AGENT-BASED NEGOTIATION PLATFORM IN COLLABORATIVE NETWORKED ENVIRONMENT

This paper proposes an agent-based platform to model and support parallel and concurrent negotiations among organizations acting in the same industrial market. The underlying complexity is to model the dynamic environment where multi-attribute and multi-participant negotiations are racing over a set of heterogeneous resources. The metaphor Interaction Abstract Machines (IAMs) is used to model the parallelism and the non-deterministic aspects of the negotiation processes that occur in Collaborative Networked Environment

A research study on Hong Kong's building services engineering profession: a review of the building services engineering profession in the United Kingdom

A review of the building services engineering profession in the United Kingdom is considered in this document. It provides supporting information for a comprehensive study into the profession in Hong Kong which is being conducted by Hong Kong Polytechnic University on behalf of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers. The overall aim of the work is to investigate mechanisms for raising the profile of building services engineers in Hong Kong

Proceedings of RSEEM 2006 : 13th Research Symposium on Emerging Electronic Markets

Electronic markets have been a prominent topic of research for the past decade. Moreover, we have seen the rise but also the disappearance of many electronic marketplaces in practice. Today, electronic markets are a firm component of inter-organisational exchanges and can be observed in many branches. The Research Symposium on Emerging Electronic Markets is an annual conference bringing together researchers working on various topics concerning electronic markets in research and practice. The focus theme of the13th Research Symposium on Emerging Electronic Markets (RSEEM 2006) was ?Evolution in Electronic Markets?. Looking back at more than 10 years of research activities in electronic markets, the evolution can be well observed. While electronic commerce activities were based largely on catalogue-based shopping, there are now many examples that go beyond pure catalogues. For example, dynamic and flexible electronic transactions such as electronic negotiations and electronic auctions are enabled. Negotiations and auctions are the basis for inter-organisational trade exchanges about services as well as products. Mass customisation opens up new opportunities for electronic markets. Multichannel electronic commerce represents today?s various requirements posed on information and communication technology as well as on organisational structures. In recent years, service-oriented architectures of electronic markets have enabled ICT infrastructures for supporting flexible e-commerce and e-market solutions. RSEEM 2006 was held at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany in September 2006. The proceedings show a variety of approaches and include the selected 8 research papers. The contributions cover the focus theme through conceptual models and systems design, application scenarios as well as evaluation research approaches

The Impact of Digital Technology on Economic Growth and Productivity, and its Implications for Employment and Equality: An Evidence Review

As digital technology has begun to ‘eat the world’ it has also influenced the way that humans interact and transact with each other. Thus, it has inevitably had an effect on global, regional, national and local economies. This Evidence Report reviews the literature assessing the economic impact of digital technologies – namely information communication technology (ICT) – on economies and people. In terms of the economic effects of digital technology on economies, this literature review summarises its relationship with economic growth and productivity. Although increases in ICT infrastructure/equipment investment and increased ICT adoption tend to be strongly correlated with economic growth and productivity, causality is yet to be resolved, and the potential for endogenous, simultaneous and reverse causality remains. In other words, there is still the possibility that the economic impacts of the internet are caused by a third variable, that the economic impacts lead to internet adaption at the same time that internet adaption leads to economic impacts, and that it is economic growth that causes internet adaption rather than vice versa. Furthermore, the correlations tend to be highly heterogeneous – different across space and time – suggesting that the relationship is not always given. The review also summarises the literature concerning the effects of digital technology on employment and inequality.UK Department for International Developmen

The space, sociality and art worlds of creative clusters : two case studies in Shanghai

The notion of creative cluster has been imported to China and endorsed in the official cultural policies in the recent years. Despite the overwhelming practice of creative clusters designation in China, especially capital cities, relatively little has been known about how it works in China and in what ways it produces creativity. Based on a comparative study of two creative clusters in Shanghai, Tianzifang and M50, using Henry Lefebvre's theoretical framework on the production of space as the main thread, complimented by other theories including Pierre Bourdieu on capital, habitus and field, and Becker on art worlds, this thesis investigated the production process of creative clusters in China context, the various management models of creative clusters and their effects on the creativity production, and the reasons for different performance of creativity in the two clusters. This thesis suggested that the production of creative clusters in China not only involving the production of physical space, but also the mental and social space. Creative clusters in China were acted on by policy, represented the party ideology and became the representation of political performance of local authority. Meanwhile, new social space for artists has been formed in the clusters. Concerning the various strategies of production, each cluster presented a different performance on delivering perceived creativity. TZF has adopted a government dominated model, and has developed tourism as well. This has been successful in fostering commercial environment by allowing the cultural and commercial functions to co-exist easily, but also has led to the capitalization of space and there seemed to be less evidence of creativity. M50 has to date been commercially managed with an enterprise model. It has been successful in cultivating the creative milieu through managing the ratio of different creative organizations in the cluster and has shown more ability in producing creativity