Rapid prototyping technology adoption framework development: Operationalization and roadmap generation for SMEs

The research provides a comprehensive and practical roadmap, from strategic through to the operational level, for an effective adoption of Rapid Prototyping Technology (RPT). This has been achieved through the development of frameworks, a Decision Support System for process selection, identification of the drivers of external and internal environment, market evaluation and competitor analysis. The developed methodology incorporates Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), value chain micro analysis of product development cycle and important performance (IP) Analysis

Partitioned histories: promoting critical engagement and tolerance by comparing narratives

A new initiative established by volunteers in India, Pakistan, the UK and US, aims to promote critical thinking and tolerance through history education. Their publication uses school textbooks from conflict areas as source material and places them side by side to showcase the contrasting national narratives of the same events. The first case study is on India and Pakistan. Ayyaz Ahmad offers an insight into how the project that he co-founded is encouraging participants to question what we learn and to understand that there might be other sides to each story

Strengthening SMEs through Rapid Prototyping to Meet Future Challenges - Why & How?

In the current scenario of the global economic crisis, market uncertainty, layoffs, shrinkage in market size are some common issues which the business is facing and at the same time looking for some way outs. This situation demands the reconfiguration of existing theories, models or frameworks so that innovative solutions can be developed to ease the situation. Technology like Rapid Prototyping have the potential to meet certain future challenges, but there is a dire need to blend the technology and strategy together to end up with a viable solution, unfortunately there is no one and simple solution, but joint efforts by different stakeholders is the need of time. A recent trend is the globalization of the production operations in which the manufacturing is done basically in the developing countries largely through SMEs but the question is that are these small to medium entrepreneurs ready to take the challenge of the fast changing requirements and is it possible to meet these challenges without building the capacity of the these small companies? This paper take a closer look of the SMEs by giving an in depth analysis of the inherent problems and challenges such companies are facing and how the technology like RP can assist them to come out of this situation. The paper also highlights the role of the stakeholders including both government and non government organisations including universities and provides valuable recommendations for the capacity building of these small to medium companies, which will not only boost the local economies but will also facilitate the international production & operations management in a better and most effective way

Impact of CEOs Pay Disparity on Stability of Banks: Evidence from Pakistan

This study is carried out to investigate the nature of association between Banks’ stability and the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) pay difference as compared to other executives for a sample of 17 Pakistani commercial banks, over the period of 9 years (2005 to 2013). The study finds that as compared to other executives, CEO pay difference has a significant but negative association with stability of banks performance, i.e., higher pay difference between CEO and other executives induced greater risk practices in banks. Hence, banks with lower stability must try to reduce the compensation gap between the CEO and his executive team, so that safe policies could be implemented

Synthesizing an Agent-Based Heterogeneous Population Model for Epidemic Surveillance

In this paper we propose a probabilistic approach to synthesize an agent-based heterogeneous population interaction model to study the spatio-temporal dynamics of an air-born epidemic, such as influenza, in a metropolitan area. The methodology is generic in nature and can generate a baseline population for cities for which detailed population summary tables are not available. The joint probabilities of population demographics are estimated using the International Public Use Microsimulation Data (IPUMS) sample data set. Agents, are assigned various activities based on several characteristics. The agent-based model for the city of Lahore, Pakistan is synthesized and a rule based disease spread model of influenza is simulated. The simulation results are visualized to analyze the spatio-temporal dynamics of the epidemic. The results show that the proposed model can be used by officials and medical experts to simulate an outbreak

Performance optimization of CH3NH3Pb(I1-xBrx)3 based perovskite solar cells by comparing different ETL materials through conduction band offset engineering

Numerical simulations can provide the physical insights into the carrier transport mechanism in the solar cells, and the factors influencing their performance. In this paper, perovskite solar cell (PSC) based on the mixed perovskite (CH3NH3Pb(I1-xBrx)3 has been numerically simulated using the SCAPS simulator. A comparative analysis of different electron transport layers (ETLs) based on their conduction band offsets (CBO) has been performed, while Spiro-OMeTAD was used as a hole transport layer (HTL). Among the proposed ETLs, CdZnS performed better and demonstrated the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 25.20%. Also, the PCE of the PSC has been optimized by adjusting the doping concentrations in the ETL, Spiro-OMeTAD layer, and the thickness of the perovskite light absorber layer. It was found that the doping concentration of 1021 cm−3 for the CdZnS based ETL and 1020 cm−3 for Spiro-OMeTAD are the optimum concentrations values for demonstrating enhanced efficiency. A 600 nm thick perovskite layer has found to be appropriate for the efficient PSC design. For the initial guessing and numerical model validation, the photovoltaic data of a very stable (over one year with PCE ~13%) n-i-p structured (ITO/TiO2/CH3NH3Pb(I1-xBrx)3/Spiro-OMeTAD/Au) PSCs was used. These numerically simulated results signify the optimum performance of the photovoltaic device that can be further implemented to develop the highly efficient PSCs.This publication was made possible by the NPRP award [NPRP11S-1210–170080] from Qatar National Research Fund (a member of the Qatar Foundation). The findings made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors. The authors are thankful to Prof. Marc Burgelman, the University of Gent for the SCAPS developments package, and permission to use the SCAPS software