Platform Business Models – A Case Study of the Technology Industry

The opportunity to create a value exchange environment is uniquely offered by the platform businesses. A novel approach of co-creating value is writing the rules in the platform business world. This paper analyzes the platform business models within the technology industry based on a multiple case study. As the main driver of business performance in this environment is technology, companies are using it to develop new products or to provide technology as a service. Thus, the main objective is to debate on the actual business needs in terms of business model innovation and to investigate how platform business models are developed through strategic acquisitions to achieve competitive advantage. The cases analysis suggests that technology acquisitions made around the core business may contribute to business model innovation. In addition, new partnerships with the external environment may facilitate mutual value creation exchanges and the platform may evolve through adding extra features from its external partners. We contribute to the advancement of business model research by putting platform business model study into the competitive context of the technology industry, with findings on how platforms are used in the digital era to innovate the core business model. From a practitioner’s perspective, this study may help companies to understand the importance of investing in other technology companies and to identify the opportunities of business model innovation through strategic partnerships. The limitation of this study is that the main data used for the multiple case study was derived from secondary sources and it provided insights about each company’s platform business model from a macro perspective

SMART CITY APPLICATIONS BUILT ON BIG DATA TECHNOLOGIES AND SECURE IOT

Smart city represents an emerging topic because efficient city management is beneficial for both government and private sector businesses. IoT envisions to connect billions of sensors to the Internet and expects to use them for efficient and effective resource management in Smart Cities. An organisation collects data analyses it and uses the results as an input for decision making processes. The paper provides an overview of the smart city concept relying on IoT and Big Data technologies, an overview on Smart City development in Romania and describes four Smart City national solutions. Their benefits are efficient resource utilization, increased quality of life, higher levels of transparency and openness towards citizens. A smart city uses digital technologies or information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance quality and performance of urban services to make lives of citizens better. It becomes easier to navigate for visitors, and more serendipitous for locals. City officials and municipal governments are provided with a completely new way to connect with citizens and visitors and a city that is more connected to its people works and feels better

Climate change enhances the mobilisation of naturally occurring metals in high altitude environments

Manmade climate change has expressed a plethora of complex effects on Earth's biogeochemical compartments. Climate change may also affect the mobilisation of natural metal sources, with potential ecological consequences beyond mountains' geographical limits; however, this question has remained largely unexplored. We investigated this by analysing a number of key climatic factors in relationship with trace metal accumulation in the sediment core of a Pyrenean lake. The sediment metal contents showed increasing accumulation trend over time, and their levels varied in step with recent climate change. The findings further revealed that a rise in the elevation of freezing level, a general increase in the frequency of drier periods, changes in the frequency of winter freezing days and a reducing snow cover since the early 1980s, together are responsible for the observed variability and augmented accumulation of trace metals. Our results provide clear evidence of increased mobilisation of natural metal sources - an overlooked effect of climate change on the environment. With further alterations in climate equilibrium predicted over the ensuing decades, it is likely that mountain catchments in metamorphic areas may become significant sources of trace metals, with potentially harmful consequences for the wider environment

GIS in seismology: contributions to the evaluation of seismic hazard and risk

In this paper we highlight the capabilities and advantages of GIS, through an explicit analysis of its contribution within different studies of seismic hazard and risk assessment. These studies are related to Romania – one of Europe’s countries with the highest seismic risk, mainly due to intermediate-depth earthquakes originating in the Vrancea Zone. We provide examples of how GIS contributes and enhances the evaluation of seismic hazard, the development of vulnerability spatial datasets, multicriteria analysis, real-time estimation of seismic risk, assessment of road network failure susceptibility and implications, mapping or others. The role of free data and contribution capabilities are discussed. In recent projects such as Bigsees and Ro-Risk, GIS was one of the elements that lead to innovation, and we aim to present the experience and results. Another important aspect is referred to: the importance of GIS to a research dissemination with great impact

Automated Code Testing System for Bug Prevention in Web-based User Interfaces

Automation in testing user interfaces is a prerequisite for overcoming the major weaknesses of manual testing, such as time consumption, not being able to reproduce the sequence that generates a bug or the tendency to repeat only the successful steps. Continuous testing represents an important step in the agile software development cycle because any features and changes added to the code need to be checked before their propagation to production environment. Manually testing is a resource and time-consuming process thus the solution would be to make the entire workflow from committing a change to publishing a new release completely automated. The solution proposed within this paper is a framework for automated code testing and bug prevention that relies on Selenium, a framework supporting also headless testing, integrated with a Continuous Integration (CI) server such as Jenkins

The Correlation Between Mechanical Characteristics and Technological Parameters in Heat Treatments Applied to Moulding Aluminium Like ATSi5Cu1

The paper contains an experimental study of colligating the technological parameters of the artificial aging operation namely time and soaking temperature with hardness and mechanical strength properties gained after the treatment. The tests were made on a moulding aluminum alloy like ATSi5Cu1 by using moulded test bars in metallic shell. There were realized metallographic photographs and strength tests