Digital supply chain through dynamic inventory and smart contracts

This paper develops a digital supply chain game, modeling marketing and operation interactions between members. The main novelty of the paper concerns a comparison between static and dynamic solutions of the supply chain game achieved when moving from traditional to digital platforms. Therefore, this study proposes centralized and decentralized versions of the game, comparing their solutions under static and dynamic settings. Moreover, it investigates the decentralized supply chain by evaluating two smart contracts: Revenue sharing and wholesale price contracts. In both cases, the firms use an artificial intelligence system to determine the optimal contract parameters. Numerical and qualitative analyses are used for comparing configurations (centralized, decentralized), settings (static, dynamic), and contract schemes (revenue sharing contract, wholesale price contract). The findings identify the conditions under which smart revenue sharing mechanisms are worth applying

Evaluating accessibility, usability and interoperability of genome-scale metabolic models for diverse yeasts species

Metabolic network reconstructions have become an important tool for probing cellular metabolism in the field of systems biology. They are used as tools for quantitative prediction but also as scaffolds for further knowledge contextualization. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was one of the first organisms for which a genome-scale metabolic model (GEM) was reconstructed, in 2003, and since then 45 metabolic models have been developed for a wide variety of relevant yeasts species. A systematic evaluation of these models revealed that-despite this long modeling history-the sequential process of tracing model files, setting them up for basic simulation purposes and comparing them across species and even different versions, is still not a generalizable task. These findings call the yeast modeling community to comply to standard practices on model development and sharing in order to make GEMs accessible and useful for a wider public

COLLABORATIVE CAD MODELING PROCESS ANALYSIS TO SUPPORT TEAMWORK FOR BUILDING DESIGN

Collaborative tools are information systems which allow document sharing through local area networks, intranets and extranets. Collaborative design can be a solution to increase the productivity and the final quality of the product in a building design office. In this way it is possible to assure the information integration and also the data integrity during the design process based on computer network communication. The goal of this article is to analyze how one CAD system based on BIM concept (ArchiCAD software - Graphisoft/Nemetschek) can support a collaborative teamwork structured on an integrated model for different design views. In this model, the tasks are assigned by a coordinator and executed by the designers in different places following the client-service scheme. It is intended to contribute with the diffusion of this information technology tool and to present its potentiality for the improvement of the design performance. The research method used was a case study of the development design. In this case study, communication guidelines had been applied to verify the software behavior in relation to the task execution in a shared framework. The use of the collaborative CAD modeling in the development design provided information sharing, track and control of document versions and also the integration of design modifications in such automatic and simultaneous way between different computers used.Collaborative tools are information systems which allow document sharing through local area networks, intranets and extranets. Collaborative design can be a solution to increase the productivity and the final quality of the product in a building design office. In this way it is possible to assure the information integration and also the data integrity during the design process based on computer network communication. The goal of this article is to analyze how one CAD system based on BIM concept (ArchiCAD software - Graphisoft/Nemetschek) can support a collaborative teamwork structured on an integrated model for different design views. In this model, the tasks are assigned by a coordinator and executed by the designers in different places following the client-service scheme. It is intended to contribute with the diffusion of this information technology tool and to present its potentiality for the improvement of the design performance. The research method used was a case study of the development design. In this case study, communication guidelines had been applied to verify the software behavior in relation to the task execution in a shared framework. The use of the collaborative CAD modeling in the development design provided information sharing, track and control of document versions and also the integration of design modifications in such automatic and simultaneous way between different computers used

A fine-grain time-sharing Time Warp system

Although Parallel Discrete Event Simulation (PDES) platforms relying on the Time Warp (optimistic) synchronization protocol already allow for exploiting parallelism, several techniques have been proposed to further favor performance. Among them we can mention optimized approaches for state restore, as well as techniques for load balancing or (dynamically) controlling the speculation degree, the latter being specifically targeted at reducing the incidence of causality errors leading to waste of computation. However, in state of the art Time Warp systems, events’ processing is not preemptable, which may prevent the possibility to promptly react to the injection of higher priority (say lower timestamp) events. Delaying the processing of these events may, in turn, give rise to higher incidence of incorrect speculation. In this article we present the design and realization of a fine-grain time-sharing Time Warp system, to be run on multi-core Linux machines, which makes systematic use of event preemption in order to dynamically reassign the CPU to higher priority events/tasks. Our proposal is based on a truly dual mode execution, application vs platform, which includes a timer-interrupt based support for bringing control back to platform mode for possible CPU reassignment according to very fine grain periods. The latter facility is offered by an ad-hoc timer-interrupt management module for Linux, which we release, together with the overall time-sharing support, within the open source ROOT-Sim platform. An experimental assessment based on the classical PHOLD benchmark and two real world models is presented, which shows how our proposal effectively leads to the reduction of the incidence of causality errors, as compared to traditional Time Warp, especially when running with higher degrees of parallelism

Sharing 3D city models: an overview

This study describes the computing methods now available to enable the sharing of three-dimensional (3D) data between various stakeholders for the purposes of city modeling and considers the need for a seamless approach for sharing, transmitting, and maintaining 3D city models. The study offers an overview of the technologies and the issues related to remote access, collaboration, and version control. It builds upon previous research on 3D city models where issues were raised on utilizing, updating and maintaining 3D city models and providing access to various stakeholders. This paper will also describe a case study which is currently analyzing the remote access requirements for a sustainable computer model of NewcastleGateshead in England. Options available will be examined and areas of future research will be discussed

Collaborative method to maintain business process models updated

Business process models are often forgotten after their creation and its representation is not usually updated. This appears to be negative as processes evolve over time. This paper discusses the issue of business process models maintenance through the definition of a collaborative method that creates interaction contexts enabling business actors to discuss about business processes, sharing business knowledge. The collaboration method extends the discussion about existing process representations to all stakeholders promoting their update. This collaborative method contributes to improve business process models, allowing updates based in change proposals and discussions, using a groupware tool that was developed. Four case studies were developed in real organizational environment. We came to the conclusion that the defined method and the developed tool can help organizations to maintain a business process model updated based on the inputs and consequent discussions taken by the organizational actors who participate in the processes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Adopting building information modeling (BIM) as collaboration platform in the design industry

This paper discusses the preliminary findings of an ongoing research project aimed at developing a technological, operational and strategic analysis of adopting BIM in AEC/FM (Architecture-Engineering-Construction/Facility Management) industry as a collaboration tool. Outcomes of the project will provide specifications and guidelines as well as establish industry standards for implementing BIM in practice. This research primarily focuses on BIM model servers as a collaboration platform, and hence the guidelines are aimed at enhancing collaboration capabilities. This paper reports on the findings from: (1) a critical review of latest BIM literature and commercial applications, and (2) workshops with focus groups on changing work-practice, role of technology, current perception and expectations of BIM. Layout for case studies being undertaken is presented. These findings provide a base to develop comprehensive software specifications and national guidelines for BIM with particular emphasis on BIM model servers as collaboration platforms