, the following participation motivation factors had a significant effect on exercise adherence intention: health-orientation motivation, achievement motivation and pleasure-orientation motivation. Third, among the satisfaction factors, emotional satisfaction and performance satisfaction both had a significant effect on exercise adherence intention.

This is one of the first papers to examine the relationships that exist between golf range users’ participation motivation, satisfaction and exercise adherence intention.

On shield tunnel construction (STC) site, human error is widely recognized as essential to accident. It is necessary to explain which factors lead to human error and how these factors can influence human performance. Human reliability analysis supports such necessity through modeling the performance shaping factors (PSFs). The purpose of this paper is to establish and validate a PSF taxonomy for the STC context.

The approach taken in this study mainly consists of three steps. First, a description of the STC context is proposed through the analysis of the STC context. Second, the literature which stretch across the PSF methodologies, cognitive psychology and human factors of STC and other construction industries are reviewed to develop an initial set of PSFs. Finally, a final PSF set is modified and validated based on STC task analysis and STC accidents cases.

The PSF taxonomy constituted by 4 main components, 4 hierarchies and 85 PSFs is established for human behavior modeling and simulation under the STC context. Furthermore, by comparing and evaluating the performance of STC PSF and existing PSF studies, the proposed PSF taxonomy meets the requirement for qualitative and quantitative analysis.

The PSF taxonomy can provide a basis and support for human behavior modeling and simulation under the STC context. Integrating PSFs into a behavior simulation model provides a more realistic and integrated assessment of human error by manifesting the influence of each PSFs on the cognitive processes. The simulation results can suggest concrete points for the improvement of STC safety management.

This paper develops a taxonomy of PSFs that addresses the various unique influences of the STC context on human behaviors. The harsh underground working conditions and diverse resources of system information are identified as key characteristics of the STC context. Furthermore, the PSF taxonomy can be integrated into a human cognitive behavior model to predict the worker’s behavior on STC site in future work.