How can SMEs benefit from big data? Challenges and a path forward

Big data is big news, and large companies in all sectors are making significant advances in their customer relations, product selection and development and consequent profitability through using this valuable commodity. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have proved themselves to be slow adopters of the new technology of big data analytics and are in danger of being left behind. In Europe, SMEs are a vital part of the economy, and the challenges they encounter need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. This paper identifies barriers to SME uptake of big data analytics and recognises their complex challenge to all stakeholders, including national and international policy makers, IT, business management and data science communities. The paper proposes a big data maturity model for SMEs as a first step towards an SME roadmap to data analytics. It considers the ‘state-of-the-art’ of IT with respect to usability and usefulness for SMEs and discusses how SMEs can overcome the barriers preventing them from adopting existing solutions. The paper then considers management perspectives and the role of maturity models in enhancing and structuring the adoption of data analytics in an organisation. The history of total quality management is reviewed to inform the core aspects of implanting a new paradigm. The paper concludes with recommendations to help SMEs develop their big data capability and enable them to continue as the engines of European industrial and business success. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

What do expected changes in U.S. job structure mean for states and workers in the Tenth District?

Public interest in the future structure of the U.S. labor market has been understandably high in recent years, for several reasons. Some types of manufacturing and service jobs are going offshore. The recovery in employment from the 2001 recession has been sluggish. And the quality of job creation has been called into question. Against this backdrop, policymakers, businesses, workers, and students in the Tenth Federal Reserve District are asking difficult questions about the future of jobs in their area. Will local industries increase or decrease employment in the years ahead? What types of workers will be in highest demand? Are future jobs in the area likely to be high paying? Wilkerson looks at the potential impact of expected changes in U.S. job structure on employment in the Tenth District. Specifically, he analyzes the latest national industrial and occupational employment projections made by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and discusses what the projections mean for states and workers in the region—both in terms of quantity and quality of job growth through 2012. He draws two primary conclusions from the data. First, except in Colorado, the current industrial structures of Tenth District states are less favorable for future job growth than in the nation, although in some cases only slightly so. Second, the prospects for high-quality job growth in several district states may be somewhat lower than in the nation. While high paying jobs are projected to grow faster than low paying jobs across the district, the industrial structures of Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming are not quite as conducive to growth in high paying jobs as in the country as a whole.Employment ; Labor market ; Federal Reserve District, 10th ; Job analysis

Alaska-Canada Rail Link Economic Benefits

Construction of the 1,740 km Alaska-Canada Rail Link (ACRL) between Fort Nelson, BC and Delta Junction, Alaska to join the North American rail system to the Alaska Railroad will result in tremendous economic benefits for Canada and the US. The ACRL will provide valuable additional east-west rail capacity and tidewater access to the Pacific, hugely benefitting not only the Yukon and Eastern Alaska regions, into which it will introduce rail transport for the first time, but throughout both countries. The economic benefits of ACRL construction are consistent with Canadian government’s desire to promote Northern development and comparable in significance to those of Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880’s and the St. Lawrence Seaway in the 1950’s. Construction of the ACRL alone will bring unprecedented economic stimulus to the region in terms of job creation, wages and income tax revenue over multiple years. Table 7-1 below summarizes the benefits from ACRL construction for the Yukon, BC and Canada as a whole. However, these estimates are conservative as they exclude benefits associated with pre-construction activities, railway operation post-construction, sales taxes and corporate taxes as well as all such benefits that will accrue to Alaska and the US

The competitiveness of cluster “Srednogorie med”: preconditions and limitations

Rozdział z: Functioning of the Local Production Systems in Central and Eastern European Countries and Siberia. Case Studies and Comparative Studies, ed. Mariusz E. Sokołowicz.In the environment of global competition, the role of clusters in creating national competitive advantage is rapidly increasing. One of the first and successfully developing clusters in Bulgaria, with a contribution to the economic development of the country, is mining cluster “Srednogorie Med.” Established on the regional industrial principle, the cluster, as a type of local production systems, brings together the efforts of the companies for the mining and processing of copper and gold-containing ores, located on the territory of Central Sredna Gora, the companies, serving industrial production and the municipalities on whose territory the companies operate. This paper aims mainly presenting the level of competitiveness of the local “Srednogorie Med” cluster with the usage of M. E. Porter’s diamond model as well as at outlining the preconditions and limitations for the creation of a competitive advantage for the cluster in its future development. The study is based on secondary information (periodicals and the Internet), as well as personal interviews with representatives of the cluster.Monograph financed under a contract of execution of the international scientific project within 7th Framework Programme of the European Union, co-financed by Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (title: “Functioning of the Local Production Systems in the Conditions of Economic Crisis (Comparative Analysis and Benchmarking for the EU and Beyond”)). Monografia sfinansowana w oparciu o umowę o wykonanie projektu między narodowego w ramach 7. Programu Ramowego UE, współfinansowanego ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego (tytuł projektu: „Funkcjonowanie lokalnych systemów produkcyjnych w warunkach kryzysu gospodarczego (analiza porównawcza i benchmarking w wybranych krajach UE oraz krajach trzecich”))

Trade in Energy Services - GATS and India

Energy plays a vital role in the development of any economy and given its unequal distribution trade in energy, especially fossil fuels, is an important component of international trade. In the past, due to its public good characteristics, energy-related services were mostly supplied by the government. With liberalization and globalization the sector underwent significant transformation. Many new services developed and large multinationals emerged which increased global trade in energy services. Energy services is now an important component of all trade agreements. In the above context, this paper examines Indias opportunities and constraints to trade in energy services within the GATS framework. The study found that India has the capability of exporting high-skilled manpower at competitive prices but is facing various market access, discriminatory and regulatory barriers in markets of export interest. With the entry of energy producing countries such as Saudi Arabia into the WTO, the Doha negotiations provide an important platform to offensively push for liberalization in this sector. India needs foreign investment, technical know-how and international best practices in energy. The country has progressively liberalized this sector and there are no major entry barriers. However, India has not been successful in attracting large foreign investment and technology. This is due to various domestic barriers which make it difficult to set up a competitive operation. The study lists the reform measures which will help the sector become globally competitive, protect the interests of consumers and meet the energy needs of society. Since this sector is sensitive and is closely monitored by governments across the world, government-to-government collaborations would ease the entry process for Indian companies in foreign markets, diversify our energy resource base and improve energy security.GATS, Energy, trade, India & the WTO

Japanese/English Cross-Language Information Retrieval: Exploration of Query Translation and Transliteration

Cross-language information retrieval (CLIR), where queries and documents are in different languages, has of late become one of the major topics within the information retrieval community. This paper proposes a Japanese/English CLIR system, where we combine a query translation and retrieval modules. We currently target the retrieval of technical documents, and therefore the performance of our system is highly dependent on the quality of the translation of technical terms. However, the technical term translation is still problematic in that technical terms are often compound words, and thus new terms are progressively created by combining existing base words. In addition, Japanese often represents loanwords based on its special phonogram. Consequently, existing dictionaries find it difficult to achieve sufficient coverage. To counter the first problem, we produce a Japanese/English dictionary for base words, and translate compound words on a word-by-word basis. We also use a probabilistic method to resolve translation ambiguity. For the second problem, we use a transliteration method, which corresponds words unlisted in the base word dictionary to their phonetic equivalents in the target language. We evaluate our system using a test collection for CLIR, and show that both the compound word translation and transliteration methods improve the system performance