bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Automatic registration of microarray images. II. Hexagonal grid
Authors: Galinsky Vitaly L. 
Published: September 2003

Abstract
Motivation: In the first part of this paper the author presented an efficient, robust and completely automated algorithm for spot and block indexing in microarray images with rectangular grids. Although the rectangular grid is currently the most common type of grouping the probes on microarray slides, there is another microarray technology based on bundles of optical fibers where the probes are packed in hexagonal grids. The hexagonal grid provides both advantages and drawbacks over the standard rectangular packing and of course requires adaptation and/or modification of the algorithm of spot indexing presented in the first part of the paper.
Results: In the second part of the paper the author presents a version of the spot indexing algorithm adapted for microarray images with spots packed in hexagonal structures. The algorithm is completely automated, works with hexagonal grids of different types and with different parameters of grid spacing and rotation as well as spot sizes. It can successfully trace the local and global distortions of the grid, including non-orthogonal transformations. Similar to the algorithm from part I, it scales linearly with the grid size, the time complexity is O(M), where M is total number of grid points in hexagonal grid. The algorithm has been tested both on CCD and scanned images with spot expression rates as low as 2%. The processing time of an image with about 50 000 hex grid points was less than a second. For images with high expression rates (∼90%) the registration time is even smaller, around a quarter of a second.
Supplementary information: http://fleece.ucsd.edu/~vit/Registration_Supplement.pdf
STRING: finding tandem repeats in DNA sequences
Authors: Parisi Valerio , De Fonzo Valeria , Aluffi-Pentini Filippo 
Published: September 2003

Abstract
Motivation and results: The importance of Tandem Repeats in some genomes is now well established. We have reported elsewhere some interesting new results obtained by means of a preliminary program for finding Tandem Repeats in DNA sequences, together with a brief description of the basic ideas of the algorithm. We describe here a completely new program based only in part on those ideas, we briefly discuss the interpretation of the results, and, by way of example, we provide a few novel results relative to the parasites responsible of two re-emerging diseases, Plasmodium falciparum and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Our program is portable, effective, powerful and fast: it can run on current desktop computers, and it finds all significant Tandem Repeats also in the longest segments of sequences in databases (up to millions of bases), in short times (minutes).
Availability: An academic version of the algorithm (full source listing in standard C language) can be freely downloaded (http://www.caspur.it/~castri/STRING/).
Supplementary information: Some illustrative figures and some sample results are provided as supplementary material at: http://www.caspur.it/~castri/STRING/
A note on estimation by least squares for harmonic component models
Authors: Walker A. M. 
Published: September 2003

Abstract. Let observations (X1,…,Xn) be generated by a harmonic model such that Xt=A0 cos ω0t+B0 sin ω0t+εt, where A0,B0,ω0 are constants and (εt) is a stationary process with zero mean and finite variance. The estimation of A0,B0,ω0 by the method of least squares is considered. It is shown that, without any restriction on ω in the minimization procedure, the estimate is an n‐consistent estimate of ω0, and hence () has the usual asymptotic distribution.The extension to a harmonic model with k>1 components is discussed. The case k=2 is considered in detail, but it was only found possible to establish the result under the restriction that both angular frequencies lie in the interval
Recent Developments Concerning Language Protection Organisations and Right‐wing Extremism in Germany
Authors: Pfalzgraf Falco 
Published: September 2003

AbstractThe debate about the use of anglicisms in German has become increasingly intense since the early 1990s. At the same time, a number of organisations for the protection of the language have emerged in Germany, and investigations have shown that right‐wing groups are attracted to these organisations, and vice versa. Two language protection organisations are investigated here: the publisher of the quarterly Deutsche Sprachwelt and the internet‐based ‘Deutscher Sprachkampf’. Both have obvious connections to right‐wing organisations and individuals, and this article shows how close these contacts are. It explores the extent to which this might relate to German unification, since there seems to be a relationship between the increasing emergence of language protection organisations and the formation of a new German federation.
Launching new product features: a multiple case examination
Authors: Thölke Jürg M. , Hultinka Erik Jan , Robbenb Henry S. J. 
Published: September 2003

The present study investigates the strategies that eight companies employed in launching new product features in a variety of markets. A literature review shows that launching new product features is an under‐researched area. This lack of attention may be detrimental to companies, as in many mature markets—such as those for durable consumer goods like television sets, coffee machines or videocassette recorders—the launch of new product features is perhaps the single most important product development activity that companies employ.We sought to address three research questions, namely what are the current strategies used by managers for launching new product features, how do these strategies differ, and what are the opportunities and pitfalls of these strategies? A multiple case study involving 38 managers from different functional backgrounds was used, thereby investigating the feature introductions of eight companies in‐depth.The study first identifies six feature launch decisions: the feature's position in the feature life cycle, the core technology concerned, the focus on feature or product, the differentiation practices used by the firm, feature diffusion in the product line, and the make‐or‐buy decision. Based on these decisions, four distinct feature launch strategies were distinguished: dictatorship, pioneering, establishing, and following.Dictatorship companies launch feature innovations that are based on fundamentally new technologies. Pioneers are not as powerful as dictators and focus on features that are based on applied and proven rather than on fundamentally new technologies. Establishes copy and improve successful features and launch them quickly and broadly as a standard in mass markets. Followers launch standard features that already existed in the mass market.These four strategies describe how the firms in our sample launched new features in the marketplace. As such, they describe when and where in the product line what feature was introduced. Such a typology of feature launch strategies helps to proactively understand the strategies firms have for launching new product features. The article discusses for each strategy the relevant feature launch decisions, possible applications, and opportunities and pitfalls. We conclude with the implications of our study for research and managerial practice.
An investigation of the use of global, virtual, and colocated new product development teams
Authors: McDonough Edward F. , Kahnb Kenneth B. , Barczaka Gloria 
Published: September 2003

This paper presents the results of an investigation of differences between global, virtual and colocated new product development (NPD) teams. Specifically, we examined whether and how these three types of teams differed in terms of usage, challenges, and performance.A survey of PDMA members was undertaken to collect the data. Out of 103 firms participating in the survey, 54 had used or were using global teams for some of their NPD efforts.Overall, we found that the use of global teams in our respondent firms is rapidly increasing. Our respondents indicated that by the year 2001, approximately one out of every five NPD teams in their companies are likely to be global. However, our respondents also expect that their companies will be using multiple types of teams that is, global, virtual, and colocated, to develop their new products.Our findings also suggest that global teams generally face greater behavioral and project management challenges than either colocated or virtual teams. Global team performance is also lower than the performance of virtual or colocated teams. Are these challenges associated with poorer performance? In examining this question, our results suggest that greater project management challenges are associated with lower performance, for all three types of teams. Surprisingly, behavioral challenges were not associated with performance for any team type.Our results suggest that firms face different problems associated with managing each type of NPD team—global, virtual and colocated. To effectively manage each type of team may, in turn, require that companies and their managers employ different solutions to these different problems. Additionally, companies may find that the preparation they provide to their managers and team members to work in these different team environments may also need to be different. Further research is clearly needed to address these managerial implications.
Patterns of cooperation during new product development among marketing, operations and R&D: Implications for project performance
Authors: Olson Eric M. , Walker Orville C. , Ruekerf Robert W. , Bonnerd Joseph M. 
Published: September 2003

Successful new product development is fundamentally a multidisciplinary process. While this view has helped lead management to the wide‐spread adoption of cross‐functional new product development teams, in this study we question whether simply increasing the level of functional integration is truly a guarantee for enhancing the performance of new products. To assess this we examined patterns of cooperation between marketing, R&D, and operations at both early and late stages of the new product development process for 34 recently developed products whose level of innovativeness ranged from high to low. A unique feature of this study is that data were collected from four sources for each project. This included personal interviews with a project leader and written surveys from marketing, operations, and R&D personnel on each project.Findings from this study reveal that: (1) functional cooperation typically increases as the process moves from early to late stages; (2) cooperation between marketing and R&D is highest during early stages of the process, but for marketing and operations, and for R&D and operations, cooperation typically increases as the process moves from early to late stages; (3) higher project performance — irrespective of the level of project innovation — is demonstrated when cooperation between marketing and R&D, and cooperation between operations and R&D is high during early stages; (4) late stage cooperation between marketing and operations, and R&D and operations is a key determinant in project performance for innovative products but not for noninnovative products, and; (5) that early stage cooperation between marketing and operations is associated with superior performance for low innovation projects but is also associated with poor performance for innovative projects.Findings from this study demonstrate that the importance of cooperation between specific functional dyads (i.e., marketing — R&D; R&D — operations; operations ‐ marketing) indeed varies by time (i.e., early vs. late stages), and by the level of innovativeness (i.e., new‐to‐the‐world vs. modifications) associated with the new product being developed.
Experiential Education In New Product Design And Business Development
Authors: Cardozo Richard N. , Durfee William K. , Ardichvili Alexander , Adams Carl , Erdman Arthur G. , Hoey Michael , Iaizzo Paul A. , Mallick Debashish N. , Bar‐Cohen Avi , Beachy Robert , Johnson Alec 
Published: September 2003

We describe an experiential approach to teaching new product design and business development in a year‐long course that combines intensive project work with classroom education. Our course puts together up to six teams of graduate students from management and engineering who work on projects sponsored by individual companies. Student teams work with faculty from multiple disciplines and personnel from the sponsoring companies. The year‐long format and involvement with company personnel provide opportunities for students to gain hands‐on experience in a real product development project. Time constraints, coupled with students' determination to demonstrate what they can accomplish, stimulate teams to learn how to compress the design and development cycle.To help students generalize from their own projects to a wider universe of product design and business development phenomena, students participate continuously in constructive critiques of others' projects; and in presentations, case discussions and workshops that help them learn about the product and business development process itself.This article describes course objectives, syllabus, projects, sponsors, faculty, students and our course administration. In an effort to move towards a “paperless” course, we have put as much of the course material as possible on the World Wide Web; relevant websites are referred to in the article.At the end of the course each team presents a prototype and a protoplan to the sponsoring company in a final report, which in many cases includes suggestions for the sponsor on how to improve its design and development process. Students' positive evaluations, along with their comments, indicate that they are attaining their educational goals. Course projects have resulted in commercialized products, patents, continuing development projects in sponsoring companies, and placements for students. The course has generated public relations value for the units involved and for the university as a whole. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
Finding and solving problems in software new product development
Authors: Sheremata Willow A. 
Published: September 2003

New product development is notoriously difficult, and software new product development particularly so. Although a great deal of research has investigated new product development, projects developing new software products continue to have problems meeting their goals. In fact, one line of research proposes new product development is difficult because it must solve an ongoing stream of complex problems. I integrate this line of research with two others to develop a conceptual framework of new product development as a process of finding and solving problems. From this framework, I develop four hypotheses that predict the probability projects developing new products will attain their development schedule and product quality goals.More specifically, I hypothesize that projects that generate access to, and integrate, large quantities of creative ideas, in‐depth knowledge, and accurate information, should increase their probability of attaining schedule and product quality goals. Projects developing new products should both generate and integrate this “knowledge” to solve the problems that stand between them and their goals. However, how projects find problems also matters. Projects that search to identify problems earlier, rather than later, should also increase their probability of meeting schedule and product quality goals.To test these hypotheses I gathered data on 33 projects that tried to develop new software products from 23 firms, through interviews and questionnaires. Results from regression analyses support three out of four hypotheses. The projects that had high levels of both knowledge generation and integration had a significantly higher probability of attaining their product quality goals, but not their schedule goals. In contrast, projects that merely searched to find problems had a higher probability of attaining both goals. Moreover, projects that not only generated and integrated knowledge to solve problems, but also searched to find them, had the highest probability of attaining their product quality goals.This study illustrates the usefulness of modeling new product development as a bundle of problems to be found and solved. These results suggest that projects that combine practices to implement high levels of both knowledge generation and integration—not just one or the other—increase their chances of meeting product quality goals. This in turn suggests that focus on any single process or practice may be misplaced. Moreover, proactive search for problems may increase projects' chances of meeting both schedule and product quality goals. In fact, search for problems was highly significant in this study, which suggests the way projects identify problems deserves further study. Although these prescriptions are preliminary, this study suggests they can help projects—and their managers—embody their visions in products and deliver those products to market. et.
Implementing a strategy‐driven performance measurement system for an applied research group
Authors: Loch Christoph H. , Tapper U.A. Staffan 
Published: September 2003

Although most companies recognize the importance of R&D for future competitiveness, they often struggle to assess its contribution to the organization. Performance measurement in R&D is particularly difficult because (1) effort levels may not be observable, (2) project success is uncertain, influenced by uncontrollable factors, and (3) success can be assessed only after long delays, or it accrues to other units of the organization.Based on existing literature on the problem, we developed a performance measurement system for the process technology research group of an industrial company. This measurement system systematically supported the business strategy. Moreover, the measures were adjusted for different project profiles: short‐versus long term, hardware versus software, routine support services versus breakthrough ideas and knowledge development.The contribution of this article is a description of the process of developing and implementing a comprehensive performance measurement system in a company, based on previous performance management research, and supporting the company's strategy. It is noteworthy that the system was implemented in a research group (as opposed to development), where the measurement problems are the most severe.
Managing platform architectures and manufacturing processes for nonassembled products
Authors: Meyer Marc H. , Dalal Dhaval 
Published: September 2003

The article presents methods for defining product platforms and measuring business performance in process intensive industries. We first show how process intensive product platforms can be defined using the products and processes of a film manufacturer. We then present an empirical method for understanding the dynamics of process intensive platform innovation, allocating engineering and sales data to specific platform and product development efforts within a product family. We applied this method to a major product line of a materials manufacturer. We gathered ten years of engineering and manufacturing cost data and allocated these to successive platforms and products, and then generated R&D performance measures. These data show the dynamic of heavy capital spending relative to product engineering as one might expect in a process intensive industries. The data also show how derivative products can be leveraged from underlying product platforms and processes for nonassembled products.Embedded within these data are strategies for creating reusable subsystems (comprising components, materials, etc.) and common production processes. Hard data on the degree to which subsystems and processes are shared across different products frequently are typically not maintained by corporations for the duration needed to understand the dynamics of evolving product families. For this reason, we developed and applied a second method to assess the degree of reuse of subsystems and processes. This method asks engineering managers to provide subjective ratings on an ordinal scale regarding the use of technology and processes from one product to the next in a cumulative manner. We find that high levels of reuse generally indicate that a product family was developed with a platform discipline. We applied this measure of platform intensity to two product lines of integrated circuits from another large manufacturer. We used this method to gather approximately ten years of information for each product family. Upon analysis, one product family showed substantial platform discipline, emphasizing a common architecture and processes across specific products within the product line. The other product family was developed with significantly less sharing and reuse of architecture, components, and processes. We then found that the platform centric product family outperformed the latter along a number of performance dimensions over the course of the decade under examination.
Managing seller‐buyer new product development relationships for customized products: a contingency model based on transaction cost analysis and empirical test
Authors: Stump Rodney L. , Athaide Gerard A. , Joshi Ashwin W. 
Published: September 2003

Sellers often customize their product offerings in order to increase the value offered to individual buyers and gain a competitive advantage over the seller's competitors. However, such customization has a downside—it usually requires considerable seller‐buyer interactions aimed at matching the seller's technological capabilities with the buyer's needs, which can pose exchange risks such as the safeguarding and adaptation problems noted in the transaction cost analysis literature. In the present study, we develop a contingency model to investigate the impact of product customization on sellers' perceived relationship satisfaction and subsequent expectations of relationship continuity. We draw on the logic of transaction cost analysis to hypothesize that product customization's effect on satisfaction and continuity may be moderated by three activities that sellers may engage in during the new product development (NPD) process: education, product knowledge generation, and joint new product development.Our substantive hypotheses were tested with data from a national survey of 296 small to medium size firms in several high‐tech industries using a series of hierarchical OLS regression models. Overall, we found mixed support for our hypotheses. The results indicated that joint new product development reduced the negative effect of product customization on seller satisfaction and enhanced customization's positive effect on continuity, as expected. Contrary to our expectations, product knowledge generation activities increased the negative effect of customization on satisfaction; it also had no significant moderating impact on continuity. Buyer education activities were found to reduce the negative impact of customization on satisfaction, but showed no moderating effect on continuity.This study offers important theoretical and managerial implications. It is one of the first to rely on transaction cost analysis as a basis for examining how various relationship activities conducted during the new product development process moderate product customization's effect on qualitative outcomes. Whereas traditional NPD processes have emphasized unilateral approaches to product development, our study provides evidence of how bilateral approaches to NPD can benefit sellers of innovations. We provide new insights for managers to consider when deciding whether to engage buyers early on and then continue interacting with them throughout the product development process when developing customized products.