Technology Management

Abstract  This work presents the effect, in terms of  travel distance and material handling time reductions, of an optimal rather than a uniform item allocation in one-block picking warehouses, both with and without the use of a simple picking heuristic. Since developing efficient product-location strategies represents a critical issue in Operations Management, due to the impact on warehouse performance in terms  of both service level and operation costs, this paper focuses on an effective quantification of obtainable travel time reductions, obtaining a significant result for manufacturing companies aiming to determine the most appropriate material handling resource configuration. Building on previous work on the effect of slot-code optimization on travel times in single/dual command cycles, the authors broaden the scope to include the most general picking case, thus widening
the range of applicability and realising former suggestions for future research.

"English summary: The interpretation of Dutch Jewish Council Records

The main question in this thesis is: how do we interpret historical documents if we do not know the exact context in which they were created? It is a basic question for researchers and it will be all the more important in the digital age if we want to secure digital sustainability. The problem is demonstrated from the example of the Jewish Council Records that are part of the Information Bureau archives, at the Red Cross in The Hague. On these paper index cards a large amount of personal and procedural information was recorded by staff of the Jewish Council during the occupation of the Netherlands. On the appr. 180000 cards nearly every individual Jewish person was registered individually. After the war, the same card system was used by the Netherlands Red Cross as a basis for tracing the victims and to determine their fate.

Recreating the context
If we want to read the information on the cards and understand the meaning of the scribbled notes, we have to recreate the procedures that created these records. The card in itself is only the end product of a complicated chain of administrative events in a paper bureaucracy. The procedures changed many times and were scarcely documented. This means that the paper network has to be reconstructed, that existed when the records were created. The implication is that all the archives that may hold key-information have to be analysed. In that way the context of the Jewish Council records can be reconstructed. Context is required to interpret the information on these records. There are two layers of context. The first is the archives of the Information Bureau of the Red Cross and consists of deportation lists, personal files and other collections that were connected tot the Jewish Council Records after the war. The second level are the external archives that hold context information are scattered all over the Netherlands, but are mainly at NIOD-Amsterdam, National Archives the Hague and in local municipal archives.

How to obtain robust digital sustainability
To obtain robust digital sustainability, a detailed analysis of the interconnection of all these files is necessary. This analysis should be part of the meta-data. The paper bureaucratic network has to be reconstructed, and the remaining context-carriers have to indentified. Isolated digitisation of complex systems like the Jewish Council Records will lead to digital representations that cannot be interpreted. This is in fact what happened already, when microfilmed copies of the Jewish Council Records were transferred to ITS-Arolsen in the 1950’s. This organisation provided copies to Yad Vashem. Now all these microfilms are digitised and made available to institutions like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. These ‘orphaned’ digital files have no metadata attached about the creation, history and interrelations with other archives. Researchers will not be able to use the full potential of these files, because the context-environment was lost.
It is also argued that the new historian of the paperless information age will not understand the way a paper bureaucracy works. If this problem is not addressed, misunderstandings will arise interpreting the products of a paper bureaucracy: deportation list and file-card etc.

The thesis provides a detailed description of all the interrelations between internal (in the Red Cross Information Bureau archives) and external archives. It also analyses the way the German occupying authorities exerted their rule over the information that was provided to the Jewish council. The German authorities were conducting a war against the Jews and used their power to restrict the communication of the Jewish council and to destabilise the day-to-day practice of the Jewish council."

Bu kitap; duygusal ve davranışsal bozukluklara sahip öğrenciler hakkında bilgi sahibi olmak isteyen sınıf öğretmenleri, özel eğitim öğretmenleri ve alanda çalışan uzmanlar için hazırlanmış giriş niteliğinde bir uygulama kitabıdır. Her bir bozukluğun nedeni, tanımlanması, güncel araştırmalar ışığında verilmeye çalışılmış ve okul ortamındaki pratik uygulamalarla da anlatım zenginleştirilmiştir. Bunlara ek olarak belirli bir bozukluğun tüm yönlerine ilişkin temel yaklaşımla birlikte bilimsel olarak geliştirilmiş müdahele yöntemleri de verilmeye çalışılmıştır.

Bu kitabın alanda yeni çalışmaya başlayan öğretmenler kadar güncel verilerle desteklenen tanı koyma ve müdahele stratejilrine önem vermesi nedeniyle alanda uzun süredir çalışmakta olan öğretmenlere ve uzmanlara da yararlı olacağını düşünmekteyiz.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe the history and present situation with health technology assessment (HTA) in Israel.Methods: The method used in this study was a historical analysis based mainly on the knowledge of the authors, but supplemented by the published literature.Results: HTA originated in Israel as a centralized function conducted under the auspice of research, developing into an active multidisciplinary center. Throughout the expansion of the field, HTA was performed in affiliation with several local and international bodies, while providing direct and indirect support at the national level. Today, mainly as a result of vigorous dissemination of the principles, methodology and tools for HTA by the Israeli Center for Technology Assessment in Health Care (ICTAHC), this discipline is increasingly a decentralized activity conducted by a great variety of institutions. Israeli health policy decisions are increasingly based on the results of HTA.Conclusions: ICT...

... Suprasad V. Amari, Member, IEEE ... Notation label of component , [failure, repair] rate of component system-failure frequency “mean number of system-failures” per time-unit , Boolean variable indicating that component is [working, failed]; is the complement of , steady state ...

This paper is a part of a broader research into textile design technology and trends across the world and their reflection on the local Ghanaian textile industry. It places conventional manual screen printing and digital textile printing technologies side by side and discusses the various drawbacks of screen printing as against the advantages of digital textile printing to illustrate a path for a wider consideration of the latter in Ghanaian small to medium scale textile production. Short-run textile printing commissions are the main source of jobs for small to medium scale textile producers in Ghana. And manual screen printing is the main process employed by these small-scale textile printers. However, screen printing has various layers of limitations such as poor registration of the design, stains, pinholes, colour correctness, colour consistency, colour smear, dye migration, scorching, improper curing, amongst others. These layers of limitations negatively affect the overall outc...

The following paper is aimed to explain policy makers how knowledge-driven clusters and organizational innovation initiatives at country level create the environment to leverage competitive advantage of SMEs, through combining skills and competences from different members and beneficing of economies of agglomeration without losing the flexibility and dynamism of SMEs. In order to successfully build a knowledge-driven cluster, competence mapping is a key tool that will allow to diagnostic the strengths and weakness of the regional players, enabling to build joint products based on the core competencies of each member and tackle the shortages by training and multiparty projects.
This approach fits into the Uruguay effort on building an Automation and Mechatronics industry around CAIME center in the frame of “Advanced Technology Foresight in Latin America and Caribbean region” project, supported by several UNIDO services (such as Country Independent Evaluation and Technology Foresight) and potentially by the Collaboration Mechanism for Science and Technology between Brazil and Uruguay.
The recommendation in order to continue the implementation of advanced technologies in the region is to initiate a knowledge-driven cluster to promote innovation in Mechatronics and Automation fields, starting by performing a competence mapping of potential SMEs cluster members, in order to identify strengths and weakness, and in a second step to perform training on those skills detected as necessaries in collaboration with local academia partners and to initiate joint projects to create added value products.

El presente estudio tuvo como objetivo validar las modificaciones realizadas a un sistema de indicadores para valorar la formación y el desarrollo de expertos que se desempeñan en la actividad docente - investigativa en las universidades. A partir de la experiencia obtenida en una investigación desarrollada para la gestión de la formación y el desarrollo de expertos en un centro de investigación, se realizaron modificaciones al sistema obtenido para adaptarlo a las actividades que efectúan los docentes - investigadores en instituciones de la educación superior. El sistema modificado fue validado en el panel de expertos con el empleo del método Delphi y la aplicación de la escala Likert, así como con el tratamiento estadístico de las respuestas de los participantes. Se modificaron indicadores de tres variables de la dimensión “Cualificación del experto” (Carrera profesional, liderazgo y visibilidad nacional e internacional) y de la variable “Docencia”, de la dimensión “Gestión del experto”. El coeficiente alfa de Cronbach (0,9274) demostró la consistencia interna del instrumento empleado. Los valores de las medianas y los rangos intercuartílicos alcanzados permitieron establecer el consenso de los participantes en la validación del sistema de indicadores. Las modificaciones realizadas al sistema original permitieron adecuarlo y aplicarlo para la valoración de los expertos docentes - investigadores que laboran en los departamentos responsables de las carreras nucleares en la Facultad de Ciencias y Tecnologías Nucleares del Instituto Superior de Tecnologías y Ciencias Aplicadas, adscritos a la Universidad de La Habana, lo cual mostró un desarrollo medio tanto desde el punto de vista de la cualificación como de la gestión de sus expertos.
This paper aims to present a system of indicators for the valuation of teacher and researcher training as expert. Starting from the achieved experience in research conducted for training and development management of experts in a high-tech organization, some modifications were made to the proposed system of indicators to adapt it to the activities of teachers – researchers in higher educational institutions. Delphi method, Likert´ scale, median and interquartil rank were used to
validate the modified system of indicators. The indicators for three variables (Professional Career, Leadership and National and International Visibility) of Expert Qualification dimension
and Teaching for Expert Management dimension were modified. The obtained value for Alpha Cronbach Coefficient (0.9274) proved the internal consistency of applied instrument. The values
for medians and interquartil ranks concluded the consensus of the participants. The fulfilled modifications allowed applying the system of indicators to the valuation of teaching and research
experts who works in the departments responsible for nuclear specialties in the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Technologies, Higher Institute of Technologies and Applied Sciences of
the Havana University. An average development from the point of view their qualifications and their management were obtained.

The aim of the study reported in this paper was to undertake a study about the influence of technology in the form of products that incorporate technology, using a standard methodology developed for this purpose. Examples of products and their shape changes over time were analyzed, to understand the extent to which these changes are consequences of the developments in technology. A review of the evolution of form, taking into account the technology of a selected range of consumer products that incorporate technology, with the aim of deconstructing archetypes that are fixed and propose new ideas was accomplished. In particular, a range of technologies that are foreseen for the future were considered. Selecting specific cases of products, from a historical perspective, one can see what have been the determinants of their shape, which led to the establishment of their archetypal form. A comparative methodology was developed, in order to "decode" the role of technology as a determinant of the shape of products. Understanding the importance of technology as a modeling influence for products' form, what role this has in the consumer society, and what is its responsibility as a major element in the deconstruction of the archetypes of form is intended in this study. The influence of technology in the transformation of products is demonstrated, considering three distinct types of alterations caused by changes in technology, in a tripartite view, which focuses on: product changes, in the cases where technological change leads to a radical change of product form; product change, if technological change is not reflected so much in the change of form, but rather in the performance and the yield of the product; and, ultimately, change in the product in the event of technological change leading to a deconstruction of the product as an object. It is emphasized that the product as a physical object may disappear or may be dissolved in the environment or the architecture, with the advent of emerging technologies and their new capabilities that will certainly cause changes in the shape of products.
Document Type: Proceedings Paper 
Language: English 
Author Keywords: Change of form; Evolutionary perspective; Deconstruction of archetypes; Future concepts; Emerging technologies; Comparison methodology

Global opportunities in the auto industry have resulted in increases in production outside North America. This paper reports the results of a study in which a group of small automotive suppliers assessed the appropriateness of global entry strategies, and evaluated the degree of asset specificity and risks

Asthma is a critical disease that causes airway inflammation and recurrent episodes and has caused many patients to require high doses of inhaled corticosteroids. Informatics is helping patients and physicians to monitor the use of medications and also protect against misuse and insistent exacerbations. Informatics has also been used in discovering reactions to certain medications which help to improve asthmatic treatment prescriptions.

Abstract-Technology foresight deals with the necessity of anticipating the future to better adapt to new situations regarding innovations that directly affect business world. One widely spread methodology in technology foresight is Godet's Scenario Method, which includes a module (MICMAC) performing the so-called structural analysis. The goal of the structural analysis is to identify the most important variables in a system. To this end, it makes use of an influence matrix that describes the relations between the variables. This information is usually given by experts based on their own knowledge and experience. However, some of the information of the influence matrix may contain errors due to the subjective nature of the criteria and opinions of the experts. Here we propose a new analysis that follows a multi-objective approach and allows to measure the sensibility of the model versus possible errors at the input. The well-known NSGA-II algorithm has been used as a solver. The...

Municipal waste management (MWM) in Malaysia has become a challenging task in recent years due to population growth, industrialisation and an increase in quantity and variation in the types of waste generated. Suitable disposal sites are becoming scarce and most of the existing ones are nearly coming towards the end of its useful life. The government has promoted recycling programmes through various campaigns however little has been achieved due to the lack of participation and lukewarm attitudes of the public in Malaysia. Therefore, this paper is written to provide an overview and analysis of the policies, challenges and strategies to issues related to MWM in Malaysia.

This is an earlier and substantially lengthier version of the European Commission’s Green Paper on Ports and Maritime Infrastructure, which I had prepared as a member of Commissioner Neil Kinnock’s wise men group.

The Green Paper has often been described as the most influential port policy document ever produced by the EC. The current version does not in any way commit the European Commission and interested readers are advised to refer to the final version of the Green Paper as published by the EC.

The present work requires careful and persistent reading so that the reader bypasses the necessary bureaucratic 'superficiality' and identifies my core arguments which, I am happy to say, have not changed to the slightest in the 15 years since its publication. Many of these arguments had been described as ‘politically dangerous’ and, consequently, did not find their way into the Green Paper. I quote one of them in p.7 (emphasis added):

…The Commission’s White Paper on the future development of the common transport policy  laid down a new vision for transport policy, following the principle of sustainable mobility; i.e. a strategy that acknowledges the need for a more balanced transport system that would fulfil its economic and social role while, at the same time, containing its effects on the environment. The overall objective of such an approach, as clearly described by the European Parliament , is to …promote sustainable, efficient transport systems which meet the economic, social, environmental and safety needs of European citizens; help reduce regional disparities; and enable European business to compete effectively in world markets… Again, the ‘challenge’ is apparent: a more balanced  pan-European transport system with the above objectives is in stark contrast with hub-porting; concentration of traffic to selected ports; longer distances; and consequent transport externalities. It is thus increasingly felt that the European Commission needs to depart from its all-pleasing ‘statements’ and make hard-nosed decisions in order to effectuate its cohesion and regional development objectives which are the overarching ones…(unquote).

A closing note of caution on my use of the word 'superficiality': With remarkable consistency, European institutions involved in the maritime sector have been focusing all along on issues such as safety and environmental protection; issues which, among others, have allowed the proliferation of various monopolies in the port sector. I believe this has not happened accidentally. I believe instead that the focus on the ‘secondary’ has obscured and diverted attention from the ‘primary’, which comprises the ‘politically sensitive’ issues of port pricing; infrastructure financing; state aids; transparency of port accounts; and, finally, a European ‘port governance’ model.

Abstract. The paper presents a way to overcome the shortcomings of traditional learning by enforcing collaboration between students and introducing self-assessment as part of the process of final grade formation. Treating collaboration and self-assessment as two elements of a modern learning process that are very closely bounded together, the authors argue that these elements should by no means replace the traditional (ex-cathedra) way of learning but rather extend it. A specifically designed computer science course is presented as an illustration of how the introduction of self-assessment combined with teacher evaluation can encourage collaboration between students. The benefits and drawbacks of this method are discussed.

Ethernet technology made significant progress in recent years ushering a new era of terabit transport. It has now achieved 400GbE per link speed and leaping towards 800GbE. Such trend will shape the future of networks allowing hyperscale data centers, cloud and service providers to offer more service and less worry on bandwidth. IT would be interesting to know what future holds. Read this article to learn more about 400GbE and the possibilities it brings.

Abstract— The management of tasks is an essential requirement in most real-time and embedded systems, but invariably leads to unwanted CPU overheads. This paper is concerned with task management in real-time and embedded systems employing the Earliest Deadline First ( ...