A review of data visualization: opportunities in manufacturing sequence management.

Data visualization now benefits from developments in technologies that offer innovative ways of presenting complex data. Potentially these have widespread application in communicating the complex information domains typical of manufacturing sequence management environments for global enterprises. In this paper the authors review the visualization functionalities, techniques and applications reported in literature, map these to manufacturing sequence information presentation requirements and identify the opportunities available and likely development paths. Current leading-edge practice in dynamic updating and communication with suppliers is not being exploited in manufacturing sequence management; it could provide significant benefits to manufacturing business. In the context of global manufacturing operations and broad-based user communities with differing needs served by common data sets, tool functionality is generally ahead of user application

LEVERAGING SOCIAL NETWORK DATA FOR ANALYTICAL CRM STRATEGIES - THE INTRODUCTION OF SOCIAL BI

The skyrocketing trend for social media on the Internet greatly alters analytical Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to advance the conceptual design of Business Intelligence (BI) systems with data identified from social networks. We develop an integrated social network data model, based on an in-depth analysis of Facebook. The data model can inform the design of data warehouses in order to offer new opportunities for CRM analyses, leading to a more consistent and richer picture of customers? characteristics, needs, wants, and demands. Four major contributions are offered. First, Social CRM and Social BI are introduced as emerging fields of research. Second, we develop a conceptual data model to identify and systematize the data available on online social networks. Third, based on the identified data, we design a multidimensional data model as an early contribution to the conceptual design of Social BI systems and demonstrate its application by developing management reports in a retail scenario. Fourth, intellectual challenges for advancing Social CRM and Social BI are discussed

On Some Epistemological Problems of Software Engineering

The paper addresses some misconceptions of Software Engineering, requirements analysis and modelling in particular, due to underlying epistemological flaws., e.g. the believe that the system analyst\u27s task be simlar to that of a natural scientist\u27s. The fundamental issues, constitution of objects and signs, conceptualization and definability, are discussed. It comes out that the paradoxical situation of software engineering is having to formalize what cannot be formalized. This is reflected in the fuzzy notion of \u27model\u27 in general as well as in the epistemological presumptions of \u27object oriented modelling\u27 in particular. The paradigm of \u27objective modelling\u27 has to be replaced by a paradigm of \u27purposive description\u27 shifting the focus of Software Engineering research to non-formal methodologies

Monitoring feasibility studies : improvement of BI tools

At the beginning of the 21st century, the term Business Intelligence became a buzzword in the management world. Its importance has grown with the so-called Big Data, which arises from a digital world, implying, at the very least, the need to find patterns in the data and infer predictions. In a massive competitive period like today, information is one of the main sources of competitive advantage, turning the directors' focus to this discipline. BI is a technology-driven process that analyses data in order to transform it into useful insight (information) for decision-making. Although the literature about this subject is still reduced, its growing relevance in business is raising learning opportunities, which inherently stimulates interest in this matter for further research. This dissertation shows the restructuring of a report in Power BI of Polisport Plásticos, which objective was to improve the report in terms of data processing and data visualization. The methodology adopted was Action-Research structured in three designated cycles: Understand Data System Structure, Prepare Data and Report Design. The main findings of this research conclude that using other tools associated with Power BI, understanding that data preparation and report design are phases that depend on each other, and that a good DW structure are fundamental for the report’s efficiency.No início do século XXI, o termo Business Intelligence tornou-se um termo popular no mundo da gestão. A sua importância cresceu com o designado Big Data que resulta de um mundo mais digital implicando, no mínimo, a necessidade de encontrar padrões nos dados e de inferir previsões. Num período tão competitivo como o atual, a informação é uma das principais fontes de vantagem competitiva, ganhando a atenção dos diretores. BI é um processo alimentado pela tecnologia que analisa dados e os transforma em informação útil para a tomada de decisão. Embora a literatura sobre esse assunto ainda seja reduzida, a sua crescente relevância nos negócios está a aumentar as oportunidades de ensino, o que, por natureza, estimula o interesse por esse assunto para novas pesquisas. Esta dissertação mostra a reestruturação de um relatório em Power BI da Polisport Plásticos, cujo objetivo era melhorará-lo em termos de processamento e visualização de dados. A metodologia adotada foi a Investigação-Acção estruturada em três ciclos: Compreensão da Estrutura do Sistema de Dados, Preparação do Dados e Elaboração do Relatório. As principais descobertas desta pesquisa concluem que a utilização de outras ferramentas associadas ao Power BI, o entendimento que a preparação dos dados e o desenho do relatório são fases que dependem uma da outra, e que uma boa estrutura do Data Warehouse são fundamentais para a eficiência do relatório

Student engagement, practice architectures and phronesis in the student transitions and experiences project

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Student Transitions and Experiences (STEP) project, in which visual and creative research methodologies were used to enhance student engagement. Design/methodology/approach – The article provides an overview of three main strands within the field of student engagement practice, and explores the STEP project as an instance of the “critical-transformative” strand. The article draws on recent theorizations by Kemmis et al. of practice architectures and ecologies of practice to propose an understanding of the STEP project as a practice “niche”. Findings – In thinking through some implications of student engagement as a practice architecture, the article sheds analytical light on student engagement as a specific and complex form of contemporary education practice. The later part of the article focuses on a consideration of phronesis and praxis in specific instances from the STEP project. Working with concepts from Barad, the article develops a conceptualization of the STEP project as an intra-active, entangled situated and particularistic practice of phronesis-praxis. Originality/value – This article aims to contribute to the development of theoretical and empirical understandings of the field of student engagement. It does so by providing insights into a recent empirical study; by developing some new theorisations of student engagement; and by a detailed exploration of specific instances of student engagement practice.</p

Rethinking development interventions through the lens of decoloniality in sub-Saharan Africa : the case of global health

There has been much talk about decolonizing global health lately. The movement, which has arisen in various communities around the world, suggests an interesting critique of the Western dominant model of representations. Building upon the ‘decolonial thinking’ movement from the perspective of Francophone African philosophers, we comment on its potential for inspiring the field of global healthinterventions. Using existing literature and personal reflections, we reflect on two widely known illustrations of global health interventions implemented in sub-Saharan Africa – distribution of contraceptives and dissemination of Ebola virus prevention and treatment devices – featuring different temporal backdrops. We show how these solutions have most often targeted the superficial dimensions of global health problems, sidestepping the structures and mental models that shape the actions and reactions of African populations. Lastly, we question the ways through which the decolonial approach might indeed offer a credible positioning for rethinking global health interventions

Fractals in the Nervous System: conceptual Implications for Theoretical Neuroscience

This essay is presented with two principal objectives in mind: first, to document the prevalence of fractals at all levels of the nervous system, giving credence to the notion of their functional relevance; and second, to draw attention to the as yet still unresolved issues of the detailed relationships among power law scaling, self-similarity, and self-organized criticality. As regards criticality, I will document that it has become a pivotal reference point in Neurodynamics. Furthermore, I will emphasize the not yet fully appreciated significance of allometric control processes. For dynamic fractals, I will assemble reasons for attributing to them the capacity to adapt task execution to contextual changes across a range of scales. The final Section consists of general reflections on the implications of the reviewed data, and identifies what appear to be issues of fundamental importance for future research in the rapidly evolving topic of this review

Design Guidelines for High-Performance SCM Hierarchies

With emerging storage-class memory (SCM) nearing commercialization, there is evidence that it will deliver the much-anticipated high density and access latencies within only a few factors of DRAM. Nevertheless, the latency-sensitive nature of memory-resident services makes seamless integration of SCM in servers questionable. In this paper, we ask the question of how best to introduce SCM for such servers to improve overall performance/cost over existing DRAM-only architectures. We first show that even with the most optimistic latency projections for SCM, the higher memory access latency results in prohibitive performance degradation. However, we find that deployment of a modestly sized high-bandwidth 3D stacked DRAM cache makes the performance of an SCM-mostly memory system competitive. The high degree of spatial locality that memory-resident services exhibit not only simplifies the DRAM cache's design as page-based, but also enables the amortization of increased SCM access latencies and the mitigation of SCM's read/write latency disparity. We identify the set of memory hierarchy design parameters that plays a key role in the performance and cost of a memory system combining an SCM technology and a 3D stacked DRAM cache. We then introduce a methodology to drive provisioning for each of these design parameters under a target performance/cost goal. Finally, we use our methodology to derive concrete results for specific SCM technologies. With PCM as a case study, we show that a two bits/cell technology hits the performance/cost sweet spot, reducing the memory subsystem cost by 40% while keeping performance within 3% of the best performing DRAM-only system, whereas single-level and triple-level cell organizations are impractical for use as memory replacements.Comment: Published at MEMSYS'1

Evaluating kernels on Xeon Phi to accelerate Gysela application

This work describes the challenges presented by porting parts ofthe Gysela code to the Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor, as well as techniques used for optimization, vectorization and tuning that can be applied to other applications. We evaluate the performance of somegeneric micro-benchmark on Phi versus Intel Sandy Bridge. Several interpolation kernels useful for the Gysela application are analyzed and the performance are shown. Some memory-bound and compute-bound kernels are accelerated by a factor 2 on the Phi device compared to Sandy architecture. Nevertheless, it is hard, if not impossible, to reach a large fraction of the peek performance on the Phi device,especially for real-life applications as Gysela. A collateral benefit of this optimization and tuning work is that the execution time of Gysela (using 4D advections) has decreased on a standard architecture such as Intel Sandy Bridge.Comment: submitted to ESAIM proceedings for CEMRACS 2014 summer school version reviewe