International conference on software engineering and knowledge engineering: Session chair

The Thirtieth International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE 2018) will be held at the Hotel Pullman, San Francisco Bay, USA, from July 1 to July 3, 2018. SEKE2018 will also be dedicated in memory of Professor Lofti Zadeh, a great scholar, pioneer and leader in fuzzy sets theory and soft computing. The conference aims at bringing together experts in software engineering and knowledge engineering to discuss on relevant results in either software engineering or knowledge engineering or both. Special emphasis will be put on the transference of methods between both domains. The theme this year is soft computing in software engineering & knowledge engineering. Submission of papers and demos are both welcome

Learning and sharing in a Chinese high-technology cluster: A study of inter-firm and intra-firm knowledge flows between R&D employees

learning, China, knowledge work, knowledge transfer

Investigation of industry perceptions of building information modeling (BIM)-based estimating practices in the U.S. and China

While the Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology has been seen as next revolutionary technology for the Architectural, Engineering, Construction and Facility Management (AEC/FM) fields, the AEC/FM industry does not implement BIM technology on the cost estimating practices as widely as expected. The efficiency improvement on cost estimating with BIM could be accomplished through automating quantity take-offs, closely collaborating design with the estimating professionals and so on. This research explores the advantages and barriers of imbedding BIM technology into the estimating practices which enables the industry deepen their understandings on BIM-based cost estimation method. This study also compares the industry perceptions of BIM and BIM estimates technology between the U.S. and China. By conducting the comparison between these two countries, differences on their respective AEC/FM organization business model, BIM experience, BIM estimates experience, BIM applications and software are identified. It is the author\u27s intent to provide the Chinese building professionals with new insights into the future strategies of the BIM development in China by learning from the U.S. BIM experience

Perceptions of Intellectual Property:A Review

In “The right to good ideas: patents and the poor”, The Economist depicts two driving forces in the contemporary discourse on IP and globalization. The one is interested in advancing the knowledge economy, an approach based on the belief that knowledge is the driving factor behind economic growth. The other resides on a belief that IP is a major means to advance the process of globalization. While the former is strongly motivated by new economic growth theory, as for example advanced by Stanford professor Paul Romer, the latter is based on typical anti-globalization arguments, such as for example the position that the IP system helps multinational companies to build up monopolies to the detriment of the poor, drives small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and local business in developing countries out of business and increases prices for consumer products, be they pharmaceuticals or software. The purpose of this review is to help understand the current discourse on intellectual property, to grasp underlying themes, assumptions and connotations associated with the term “IP”, so as to identify paths leading to a more comprehensive understanding of IP and the opportunities and pitfalls it may provide

OSS integration issues and community support: an integrator perspective

The reuse and integration of Open Source Software (OSS) components provided by OSS communities is becoming an economical and strategic need for today’s organizations. The integration of OSS components provides many benefits, but also risks and challenges. One of the most important risks is the lack of effective and timely OSS community support for dealing with possible integration problems. For gaining an understanding of the common problems that organizations face when integrating OSS components, and the role played by OSS communities, we performed an exploratory study on 25 OSS integration projects from different European organizations. The results show that the main way of reducing integration problems was the use of OSS components from well-established communities; therefore very few integration problems were identified. In most of the cases these problems were successfully solved with the support from the OSS community and/or colleagues. In addition, contrary to the common belief that understanding code from someone else is a hard and undesirable task, some integrators consider OSS code even more understandable than their own code.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Effects of innovation types on firm performance

Innovation is broadly seen as an essential component of competitiveness, embedded in the organizational structures, processes, products, and services within a firm. The objective of this paper is to explore the effects of the organizational, process, product, and marketing innovations on the different aspects of firm performance, including innovative, production, market, and financial performances, based on an empirical study covering 184 manufacturing firms in Turkey. A theoretical framework is empirically tested identifying the relationships amid innovations and firm performance through an integrated innovation-performance analysis. The results reveal the positive effects of innovations on firm performance in manufacturing industries

Effects of innovation types on firm performance

Innovation is broadly seen as an essential component of competitiveness, embedded in the organizational structures, processes, products, and services within a firm. The objective of this paper is to explore the effects of the organizational, process, product, and marketing innovations on the different aspects of firm performance, including innovative, production, market, and financial performances, based on an empirical study covering 184 manufacturing firms in Turkey. A theoretical framework is empirically tested identifying the relationships amid innovations and firm performance through an integrated innovation-performance analysis. The results reveal the positive effects of innovations on firm performance in manufacturing industries

Trade-offs between Shopping Bags Made of Non-degradable Plastics and Other Materials, Using Latent Class Analysis: The Case of Tianjin, China

white pollution, plastic bag ban, conjoint choice experiment, willingness to pay, latent class analysis, China, degradable plastics, cloth, paper, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q1,

Intellectual Property Rights and South-North Global Innovation Networks

This paper explores the role of IPR protection in the emergence of R&D linkages from newly emerging economies. Using data from a new survey on Chinese and Indian firms in the ICT sector, we find IPR protection to be key in the engagement of Southern firms in global innovation networks. A complementary exercise uses global bilateral patent data to investigate the location-specificity of IPR enforcement for this phenomenon. We find that a stringent IPR regime in the North (South) discourages (encourage) foreign patenting activities of firms in the South, suggesting that a global convergence of IPRs can stimulate Southern innovation.