Implementing inter-organisational information systems for the integration of construction supply chains

Two trends are currently driving the need for supply chain firms to form closely integrated relationships: collaboration and digitisation. One of the ways to achieve digitisation of supply chain operations is to implement Inter-Organisational Information Systems (IOIS) with selected supply chain partners for a much more efficient, streamlined and orchestrated supply chain operations. Whilst IOIS can be implemented to support various cross-functional business processes (ranging from operational information exchange to pursuing strategic initiatives such as sharing ideas, identifying new market opportunities, and pursing a continuous improvement approach), in the context of this thesis, the purpose of IOIS implementation is to facilitate the inter-firm procurement-related operations with downstream supply chain firms. The study undertaken in this research project was initiated in response to an industry requirement to investigate the implementation of IOIS against a backdrop of improved Supply Chain Management and integration practices by large contractor organisations. A case study research strategy was adopted to investigate the IOIS project related, IOIS (system) related issues encountered in ex-ante and ex-post implementation stages of the IOIS. The study concludes that it is the non-technical factors that are critical to the successful delivery of IOIS projects and provides a guideline on IOIS implementation by large contractor organisations. The findings of this research project have been published in a number of peer-reviewed papers

MODALIZAÇÃO EM DATASHEETS: USANDO A LINGUÍSTICA DE CORPUS NO AUXÍLIO AO DESENVOLVIMENTO DE AULAS COM FOCO EM HABILIDADES DE LEITURA EM INGLÊS DE ALUNOS DE EDUCAÇÃO SUPERIOR

Datasheets são documentos em inglês que devem ser lidos por engenheiros, eletricistas e técnicos que lidam com componentes elétricos. Os alunos que buscam formação nestas áreas nem sempre apresentam facilidade de ler estes documentos em inglês. Este estudo apresenta uma investigação de como a modalidade é caracterizada nesses documentos sob uma Abordagem Sistêmico- Funcional, utilizando a Linguística de Corpus como metodologia. Esta invstigação visa promover um auxílio aos professores de cursos de níveis superiores que planejam suas aulas de Inglês para Fins Específicos com o suporta da Linguística de Corpus. Os pesquisadores reuniram 40 datasheets de 10 componentes elétricos diferentes, totalizando 74660 tokens. As ferramentas do Sketch Engine foram usadas para pesquisar o corpus. Os resultados apontam para verbos modais que expressam as modalizações esperadas de aviso e instrução; mas também apresentam linguagem persuasiva por meio de modalizações de possibilidade e volição. Os resultados servem como argumento suficiente para os professores usarem a Linguística de Corpus para ajudar os aprendizes de Inglês para Fins Específicos em contextos de educação superior a ler os datasheets com mais eficiência.DOI: https://doi.org/10.47295/mren.v10i8.382

Proceedings of the Workshop on the Reuse of Web based Information

The proceedings are currently available online at: http://www-rocq.inria.fr/~vercoust/REUSE/WWW7-reuse.html where individual papers can be downloaded. However, this URL must not be regarded as permanent.These are the Proceeding of theWorkshop on the Reuse of Web Information that was held in conjunction with the Seventh International World Wide Web Conference, Brisbane, 14 April 19998

PROFILING - CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS

Profiling is an approach to put a label or a set of labels on a subject, considering the characteristics of this subject. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines profiling as: “recording and analysis of a person’s psychological and behavioral characteristics, so as to assess or predict his/her capabilities in a certain sphere or to assist in identifying a particular subgroup of people”. This research extends this definition towards things demonstrating that many methods used for profiling of people may be applied for a different type of subjects, namely things. The goal of this research concerns proposing methods for discovery of profiles of users and things with application of Data Science methods. The profiles are utilized in vertical and 2 horizontal scenarios and concern such domains as smart grid and telecommunication (vertical scenarios), and support provided both for the needs of authorization and personalization (horizontal usage).:The thesis consists of eight chapters including an introduction and a summary. First chapter describes motivation for work that was carried out for the last 8 years together with discussion on its importance both for research and business practice. The motivation for this work is much broader and emerges also from business importance of profiling and personalization. The introduction summarizes major research directions, provides research questions, goals and supplementary objectives addressed in the thesis. Research methodology is also described, showing impact of methodological aspects on the work undertaken. Chapter 2 provides introduction to the notion of profiling. The definition of profiling is introduced. Here, also a relation of a user profile to an identity is discussed. The papers included in this chapter show not only how broadly a profile may be understood, but also how a profile may be constructed considering different data sources. Profiling methods are introduced in Chapter 3. This chapter refers to the notion of a profile developed using the BFI-44 personality test and outcomes of a survey related to color preferences of people with a specific personality. Moreover, insights into profiling of relations between people are provided, with a focus on quality of a relation emerging from contacts between two entities. Chapters from 4 to 7 present different scenarios that benefit from application of profiling methods. Chapter 4 starts with introducing the notion of a public utility company that in the thesis is discussed using examples from smart grid and telecommunication. Then, in chapter 4 follows a description of research results regarding profiling for the smart grid, focusing on a profile of a prosumer and forecasting demand and production of the electric energy in the smart grid what can be influenced e.g. by weather or profiles of appliances. Chapter 5 presents application of profiling techniques in the field of telecommunication. Besides presenting profiling methods based on telecommunication data, in particular on Call Detail Records, also scenarios and issues related to privacy and trust are addressed. Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 target at horizontal applications of profiling that may be of benefit for multiple domains. Chapter 6 concerns profiling for authentication using un-typical data sources such as Call Detail Records or data from a mobile phone describing the user behavior. Besides proposing methods, also limitations are discussed. In addition, as a side research effect a methodology for evaluation of authentication methods is proposed. Chapter 7 concerns personalization and consists of two diverse parts. Firstly, behavioral profiles to change interface and behavior of the system are proposed and applied. The performance of solutions personalizing content either locally or on the server is studied. Then, profiles of customers of shopping centers are created based on paths identified using Call Detail Records. The analysis demonstrates that the data that is collected for one purpose, may significantly influence other business scenarios. Chapter 8 summarizes the research results achieved by the author of this document. It presents contribution over state of the art as well as some insights into the future work planned

Information Flow to Support Front End Planning

Previous research has demonstrated the value of front end planning as it impacts project performance. This dissertation summarizes the findings of a research project which examined ways to improve information flow through the front end planning process. The front end planning process was carefully diagrammed as consisting of 33 distinct information flow activities, each with its own information flow entities and interactions. Fifty-one questionnaire survey forms were analyzed to obtain data for the 33 information flow activities that included activity duration, resources expended, and other supplemental insights such as the extent of information availability. The 51 projects were then grouped into successful and less successful categories based on several criteria to determine if the two groups had any significant differences in how they executed front end planning. An analysis of the data concluded that successful projects often spent more time and utilized more resources on the front end planning process. An additional product of the research provided the information requirements for each activity. Information flow tables were also created for each activity. This dissertation provides general recommendations and insights for stimulating proactive actions during the front end planning process, each designed to improve the flow of information and increase the likelihood of project success

1998 NASA-ASEE-Stanford Summer Faculty Fellowship Program

This report presents the essential features and highlights of the 1998 Summer Faculty Fellowship Program at Ames Research Center and Dryden Flight Research Center in a comprehensive and concise form. Summary reports describing the fellows' technical accomplishments are enclosed in the attached technical report. The proposal for the 1999 NASA-ASEE-Stanford Summer Faculty Fellowship Program is being submitted under separate cover. Of the 31 participating fellows, 27 were at Ames and 4 were at Dryden. The Program's central feature is the active participation by each fellow in one of the key technical activities currently under way at either the NASA Ames Research Center or the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. The research topic is carefully chosen in advance to satisfy the criteria of: (1) importance to NASA, (2) high technical level, and (3) a good match to the interests, ability, and experience of the fellow, with the implied possibility of NASA-supported follow-on work at the fellow's home institution. Other features of the Summer Faculty Fellowship Program include participation by the fellows in workshops and seminars at Stanford, the Ames Research Center, and other off-site locations. These enrichment programs take place either directly or remotely, via the Stanford Center for Professional Development, and also involve specific interactions between fellows and Stanford faculty on technical and other academic subjects. A few, brief remarks are in order to summarize the fellows' opinions of the summer program. It is noteworthy that 90% of the fellows gave the NASA-Ames/Dryden- Stanford program an "excellent" rating and the remaining 10%, "good." Also, 100% would recommend the program to their colleagues as an effective means of furthering their professional development as teachers and researchers. Last, but not least, 87% of the fellows stated that a continuing research relationship with their NASA colleagues' organization probably would be maintained. Therefore, the NASA-ASEE- Ames/Dryden-Stanford Program has met its goals very well and every effort will be made to continue to do so in the future

Assessing the peering evolution in the AFRINIC region

The poor quality of Internet access appears as an obstacle in many African countries for their development. Many organizations aim at assisting African ISP providers and universities to solve this problem. So far, few previous studies have targeted the African continent. The purpose of this project is to complement those studies by learning from historical routing data the peering habits among local ISPs. By considering this routing data covering the last decade we compute diverse statistics and analyze the growth of involved African Internet Exchange Platforms. Our results show that almost all the prefixes appear since their allocation date and most of them have appeared on 2015 as the year last of appearance. Moreover, the most frequent prefixes come from South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt. Also, the IXPs mostly used for peering (JINX and CINX according to our dataset) have more reallocated prefixes than the rest of the IXPs. In addition, the newest IXPs are TunIXP, SIxP, and DINX. Hence, they are still growing, whereas the IXPs who have been peering the earliest (JINX and KIXP) show a drop in the evolution. Such findings are essential for taking suitable decisions aiming at empowering the Internet underlying structure knowledge in the region. They can easily help ISPs to choose at which IXP to peer next, or be used by the stakeholders to evaluate the growth of their IXP in comparison with others. Moreover, one can determine as regional IXPs those at which we discovered most prefixes and origin ASes connected to and boost them.Ingeniería en Tecnologías de Telecomunicació