An investigation of the potential for enhancing innovation within the Taiwanese woodworking industry.

An investigation of the potential for enhancing innovation within the TWMMI Due to political, economic, social and technological changes, traditional manufacturers of the TWMMI are facing a fight for survival. An effective strategy is urgently required to help manufacturers to tum these threats into opportunities. One strategy is increasing scope in order to compete with international rivals through creativity, combined with increasing productivity through technology in order to create competitive advantage. This study investigates how SMEs within the TWMMI can improve their competitive advantage. It examines the impact on company performance of creativity and ICT based manufacturing technology. A semi-structured questionnaire with open-ended and closed-ended questions was designed based on a SWOT assessment and literature review to find a positive correlation between creativity and ICT based manufacturing technology and improved business performance. Thus the questionnaire investigates how the TWMMI are dealing with the fact that they are no longer competing effectively in the woodworking machinery market as identified in the SWOT and whether they have implemented any strategic solutions, which are classified in the literature review to solve the problem. From interviews with 30 respondent companies and 18 international customers conducted, results show that: (1) Companies that implement of a high level of creative function achieve a greater level of creative success. (2) It is not always the case that implementing a higher level ofFMS combined with ICT is necessary to gain a greater level of improved business performance. Competitive advantage can be gained through outsourcing manufacturing of component parts to suppliers. (3) The implementation of a higher level of creative function combined with some level ofFMS and ICT or outsourcing may allow the TWMMI to achieve a greater level of improved business performance The strategy recommended to follow includes individual companies co-operating together by investing capital in research and development promoting creativity. Furthermore, promotion of innovation in creativity and ICT based manufacturing technology is also required along with strategic promotion of creative skills in education and society to facilitate creativity in the business environment within Taiwan as a whole.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Utility Maximization for Uplink MU-MIMO: Combining Spectral-Energy Efficiency and Fairness

Driven by green communications, energy efficiency (EE) has become a new important criterion for designing wireless communication systems. However, high EE often leads to low spectral efficiency (SE), which spurs the research on EE-SE tradeoff. In this paper, we focus on how to maximize the utility in physical layer for an uplink multi-user multiple-input multipleoutput (MU-MIMO) system, where we will not only consider EE-SE tradeoff in a unified way, but also ensure user fairness. We first formulate the utility maximization problem, but it turns out to be non-convex. By exploiting the structure of this problem, we find a convexization procedure to convert the original nonconvex problem into an equivalent convex problem, which has the same global optimum with the original problem. Following the convexization procedure, we present a centralized algorithm to solve the utility maximization problem, but it requires the global information of all users. Thus we propose a primal-dual distributed algorithm which does not need global information and just consumes a small amount of overhead. Furthermore, we have proved that the distributed algorithm can converge to the global optimum. Finally, the numerical results show that our approach can both capture user diversity for EE-SE tradeoff and ensure user fairness, and they also validate the effectiveness of our primal-dual distributed algorithm

Creating Higher Burdens: The Presumption of State Protection in Democratic Countries

The author examines the burden on refugee claimants at the Immigration and Refugee Board in Canada to provide evidence that their home state cannot protect them. In particular, the paper discusses the growing trend of adjudicators taking de facto judicial notice of the fact that a country is democratic to make the finding that there is state protection for claimants. The author argues that the practice of labelling countries as democratic and making state protection findings upon the finding is a biased and unhelpful practice when evaluating the issue of whether state protection exists. The paper discusses what “democracy” means and the problems associated with defining it. It will discuss how judicial notice of whether a state is democratic can affect an analysis of state protection in the example of claimants fleeing domestic abuse in Mexico.L’auteure examine la charge pesant sur les demandeurs d’asile à la Commission de l’immigration et du statut de réfugié du Canada de fournir la preuve que leur État d’ori-gine ne peut pas les protéger. En particulier, le présent article examine la tendance croissante des juges de faire automatiquement le constat judiciaire du fait qu’un pays est démocratique pour arriver à la conclusion qu’il y a protection de l’État pour les demandeurs. L’auteure fait valoir que la pratique d’étiqueter des pays comme démocratiques et d’en tirer des conclusions quant à la protection de l’État est une pratique biaisée et inutile lorsqu’il s’agit d’évaluer la question à savoir si la protection de l’État existe. L’auteure aborde le sens de la « démocratie » et les problèmes liés à sa définition. Elle explique comment le constat judiciaire voulant qu’un État soit démocratique peut affecter une analyse de protection de l’État dans l’exemple des demandeurs d’asile fuyant la violence domestique au Mexique

Changes in Maternal Glucose Metabolism after the Administration of Dexamethasone for Fetal Lung Development

Aims. Antenatal dexamethasone administration for fetal lung development may impair maternal glucose tolerance. In this study, we investigated whether glucose and insulin levels differed among singleton and twin pregnancies and pregnancies with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) after treatment with dexamethasone. Methods. Singleton pregnancies, twin pregnancies, and pregnancies with IGT between 28 and 33 weeks of gestation whose mothers were treated with dexamethasone were enrolled in this study. Exclusion criteria included gestational hypertension, diabetes, renal disorders, and infectious diseases. The fasting plasma glucose and insulin levels were checked before administration and 24 h, 48 h, and 72 h after treatment was completed. Results. Mean glucose levels were significantly higher in the twin pregnancy and IGT groups at 24 h and 48 h after the administration of dexamethasone than those in the singleton pregnancy group (P < 0.05). Although there was no significant difference in glucose levels before administration and 72 h after dexamethasone administration among the three groups, insulin levels in the IGT group were significantly higher (P < 0.05). Insulin levels in the singleton pregnancy group at 24 h and 48 h after treatment were significantly lower than in the twin and IGT groups. Conclusion. The effects on maternal fasting blood glucose and insulin levels of dexamethasone administrated to promote fetal lung maturation correlated with embryo number and the presence of IGT

Relationship of inventory turnover and gross margin return on inventory investment (GMROII) of manufacturing in Malaysia public listed companies.

This comprehensive study delved deeply into the interplay between inventory turnover and gross margin return on inventory investment (GMROII) within the context of manufacturing sector companies listed in the Malaysia. Effective inventory management was undeniably a cornerstone of business operations, profoundly influencing financial performance and operational efficiency. As such, a nuanced understanding of the intricate relationship between inventory turnover and GMROII assumed paramount significance, offering invaluable insights for informed and strategic decision-making. Employing a rigorously quantitative approach, this research harnessed secondary data derived from the financial records of manufacturing companies spanning a defined temporal horizon. Through meticulous data analyses, the researcher endeavored to illuminate the intensity and directionality of the correlation between these pivotal variables, encapsulated within a cohort of 260 publicly listed manufacturing enterprises. The discerning findings of this study illuminated distinctive trends across various sectors. Notably, consumer products, healthcare, and technology sectors exhibited a promising convergence of favorable inventory turnover and robust GMROII. In contrast, sectors like construction and transportation manifested commendable inventory turnover, albeit with comparatively lower GMROII. Intriguingly, the property sector surfaced with relatively diminished investment potential and profitability. The culmination of a meticulous analysis of 260 publicly listed manufacturing companies in Malaysia unequivocally underscored the salient premise that augmenting inventory turnover could invariably catalyse heightened profitability. It resoundingly highlighted the pivotal role that effective inventory management assumed within the expansive landscape of the manufacturing secto

Rollout algorithm based duty cycle control with joint optimisation of delay and energy efficiency for beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 networks

Duty cycle control is applied in IEEE 802.15.4 medium access control (MAC) protocol to reduce energy consumption. A low duty cycle improves the energy efficiency but it reduces the available transmission time, thereby increases the end-to-end delay. Thus, it is a challenge issue to achieve a good trade-off between energy efficiency and delay. In this paper, we study a duty cycle control problem with the aim of minimising the joint-cost of energy consumption and end-to-end delay. By applying dynamic programming (DP), the optimal duty cycle control is derived. Furthermore, to ensure the feasibility of implementing the control on computation limited sensor devices, a low complexity rollout algorithm based duty cycle control (RADutyCon) is proposed. The joint-cost upper bound of the proposed RADutyCon is investigated. Simulation results show that RADutyCon can effectively reduces the joint-cost of energy consumption and end-to-end delay under various network traffic. In addition, RADutyCon achieves an exponential reduction of computation complexity compared with DP optimal control

N-(4-Hydroxy­pheneth­yl)acetamide

In the title compound, C10H13NO2, the occurrence of inter­molecular N—H⋯O and O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds between the hydr­oxy and acetamido groups results in the formation of tetra­mers with an R 4 4(25) graph-set motif. These tetra­mers are further assembled, building up a corrugated sheet parallel to (001)

Selection of reference genes for quantitative real-time PCR normalization in Ganoderma-infected oil palm (Elaies guineensis) seedlings

African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is an important oil bearing tree commercially cultivated in Malaysia. Palm oil is an important product for local consumption, provides enormous socio-economic benefits of trade and employment opportunities, and fulfilling the growing global demand for vegetable oils. The monoculture system has fostered the outbreak of basal stem rot (BSR) disease caused by the fungus Ganoderma boninense. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) is a widely used molecular technique to examine the infection effect on gene expression in oil palm. The selection of appropriate reference genes is vital for accurate data normalization. In this study, the expression stability of six housekeeping genes- β-actin, cyclophilin, GAPDH, MSD, NAD and ubiquitin were validated in oil palm root tissue after fungal infection. NormFinder and BestKeeper algorithms were used to cross-validate the expression stability of the candidate reference genes. MSD, NAD and ubiquitin were shown to exhibit the highest expression stability. These genes were recommended as reference genes for gene expression studies of oil palm root tissue at early fungal infection stage