Alternative sweetener from curculigo fruits

This study gives an overview on the advantages of Curculigo Latifolia as an alternative sweetener and a health product. The purpose of this research is to provide another option to the people who suffer from diabetes. In this research, Curculigo Latifolia was chosen, due to its unique properties and widely known species in Malaysia. In order to obtain the sweet protein from the fruit, it must go through a couple of procedures. First we harvested the fruits from the Curculigo trees that grow wildly in the garden. Next, the Curculigo fruits were dried in the oven at 50 0C for 3 days. Finally, the dried fruits were blended in order to get a fine powder. Curculin is a sweet protein with a taste-modifying activity of converting sourness to sweetness. The curculin content from the sample shown are directly proportional to the mass of the Curculigo fine powder. While the FTIR result shows that the sample spectrum at peak 1634 cm–1 contains secondary amines. At peak 3307 cm–1 contains alkynes

The potential of additive manufacturing in the smart factory industrial 4.0: A review

Additive manufacturing (AM) or three-dimensional (3D) printing has introduced a novel production method in design, manufacturing, and distribution to end-users. This technology has provided great freedom in design for creating complex components, highly customizable products, and efficient waste minimization. The last industrial revolution, namely industry 4.0, employs the integration of smart manufacturing systems and developed information technologies. Accordingly, AM plays a principal role in industry 4.0 thanks to numerous benefits, such as time and material saving, rapid prototyping, high efficiency, and decentralized production methods. This review paper is to organize a comprehensive study on AM technology and present the latest achievements and industrial applications. Besides that, this paper investigates the sustainability dimensions of the AM process and the added values in economic, social, and environment sections. Finally, the paper concludes by pointing out the future trend of AM in technology, applications, and materials aspects that have the potential to come up with new ideas for the future of AM explorations

Modelling Fresh Strawberry Supply "From-Farm-to-Fork" as a Complex Adaptive Network

 The purpose of this study is to model and thereby enable simulation of the complete business entity of fresh food supply. A case narrative of fresh strawberry supply provides basis for this modelling. Lamming et al. (2000) point to the importance of discerning industry-specific product features (or particularities) regarding managing supply networks when discussing elements in "an initial classification of a supply network" while Fisher (1997) and Christopher et al. (2006, 2009) point to the lack of adopting SCM models to variations in products and market types as an important source of SCM failure. In this study we have chosen to move along a research path towards developing an adapted approach to model end-to-end fresh food supply influenced by a combination of SCM, system dynamics and complex adaptive network thinking...

Relationship between accounting benefits and ERP user satisfaction in the context of the fourth industrial revolution

The importance of corporate social responsibility is shaping investment decisions and entrepreneurial actions in diverse perspectives. The rapid growth of SMEs has tremendous impacts on the environment. Nonetheless, the economic emergence plan of Cameroon has prompted government support of SMEs through diverse projects. This saw economic growth increased to 3.8% and unemployment dropped to 4.3% caused by the expansion of private sector investments. The dilemma that necessitated this study is the response strategy of SMEs operators towards environmental sustainability. This study, thus seeks to examine the effects of entrepreneurial intentions and actions on environmental sustainability. The research is a conclusive case study design supported by the philosophical underpins of objectivism ontology and positivism epistemology. Data was sourced from four hundred (400) SMEs operators purposively sampled from the Centre and Littoral regions of Cameroon using structured questionnaire. Data was analysed using the Structural Equation Modelling technique with the aid of statistical packages including: SPSS 24 and AMOS 23. The study revealed that entrepreneurial action has weak positive statistical significant impacts on environmental sustainability; whereas entrepreneurial intention has strong positive statistical significant effects on environmental sustainability. Entrepreneurial intention comprised of self-efficacy and perceived control whereas, entrepreneurial actions involved entrepreneurial alertness and uncertainty. This study concludes that entrepreneurs in Cameroon have sustainable intentions to protect the environment but; the current actions taken are inadequate. This research recommends that entrepreneurs should enhance efforts toward attaining the state of genuine sustainabilit

Eco‐Holonic 4.0 Circular Business Model to Conceptualize Sustainable Value Chain Towards Digital Transition

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a circular business model based on an Eco-Holonic Architecture, through the integration of circular economy and holonic principles. A conceptual model is developed to manage the complexity of integrating circular economy principles, digital transformation, and tools and frameworks for sustainability into business models. The proposed architecture is multilevel and multiscale in order to achieve the instantiation of the sustainable value chain in any territory. The architecture promotes the incorporation of circular economy and holonic principles into new circular business models. This integrated perspective of business model can support the design and upgrade of the manufacturing companies in their respective industrial sectors. The conceptual model proposed is based on activity theory that considers the interactions between technical and social systems and allows the mitigation of the metabolic rift that exists between natural and social metabolism. This study contributes to the existing literature on circular economy, circular business models and activity theory by considering holonic paradigm concerns, which have not been explored yet. This research also offers a unique holonic architecture of circular business model by considering different levels, relationships, dynamism and contextualization (territory) aspects

ILR Faculty Publications 2012-13

The production of scholarly research continues to be one of the primary missions of the ILR School. During a typical academic year, ILR faculty members published or had accepted for publication over 25 books, edited volumes, and monographs, 170 articles and chapters in edited volumes, numerous book reviews. In addition, a large number of manuscripts were submitted for publication, presented at professional association meetings, or circulated in working paper form. Our faculty's research continues to find its way into the very best industrial relations, social science and statistics journals.Faculty_Publications_2012_13.pdf: 77 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Continuous maintenance and the future – Foundations and technological challenges

High value and long life products require continuous maintenance throughout their life cycle to achieve required performance with optimum through-life cost. This paper presents foundations and technologies required to offer the maintenance service. Component and system level degradation science, assessment and modelling along with life cycle ‘big data’ analytics are the two most important knowledge and skill base required for the continuous maintenance. Advanced computing and visualisation technologies will improve efficiency of the maintenance and reduce through-life cost of the product. Future of continuous maintenance within the Industry 4.0 context also identifies the role of IoT, standards and cyber security

The impact of post-merger integration on the customer-supplier relationship

While the impact of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on internal stakeholders has generated considerable empirical study, comparatively little academic attention has been paid as to how external stakeholders such as customers are affected by, and respond to, M&A activity. This study adopts case-study methodology to illuminate how the customer–supplier relationship is affected by post-merger integration processes in the business-to-business context, with the aim of increasing our understanding of why customers respond to M&A in the ways that they do. The findings highlight the importance of a set of critical customer relationship variables through which post-M&A integration actions can influence customers' perceptions of the merged organisation and, ultimately, their purchase decisions. We also identify a set of specific individual integration actions that appear to trigger changes in the critical customer relationship variables. Together, the findings contribute to our understanding of the precise mechanisms through which M&A can affect customers' purchase decisions and the combining firms' market-related performance. More broadly, consistent with the stakeholder perspective, they reinforce the need to take account of external as well as internal stakeholders when considering the drivers of M&A outcome. Implications are discussed for future research as well as for B2B service industry executives involved in M&A