Milan Despotovic

Data mining with various optimization methods

Road traffic represents the main source of noise in urban environments that is proven to significantly affect human mental and physical health and labour productivity. Thus, in order to control noise sound level in urban areas, it is very important to develop methods for modelling the road traffic noise. As observed in the literature, the models that deal with this issue are mainly based on regression analysis, while other approaches are very rare. In this paper a novel approach for modelling traffic noise that is based on optimization is presented. Four optimization techniques were used in simulation in this work: genetic algorithms, Hooke and Jeeves algorithm, simulated annealing and particle swarm optimization. Two different scenarios are presented in this paper. In the first scenario the optimization methods use the whole measurement dataset to find the most suitable parameters, whereas in the second scenario optimized parameters were found using only some of the measurement data, while the rest of the data was used to evaluate the predictive capabilities of the model. The goodness of the model is evaluated by the coefficient of determination and other statistical parameters, and results show agreement of high extent between measured data and calculated values in both scenarios. In addition, the model was compared with classical statistical model, and superior capabilities of proposed model were demonstrated. The simulations were done using the originally developed user friendly software package.

Economic, social and environmental dimension of sustainable competitiveness of European countries

Over the last decade, promotion of competitiveness represents one of the central goals of economic policy of most of the countries. Moreover, in recent years, the promotion of competitiveness has been seen as a way of achieving desirable changes in economy and society. While there is no unity of views in the theory regarding the conceptual definition of the phenomenon of competitiveness, it is becoming less arguable that in strictly economic terms, competitiveness is a synonym for productivity. However, it should be noted that productivity growth that is accompanied by increasing social imbalance (for example, inequality in income distribution), on the one hand, and environmental pollution, on the other hand, cannot be a guarantee of improving the competitiveness of countries in the long run. Acknowledging precisely this fact and using the data from World Economic Forum on Global Competitiveness 2013, this paper elaborates on the phenomenon of sustainable competitiveness and tests the hypothesis about the positive impact of its social and environmental dimension on the economic dimension of sustainable competitiveness that is represented by the value of the Global Competitiveness Index. The survey of 34 countries confirmed the indisputable positive impact of the social dimension of sustainability, but also variable direction of the impact of the environmental dimension of sustainability (depending on the level of GDP per capita) on the economic dimension of sustainable competitiveness of European countries in 2013.

Innovation of IT metasystems by means of event-driven paradigm using QDMS

Globalisation of world economy brings new and more complex demands to business systems. In order to respond to these trends, business systems apply new paradigms that are inevitable reflecting on management metasystems – quality assurance (QA), as well as on information technology (IT) metasystems. Small and medium enterprises (in particular in food industry) do not have possibilities to access external resources to the extent that could provide adequate keeping up with these trends. That raises the question how to enhance synergetic effect of interaction between existing QA and IT metasystems in order to overcome resource gap and achieve set goals by internal resources. The focus of this article is to propose a methodology for utilisation of potential of quality assurance document management system (QDMS) as prototypical platform for initiating, developing, testing and improving new functionalities that are required by IT as support for buiness system management. In that way QDMS plays a role of catalyst that not only accelerates but could also enhance selectivity of the reactions of QA and IT metasystems and direct them on finding new functionalities based on event-driven paradigm. The article tries to show the process of modelling, development and implementation of a possible approach to this problem through conceptual survey and practical solution in the food industry.

Energy Efficiency, Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development in Kragujevac (Serbia)

This paper presents a methodology development and the results achieved in the process of establishing energy management system in the City of Kragujevac (Serbia) and in its public services. The paper is an overview of influential factors in the field of energy management, analyzing their impact on raising the energy efficiency of individual utility service and the city of Kragujevac, as a whole. The paper also presents the most interesting scientific and research projects realized in the cooperation of several actors which were coordinated by Regional Euro Energy Efficiency Center Kragujevac. The municipal companies together with the city administration are the direct beneficiaries of the results realized in the following areas: ‐ Development of energy management in municipalities and the establishment of energy planning at the local level; ‐ Improvement of municipal services by applying energy efficiency measures in public enterprises: ‐ “Energetika” (heating), ‐ “Cistoca” (communal waste management), ‐ “Vodovod i kanalizacija” (water and waste water management); Promotion of ideas and projects realized in the field of energy management, environmental protection and sustainable development at the Festival of energy efficiency (starting from this year) held during the April.