bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Les M.I.N. provençaux face à l'évolution de la filière des fruits et légumes
Authors: Durbiano Claudine
Published: May 2011

Vingt à trente ans après leur création, les M.I.N. de production et de gros sont confrontés à d'importantes mutations qui conditionnent leur avenir. Après avoir été au centre du système de commercialisation, ils sont aujourd 'hui sur la défensive face aux concentrations de la grande distribution qui commande toute l'évolution de la filière des fruits et légumes. Les centrales achat de la grande distribution renforcent l'intensité de la concurrence entre les fournisseurs, incitent les entreprises agricoles et du négoce à se restructurer. Cela se traduit par le déplacement de la formation du prix de la production vers la distribution et l'établissement de prix à la semaine rendant obsolètes les mercuriales journalières établies à partir des transactions sur les M. I.N. de production qui cherchent à s 'adapter et qui suivent des stratégies différentes. Quant aux M.I.N. de gros, ils deviennent polyvalents et développent des services divers autour de l'agro-alimentaire. Les quatre grandes places de négoce de fruits et légumes du Comtat englobant les trois M.I.N. pourraient s'intégrer dans un complexe multiforme nouveau comme le Pôle Logistique Agro-alimentaire.
Aménagement, érosion et désertification sur les Hauts-Plateaux du Maroc oriental
Authors: El Harradji Abderrahmane
Published: May 2011

In only a few decades, the ecological balance has been deeply endangered in the High-Plateaux of Eastern Morocco as a result of the excessive and irrational exploitation of soil and vegetation, which has been caused by the socio-spatial mutations of the XXth century relating to the colonialist economy. Several projects of intervention have succeeded in this area, which is pastoral by excellence. Studies have especially been concerned with the productivity of biotic resources and the socio-economic aspects of stock-breeding. The degradation of the ecosystems is approached essentially in its biocenotic context, while the processes, the forms and the extent of erosion and desertification are marginalized. Such a situation for such a sensitive and degraded environment entails the apprehension of those problems by systemic and largely pluridisciplinary approaches.
Spatial and temporal variations in the soil characteristics of an agricultural field and their relation to erosion / Variations spatiales et temporelles des caractéristiques du sol d'un champ labouré et leur relation avec l'érosion
Authors: Ubeda Xavier , Sala Maria
Published: May 2011

Dans cette étude, on présente des données sur différentes propriétés physiques du sol d'un champ d'orge, leurs changements pendant les périodes agricoles et leur rapport avec l'ablation. L'échantillonnage du sol et la quantification de l'érosion ont eu lieu après le labourage et les semailles et dans la période de croissance de l'orge. Les analyses de la texture, de la stabilité structurale, de l'humidité et de la capacité d'infiltration du sol ont été réalisées dans tout le champ, ainsi que la topographie et la quantification du matériel érodé. Les résultats montrent une période de risque maximal d'érosion après les semailles (3,8 t/ha/an), car la surface du sol est totalement plate, sans recouvrement végétal et les pluies sont très intenses. L'érosion est treize fois plus petite dans la période de croissance de la végétation puisque les pluies deviennent plus douces et le recouvrement végétal protège le sol.
Les zones «naturelles» et agricoles des espaces périurbains méditerranéens : une nouvelle problématique
Authors: Durbiano Claudine
Published: May 2011

L'espace périurbain est devenu une nouvelle catégorie d'analyse socio-spatiale dans les années 1970. De nombreuses études ont porté sur les mutations foncières et les changements d'usage des sols ainsi que sur les stratégies des propriétaires. Actuellement, avec la nouvelle demande sociale dans le domaine des paysages, des activités de loisirs et de l'environnement, de la qualité des produits agricoles, les agriculteurs ont la possibilité de reprendre l'initiative pour remplir ces fonctions au meilleur coût pour la collectivité et devenir ainsi des acteurs à part entière de l'urbanisation et du système urbain.
Disparités spatiales en Syrie : dynamiques citadines, politiques d'aménagement territorial, régions
Authors: David Jean-Claude
Published: May 2011

Littoralization is a recent sign of spatial disparity in the southern Mediterranean. Syria differs from most of the countries of the region by virtue if its very light littoralization, but can it be considered a coherent entity without Beirut and Lebanon or without of the Gulf cities, which constitute an economic and banking platform essential to the whole region ? The spatial disparities are thus to be found outside of littoralization. Are they regional disparities ? In point of fact we can even wonder if «regions» exist in the Syria which was inherited from the Ottoman empire. It would seem to be the city/countryside disparity that is most deeply inscribed, and in any case it is against that phenomenon that the government has chosen to invest the most heavily, making rural improvement on of its most essential stands. But has that policy succeeded in erasing inherited disparities as well as rendering inoperative what is a tendancy to constitute hegemonic urban regions around the great historic centers ? The recent development of Damascus as a capital seems currently to be the principal catalyst for the institution of regional imbalance and spatial disparities.
Une région pionnière dans le Sahara algérien : El Ghrouss
Authors: Khiari Abdallah
Published: May 2011

El Ghrouss est une commune de l'ouest des Ziban, symbole du dynamisme agricole qui secoue toute cette région depuis deux décennies. Le boom de la plasticulture et le renouvellement des palmeraies ont assuré la prospérité des exploitations, généré un village cossu, suscité un marché à la renommée nationale. Petit secteur, belle réussite.
La grande migration africaine à travers le Sahara
Authors: Bensaâd Ali
Published: May 2011

Le Sahara est le lieu, actuellement, d'un important flux de migration de populations d'Afrique noire vers le Maghreb et pour certains d'entre-eux vers l'Europe. Ce mouvement, corollaire des mutations qui ont traversé l'espace saharien et qui y ont développé la circulation, contribue à son tour à accélérer et à diffuser celles-ci. Initialement sahélien, il puise de plus en plus au Sud, et s'étend à toute l 'Afrique de l'Ouest. Les itinéraires reconstituent dans leur grande ligne ceux des anciens axes transsahariens dont ils empruntent les segments revivifiés et dont ils contribuent, à leur tour, à affermir la place dans les courants d'échanges transsahariens, recomposant, pour une part importante, les espaces urbains traversés et favorisant l'émergence de nœuds facilitant la circulation. Circulation marquée au Sahara par la coexistence contrastée entre secteurs l'inhibant et d'autres la facilitant ou même la suscitant et qui aboutit à une canalisation très sélective des flux, au prix de détours fortement accusés, qui fondent le privilège de l'itinéraire agadézien et l'émergence d'Agadez comme carrefour quasi exclusif des flux en provenance du Sahel et de l'Afrique de l'Ouest.
Autonomie communale et territoires locaux en Bulgarie post-socialiste
Authors: Boulineau Emmanuelle
Published: May 2011

Après 15 ans de transition post-socialiste, l'article s'attache au niveau communal pour comprendre les modalités du changement institutionnel en Bulgarie. L'introduction de l'autonomie communale, par en haut, et le regain d'identités locales, par en bas, place le territoire à l'articulation de ce double processus. La réforme post-socialiste du maillage communal s 'appuie-t-elle sur le territoire local ? On analyse ici précisément la mise en place de la réforme au regard des impératifs de la gestion administrative (logique fonctionnelle), de l'expression des demandes locales (logique identitaire) et de l'identification de forces vives locales susceptibles défaire vivre la nouvelle collectivité territoriale, dans un pays balkanique à la démographie anémiée. On étudiera plus particulièrement les résultats des scrutins municipaux et le rôle du milieu associatif pour étayer ce dernier point.
Developments in Managing Innovation, Knowledge and E-Business
Authors: Lawson Benn , Samson Danny
Published: May 2011

Successful innovation is seen as a top priority within many organisations (Porter, Stern, & Council on Competitiveness, 1999). Innovation is the mechanism by which organisations produce the new products, processes and systems required for adapting to changing markets, technologies and modes of competition (D’Aveni, 1994; Dougherty & Hardy, 1996; Utterback, 1994). This process requires the application of knowledge in some new or novel way. However, the explosion in knowledge and increasingly specialized technologies and markets has meant that a single firm alone is unlikely to possess all the relevant knowledge required to innovate. Consequently, organisations have been searching for new ways of overcoming this difficulty. One such mechanism is harnessing information technology to facilitate new organisational structures suited to managing innovation and knowledge into the 21st century. Information technology has expanded the opportunities (and challenges) of undertaking innovation. Twenty-four-hour product development processes are now a reality as multi-nationals race new products to the market. This chapter shows how leading innovators leverage e-business tools to harness knowledge residing in all areas of their value chain, including suppliers and customers. A case study of Cisco Systems, Inc. is used to illustrate this new operating model.
Information-Based Integration for Complex Systems
Authors: Szczerbicki E.
Published: May 2011

Engineering, operations research, and management science use scientific and engineering processes to design, plan, and schedule increasingly more complex industrial systems in order to enhance performance. One can argue that the systems have grown in complexity over the years mainly due to increased strive for resource optimization combined with a greater degree of uncertainty in the system’s environment. Information is seen as one of the main resources that managers try to use in an optimal way. In this chapter we show how this resource can be used in integration issues. We introduce the problem of information-based integration, propose a solution, and illustrate the proposed solution with an example.
Evolution and Revolution of Retailing through IT
Authors: Cohen Marcel
Published: May 2011

This chapter examines the impact that IT has had on retailing under two headings–evolutionary and revolutionary changes. The evolutionary changes described focus on the electronic identification of products, the improved communication links between retailers and their suppliers, and the introduction of electronic payment. The revolutionary changes considered are those stemming from e-commerce. The thrust of the discussion is that whilst IT has revolutionised product associated with the physical transfer (delivery or pickup) of goods to customers. This has opened up an opportunity for a new form of retailer that may be the result of an alliance between companies with IT skills (e.g., Microsoft), delivery capability (e.g., DHL) and distributed physical assets (e.g., Exxon).
Logistics, Information Technology, and Retail Internationalisation
Authors: Bourlakis Constatine A. , Bourlakis Michael A.
Published: May 2011

In the present work we suggest the notion of the strategic information technology competitive advantage and its potential strategic impact upon a retailer’s organisational supply chain coordination. The existence of a logistics strategy and an information technology strategy constitute two functions that offer the platform for retail firms to “internalise” the effective management of the supply chain by converting it to a coordination competitive advantage. The latter depends upon the ability of the retail firms to transform a logistics strategy and an information technology strategy into what the authors call strategic logistics and strategic information technology. We also argue that logistics and information technology can assist a retailer to form a “logistics network” with third-party firms in the supply chain, with the aim to capture and to protect to the full the differential returns generated via the internalisation of the supply chain activities. The coordination competitive advantage owned by the retailer enhances retail change in domestic and in international markets, as the retailer enters foreign markets via a similar network of third party and its own account logistics operations, giving rise to new retail organisation schemes, such as the international strategic retail network.
Practical Case Study of a Web-Based Tutor Payment System
Authors: Chateau Tanguy , Leroy Cecile , Rahayu Johanna W. , Taniar David
Published: May 2011

The emerging use of object-relational databases with Web technologies has only recently begun. This chapter discusses a practical realization of an application using this technology. The aim is to show readers how to construct a full application from a design using object-oriented features up to the implementation. In this chapter, we highlight important or difficult stages with an emphasis on the mapping of object design into Oracle 8i and the use of stored procedures with the extended features for objects manipulation of Oracle 8i. This enables developers to construct professional Web applications achieving a high modularity and evolution capacity with an accelerated development phase in comparison with the traditional approach.
A Perturbation Size-Independent Analysis of Robustness in Neural Networks by Randomized Algorithms
Authors: Alippi C.
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents a general methodology for evaluating the loss in performance of a generic neural network once its weights are affected by perturbations. Since weights represent the “knowledge space” of the neural model, the robustness analysis can be used to study the weights/performance relationship. The perturbation analysis, which is closely related to sensitivity issues, relaxes all assumptions made in the related literature, such as the small perturbation hypothesis, specific requirements on the distribution of perturbations and neural variables, the number of hidden units and a given neural structure. The methodology, based on Randomized Algorithms, allows reformulating the computationally intractable problem of robustness/sensitivity analysis in a probabilistic framework characterised by a polynomial time solution in the accuracy and confidence degrees.
Information Technology Spending and the Value of the Firm
Authors: Navarrete Carlos J. , Pick James B.
Published: May 2011

This paper analyzes the relationship between IT expenditure and the monetary value of organizations. Based on the case of the Mexican banking industry from 1982–1992, the paper’s hypotheses test the relationship between IT expenditure and the real and perceived market values of banks. Correlations are performed between annual IT expenditures for a 10 year period —when Mexico’s commercial banks were owned by the federal government— and bank selling prices, when the industry divestiture took place in 1992. The main findings are that IT spending has a positive impact on the value of the firm, when the value of the firm reflects the change of ownership or the control of the firm. Second, firms spending more on IT do not tend to reach higher selling prices. Other findings are presented. The model and its results are discussed in terms of the literature about value of investment and the productivity paradox.
Management's Contribution to Internet Commerce Benefit - Experiences of Online Small Businesses
Authors: Poon Simpson
Published: May 2011

The importance of management and Information Technology (IT) success had been repeatedly identified in small business IT studies (for example, DeLone, 1988). When measuring information satisfaction among small firms, top management involvement was found to be one of the most important factors (Montazemi, 1988). The quest for the role of management involvement in Information Systems (IS) success in small firms continued into the 1990s. For example, Yap, Soh, and Raman (1992) studied a group of Singaporean small firms using earlier findings and discovered that CEO involvement was positively related to IS success. CEO involvement such as attending project meetings, involvement in information requirement needs analysis, reviewing consultants’ recommendations and project monitoring are important to IS success. Thong, Yap and Raman (1996) pointed out that although management support was important, in cases where internal IS expertise was lacking, specialist knowledge (for example, engaging IT consultants in projects) was important to success. An in-depth study on motivators and inhibitors for small firms to adopt computing identified managerial enthusiasm as a key motivator (Cragg, 1998). The overseeing role of management during system implementation was found to be important to success. Management support was also found to be an important factor for IT success in the case of personal computing acceptance (Igbaria, Zinatelli, Craig, & Cavaye, 1997). All of these studies suggested that management involvement was critical to IS success regardless of cultural background.
Electronic Commerce Opportunities, Challenges and Organizational Issues for Australian SMEs
Authors: Singh Mohini
Published: May 2011

Australian small businesses are increasingly adopting the Internet and the World Wide Web as a medium of doing business to reach new customers and suppliers, cut costs and expand business. They also use it to enhance communication between buyers and suppliers. This chapter discusses the findings of an exploratory study in Australia that identified the objectives, opportunities and challenges of e-commerce experienced by small businesses that were mostly early adopters of the Internet as a medium of trade. E-commerce issues presented in this chapter include research findings, supported by theory from literature. Electronic commerce opportunities, challenges and organizational learning by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Australia indicate that small businesses have created value with e-commerce, although benefits are long term and dependent on a plethora of technological, business and management issues that need to be addressed. Due to the fast-evolving nature of e-business and technological developments that are new to many small businesses, challenges such as managing the expanded flow of information, cross-border taxation, authentication, trust and security, as well as the high costs of acquiring the required technologies and skills, are prevalent. Other challenges of e-commerce range from Web site maintenance to business process reengineering for an integrated environment. Research findings also highlight the fact that small businesses need formal methods of evaluating the performance of e-commerce to realize the benefits of investment and to further expand their e-commerce venture.
Postlude
Authors: Afele John S.C.
Published: May 2011

The Information Age is relevant to the prosperity and security of developing nations and their indigenous, local, or rural communities. The relevance of telecommunications to these communities includes the ability to use information tools to create interacting spaces for knowledge sources to converge with the user-community and generate solutions for the challenges in their livelihood attainments. The establishment of such area networks in communities whose communication methods are predominantly oral, and which have poor telecommunications infrastructure, demands imagination among planners, businesses, and impact communities to translate the telecommunications and digital exclusion into digital opportunities. The digital opportunities could be deduced from the information and knowledge needs of these economies, such as the need for better access to telecommunication infrastructure, tools, knowledge networks and communities of practice, expertise, and opportunities to build on local knowledge. Communications-centred knowledge for development programming, as a matter of necessity and to serve as effective knowledge gateways, should function as information and knowledge brokerages related to the collection, processing, packaging, and marketing of relevant content in knowledge for development, and not as a conglomeration of gadgets alone. Connectivity should enable people to learn, solve problems, produce more efficiently, preserve natural systems, and foster peace among communities and nations. Ideally, connectivity could be a viewing point of knowledge systems into other knowledge systems, including individuals and institutions; indigenous or local institutions, such as indigenous governance structures, rural occupational groups, and local communities, and formal institutions such as schools, clinics, agriculture, health, and social development, would be able to interact among each other at the local (horizontal) and global (vertical) levels. Similarly, students, teachers, researchers, and staff of agencies that are concerned about global development but are located in spheres outside the primary impact communities, when guided information channels exist, would be able to dial into a community multimedia system to observe and learn about the activities of their development ‘partners’ from their offices far removed in reality. This way, they would be able to generate more meaningful models in their intervention programs.
Soft Evaluation
Authors: Abu-Samaha Ala
Published: May 2011

In this chapter, the author describes an alternative approach to evaluating Information Technology (IT) projects, which involves developing a holistic view of IT interventions. The main methodological problem in evaluating any intervention is to choose the right indicators for the measurement of success or lack of it. These indicators will obviously be linked to the aims but will also be relevant to the objectives chosen to achieve these aims. Acknowledging the difficulty of choosing appropriate measures of performance, the author proposes the use of Soft Evaluation. The approach used brings together formal work in evaluation with a qualitative process of investigation based on Soft Systems Methodology in order to allow us to make judgements about the outcomes of an implementation in a systemic manner and from a number of different viewpoints or perspectives.
Web-Dialogue Management for Insurance Products
Authors: Taner Suleyman , Koppelaar Henk
Published: May 2011

The IP.COM concept enables an end-user to compose automatically an insurance product after conducting a dialogue with a knowledge-based system. This reduces the dependencies of insurance companies on both the IT and the actuarial expert. The system is able to adjust the dialogue interactively according to the specific needs of the users and asks for the relevant data needed for the desired product.
The Emerging Need for E-Commerce Accepted Practice (ECAP)
Authors: Erwin G. , Singh S.
Published: May 2011

With the rapid expansion of the Internet and constant technological advances, it is clear that e-commerce will reshape methods of the business world. Government, large corporations, medium and small business now have to conduct their electronic activities in an accountable, transparent and well-structured way. Unlike traditional business recording, such as accounting, with Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (GAAP), no guidelines or frameworks exist that recognize e-commerce issues.
Key Indicators for Successful Internet Commerce
Authors: Lubbe Sam , Pather Shaun
Published: May 2011

The advent of e-commerce has brought about new implications on research directions in the business arena. Is it not sufficient to just study the formation of electronic markets in e-commerce. It is also necessary to have insight into the electronic markets’ innermost workings. This chapter, therefore, highlights the factors that give these new organizational forms (e-commerce enterprises) sustainable competitive advantages. The chapter is present in three main sections: A study of variety of reports of practitioners and researchers from the international arena, provide a background of prior knowledge in the filed. The analysis of this knowledge base is conceptualized into a framework of key factors affecting e-commerce success. Finally, the results of an empirical study of South African e-businesses are reported on. The authors provide some insight on the application of the conceptual framework as applied in the South African situation.
Relating Cognitive Problem-Solving Style to User Resistance
Authors: Mullany Michael , Lay Peter
Published: May 2011

This study investigated the relationships between user resistance to new information systems and the differences in cognitive problem-solving styles between systems developers (analysts) and users. In addition, associations were tested between user resistance and the following: system accuracy, system reliability, the analyst’s attitude, the analyst-user relationship, analyst-user dissonance, the user’s age and the user’s length of service with his current employer. A significant positive association between user resistance and analyst-user cognitive style difference was found. A model was then developed which enables the estimation of user resistance prior to system development with the aid of the Kirton Adaptive/Innovative Inventory (an instrument which measures cognitive style). Significant negative associations were found to exist between user resistance and system accuracy, and user resistance and system reliability. No relationships between user resistance and either user age or user length of service were found.
The Impact of Technology Advances on Strategy Formulation in Mobile Communications Networks
Authors: Constantiou Ioanna D. , Polyzos George C.
Published: May 2011

Over the last couple of years, we have been witnessing the process of convergence between wireless and wired networks, under intense technological innovation and rapid market evolution. Mobile operators are trying to maintain a leading role in the market as it evolves towards integration with the Internet. However, the development of a multitude of new services will require the growth of a whole new market for network connectivity, applications and content. In order to understand the business opportunities arising and the ensuing competitive dynamics, this chapter explores the evolution of key players’ business relationships and strategies along with a range of critical issues that will be faced by companies and regulators alike.
Ripple Down Rules
Authors: Richards Debbie
Published: May 2011

Knowledge is becoming increasingly recognized as a valuable resource. Given its importance it is surprising that expert systems technology has not become a more common means of utilizing knowledge. In this chapter we review some of the history of expert systems, the shortcomings of first generation expert systems, current approaches and future decisions. In particular we consider a knowledge acquisition and representation technique known as Ripple Down Rules (RDR) that avoids many of the limitations of earlier systems by providing a simple, user-driven knowledge acquisition approach based on the combined use of rules and cases and which support online validation and easy maintenance. RDR has found particular commercial success as a clinical decision support system and we review what features of RDR make it so suited to this domain.
Critical Factors in the Development of Executive Systems-Leveraging the Dashboard Approach
Authors: Adam Frederic , Pomeral Jean-Charles
Published: May 2011

Based on the Rockart’s critical success factor (CSF) approach, this chapter puts forward a practical method to guide the development of executive information systems (EIS) in organizations. This method extends the current theory of EIS by using the concept of the dashboard of information to show how an enterprise-wide approach to the development of more effective decision support for managers can deliver tangible benefits without requiring the time-consuming and single-decision focus of the traditional development methods. This method also attempts to leverage the latest computing technologies now available for the development of such systems, notably graphical user interfaces (GUI), data warehousing (DW) and OLAP. The proposed approach is illustrated by examples of dashboard developments, which show how managers should carry out the analysis and development of such a system in their own organizations, business units or functional areas.
Evacuation Planning and Spatial Decision Making
Authors: de Silva F. N. , Eglese R. W. , Pidd M.
Published: May 2011

Issues concerning the development of Spatial Decision Systems for evacuation planning include realistic modelling of evacuee behavior, decision-making processes that take place during an evacuation, logistics, generating realistic scenarios, validation, technology development and trends for the future. These issues are discussed with reference to the development of a prototype system called CEMPS, which integrates simulation and GIS technology for emergency planning.
Decision Making Support Systems
Authors: Forgionne Guisseppi A. , Gupta Jatinder N.D. , Mora Manuel
Published: May 2011

Previous chapters have described the state of the art in decision making support systems (DMSS). This chapter synthesizes the views of leading scientists concerning the achievements of DMSS and the future challenges and opportunities. According to the experts, DMSS will be technologically more integrated, offer broader and deeper support for decision making, and provide a much wider array of applications. In the process, new information and computer technologies will be necessitated, the decision makers’ jobs will change, and new organizational structures will emerge to meet the changes. The changes will not occur without displacements of old technologies and old work paradigms. In particular, there will be an evolution toward team-based decision making paradigms. Although the evolution can require significant investments, the organizational benefits from successful DMSS deployments can be significant and substantial. Researchers and practitioners are encouraged to collaborate in their effort to further enhance the theoretical and pragmatic developments of DMSS.
The Logic Behind Negotiation
Authors: Brito Luis , Novais Paulo , Neves Jose
Published: May 2011

The use of agents in Electronic Commerce environments leads to the necessity to introduce some formal analysis and definitions. A four-step method is introduced for developing EC-directed agents, which are able to take into account nonlinearites such as gratitude and agreement. Negotiations that take into account a multistep exchange of arguments provide extra information, at each step, for the intervening agents, enabling them to react accordingly. This argument-based negotiation among agents has much to gain from the use of Extended Logic Programming mechanisms. Incomplete information is common in EC scenarios; therefore, arguments must also ta
Customer Relationship Management in Service Mediary-Driven Mobile Services
Authors: Saarinen Timo , Kallio Jukka , Tinnila Markku , Vesa Jarkko
Published: May 2011

In this chapter we introduce the concept of Service Mediary, which provides a conceptual and technical platform for electronic services. Our analysis shows that it pays off to outsource customer relationship management in electronic channels to a specialized service provider. The I-mode case study demonstrates clearly the benefits this kind of cooperation offers to content and service providers. Especially the built-in billing and revenue sharing logic are critical elements to I-mode’s success story. Even more encouraging are the benefits of collaboration to customers, who will enjoy the fruits of the new networked e-business economy. A Service Mediary is in a position to understand the customer requirements and building a service offering which optimally matches those requirements. In the multi-channel business environment of tomorrow, no single company can develop cost efficiently all required services for every channel. The future belongs to specialized, closely cooperating companies, which can offer superior customer experience at a competitive price. A Service Mediary like NTT DoCoMo with its I-mode service can offer a true win-win-win business model: service providers, customers and the Service Mediary all win in this game. Based on the analysis of the I-mode case, we can conclude that Service Mediary as a business model has a great potential in the future.
Growth the KONE Way
Authors: Perttula Matti
Published: May 2011

This chapter describes the private view of a long-serving KONE manager on how KONE Corporation has over 30 decades developed into one of the global leaders in its field. Perhaps the most important success factor is the consistent, integrated development and implementation of vision, strategy, business structure, processes, IT tools, and people skills and capabilities. The article ends with a short outline of a practical solution in one small area of the business, where the combination of all of the above has led to improved productivity, customer value and customer satisfaction.
The Concept of Industrial IT in Customer Service
Authors: Mattila Kauno
Published: May 2011

Industrial IT is a new technology to integrate technical industrial processes with business processes. That secures the benefits of low cost and high speed at optimal quality. Industrial IT will also offer solutions to linking intra-company processes and help industry clusters serve their customers better.
Nokia Mobile Phones' Development of Business Logistics and Customer Support
Authors: Rajaniemi Markku
Published: May 2011

The key to high performance in global logistics is stepwise improvement of business operational mode and corresponding logistics processes. Nokia Mobile Phones formulated strategic steps and their implementation approach and has carried those out as a shared business program. Systematic development of logistics of internal business operations and collaboration with the supply chain members has supported the company in reaching its current market leader position in the mobile phones business. This chapter tells how the logistics and customer logistic support were developed in the mobile phones business of Nokia Corporation during last 10 years. The chapter presents a development path in chronological order to illustrate the change in logistics intent, depth of needed operational transformation and technical possibilities. Both the company internal logistics operations and the work for collaboration in synchronized supply chain are described with some lessons learned on this effort. The development roadmap is told in two main steps, which are referred to below as implementation of strategies of transparency and orchestration. Those were also the internal themes of strategic development of logistics.
IT-Enabled Global Customer Service
Authors: Salmela Hannu , Jahnukainen Miikka
Published: May 2011

This chapter describes IT-enabled customer service development projects in six global companies. The chapter summarizes the projects to illustrate some of the contemporary trends in developing customer service processes and systems. The cases more importantly provide an opportunity to learn from experiences in implementing new service processes and models. While some of these lessons describe conventional wisdom known to all experienced managers, others may appear surprising. Perhaps most importantly, the experiences serve as a reminder that the most challenging phase in developing services on a global scale is when organizational boundaries for the development efforts are defined. Trying to integrate and harmonize everything is rarely the most viable strategy. The cases also illustrate that a fully integrated real time customer information system may not always be a prerequisite for high-quality global customer service. So rather than simply implementing complex state-of-the-art technologies to all service units, managers more than ever need a clear vision of where and when global harmonization and integration of service processes truly benefit the company and its main customers.
Intelligent Business Portals
Authors: Li Xue
Published: May 2011

Portals can be regarded as an information gateway for exchanging business information over the Internet. They are for delivering the right information to the right user, at the right time, to the right place, to make the right decisions. A portal is a packaged piece of information with the properties of self-servicing, personalization, and real-time delivery. From a business point of view, a portal is a mobile, self-explanatory, and just-in-time delivered piece of information. In e-Commerce, business information is the set of timed transactions that can be triggered by events in business activities. This chapter will illustrate and explain the architecture of intelligent business portals for Web-enabled business applications.
Integration of Database and Internet Technologies for Scalable End-to-End E-Commerce Systems
Authors: Selcuk Candan K. , Li Wen-Syun
Published: May 2011

The content of many Web sites changes frequently. Especially in most e-commerce sites, Web content is created on request, based on the current state of business processes represented in application servers and databases. In fact, currently 25% of all Web content consists of such dynamically generated pages, and this ratio is likely to be higher in e-commerce sites. Web site performance, including system up-time and user response time, is a key differentiation point among companies that are eager to reach, attract, and keep customers. Slowdowns can be devastating for these sites, as shown by recent studies. Therefore, most commercial content-providers pay premium prices for services, such as content delivery networks (CDNs), that promise high scalability, reduced network delays, and lower risk of failure. Unfortunately, for e-commerce sites, whose main source of content is dynamically generated on demand, most existing static content-based services are not applicable. In fact, dynamically generated content poses many new challenges for the design of end-to-end (client-to-server-to-client) e-commerce systems. In this chapter, we discuss these challenges and provide solutions for integrating Internet services, business logic, and database technologies, and for improving end-to-end scalability of e-commerce systems.
Virtual Marketplace for Agent-Based Electronic Commerce
Authors: Ng Chuen Hwee , Guan Sheng-Uei , Zhu Fangming
Published: May 2011

This chapter proposes the architecture for a mobile agent-based virtual marketplace. As the Internet grows, the potential for conducting electronic commerce grows as well. However, given the explosion of online shopping, searching for particular products amongst the sea of commercial content could become a fundamental obstacle for Internet electronic commerce. Hence, an agent-based virtual marketplace is seen as the solution. The agents in the marketplace are autonomous, and so there is no need for user intervention once the agents have been deployed with the assigned task. The architecture of the marketplace has been specifically designed to facilitate agent negotiations by providing a trusted and secure environment. A novel dynamic pricing mechanism has also been implemented in the context of the airline ticketing industry and found to be rather successful.
An Object-Oriented Hypermedia Reference Model Formally Specified in UML
Authors: Koch Nora
Published: May 2011

Although the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is by now accepted as a standard and is widely used as an object-oriented modeling language, some languages such as Z or VDM are preferred to formally specify reference models. Here, we present a reference model for hypermedia systems in UML. It is an object-oriented and Dexter-based approach that uses UML to provide an intuitive graphical representation of the model. The class diagrams are supplemented with formal constraints in the Object Constraint Language (OCL), adding invariants on elements as well as preconditions and postconditions on operations. The result is an easily extendable reference model for describing specific hypermedia systems, for example, like adaptive or mobile systems. Our contribution shows how formal and semiformal object-oriented techniques can be integrated in the metamodeling process.
Systematic Development of Internet Sites
Authors: Thalheim Bernhard , Dusterhoft Antje
Published: May 2011

Internet information services are developed everywhere. Such services include content generation and functionality support that have to be modeled in a consistent way. Here, we show how concepts of conceptual modeling can be used for systematic development of Internet sites. We give an introduction into our methodology of modeling Internet applications resulting in the Cottbus Internet site development language (SiteLang). The language has an operational semantics based on entity-relationship structuring and abstract state machines. It allows specification of entire Web sites, i.e., of structuring, behavior, information support, and of the interaction and story space. The methodology supports applications in different environments, e.g., Internet Web sites, WAP technology, or TV channels.
OO-H Method
Authors: Gomez Jaime , Cachero Cristina
Published: May 2011

The mostly “creative” authoring process used to develop many Web applications during the last years has already proven unsuccessful to tackle, with its increasing complexity, both in terms of user and technical requirements. This fact has nurtured a mushrooming of proposals, most based on conceptual models, that aim at facilitating the development, maintenance and assessment of Web applications, thus improving the reliability of the Web development process. In this chapter, we will show how traditional software engineering approaches can be extended to deal with the Web idiosyncrasy, taking advantage of proven successful notation and techniques for common tasks, while adding models and constructs needed to capture the nuances of the Web environment. In this context, our proposal, the Object-Oriented Hypermedia (OO-H) Method, developed at University of Alicante, provides a set of new views that extend UML to provide a Web interface model. A code generation process is able to, departing from such diagrams and their associated tagged values, generate a Web interface capable of connecting to underlying business modules.
Parallel and Distributed Data Mining through Parallel Skeletons and Distributed Objects
Authors: Coppola Massimo , Vanneschi Marco
Published: May 2011

We consider the application of parallel programming environments to develop portable and efficient high performance data mining (DM) tools. We first assess the need of parallel and distributed DM applications, by pointing out the problems of scalability of some mining techniques and the need to mine large, eventually geographically distributed databases. We discuss the main issues of exploiting parallel and distributed computation for DM algorithms. A high-level programming language enhances the software engineering aspects of parallel DM, and it simplifies the problems of integration with existing sequential and parallel data management systems, thus leading to programming-efficient and high-performance implementations of applications. We describe a programming environment we have implemented that is based on the parallel skeleton model, and we examine the addition of object-like interfaces toward external libraries and system software layers. This kind of abstractions will be included in the forthcoming programming environment ASSIST. In the main part of the chapter, as a proof-of-concept we describe three well-known DM algorithms, Apriori, C4.5, and DBSCAN. For each problem, we explain the sequential algorithm and a structured parallel version, which is discussed and compared to parallel solutions found in the literature. We also discuss the potential gain in performance and expressiveness from the addition of external objects on the basis of the experiments we performed so far. We evaluate the approach with respect to performance results, design, and implementation considerations.
Maximum Performance Efficiency Approaches for Estimating Best Practice Costs
Authors: Troutt Marvin D. , Gribbin Donald W. , Shanker Murali S. , Zhang Aimao
Published: May 2011

Data mining is increasingly being used to gain competitive advantage. In this chapter, we propose a principle of maximum performance efficiency (MPE) as a contribution to the data-mining toolkit. This principle seeks to estimate optimal or boundary behavior, in contrast to techniques like regression analysis that predict average behavior. This MPE principle is explained in the context of activity-based costing situation. Specifically, we consider the activity-based costing situation in which multiple activities generate a common cost pool. Individual cost drivers are assigned to the respective activities, but allocation of the cost pool to the individual activities is regarded as impractical or expensive. Our study focuses on published data from a set of property tax collection offices, called Rates Departments, for the London metropolitan area. We define what may be called benchmark or most efficient average costs per unit of driver. The MPE principle is then used to estimate the best practice cost rates. A validation approach for this estimation method is developed in terms of what we call normal-like-or-better performance effectiveness. Extensions to time-series data on a single unit, and marginal cost-oriented basic cost models are also briefly described. In conclusion, we discuss potential data-mining applications and considerations.
Financial Benchmarking Using Self-Organizing Maps - Studying the International Pulp and Paper Industry
Authors: Eklund Tomas , Back Barbro , Vanharanta Hannu , Visa Ari
Published: May 2011

Performing financial benchmarks in today’s information-rich society can be a daunting task. With the evolution of the Internet, access to massive amounts of financial data, typically in the form of financial statements, is widespread. Managers and stakeholders are in need of a tool that allows them to quickly and accurately analyze these data. An emerging technique that may be suited for this application is the self-organizing map. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of self-organizing maps for the purpose of financial benchmarking of international pulp and paper companies. For the study, financial data in the form of seven financial ratios were collected, using the Internet as the primary source of information. A total of 77 companies and six regional averages were included in the study. The time frame of the study was the period 1995-2000. A number of benchmarks were performed, and the results were analyzed based on information contained in the annual reports. The results of the study indicate that self-organizing maps can be feasible tools for the financial benchmarking of large amounts of financial data.
Critical and Future Trends in Data Mining
Authors: Hsu Jeffrey
Published: May 2011

Every day, enormous amounts of information are generated from all sectors, whether it be business, education, the scientific community, the World Wide Web (WWW), or one of many readily available off-line and online data sources. From all of this, which represents a sizable repository of data and information, it is possible to generate worthwhile and usable knowledge. As a result, the field of Data Mining (DM) and knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) has grown in leaps and bounds and has shown great potential for the future (Han & Kamber, 2001). The purpose of this chapter is to survey many of the critical and future trends in the field of DM, with a focus on those which are thought to have the most promise and applicability to future DM applications.