A decision support framework for sustainable supply chain management

Sustainable Supply Chain Management has become a topic of increased importance within the research domain. There is a greater need than ever before for companies to be able to assess and make informed decisions about their sustainability in the Supply Chains. There is a proliferation of research about its understanding and how to implement it in practice. This is mainly since sustainability has been assessed from various disciplines, organizational industries and organizational functional silos . There is a lack of comprehension, unified definition and appropriate implementation of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM), leading to failure in decision making for sustainability implementation within supply chains. The proposed research identifies the research gaps through the novel application of Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA) to SSCM literature. In doing so, methods including Systematic Literature Review (SLR), Citation Network Analysis (CNA) and Citation Network Mapping of literature have been used to identify definitions, KPIs, barriers and drivers of SSCM from the literature. Furthermore, a combination of methods from Text Mining and Content Analysis has been used to identify KPIs, barriers and drivers from sustainability reports of top global manufacturing companies, to better understand the practices of organizations for SSCM. The consolidation of the findings from literature and practice led to the development of an SSCM Performance Evaluation Framework built on multiple methods. A 4-level hierarchical model has been developed by classifying the identified KPIs into Economic, Environment and Social as well as considering the key decision areas including tactical, strategic and operational. Furthermore, a rigorous data collection process was conducted among supply chain and sustainability managers from top global manufacturing firms and leading academicians in the field, assessing the identified SSCM KPIs. The collected data were analyzed through novel application of hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods, which includes Values Focused Thinking (VFT), Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchical Process (FAHP), Fuzzy Technique of Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (FTOPSIS) and Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM), for prioritizing and modelling of interdependencies, interactions and weightages among SSCM KPIs. The results obtained were subsequently used to develop a Decision Support System (DSS) that allows managers to evaluate their sustainability by identifying problem areas and yielding guidance on the KPIS and most important areas to focus on for SSCM implementation. The application of DSS has been demonstrated in the context of a case company. From a theoretical development point of view, a Tree perspective framework contributing to the ecological Theory of Sustainability has been proposed through the identification of the most influential organizational theories, and how they interrelate with each other. Overall, the proposed research provides a holistic perspective of SSCM that incorporates the various aspects of organizations, relevant organizational theories and perspectives of academics and practitioners together. The proposed DSS may act as a guiding tool for managers and practitioners for SSCM implementation in companies

Mathematical Fuzzy Logic in the Emerging Fields of Engineering, Finance, and Computer Sciences

Mathematical fuzzy logic (MFL) specifically targets many-valued logic and has significantly contributed to the logical foundations of fuzzy set theory (FST). It explores the computational and philosophical rationale behind the uncertainty due to imprecision in the backdrop of traditional mathematical logic. Since uncertainty is present in almost every real-world application, it is essential to develop novel approaches and tools for efficient processing. This book is the collection of the publications in the Special Issue “Mathematical Fuzzy Logic in the Emerging Fields of Engineering, Finance, and Computer Sciences”, which aims to cover theoretical and practical aspects of MFL and FST. Specifically, this book addresses several problems, such as:- Industrial optimization problems- Multi-criteria decision-making- Financial forecasting problems- Image processing- Educational data mining- Explainable artificial intelligence, etc

Políticas de Copyright de Publicações Científicas em Repositórios Institucionais: O Caso do INESC TEC

A progressiva transformação das práticas científicas, impulsionada pelo desenvolvimento das novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), têm possibilitado aumentar o acesso à informação, caminhando gradualmente para uma abertura do ciclo de pesquisa. Isto permitirá resolver a longo prazo uma adversidade que se tem colocado aos investigadores, que passa pela existência de barreiras que limitam as condições de acesso, sejam estas geográficas ou financeiras. Apesar da produção científica ser dominada, maioritariamente, por grandes editoras comerciais, estando sujeita às regras por estas impostas, o Movimento do Acesso Aberto cuja primeira declaração pública, a Declaração de Budapeste (BOAI), é de 2002, vem propor alterações significativas que beneficiam os autores e os leitores. Este Movimento vem a ganhar importância em Portugal desde 2003, com a constituição do primeiro repositório institucional a nível nacional. Os repositórios institucionais surgiram como uma ferramenta de divulgação da produção científica de uma instituição, com o intuito de permitir abrir aos resultados da investigação, quer antes da publicação e do próprio processo de arbitragem (preprint), quer depois (postprint), e, consequentemente, aumentar a visibilidade do trabalho desenvolvido por um investigador e a respetiva instituição. O estudo apresentado, que passou por uma análise das políticas de copyright das publicações científicas mais relevantes do INESC TEC, permitiu não só perceber que as editoras adotam cada vez mais políticas que possibilitam o auto-arquivo das publicações em repositórios institucionais, como também que existe todo um trabalho de sensibilização a percorrer, não só para os investigadores, como para a instituição e toda a sociedade. A produção de um conjunto de recomendações, que passam pela implementação de uma política institucional que incentive o auto-arquivo das publicações desenvolvidas no âmbito institucional no repositório, serve como mote para uma maior valorização da produção científica do INESC TEC.The progressive transformation of scientific practices, driven by the development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which made it possible to increase access to information, gradually moving towards an opening of the research cycle. This opening makes it possible to resolve, in the long term, the adversity that has been placed on researchers, which involves the existence of barriers that limit access conditions, whether geographical or financial. Although large commercial publishers predominantly dominate scientific production and subject it to the rules imposed by them, the Open Access movement whose first public declaration, the Budapest Declaration (BOAI), was in 2002, proposes significant changes that benefit the authors and the readers. This Movement has gained importance in Portugal since 2003, with the constitution of the first institutional repository at the national level. Institutional repositories have emerged as a tool for disseminating the scientific production of an institution to open the results of the research, both before publication and the preprint process and postprint, increase the visibility of work done by an investigator and his or her institution. The present study, which underwent an analysis of the copyright policies of INESC TEC most relevant scientific publications, allowed not only to realize that publishers are increasingly adopting policies that make it possible to self-archive publications in institutional repositories, all the work of raising awareness, not only for researchers but also for the institution and the whole society. The production of a set of recommendations, which go through the implementation of an institutional policy that encourages the self-archiving of the publications developed in the institutional scope in the repository, serves as a motto for a greater appreciation of the scientific production of INESC TEC

EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES FOR DEVELOPMENT HIGH-POWER AUDIO SPEAKER DEVICES PERFORMANCE USING PERMANENT NdFeB MAGNETS SPECIAL TECHNOLOGY

In this paper the authors shows the research made for improving high-power audio speaker devices performance using permanent NdFeB magnets special technology. Magnetic losses inside these audio devices are due to mechanical system frictions and to thermal effect of Joules eddy currents. In this regard, by special technology, were made conical surfaces at top plate and center pin. Analysing results obtained by modelling the magnetic circuit finite element method using electronic software package,was measured increase efficiency by over 10 %, from 1,136T to13T