An Exploratory Study of RFID Implementation in the Supply Chain

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the barriers and motivations for adopting radio frequency identification (RFID), the level of RFID implementation, the processes RFID is utilized in, and issues in the deployment of RFID. A survey instrument was developed based on a literature review. The survey was then distributed to the members of the Association for Operations Management Rhode Island and Boston chapters. The results were then analyzed. It was found that the majority of the surveyed firms are not considering RFID implementation. Lack of a business case and lack of understanding were cited as their main concerns. For firms considering RFID implementation and firms that had implemented RFID, better inventory management, obtaining competitive advantage, and cost reduction were the three most important motivations for adopting RFID. Financial concerns and the lack of a business case were the most prevalent issues. In addition, product tracking (pallets, cases, and items) in shipping was the most cited RFID application. It was also found that considering firms are facing less pressure from customers to adopt RFID and reported a much higher degree of apprehension regarding potential issues than implementing firms reported for actual difficulties faced. One of the limitations is the small sample size (n = 49) which may limit the generalizability of the results. By identifying barriers, motivations, and issues in the implementation of RFID, this study further educates practitioners on the challenges and opportunities of RFID, as well as providing direction to academicians for further research on this area

A family living with Alzheimer’s disease: The communicative challenges

YesAlzheimer’s disease irrevocably challenges a person’s capacity to communicate with others. Earlier research on these challenges focused on the language disorders associated with the condition and situated language deficit solely in the limitations of a person’s cognitive and semantic impairments. This research falls short of gaining insight into the actual interactional experiences of a person with Alzheimer’s and their family. Drawing on a UK data set of 70 telephone calls recorded over a two-and-a-half year period (2006–2008) between one elderly woman affected by Alzheimer’s disease, and her daughter and son-in-law, this paper explores the role which communication (and its degeneration) plays in family relationships. Investigating these interactions, using a conversation analytic approach, reveals that there are clearly communicative difficulties, but closer inspection suggests that they arise due to the contingencies that are generated by the other’s contributions in the interaction. That being so, this paper marks a departure from the traditional focus on language level analysis and the assumption that deficits are intrinsic to the individual with Alzheimer’s, and instead focuses on the collaborative communicative challenges that arise in the interaction itself and which have a profound impact on people’s lives and relationships

Proton Cancer Therapy: Using Laser Accelerate Protons for Radiation Therapy

High intensity lasers have been shown to accelerate protons to high energies. These protons are energetic enough to be used in treating cancers and tumors up to three centimeters deep. Protons are advantageous to use because they do not cause as much damage to healthy cells in the body then other radiation sources, e.g. photons. Simulations using MCNP show the radiation dose received by an intraocular melanoma would require 106 protons to deliver a dose of 1.2 Gy to the tumor. The simulations also show that protons do a better job of giving less dosage to healthy cells compared to the same dose delivered using x-rays. Further research needs to be done to find ways to accelerate protons to higher energies.No embarg

Minding the Gap: Uncovering the Underground\u27s Role in the Formation of Modern London, 1855-1945

My research examines how the London Underground – the first subway in the world - provided new public spaces and forms of mobility that redefined how Londoners interacted in, moved through, and imaged the city. Perhaps nothing embodies the Underground’s iconic status in London quite as completely as the phrase, “Mind the Gap.” This phrase, which originally referred to the gap between the train and the platform at Embankment station on the Northern line, has since become an enduringly popular symbol of London in the minds of travelers and visitors. The fact that a behavioral command about how to move through Underground space has become synonymous with visiting London suggests the deep connections between spatial behaviors and identity in the modern city. People had to be taught how to “Mind the Gap” – and railway officials were never completely able to control the ways in which people used, traveled through, and imagined these spaces. Illuminating these tensions between railway technicians and ordinary passengers demonstrates how the Underground provided a new type of space in which men and women from different classes and backgrounds could assert claims to freedom of movement within the city. Aside from the gap between station platforms and Underground trains, this cultural history of the Underground also reveals how Londoners negotiated and bridged other important gaps - between rich and poor, men and women, and concepts of what constituted being modern or backwards, progressive or dangerous - as they embraced this public space as a part of their everyday lives. My dissertation interweaves works of art and fiction, literary scholarship, and elements of geography and sociology into a cultural history of London’s transport. Though it was owned and operated by a series of private companies throughout the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the Underground offered a relatively affordable means of traversing the capitol for Londoners of all classes and backgrounds, and therefore the spaces of the Underground network (stations, platforms, and train cars) acted as public spaces where new ideas about democratic order in society were challenged and negotiated. My dissertation will bring a new perspective to studies of urban history by using interactions within the Tube to demonstrate how modernity was experienced and given meaning through particular spatial practices. I argue that the Underground helped challenge and redefine urban identities in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, particularly for women

Exploring Individual Differences in Workload Assessment

Air Force missions continue to increase in complexity often imposing higher levels of task load from cognitive tasks on the operators. This increased task load manifests itself in increased cognitive workload and potentially derogated performance. While cognitive workload has been studied for decades, recent advances in objective workload models and physiology monitoring have the potential to provide a more robust understanding of workload, potentially allowing systems to adaptively employ automation to maintain operator peak performance. The current research sought to provide insight into the relationship between subjective workload, task performance, objective workload, and select physiology measures. Analysis of an existing data set was performed to determine if individuals exhibiting low performance and high workload were more likely to have physiology responses that increased with workload due to a stress response than other participants. This analysis provides an approach to investigating the relationships among the four classes of workload information. However, the results indicate that certain physiology measures are significantly correlated with objective workload, regardless of the performance and workload range of the participants. Unfortunately, relatively low correlations were observed among all dependent measures and therefore, further research is necessary to confidently address the hypothesis of the current research