Economic and Business Responses to the Pressures of Commoditization

This paper examines the pressures of commoditization will continue to exert itself on companies and managers everywhere: the increasing impact of demographic change; the requirement to maintain a keen eye on costs in order to compete effectively within the global market; the continued advance of technology; the ability to standardize processes and eliminate major inefficiencies; the pressure to outsource and offshore business activities in order to exploit the cost advantages of cheaper labour and the opportunity for your competition to attack your markets and replicate your products and services more freely.Tackling commoditization in a fragmented or short-termist way will not allow you to understand its effects and nor will it provide the solid platform required to build an effective response. So when it comes to considering the potential impacts of commoditization you need to ask yourself the following two questions: 1. Can all or part of our business become commoditized? It is easy to believe that you are immune to the effects of commoditization and that you don’t need to respond to something that may not even be on your horizon. When responding to this question the best approach is to start from the position that everything you do is capable of becoming commoditized if not now, then certainly at some point in the future. Of course you may find that not everything can be commoditized, but it is far better to come to this conclusion after completing a thorough analysis of your business than making assumptions based upon a limited perspective or worse still, gut feel 2. How should we respond to the threat of commoditization? In particular should we embrace it or avoid it? This is a crucial question to answer once you have understood the threats and opportunities commoditization poses to the organization. As with any strategic decision it is likely to have significant operational implications. In some cases you may find that you have little alternative but to become more commoditized yourself, whilst in others you may be able to adopt a more flexible approach. When considering the response, you will need to think about such things as: • How can we insulate ourselves from the threat of commoditization? • Given the choice what parts of our business should we allow to become commoditized? • Where and in which markets should we innovate as a way of avoiding the commoditization trap? • Where should we target our investments – with our customers, on our back office processes, in research and development, on acquisitions or all of the above?Commoditization, Offshoring, Talent, Technology, Competition, Inequality

Evangelical Friend, Sept./Oct., Nov./Dec. 1993 (Vol. 27, No. 1 & 2)

A Nature Nudge. By Gary K. Fawver, page 2Finding new ways to be present to God\u27s presence Using Sports as an Evangelistic Tool. By Greg Linville, page 6 If you build it - they will come. Listening for the Trumpet. By Walt Everly, page 10When Christmas comes to life Humanizing the Holy. By Darlene R. Graves, page 12Imagination and stories - ways to get inside the Bible How in the World Do We Tithe? By Betty M. Hockett, page 14Even chickens and rice become gifts to God. Regular FeaturesSpeaking the Truth, 4To the Point, 7Friends Read, 8Friends Write, 9Ponderings and Bustlings, 11A Certain Shaft of Light, 16What About Our Friends? 18https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/nwym_evangelical_friend/1258/thumbnail.jp

Flying the Friendly Skies May Not be so Friendly in Outer Space: International and Domestic Law Leaves United States’ Citizen Space Tourists without a Remedy for Injury Caused by Government Space Debris

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we would like to welcome you to the moon. Please keep your seat belt fastened until the pilot completely stops at the gate. If this is your final destination, please collect your bags at baggage claim D. If you are headed on to Mars, your bags will be checked through to your final destination.”\ud \ud These words may sound funny now, but the possibility of them becoming a reality is not as far-fetched as it might seem. On September 18, 2006, Anousheh Ansari, a United States citizen of Iranian origin, became the fourth space tourist and the first female civilian to enter outer space.\ud \ud 1 She also became the first astronaut to keep a space blog of her experiences to which readers could post a response.2 Shortly before Ms. Ansari’s adventure, on October 1, 2005, Gregory Olsen, scientist and entrepreneur, was the third paying civilian space tourist, and took flight on a Russian shuttle.3 Although his trip cost $20 million,4 it is not unforeseeable that ordinary citizens will soon be able to take a short trip around the moon or visit a space resort. It has been estimated that space tourism has the potential to generate$10 billion to $20 billion in income in the next few decades.5 Counting on that projection, Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson (the well-known billionaire adventurer6), recently reached an agreement with the State of New Mexico to build a space port on state land.7 Moreover, recent batches of space vehicle competitions and exhibits have piqued greater interest in space tourism for adventurers, scientists, travel agents and government officials alike

At Issue

In this installment of At Issue, two of CiSE\u27s editorial board members describe the magazine\u27s current and future Web presence. We start with Bill Feiereisen\u27s discussion of science on the Web and what it could mean for CiSE ( Are We There Yet? ) and end with George Thiruvathukal\u27s discussion of the challenges therein ( If We Build It, Will They Come? ). CiSE\u27s official homepage is www.computer.org/cise; we gladly welcome comments with suggestions or feedback. You can contact lead editor (Jenny Stout; [email protected]) or write to either Bill or George (their email addresses appear at the end of their respective essays)

Review for Cognitive Systems Research of the book The Brain and AI, by authors Karl Schlagenhauf and Fanji Gu

The human brain is often considered the most complex system known. It has a fantastic capacity to learn and remember, to recognize patterns in space and time, solve problems of all kinds, innovate tools and machines, create beautiful art and science. Is it reasonable to believe that we, in a foreseeable future, will be able to understand all the wonders of our own brain, enough to be able to mimic it and build artificial brains and minds that correspond to or even surpass the capacity of the human origin? Can we seriously believe that we (soon, or ever) will be able to build robots that know of and can reflect upon their own existence?This review of the book, The Brain and AI, deals with such issues, but in a very special way. It is written as a fascinating dialogue between the two authors, Chinese scientist Fanji Gu and German engineer Karl Schlagenhauf, where they discuss the development of neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI) with a critical examination of given "truths" in these fields. The Brain and AI is indeed worth reading for many reasons, regardless if you are a student or researcher in any of the many fields of science discussed here (e.g. physics, computer science, neuroscience, cognitive science psychology, social science), or if you are just interested in the current and future development of brain research and artificial intelligence. The book is both educating and entertaining and can be strongly recommended. (C) 2020 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V

Minneapolis Without Policing: Understanding History to Building the Future

Black people have always known that systems of criminalization and surveillance are designed to destroy. The overwhelming sadness and rage we feel when one of us is murdered by the police yet again is the same sadness and rage that our ancestors felt. They knew that if they wanted justice, they had to build their own communities centered in love, accountability, and care. Now more than ever, we must follow in their footsteps. As we write this, we are surviving in a police state, during a pandemic that disproportionately kills and disables Black people, with a recession looming and a clear expiration date for our planet. The moment for transformation is upon us; will you step into it with us? We give this resource guide to you as a gift and an invitation. Our hope is that these pages will empower you to take your next step in embracing community-led safety. We offer guidance about starting and leading these conversations, context to help you understand how far-reaching police violence is, and resources across the Twin Cities to support your work. The work to transform the world we live in isn't easy, but we love you, ourselves, and our communities too much to not fully invest in this movement. Consider this an invitation to join us on this journey, to one day reach the liberation we dream of

PDE boundary conditions that eliminate quantum weirdness: a mathematical game inspired by Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing

Although boundary condition problems in quantum mathematics (QM) are well known, no one ever used boundary conditions technology to abolish quantum weirdness. We employ boundary conditions to build a mathematical game that is fun to learn, and by using it you will discover that quantum weirdness evaporates and vanishes. Our clever game is so designed that you can solve the boundary condition problems for a single point if-and-only-if you also solve the “weirdness” problem for all of quantum mathematics. Our approach differs radically from Dirichlet, Neumann, Robin, or Wolfram Alpha. We define domain Ω in one-dimension, on which a partial differential equation (PDE) is defined. Point α on ∂Ω is the location of a boundary condition game that involves an off-center bi-directional wave solution called Æ, an “elementary wave.” Study of this unusual, complex wave is called the Theory of Elementary Waves (TEW). We are inspired by Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing who built mathematical games that demonstrated that axiomatization of all mathematics was impossible. In our machine quantum weirdness vanishes if understood from the perspective of a single point α, because that pinpoint teaches us that nature is organized differently than we expect

How Self-Reference Builds the World (Part 2)

If you were to build a world from Nothing, how would you do it? By investigating the nature of self-reference, we will show how this can be achieved, how starting from Nothing, Everything can be obtained. Various implications of the definition of self-reference will be investigated, showing how it can account for various aspects of the phenomenology of consciousness, thus showing how starting from only 1 principle, a world of infinite complexity can be obtained. Parallels with set theory will be made along the way

The Theoretical Astrophysical Observatory: Cloud-Based Mock Galaxy Catalogues

We introduce the Theoretical Astrophysical Observatory (TAO), an online virtual laboratory that houses mock observations of galaxy survey data. Such mocks have become an integral part of the modern analysis pipeline. However, building them requires an expert knowledge of galaxy modelling and simulation techniques, significant investment in software development, and access to high performance computing. These requirements make it difficult for a small research team or individual to quickly build a mock catalogue suited to their needs. To address this TAO offers access to multiple cosmological simulations and semi-analytic galaxy formation models from an intuitive and clean web interface. Results can be funnelled through science modules and sent to a dedicated supercomputer for further processing and manipulation. These modules include the ability to (1) construct custom observer light-cones from the simulation data cubes; (2) generate the stellar emission from star formation histories, apply dust extinction, and compute absolute and/or apparent magnitudes; and (3) produce mock images of the sky. All of TAO's features can be accessed without any programming requirements. The modular nature of TAO opens it up for further expansion in the future.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables; accepted for publication in ApJS. The Theoretical Astrophysical Observatory (TAO) is now open to the public at https://tao.asvo.org.au/. New simulations, models and tools will be added as they become available. Contact [email protected] if you have data you would like to make public through TAO. Feedback and suggestions are very welcom

Final Plenary Session Transcript

Let s start with the report - as you know - when we are talking about flow control it is a multi-disciplinary type of work. So it involves many people and disciplines. This group first discussed the important issues associated with flow control. As you start doing flow control what are the issues to which you really have to start paying attention? That is the first part I am going to present. Then in the second part I will present some challenges - problems that we should really be looking at. So as far as the issues - if you want to control a flow, you really need to understand the flow physics, because anything that you do comes from the flow physics. The design of the controllers, your decisions on the actuators, sensors, reduced order modeling and all of that, would be helped if you understand flow physics. And you have to have a specific objective - what exactly are you controlling? Are you trying to reduce drag, eliminate separation, reduce noise, enhance mixing? So you have to have very specific control objectives. From all the talks we have seen here actuation is extremely important and it is very problem specific. It depends on what problem you are dealing with so you have to design and build actuators for that specific problem. Sensors obviously are very important, especially when you are dealing with feedback control. Consensus was that when you dealing with flow control, you must take an integrated approach; from the beginning you have to take into account every aspect of it and even maybe to modify your experiment, your geometry, to go along with the actuation, sensors and control models. Development of tools is very important in this multi-disciplinary problem. The tools include CFD, reduced order modeling, controller design, understanding and utilizing the instabilities of the flow, etc. So, in order to have success in flow control, we really need to develop these tools