How Sustainable are Benefits from Global Production Networks? Malaysia's Upgrading Prospects in the Electronics Industry

The paper introduces an operational definition of industrial upgrading (IU and documents the emergence of complex, multi-tier "networks of networks" which provide new opportunities for IU, but which also raise threshold requirements for participating in these networks. I highlight structural weaknesses of the Malaysian electronics industry that constrain its upgrading prospects; assess current policies that try to link cluster development and global network integration; discuss adjustments in linkages with global brand leaders (OEMs); and ask to what degree linkages with contract manufacturers (CMs) can broaden network benefits. The paper concludes, by exploring new opportunities for international knowledge sourcing that could complement Malaysia's linkages with GPNs. A completely revised and updated version has been published as: "Global Production Networks and Industrial Upgrading -Malaysia's Electronics Industry", in: J. Kidd and F.J. Richter, eds., Trust and Anti-Trust in Cross-Cultural Alliances, published for the World Economic Forum, Palgrave, London, 2003.

Federated Robust Embedded Systems: Concepts and Challenges

The development within the area of embedded systems (ESs) is moving rapidly, not least due to falling costs of computation and communication equipment. It is believed that increased communication opportunities will lead to the future ESs no longer being parts of isolated products, but rather parts of larger communities or federations of ESs, within which information is exchanged for the benefit of all participants. This vision is asserted by a number of interrelated research topics, such as the internet of things, cyber-physical systems, systems of systems, and multi-agent systems. In this work, the focus is primarily on ESs, with their specific real-time and safety requirements. While the vision of interconnected ESs is quite promising, it also brings great challenges to the development of future systems in an efficient, safe, and reliable way. In this work, a pre-study has been carried out in order to gain a better understanding about common concepts and challenges that naturally arise in federations of ESs. The work was organized around a series of workshops, with contributions from both academic participants and industrial partners with a strong experience in ES development. During the workshops, a portfolio of possible ES federation scenarios was collected, and a number of application examples were discussed more thoroughly on different abstraction levels, starting from screening the nature of interactions on the federation level and proceeding down to the implementation details within each ES. These discussions led to a better understanding of what can be expected in the future federated ESs. In this report, the discussed applications are summarized, together with their characteristics, challenges, and necessary solution elements, providing a ground for the future research within the area of communicating ESs

The Internet's Effects on Global Production Networks: Challenges and Opportunities for Managing in Developing Asia

Placing global production networks (GPN) on the Internet poses a fundamental challenge, but also creates new opportunities for managing in Developing Asia. Network flagships can now select best-performing suppliers on a global scale, increasing the pressure on Asian suppliers. But the transition form EDI to the Internet may also provide new opportunities for Asian suppliers, by reducing barriers to network entry, and by enhancing knowledge diffusion. A conceptual framework is introduced to assess how the Internet reshapes business organization and GPN. That framework is applied to one of the role models of managing in Asia, Taiwan's Acer Group. The paper highlights a vicious circle that must be broken to reap the benefits of the Internet: Asian firms must reduce a huge efficiency gap between manufacturing and the management of supporting digital information systems (DIS). The challenge is to embrace the Internet as flexible infrastructures that support not only information exchange, but also knowledge sharing, creation and utilization. The Internet facilities this task: it provides new opportunities for the outsourcing of mission-critical support services.

Integrated Border Management at the EU Level. CEPS Working Documents No. 227, 1 August 2005

In times marked by trends as diverse as economic globalisation, international migration as well as fear of terrorism and organised crime, the efficient handling of borders has become an issue of political priority, in the EU and across the world. Modern, economy-oriented states have to rely on a flourishing trade and offer a comfortable degree of security to their citizens. The formula commonly chosen in combining these two objectives is that of ‘integrated border management’, which represents the delicate attempt to marry security concerns with trade facilitation. If the implementation of this innovative approach is already proving to be a challenge to well-established nation states, it becomes a genuine balancing act for an incomplete federation such as the EU, with its sensitive mix of a single external border and 25 separate legal/administrative systems. This working paper seeks to illustrate the difficulties encountered by the EU and develop solutions that should firmly go into the direction of a coherent, communitarian approach in border management, such as that sketched out by the recent Council Regulation No. 2007/2004 establishing the European Border Agency known as FRONTEX

Identification of high-level functional/system requirements for future civil transports

In order to accommodate the rapid growth in commercial aviation throughout the remainder of this century, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is faced with a formidable challenge to upgrade and/or modernize the National Airspace System (NAS) without compromising safety or efficiency. A recurring theme in both the Aviation System Capital Investment Plan (CIP), which has replaced the NAS Plan, and the new FAA Plan for Research, Engineering, and Development (RE&D) rely on the application of new technologies and a greater use of automation. Identifying the high-level functional and system impacts of such modernization efforts on future civil transport operational requirements, particularly in terms of cockpit functionality and information transfer, was the primary objective of this project. The FAA planning documents for the NAS of the 2005 era and beyond were surveyed; major aircraft functional capabilities and system components required for such an operating environment were identified. A hierarchical structured analysis of the information processing and flows emanating from such functional/system components were conducted and the results documented in graphical form depicting the relationships between functions and systems

An autonomous satellite architecture integrating deliberative reasoning and behavioural intelligence

This paper describes a method for the design of autonomous spacecraft, based upon behavioral approaches to intelligent robotics. First, a number of previous spacecraft automation projects are reviewed. A methodology for the design of autonomous spacecraft is then presented, drawing upon both the European Space Agency technological center (ESTEC) automation and robotics methodology and the subsumption architecture for autonomous robots. A layered competency model for autonomous orbital spacecraft is proposed. A simple example of low level competencies and their interaction is presented in order to illustrate the methodology. Finally, the general principles adopted for the control hardware design of the AUSTRALIS-1 spacecraft are described. This system will provide an orbital experimental platform for spacecraft autonomy studies, supporting the exploration of different logical control models, different computational metaphors within the behavioral control framework, and different mappings from the logical control model to its physical implementation

The California Planet Survey IV: A Planet Orbiting the Giant Star HD 145934 and Updates to Seven Systems with Long-Period Planets

We present an update to seven stars with long-period planets or planetary candidates using new and archival radial velocities from Keck-HIRES and literature velocities from other telescopes. Our updated analysis better constrains orbital parameters for these planets, four of which are known multi-planet systems. HD 24040 b and HD 183263 c are super-Jupiters with circular orbits and periods longer than 8 yr. We present a previously unseen linear trend in the residuals of HD 66428 indicative on an additional planetary companion. We confirm that GJ 849 is a multi-planet system and find a good orbital solution for the c component: it is a $1 M_{\rm Jup}$ planet in a 15 yr orbit (the longest known for a planet orbiting an M dwarf). We update the HD 74156 double-planet system. We also announce the detection of HD 145934 b, a $2 M_{\rm Jup}$ planet in a 7.5 yr orbit around a giant star. Two of our stars, HD 187123 and HD 217107, at present host the only known examples of systems comprising a hot Jupiter and a planet with a well constrained period $> 5$ yr, and with no evidence of giant planets in between. Our enlargement and improvement of long-period planet parameters will aid future analysis of origins, diversity, and evolution of planetary systems.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Decibell: A novel approach to the ORM software in Java

DeciBell is an open source and free tool developed to tackle in a uniform and structured way the problem of Java and SQL cooperation (available at http://github.com/hampos/DeciBell). In DeciBell, Java classes are related to relational database entities automatically and in a transparent way as far as the background operations are concerned. So, on one hand, non-expert users can work on Java code exclusively while expert ones are able to focus on more algorithmic aspects of the problem they try to solve rather than be wasted with trivial database management issues. In contrast to the existing O.R.M. programs, DeciBell does not require any configuration files or composite query structures, but only a proper annotation of certain fields of the classes. This annotation is carried out by means of the Java Annotations which is a modern trend in Java programming. Among its supported facilities, DeciBell supports primary keys (single and multiple), foreign keys, constraints, one-to-one, one- to-many, and many-to-many relations and all these using pure Java predicates and no SQL or other Query Languages