bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Contortrostatin, a Homodimeric Disintegrin Isolated from Snake Venom Inhibits Herpes Simplex Virus Entry and Cell Fusion
Authors: Hubbard Stephen , Choudhary Samiksha , Maus Erika , Shukla Deepak , Swenson Stephen , Markland Francis S , Tiwari Vaibhav
Published: August 2012

Background

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) causes significant health problems from periodical skin and corneal lesions to encephalitis. HSV entry provides a unique opportunity for therapeutic intervention. In this study, we evaluated contortrostatin (CN), an Arg-Gly-Asp motif containing disintegrin isolated from snake venom, as a novel therapeutic agent with ability to block HSV entry and related membrane fusion.

Methods

In vitro efficacy of CN against HSV was determined using an HSV type-1 (HSV-1) entry assay based on the measurement of β-galactosidase reporter activity originating from the genome of a recombinant strain of HSV-1(KOS) gL86. HSV-1 glycoprotein-mediated cell-to-cell fusion was used to study the effect of CN on polykaryocyte formation. Primary as well as transformed cell lines were used for this study.

Results

Pre-treatment of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO-K1) cells expressing HSV-1 glycoprotein D receptors and primary cultures of human corneal fibroblasts (CF) with CN resulted in the inhibition of entry, cell-to-cell fusion, and polykaryocyte formation. Interestingly, a more pronounced anti-HSV-1 effect was observed in naturally susceptible CF than CHO-K1 cells.

Conclusions

CN, a novel venom-derived peptide, exhibits the ability to block two key steps, entry and cell-to-cell fusion, in HSV infection. Showing strong promise for development as an anti-HSV agent, it also demonstrates better prophylactic efficacy in primary cells.
Mystification et parodie
Authors: Dousteyssier-Khoze Catherine
Published: August 2012

Afin de mieux cerner la spécificité de la mystification, il s’agit de s’arrêter ici sur un aspectsouvent négligé de la poétique : la question des points de rencontre entre mystification et parodie. Peut-être parce qu’elle a un champ d’action plus vaste que la parodie (en ce qu’elle ne se limite pas aux domaines littéraire et culturel et au détournement d’un code), la mystification relève d’une pragmatique souvent plus fragile et flirte davantage avec l’indécidable et le néant. La mystification théâtrale analysée dans l’article ( La Grande Marée , mystification en 2 actes mêlée de chants [1860] de Cogniard et Clairville) permet en outre de souligner l’instabilité d’une mystification-mise en abyme qui, beaucoup plus que les multiples parodies théâtrales en vogue à l’époque, se joue à plusieurs niveaux des limites entre fiction et réalité.
Du canard romantique : enjeux de la mystification pour la génération de 1830
Authors: Kekus Filip
Published: August 2012

La génération romantique de 1830 a le goût du canard, cette pratique mystificatrice parmiles plus courantes de la monarchie de Juillet consistant en la relation par la presse d’une nouvelle « quelquefois vraie, toujours exagérée, souvent fausse ». Oscillant entre facétie plus ou moins dissidente visant à mystifier le bourgeois et mythe de substitution d’un âge désenchanté, le canard fait le pont entre souci du réel, fantaisie et supernaturalisme pour être, en dernière analyse, le lieu d’une réflexion sur la place de l’écrivain et de la littérature qui prend acte des profondes mutations socio-économiques de l’époque.
Anatomie d'une mystification : représentations fictionnelles du débat de 1830
Authors: Narayana Valérie
Published: August 2012

Ce travail examine certaines parodies du débat taxonomique de 1830 et se penche sur le contebalzacien du « Guide-âne des animaux voulant parvenir aux honneurs ». Ce texte peut passer pour une démystification du débat, à l’instar de textes à charge contemporains. Les aspects bouffons du texte renforcent toutefois le clivage entre la science et la fiction, ce qui entretient la mystification savante. Celle-ci est aussi cultivée de façon plus subtile, car l’auteur fustige des savants stipendiés, ce qui laisserait croire à une vérité bafouée. Or, la rhétorique du conte, déployée sur le fond des insuffisances du positivisme, montre un Balzac fort conscient des failles logiques du débat et prêt à dévoiler – à quelques sceptiques – le grotesque d’une science en manque d’arbitrage. À ce titre, le « Guide-âne » soulève la question des « angles morts » culturels et problématise le rapport entre posture savante et imposture.
Intertextes et mystifications dans les poèmes en prose de Baudelaire
Authors: Scott Maria
Published: August 2012

La critique de la poésie en prose baudelairienne a souvent souligné son manque de cohésiontonale et thématique. Mais ce manque apparent pourrait cacher une logique partagée : celle de la duplicité. Cet article se penche sur quatre poèmes en prose de Baudelaire ( Le Chien et le flacon , Les Bons Chiens , Mademoiselle Bistouri , Le Galant Tireur ) dans le but d’identifier certaines allusions intertextuelles qui semblent appuyer l’hypothèse de la mystification, non seulement en raison du caractère voilé de ces allusions mais encore parce que les intertextes eux-mêmes soulèvent la possibilité d’un leurre. Parmi ces intertextes, le Prologue de Gargantua invite à une lecture ésotérique, le passage de Régnier tourne autour du non-dit et Une mystification d’Edgar Poe évoque une vengeance dissimulée.
Vie littéraire et mystification aux temps symbolistes
Authors: Vérilhac Yoan
Published: August 2012

Le mouvement symboliste s’est construit contre un procès en mystification, instruit parune presse hostile puis par des écrivains en réaction contre les valeurs symbolistes. Suivre le fonctionnement de ce recours massif au « vieil argument de la mystification » permet de saisir combien le symbolisme se rend critiquable par l’imagination radicale des rapports entre littérature et vie littéraire qu’il promeut. Les implications ne sont pas seulement stratégiques : du point de vue des ambitions esthétiques du symbolisme, la mystification articule les plans de la vie et de la littérature et constitue un moyen privilégié pour réaliser le programme fixé par Des Esseintes : la confusion de l’art et de la vie. Cette confusion s’incarne dans des pratiques collectives et des supports, au premier chef, la petite revue, intégrant la mystification non comme vecteur d’une subversion codée ni d’une « vie drôle » mais d’une esthétique de la médiatisation de la vie littéraire.
Érik Satie, Uspud, et la mystification au service de l'art
Authors: Dayan Peter
Published: August 2012

Peut-on concevoir Uspud, ballet chrétien , d’Érik Satie, comme une mystification ? Non, dans la mesure où Satie ne voulut ni ne réussit à mystifier personne lorsqu’il chercha à faire représenter Uspud à l’Opéra de Paris. Il était clair pour tous qu’ Uspud était comique, grotesque, inadapté, ridicule, caricatural – bref, une mystification ; et une mystification qui s’affiche comme telle n’en est sans doute pas une. Mais Satie réussit parfaitement à mystifier les hommes qui dirigeaient les institutions musicales de l’époque, dans la mesure où ceux-ci ne virent pas qu’un chef-d’œuvre révolutionnaire leur passait sous le nez. Leur incompréhension devait être, pour Satie, un gage de la valeur de son ballet ; car toute œuvre vraiment neuve doit paraître mystificatrice aux yeux des hommes en place.
Le prix d'une nuit : écrivains romantiques face à Cléopâtre
Authors: Feuillebois Victoire
Published: August 2012

Dans les années 1830, une anecdote concernant Cléopâtre resurgit en Europe : elle auraitproposé à ses adorateurs de passer une nuit avec elle, s’ils acceptaient de mourir le lendemain. Contraint de (se) vendre par l’accroissement de la pression médiatique sur le monde des arts, les auteurs doivent négocier une nouvelle image de soi dans la sphère journalistico-littéraire : Cléopâtre, souveraine impérieuse et prostituée sublime, leur sert de figure tutélaire pour rentrer dans le jeu de l’échange sans rien perdre de leur aura. Les trois nouvelles d’Antoine-Édouard Brac de Bourdonnel, Alexandre Pouchkine et Théophile Gautier présentent un dispositif analogue : un glissement rhétorique permet de passer de la nuit érotique réelle , que le lecteur ne verra pas, à une nuit purement textuelle , renvoyant à une situation feinte d’énonciation nocturne qui dessine dans les marges du récit une figure encadrante d’auteur.
Geometric-Edge Random Graph Model for Image Representation
Authors: Bo Jiang , Jing Tang , Bin Luo
Published: August 2012

This chapter presents a random graph model for image representation. The first contribution the authors propose is a Geometric-Edge (G-E) Random Graph Model for image representation. The second contribution is that of casting image matching into G-E Random Graph matching by using the random dot product graph based matching algorithm. Experimental results show that the proposed G-E Random Graph model and matching algorithm are effective and robust to structural variations.
Discriminative Feature Selection in Image Classification and Retrieval
Authors: Liu Shang , Bai Xiao
Published: August 2012

In this chapter, the authors present a new method to improve the performance of current bag-of-words based image classification process. After feature extraction, they introduce a pairwise image matching scheme to select the discriminative features. Only the label information from the training-sets is used to update the feature weights via an iterative matching processing. The selected features correspond to the foreground content of the images, and thus highlight the high level category knowledge of images. Visual words are constructed on these selected features. This novel method could be used as a refinement step for current image classification and retrieval process. The authors prove the efficiency of their method in three tasks: supervised image classification, semi-supervised image classification, and image retrieval.
Region-Based Graph Learning towards Large Scale Image Annotation
Authors: Bing-Kun Bao , Shuicheng Yan
Published: August 2012

Graph-based learning provides a useful approach for modeling data in image annotation problems. In this chapter, the authors introduce how to construct a region-based graph to annotate large scale multi-label images. It has been well recognized that analysis in semantic region level may greatly improve image annotation performance compared to that in whole image level. However, the region level approach increases the data scale to several orders of magnitude and lays down new challenges to most existing algorithms. To this end, each image is firstly encoded as a Bag-of-Regions based on multiple image segmentations. And then, all image regions are constructed into a large k-nearest-neighbor graph with efficient Locality Sensitive Hashing (LSH) method. At last, a sparse and region-aware image-based graph is fed into the multi-label extension of the Entropic graph regularized semi-supervised learning algorithm (Subramanya & Bilmes, 2009). In combination they naturally yield the capability in handling large-scale dataset. Extensive experiments on NUS-WIDE (260k images) and COREL-5k datasets well validate the effectiveness and efficiency of the framework for region-aware and scalable multi-label propagation.
Copy Detection Using Graphical Model
Authors: Wei Shikui , Zhao Yao , Zhu Zhenfeng
Published: August 2012

With the growing popularity of video sharing websites and editing tools, it is easy for people to involve the video content from different sources into their own work, which raises the copyright problem. Content-based video copy detection attempts to track the usage of the copyright-protected video content by using video analysis techniques, which deals with not only whether a copy occurs in a query video stream but also where the copy is located and where the copy is originated from. While a lot of work has addressed the problem with good performance, less effort has been made to consider the copy detection problem in the case of a continuous query stream, for which precise temporal localization and some complex video transformations like frame insertion and video editing need to be handled. In this chapter, the authors attack the problem by employing the graphical model to facilitate the frame fusion based video copy detection approach. The key idea is to convert frame fusion problem into graph model decoding problem with the temporal consistency constraint and three relaxed constraints. This work employs the HMM model to perform frame fusion and propose a Viterbi-like algorithm to speedup frame fusion process.
Multi-Scale Exemplary Based Image Super-Resolution with Graph Generalization
Authors: Jinjun Wang
Published: August 2012

Exemplary based image super-resolution (SR) approaches decompose low-resolution (LR) images into multiple overlapped local image patches, and find the best high-resolution (HR) pair for each LR patch to generate processed HR images. The super-resolving process models these multiple HR/LR patches in a Markov Network where there exists both confidence constraint between the LR patch and the selected HR patch from database, and the harmonic constraint between neighboring HR patches. Such a graphical structure, however, makes the optimization process extremely slow, and therefore extensive research efforts on improving the efficiency of exemplary based SR methods have been reported. In this chapter, the focus is on those methods that aim at generating high quality HR patches from the database, while ignoring the harmonic constraint to speed up processing, such as those that model the problem as an embedding process, or as a feature selection process. As shown in this chapter, these approaches can all be regarded as a coding system. The contributions of the paper are two-fold: First, the chapter introduces a coding system with resolution-invariance property, such that it is able to handle continues-scale image resizing as compared to traditional methods that only support single integer-scale upsizing; second, the author generalizes the graphical model where the typical non-linear coding process is approximated by an easier-to-compute function. In this way, the SR process can be highly parallelized by modern computer hardware. As demonstrated by the chapter, the proposed system gives very promising image SR results in various aspects.
Defining, Teaching, and Assessing Engineering Design Skills
Authors: Mourtos Nikos J.
Published: August 2012

The paper discusses a systematic approach for defining, teaching, and assessing engineering design skills. Although the examples presented in the paper are from the field of aerospace engineering, the principles apply to engineering design in general. What makes the teaching of engineering design particularly challenging is that the necessary skills and attributes are both technical and non-technical and come from the cognitive as well as the affective domains. Each set of skills requires a different approach to teach and assess. Implementing a variety of approaches for a number of years at SJSU has shown that it is just as necessary to teach affective skills, as it is to teach cognitive skills. As one might expect, each set of skills presents its own challenges.
Quality and Environmental Management Systems in the Fashion Supply Chain
Authors: Lo Chris K. Y.
Published: August 2012

Consumers and stakeholders have rising concerns over product quality and environmental issues, and therefore, quality and environmental management have become important topics for today’s fashion products manufacturers. This chapter presents some empirical evidence of the adoption of quality management systems (QMS) and environmental management systems (EMS) and their impact on fashion and textiles related firms’ supply chain efficiency. Although both management systems are commonly adopted in the manufacturing industries and becoming a passport to business, their actual impacts specifically on the fashion supply chain have not been explored. By investigating the adoption of ISO 9000 (a quality management system) and ISO 14000 (an environmental management system) in the U.S. fashion and textiles firms, we estimate their impact on manufacturers’ supply chain performance. Based on 284 publicly listed fashion and textiles manufacturing firms in the U.S., we find that fashion and textiles firms operating cycle time had shortened by 15.12 days in a five-year period. In the cross-sectional analysis, the results show that early adopters of ISO 9000 and high-tech textiles related firms obtained more supply chain benefits. We only find mixed results of the impact of ISO 14000 on supply chain performance.
E-Learning for SMEs
Authors: Rolstadas Asbjorn , Andersen Bjorn , Fradinho Manuel
Published: August 2012

SMEs have a special need to be able to collect knowhow from the global community and implement this as competence in the enterprise. E-Learning is an approach for competence development that can assist SMEs in creating a learning organization. There are different approaches to E-Learning. Amongst the most powerful ones is the application of serious games. The PRIME project conducted experiments with serious games in project business and in manufacturing. This has resulted in a set of guidelines for successful implementation of games in an organization. It is necessary to allow a learning curve and put emphasis on the social context to obtain effective learning. For delivery of E-Learning the hybrid learning model is recommended. SMEs are advised to develop E-Learning in cooperation with academic institutions, and to use real life cases and problems for assignments. Delivery should be based on proven technology when used in SMEs.
Collaborative Demand and Supply Planning Networks
Authors: Hvolby Hans-Henrik , Steger-Jensen Kenn , Alfnes Erlend , Dreyer Heidi C.
Published: August 2012

The focus of manufacturing planning and control has gradually expanded from (in-house) production activities towards all manufacturing and logistic activities in the supply chain. Planning of in-house operations is still very important, but the trends towards increased use of outsourcing and mass customisation require that customers and suppliers are able to exchange information frequently to cut down costs and lead time while quickly adapting their manufacturing and logistics operations to market/customer requirements. Many vendors offer systems to plan and control in-house operations, whereas only a few large vendors (such as Oracle, SAP and I2) offer supply chain planning systems. This limits the ability for SMEs to exploit the supply chain planning options. This chapter discuss current supply chain planning solutions and presents a more simple and adaptive concept to be used in both SMEs and larger enterprises. The research presented in this chapter is funded by the EU Union via the EmpoSME, ValuePole projects, and by the Research Council of Norway via the SFI Norman project.
Instructional Design of an Advanced Interactive Discovery Environment
Authors: Wu YiYan , Koszalka Tiffany A.
Published: August 2012

This chapter examines the instructional design of, and reports on research conducted within, a multiuser virtual environment created for a distributed Collaborative Engineering Design (CED) course. The course’s Advanced Interactive Discovery Environment (AIDE) provided a variety of synchronous online tools and communication devices to support SameTime virtual team collaboration and problem-solving within the course. The research helped to unpack (1) which tools team members engaged with during collaborative learning activities, (2) how and why they used or did not use provided online features to support their individual learning and enhance team productivity, collaboration, and communication, and (3) how team members communicated socially. The research also describes how different team social communication patterns may be related to the patterns of team technology use. Relevant theoretical frameworks including social learning, media stickiness, cognitive imprinting, and recommendations on how different tools can be effectively integrated into multiuser virtual environments to facilitate learning are discussed.
Production Competence and Knowledge Generation for Technology Transfer
Authors: Hipkin Ian
Published: August 2012

The ability to execute the physical part of manufacturing will assume greater importance as new technology and knowledge become significant drivers of strategic direction. The case studies described in this chapter address the interaction between technology transfers (TT), production competence and knowledge in enhancing performance in manufacturing organizations. Reference to British and South African case studies provides a useful comparison of production competence in the developed and developing world. In both countries, operators and maintainers lacked detailed knowledge of equipment functionality and performance parameters. United Kingdom (UK) companies demonstrated a deeper understanding of fundamental principles of the underlying production process, enabling them to remedy production deficiencies more thoroughly. South African companies showed greater management commitment to training and group solving approaches.
Tracing the Implementation of Non-Functional Requirements
Authors: Bode Stephan , Riebisch Matthias
Published: August 2012

A software architecture has to enable the non-functional properties, such as flexibility, scalability, or security, because they constitute the decisive factors for its design. Unfortunately, the methodical support for the implementation of non-functional requirements into software architectures is still weak; solutions are not generally established. Recently, there are only few approaches that actually deal with non-functional requirements during design; even fewer take advantage of traceability, which supports a mapping of requirements to solutions through the development process. Therefore, in this chapter the new architectural design method TraGoSoMa is presented, which supports these issues. The method uses a so-called Goal Solution Scheme, which guides the design activities, supports conflict resolution, decision-making, and the classification of solutions. For illustration purposes the chapter uses a case study from a reengineering project for a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) that is restructured according to the SOA principles and integrated with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
A Mass Customisation Implementation Model for the Total Design Process of the Fashion System
Authors: Pan Bernice
Published: August 2012

Global economic development has been increasingly segregateing the design and manufacturing functions of industries both geographically and administratively. In response, fashion companies in advance economies have increasingly operated as brand houses that engage in design and marketing as their sole activities. The total design processes of the contemporary upstream fashion supply chain is therefore investigated and analysed as an integrated fashion system. A new conceptual model of mass customisation aligning the activities and interests of the collective fashion supply chain producers is subsequently developed with its associated implementation strategies. This model takes a consumer-centric approach, and places designers/brand houses as the instrument and channel for mass customisation. The objective is to enable the prospect for small medium fashion enterprises to deploy the vision and principles of mass customisation in a more coordinated, cost effective, and responsive way. The prospective benefits and practical issues of this new model are discussed.
Lean Thinking Based Investment Planning at Design Stage of Cellular/Hybrid Manufacturing Systems
Authors: Durmusoglu M. Bulent , Kaya Goksu
Published: August 2012

This chapter focuses on providing a methodology for lean thinking based investment planning from the perspective of cellular or hybrid manufacturing systems. The chapter has been divided into three parts. First part provides a general explanation of why lean thinking is so beneficial for managing manufacturing processes and obtaining sustained improvement. This part then moves to the aim of cell formation, and then uses value stream mapping to map current state for visualizing material-information flow and to design a desired future state for examining economic aspects of new machine investment decisions aligned with lean manufacturing principles. The purpose of second part is to explore axiomatic design approach; it provides an overall view of what to do. The third part presents the actual use of the methodology with implementation of hybrid system at a furniture factory; it helps to see application results of this methodology as part of a lean manufacturing program.
Enhancing Engineering Education Learning Outcomes Using Project-Based Learning
Authors: Debnath Mousumi , Pandey Mukeshwar
Published: August 2012

This paper presents a case study of how project-based learning (PBL) can be seen as a pedagogical innovation for Jaipur Engineering College and Research Centre, Jaipur, India (JECRC) for better recruitment drives for on-campus recruitments. The practical knowledge of engineering, basic knowledge of engineering design, soft skills or personal competences can be correlated with the academic performance and recruitment status. Project based learning (PBL) is a learner-centric pedagogy where the learner is expected to take responsibility for his or her own learning. PBL uses in-depth and rigorous classroom projects to facilitate learning and assess student competence. Students have projects as a compulsory course in their curriculum in the final semester of engineering. The challenge to acquire knowledge and skills during their project gives a student an opportunity to develop their weaker skills and enhance their practical knowledge of engineering. This study has been successful in helping students acquire a high rate of actual skill and technical learning. The learning outcomes of the PBL-course can be correlated with their success in recruitment and academic performances.
Semantic Technologies in Motion
Authors: Colomo-Palacios Ricardo
Published: August 2012

Semantic technologies are evolving to reach a mature state. Given the importance of Information Technologies in general and Internet in particular to organizations worldwide, these technologies can provide enhanced functionality to both existing and future solutions. This chapter provides an overview of the use of semantic technologies in several application domains, namely: construction & real estate, customer relationship management, e-government, e-learning, environmental sciences, health domain, human resource management, Information Technology, manufacturing, media and tourism, and cultural heritage. More than a hundred references are provided to support the idea that semantic technologies are applicable to almost all areas of interest.
Similarity-Based Cluster Analysis for the Cell Formation Problem
Authors: Manzini Riccardo , Accorsi Riccardo , Bortolini Marco
Published: August 2012

This chapter illustrates the cell formation problem (CFP) supported by similarity based methods. In particular, problem oriented indices are based on several factors which play an important role in the determination of the value of similarity between two generic machines, e.g. the number of machines visited by each part, the sequence of manufacturing operations, the production quantity for each part, et cetera. A numerical example illustrates the basic steps for the implementation of an effective hierarchical procedure of clustering machines into manufacturing cells and parts/products into families of parts. Literature presents many indices, but a few significant case studies and instances not useful to properly compare them and support the best choice given an operating context, i.e. a specific production problem. As a consequence the authors illustrate an experimental analysis conducted on a literature problem oriented instance to compare the performance of different problem settings and define best practices and guidelines for professional and practitioners.
Multi-Modal Assembly-Support System for Cellular Manufacturing
Authors: Duan Feng , Tan Jeffrey Too Chuan , Kato Ryu , Zhu Chi , Arai Tamio
Published: August 2012

Cellular manufacturing meets the diversified production and quantity requirements flexibly. However, its efficiency mainly depends on the operators’ working performance. In order to improve its efficiency, an effective assembly-support system should be developed to assist operators during the assembly process. In this chapter, a multi-modal assembly-support system (MASS) was proposed, which aims to support operators from both information and physical aspects. To protect operators in MASS system, five main safety designs as both hardware and control levels were also discussed. With the information and physical support from the MASS system, the assembly complexity and burden to the assembly operators are reduced. To evaluate the effect of MASS, a group of operators were required to execute a cable harness task. From the experimental results, it can be concluded that by using this system, the operators’ assembly performance is improved and their mental work load is reduced. Consequently the efficiency of the cellular manufacturing is improved.
Human-Friendly Robots for Entertainment and Education
Authors: Solis Jorge , Takanishi Atsuo
Published: August 2012

Even though the market size is still small at this moment, applications of robots are gradually spreading out from the manufacturing industrial environment to face other important challenges, like the support of an aging society and to educate the new generations. The development of human-friendly robots drives research that aims at autonomous or semi-autonomous robots that are natural and intuitive for the average consumer to interact with, communicate with, and work with as partners, besides learning new capabilities. In this chapter, an overview of research done on the mechanism design and intelligent control strategies implementation on different platforms and their application to entertainment and education domains will be stressed. In particular, the development of an anthropomorphic saxophonist robot (designed to mechanically reproduce the organs involved during saxophone playing) and the development of a two-wheeled inverted pendulum (designed to introduce the principles of mechanics, electronics, control, and programming at different education levels) will be presented.
Dual-SIM Phones
Authors: Odikayor Dickinson C. , Oghogho Ikponmwosa , Wara Samuel T. , Adebayo Abayomi-Alli
Published: August 2012

Dual-SIM mobile phones utilize technology that permits the use of two SIMs at a time. The technology permits simultaneous access to the mobile network services. Its disruptive nature is with reference to the mobile phone market in Nigeria and other parts of the world. Earlier market trend was inclination to “newer” and “better” phones, in favour of established single-SIM mobile phone manufacturers like Nokia and Samsung. Introduction of dual-SIM phones mainly manufactured by Chinese mobile phone manufacturing firms propelled user preference for phones acquisition which permits dual and simultaneous access to mobile network. This technology has compelled its adoption by established manufacturing names in order that they may remain competitive. It is a clear case of a disruptive technology, and this chapter focuses on it need, effects, and disruptive nature.
AutomatL@bs Consortium
Authors: Dormido Sebastián , Vargas Héctor , Sánchez José
Published: August 2012

This chapter describes the effort of a group of Spanish universities to unify recent work on the use of Web-based technologies in teaching and learning engineering topics. The network was intended to be a space where students and educators could interact and collaborate with each other as well as a meeting space for different research groups working on these subjects. The solution adopted in this chapter goes one step beyond the typical scenario of Web-based labs in engineering education (where research-groups demonstrate their engineering designs in an isolated fashion) by sharing the experimentation resources provided by different research groups that participated in this network. Finally, this work highlights the key points of this project and provides some remarks about the future use of Web-based technologies in school environments.
Serious Gaming Supporting Competence Development in Sustainable Manufacturing
Authors: Duin Heiko , Cerinšek Gregor , Fradinho Manuel , Taisch Marco
Published: August 2012

Becoming a sustainable global manufacturing enterprise is a challenge for almost every manufacturing organization in the world because of its multidimensional nature. Sustainability combines environmental, economic, and social dimensions and is considered to be a complex and hard to learn subject needing a lot of experience and competences. Traditional ways to create such experience and develop competences like role playing and simulations tend to take a lot of time and are expensive. On the other hand, serious gaming has proven to support learners in acquiring new and complex knowledge and is ideally suited to support problem based learning by creating engaging experiences around a contextual problem where users must apply competences to solve these presented challenges. This chapter introduces a new learning environment which is build around a gaming engine supporting the development of competences in specific subject areas. Selected competences in sustainable global manufacturing lead to the definition of scenarios, which then can be executed by a game engine, thus creating experience within the user. A knowledge ecology space allows the user to interact and reflect on learning outcomes with other participants. The subject of sustainable global manufacturing is the application case presented in this chapter showing how specific competences in this area have been identified and how a game scenario has been developed. Finally, its implementation and evaluation is discussed.
Reengineering for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems Implementation
Authors: Annamalai C. , Ramayah T.
Published: August 2012

Reengineering is a concept that is applicable to all industries, particularly information and communication technology (ICT) projects regardless of organizational type, size, culture, or location. The enterprise resource planning (ERP) system frequently requires organizations to change their existing business processes to harmonize them its functional activities. 72% of the ERP implementation failures reported worldwide (Eric, 2010) because of the various critical success factors (CSFs). A Critical Success Factor (CSF) is defined as a factor needed to implement ERP system successfully. Assessing the importance of CSFs of Enterprise Resource Planning systems has always remained an important concern for academicians and researchers. This study explores and assesses the CSFs affecting the ERP implementation success. Long term Top management Support (LTS), Perceived ERP benefits (PEB), ERP in-house Training (EIT), Project Tracking (PTG), Visible Project Phases (VPP), Project Phase Update (PPU), Interdepartmental Cooperation (IDP), Strategic IT planning (STP), ERP vendor Support (EVS), and Data Analysis and Conversion (DAC) were found dominant critical factors for the success of the ERP implementation in the manufacturing sector. This study investigates how many CSFs are strongly correlated with each other for the success of ERP projects in the manufacturing sector. Furthermore, this study also tests empirically using the Statistical Package for Social Science Analysis of Moment on Structures (SPSS AMOS 18.0) to justify the level of CSFs among the local and joint-venture companies using a t-test analysis.
Optimal Pricing and Inventory Decisions for Fashion Retailers under Value-At-Risk Objective
Authors: Chiu Chun-Hung , Zheng Jin-Hui , Choi Tsan-Ming
Published: August 2012

Motivated by the popularity of Value-at-Risk (VaR) objective in finance, this chapter reviews and studies its application in fashion retail operations management. First, a formal optimization model is reviewed in which the fashion retailer aims at optimizing a VaR objective with both pricing and inventory decisions. Second, the detailed solution schemes are explored. Third, numerical examples are included to illustrate applications of the proposed models. Fourth, the performance of pure buyback contract and pure wholesale pricing contract in enhancing supply chain efficiency is examined. Insights are generated and future research directions are outlined.
Cases Illustrating Risks and Crisis Management
Authors: Yiannaki Simona Mihai
Published: August 2012

Undoubtedly, the nature of the relationships between business and risk factors in one country or another does not fit exactly into a “model” nor does it have a pure placebo effect. Yet, models’ simplicity may appeal to managers and regulators in understanding important business risks and crisis related phenomena. Backed by this idea, this research underpins a comparative study on SMEs handling risk and crisis management according to a new tailored model of a balance scorecard. This new model of a risk and crisis management aims at improving both SMEs management adaptation and performance across all of crisis’ stages, something not attempted so far in the literature. The application of such a ‘balanced-scorecard’ comes from the author’s experience as a banker financing various SMEs industries, as a bank consultant on risk management as well as primarily from the results of a survey performed on a sample of 48 Romanian and Cypriot SMEs, equal-proportionally selected from the area of trading, manufacturing, and services. The results of this case study show, coincidently or not, that there is a significant improvement of the financial performance of the SMEs that employed this model compared to those that did not. The monitoring period: 11/2009-06/2010 was employed as a representative one for the latest global financial crisis which affected the entire European Union region, as well.
Production Information Systems Usability in Jordan
Authors: Abu-Shanab Emad , Al-Tarawneh Heyam
Published: August 2012

Enterprise systems are becoming more important as they support the efficiency and effectiveness of operations and reduce cost. In this chapter we explored the literature related to production information systems (PIS), enterprise systems, and other applications and their influence in an industrial zone in Jordan. Constructs from the Innovation Diffusion Theory were used, where results indicated that the adoption rate is acceptable and all variables have high means with respect to their evaluation by managers, but only two variable significantly predicted intention to use. In a second study that explored the status of IT usage in manufacturing firms using a different sample, results indicated that accounting information systems were widely used and distribution systems and manufacturing aiding systems were the least used. Other findings, conclusions and future work are stated at the end of the chapter.
Process Innovation with Ambient Intelligence (AmI) Technologies in Manufacturing SMEs
Authors: Hayes Kathryn J. , Chapman Ross
Published: August 2012

This chapter considers the potential for absorptive capacity limitations to prevent SME manufacturers benefiting from the implementation of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) technologies. The chapter also examines the role of intermediary organisations in alleviating these absorptive capacity constraints. In order to understand the context of the research, a review of the role of SMEs in the Australian manufacturing industry, plus the impacts of government innovation policy and absorptive capacity constraints in SMEs in Australia is provided. Advances in the development of ICT industry standards, and the proliferation of software and support for the Windows/Intel platform have brought technology to SMEs without the need for bespoke development. The results from the joint European and Australian AmI-4-SME projects suggest that SMEs can successfully use “external research sub-units” in the form of industry networks, research organisations and technology providers to offset internal absorptive capacity limitations.
Capacity Sharing Issue in an Electronic Co-Opetitive Network
Authors: Renna Paolo , Argoneto Pierluigi
Published: August 2012

In recent years, manufacturing companies have entered a new era in which all manufacturing enterprises must compete in a global economy. To stay competitive, companies must use production systems that only produce their goods with high productivity, but also allow rapid response to market changes and customers’ needs. The emerging new paradigm of inter-firm relations involving both cooperative and competitive elements, called co-opetition, seems well face this issue. The chapter proposes a multi agent architecture to support different coordination policy in an electronic co-opetitive network in which plants are willing to exchange productive capacity. An innovative approach based on cooperative game theory is proposed in this research and its performance is compared with the prevalent negotiation approach. A discrete event simulation environment has been developed in order to evaluate the related performances. The case in which no relation exists among plants has been considered as a benchmark. The obtained results show that the proposed approach outperforms the negotiation mechanism form many point of view.
Evaluation of Remote Interface Component Alternatives for Teaching Tele-Robotic Operation
Authors: Ofir Goldstain , Irad Ben-Gal , Yossi Bukchin
Published: August 2012

This chapter discusses a remote learning study conducted at the Computer-Integrated-Manufacturing (CIM) Laboratory in Tel-Aviv University. The goal is to provide remote end-users with an interface that enables them to teleoperate a robotic arm in conditions as close as possible to hands-on operation in the laboratory. This study evaluates the contribution of different interface components to the overall performance and the learning ability of potential end-users. Based on predefined experimental tasks, the study compares alternative interface designs for teleoperation. The three performance measures of the robot operation task are (1) the number of steps that are required to complete the given task, (2) the number of errors during the execution stage, and (3) the improvement rate of users. Guidelines for a better design of remote learning interfaces in robotics are provided based on the experimental results.
Cell Loading and Family Scheduling for Jobs with Individual Due Dates
Authors: Süer Gürsel A. , Mese Emre M.
Published: August 2012

In this chapter, cell loading and family scheduling in a cellular manufacturing environment is studied. What separates this study from others is the presence of individual due dates for every job in a family. The performance measure is to minimize the number of tardy jobs. Family splitting among cells is allowed but job splitting is not. Even though family splitting increases number of setups, it increases the possibility of meeting individual job due dates. Two methods are employed in order to solve this problem, namely Mathematical Modeling and Genetic Algorithms. The results showed that Genetic Algorithm found the optimal solution for all problems tested. Furthermore, GA is efficient compared to the Mathematical Modeling especially for larger problems in terms of execution times. The results of experimentation showed that family splitting was observed in all multi-cell solutions, and therefore, it can be concluded that family splitting is a good strategy.
Evaluation of Key Metrics for Performance Measurement of a Lean Deployment Effort
Authors: Tetteh Edem G. , Eyob Ephrem , Amewokunu Yao
Published: August 2012

To meet customer’s needs for high-quality goods and avoiding risks of product-liability, global firms continually evaluate the performance of their supply chain for optimum design. Lean management is one of the key techniques businesses adopt in redesigning their processes. The technique is a vital strategy to increase productivity and effectiveness with respect to the movement of goods. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was utilized to evaluate the performance of work cell, shift, worker’s experience, and kaizen event participation level during a lean enterprise deployment effort at a multinational organization. The significance of the effects of these variables were assessed based on various lean supply chain factors such as First In First Out (FIFO), Setup Wheel System (SWS), Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), Clip System(CS), and Key Performances Indicators (KPI). The results support the criticality of metrics and their impact in implementing a lean manufacturing process in a global supply chain environment.
eRiskGame
Authors: Galvão Túlio Acácio Bandeira , Neto Francisco Milton Mendes , Bonates Mara Franklin
Published: August 2012

Motivated by the increasing demand for software engineering professionals, in particular project managers, by the dissemination of the use of games as an attractive instrument in the learning process and by the universalization of the Web platform as a catalyst of human relations nowadays, this chapter proposes the use of a Persistent Browser-Based Game as a support in the qualifying process for new professionals of Project Management. Following the pedagogical theory of the Project-Based Learning - PBL, the game gives the player the opportunity to experience real situations of Project Management by proposing challenges commonly faced in most enterprises. These ever present challenges include unpredictability in the software manufacturing organizations, by means of the use of intelligent agents to assign challenges and common barriers to Software Projects.
Effect of Customer Power on Supply Chain Integration and Performance
Authors: Zhao Xiande , Huo Baofeng , Flynn Barbara , Yeung Jeff
Published: August 2012

Supply chain integration (SCI) has received increasing attention from academic researchers and practitioners in recent years, however, our knowledge of what influences SCI, and how SCI influences the performance of supply chains and manufacturers within the supply chain is still very limited. Although researchers in marketing and management have investigated power and relationship commitment issues within and between organizations, few have examined their impact on SCI. This chapter studies the relationship between power, relationship commitment and integration between manufacturers and their customers within a supply chain. The impact of customers’ SCI on the customer service and financial performance of manufacturers is also investigated. The authors propose and empirically test a model using data collected from 617 manufacturing companies in China. The results show that customers’ use of different types of power has different impacts on manufacturers’ relationship commitment. Expert power, referent power and reward power are very important in improving manufacturers’ normative relationship commitment, while reward power and coercive power enhance instrumental relationship commitment. The authors also find that normative relationship commitment have a greater impact on customer integration and customer service by manufacturers than instrumental relationship commitment. Customer integration significantly enhanced manufacturers’ customer service and financial performance. The improvement in customer service of manufacturers positively influenced their financial performance.