BiodieselFAO: An Integrated Decision Support System for Investment Analysis in the Biodiesel Production Chain

In the short and medium terms, biofuels are the most viable alternative to reduce the environmental impact of fossil fuels. The recent controversy over the competition between biofuels and food production increases the complexity of investment decisions in the biodiesel production chain. In this context, decision support tools are highly relevant. The purpose of this article is to describe the BiodieselFAO using the Unified Modeling Language (UML). An integrated analysis considering both agricultural and industrial sectors was identified as a key requirement to the system. Therefore, farmers and industry are the main actors in the use case diagram. As the raw material represents around 70% of the industrial cost of biodiesel production, the price negotiation of raw material (oilseeds) is the central use case. Configuration, agriculture, industry, results and scenarios are the modules, which encompass the functionalities derived from the UML diagrams. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has made the BiodieselFAO available, free of charge, to around 180 professionals from 17 Latin American countries. Additionally, the developing team has supported the usage of the BiodieselFAO in several biodiesel investment analyses throughout Latin America. The system was also useful in the design and analysis of policy related to biodiesel industry in Brazil

Rancangan Perangkat Lunak Aplikasi Kenaikan Jabatan Fungsional Dosen

Pemerintah memberikan penghargaan bagi dosen yang mampu melaksanakan tugas utama dan fungsinya secara profesional dalam upaya meningkatkan kinerja atau kualitas pendidikan berbentuk promosi, yaitu kenaikan jabatan fungsionalnya. Tujuan dari penelitian ini yaitu merancang sistem informasi kenaikan jabatan fungsional dosen yang berguna untuk mendukung aktivitas bisnis pengelolaan kepegawaian perguruan tinggi. Metode yang digunakan pada penelitian ini adalah Rational Unified Process dengan menggunakan pemodelan Unified Modelling Language. Penelitian ini dibatasi sampai tahapan construction pada metodologi pengembangan perangkat lunak dan pengujian menggunakan metode black-box testing. Hasil dari penelitian ini berupa rancangan sisteminformasi berupa diagram-diagram alur sistem dan Sistem Informasi berbasis Web. Sistem informasi ini dapat membantu organisasi dalam pengelolaan kenaikan jabatan fungsional dosen secara manajerial dan memudahkan para pengambil keputusan untuk menentukan kelayakan usulan kenaikan jabatan fungsional

The First 25 Years of the Bled eConference: Themes and Impacts

The Bled eConference is the longest-running themed conference associated with the Information Systems discipline. The focus throughout its first quarter-century has been the application of electronic tools, migrating progressively from Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) via Inter-Organisational Systems (IOS) and eCommerce to encompass all aspects of the use of networking facilities in industry and government, and more recently by individuals, groups and society as a whole. This paper reports on an examination of the conference titles and of the titles and abstracts of the 773 refereed papers published in the Proceedings since 1995. This identified a long and strong focus on categories of electronic business and corporate perspectives, which has broadened in recent years to encompass the democratic, the social and the personal. The conference\u27s extend well beyond the papers and their thousands of citations and tens of thousands of downloads. Other impacts have included innovative forms of support for the development of large numbers of graduate students, and the many international research collaborations that have been conceived and developed in a beautiful lake-side setting in Slovenia

Artículos de proyectos de grado realizados por los estudiantes de ingeniería de sistemas semestres 2008-1, 2008-2 y 2009-1. Segunda parte

The students of System Engineer, during their last term, develop theirs thesis projects as a requirement to obtain their grades. For each thesis project a paper is written as result of their studying and research works in order to develop their thesis project. This notebook shows the paper wrote by those students during the terms of 2008-1, 2008-2 and 2009-1.Los estudiantes de la carrera de Ingeniería de Sistemas, en sus últimos semestres, desarrollan un proyecto como prerrequisito para la obtención del título universitario. De cada proyecto de grado nace un artículo, fruto del estudio e investigación para la elaboración del proyecto. Este cuaderno presenta los artículos escritos por los estudiantes de la carrera de Ingeniería de Sistemas en los semestres 2008-1, 2008-2 y 2009-1

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

An evaluation of the challenges of Multilingualism in Data Warehouse development

In this paper we discuss Business Intelligence and define what is meant by support for Multilingualism in a Business Intelligence reporting context. We identify support for Multilingualism as a challenging issue which has implications for data warehouse design and reporting performance. Data warehouses are a core component of most Business Intelligence systems and the star schema is the approach most widely used to develop data warehouses and dimensional Data Marts. We discuss the way in which Multilingualism can be supported in the Star Schema and identify that current approaches have serious limitations which include data redundancy and data manipulation, performance and maintenance issues. We propose a new approach to enable the optimal application of multilingualism in Business Intelligence. The proposed approach was found to produce satisfactory results when used in a proof-of-concept environment. Future work will include testing the approach in an enterprise environmen

The drivers of Corporate Social Responsibility in the supply chain. A case study.

Purpose: The paper studies the way in which a SME integrates CSR into its corporate strategy, the practices it puts in place and how its CSR strategies reflect on its suppliers and customers relations. Methodology/Research limitations: A qualitative case study methodology is used. The use of a single case study limits the generalizing capacity of these findings. Findings: The entrepreneur’s ethical beliefs and value system play a fundamental role in shaping sustainable corporate strategy. Furthermore, the type of competitive strategy selected based on innovation, quality and responsibility clearly emerges both in terms of well defined management procedures and supply chain relations as a whole aimed at involving partners in the process of sustainable innovation. Originality/value: The paper presents a SME that has devised an original innovative business model. The study pivots on the issues of innovation and eco-sustainability in a context of drivers for CRS and business ethics. These values are considered fundamental at International level; the United Nations has declared 2011 the “International Year of Forestry”

Evaluating the Impact of Nature-Based Solutions: A Handbook for Practitioners

The Handbook aims to provide decision-makers with a comprehensive NBS impact assessment framework, and a robust set of indicators and methodologies to assess impacts of nature-based solutions across 12 societal challenge areas: Climate Resilience; Water Management; Natural and Climate Hazards; Green Space Management; Biodiversity; Air Quality; Place Regeneration; Knowledge and Social Capacity Building for Sustainable Urban Transformation; Participatory Planning and Governance; Social Justice and Social Cohesion; Health and Well-being; New Economic Opportunities and Green Jobs. Indicators have been developed collaboratively by representatives of 17 individual EU-funded NBS projects and collaborating institutions such as the EEA and JRC, as part of the European Taskforce for NBS Impact Assessment, with the four-fold objective of: serving as a reference for relevant EU policies and activities; orient urban practitioners in developing robust impact evaluation frameworks for nature-based solutions at different scales; expand upon the pioneering work of the EKLIPSE framework by providing a comprehensive set of indicators and methodologies; and build the European evidence base regarding NBS impacts. They reflect the state of the art in current scientific research on impacts of nature-based solutions and valid and standardized methods of assessment, as well as the state of play in urban implementation of evaluation frameworks

International Navigation Market

Economic record of human society in the last period has involved an unprecedented growth of world trade, trafficking of basic raw materials needed for industry and agriculture, and trade in industrial products or food. To the huge volume of movement of goods, shipping takes back the role of first order both quantitatively as well as efficiency. This situation is encouraged by factors such as diversification of trade, number of participants in this process and the increasingly complex international trade