An Examination The Implicit Costs on Emerging ICT-Driven Innovations

Innovations have been regarded as the key driver for business to achieve business competitive advantages and survive in a rigorous environment. Businesses need to continuously adopt innovative business models and exploit opportunities from new technologies. The information and communication technologies (ICT) are claimed not only important sources for efficiency, effectiveness, and quality but also essential drivers for business innovations. In particular, the recently emerged social networks and mobile applications have increased the speed of evolving business models and the content of a variety of services. Social networking services have radically changed our life over past few years. McKinsey & Company indicated that “It took 13 years for commercial television to reach 50 million households and 3 years for Internet service providers to sign their 50 millionth subscribers. Facebook hit the 50 million–user mark in just a year and Twitter in 9 months.” With continuous and seamless interaction between entities, the nature of social networking services keeps consumers stick with these innovations. On the other hand, mobile applications are also accelerating the pace of adoption by worldwide consumers, even in the developing nations. Given the continuously development of networking, mobile devices, and social media applications, those technologies have changed not only the way messages transferring but also the cost, frequency, and speed of transferring. While those innovations have accumulated a pervasive population, more businesses are interested in adopting those emerging ICT-driven innovations in order to capture opportunities in building channels and creating values. However, the characteristics of emerging ICT are totally different from traditional ICT, such as the adopting cost and implementation time. In difference to traditional technologies such as enterprise resources systems and supply chain systems which require great investment in money and time, emerging ICT present a more accessible and easier way to implement. For instances, Facebook’s Fan-page is a new channel for brands in social networking. This application is effective to access a great number of consumers that most of the worldwide brand such as Coca-Cola, Disney, and McDonald\u27s have created Fan-pages to seamlessly promote services and closely interact with netizen. In addition, this application is free and even a start-up company can offer. As a platform to communicate with consumers, Fan-page communication as well as other innovative applications, such instant messaging, social games, and mobile ordering, are characterized with a consumer-to-consumer communication and a low cost of establishment. In spite of the convenience characteristics of the social technology, potential problems may exist. The technological convenience may lead businesses easy adopt and easy drop the innovation without further consideration. This research tries to examine the unexpected results associated with the dropping of the emerging social technology and provide a framework of the implicit costs associated with the termination of business model innovations. Related to the explicit costs such as material, equipment, wage, and other expenses, the implicit costs are easily hidden, unavoidable, and immeasurable. The implicit costs may occur when companies adopt and drop emerging ICT-driven innovations without elaborated consideration. First, distorted messages. The frequency and speed of message transferring is the key characteristics of emerging ICT. While complex and plenty of messages are provided, enterprise decision-makers may become overwhelmed and confused in make accurate and proper decision. Second, the deployed deficiency in the human resources may occur. While all enterprises rely on the deployment of human resources to coordinate the physically and virtually networked resources, most enterprises may notice the cost of human resources in physical stores but ignore the service support needed on virtual platforms. Emerging ICT-driven applications require adequate deployment of the human resources to survive and react to the quickly distributing online WOM (word-of-mouth). Third, the disruption of consumer loyalty. While the online WOM quickly distribute, it would be a crisis when companies don’t deal well with any emergency or negative rumors. Moreover, the nature of Internet have intensified the negotiating power of consumers online. Companies have to carefully treat every consumers and keep away from concentrating and activating the angry netizens. The objective of this research is to discuss the realistic result of quickly adopted and dropped business innovations with emerging ICT. There are three contributions to the field of innovation study. Given the different characteristics between traditional and emerging technology, the study of emerging ICT innovations can lead to unexpected effects and additional costs which is rarely discussed so far. Second, in difference to most literatures which are focused on the benefit and competitive advantages gained by innovation adopters, this research tries to examine the causes of innovation failures. Lastly, this research tries to provide a framework of implicit costs for companies to plan for the risks in adopting emerging ICT-driven innovations

Comparing Mineral and Organic Nitrogen Fertilizer Impact on the Soil-Plant-Water System in A Succession of Three Crops

In the belief that the investigation of the whole system helps to avoid the risk of incomplete or misleading responses resulting from the analysis of the single segments, a research was conducted in a succession of three crops (lettuce, red chicory and celery) to investigate  in an integrated approach the different response of the soil-plant-water system to mineral and organic nitrogen fertilization. The experimental plan included the application of two amounts of fertilizer, corresponding to 240 and 360 kg ha-1 N under mineral or organic form per crop cycle, plus a control, in three replications.Mineral N resulted more promptly available to plants and increased the fresh and dry weight and protein content in leaves of the three crops while no significant difference in the tissue moisture content between the treatments was found. The inspection of combined data resulting from soil, plant and water analysis and from N budget demonstrates that altogether more mineral N was released in soil and water from the organic fertilizer while more N was uptaken by plants with the mineral fertilizer.Nitrogen uptake efficiency and N use efficiency in fact were highest in the mineral fertilized plots while surplus N was only found with the organic fertilization.Microbial population in the soil was unaffected by the type and amount of fertilizers; on the contrary, enzymatic activity responded positively to organic N while was depressed by the synthetic N form.  The results suggest that the use of organic N integrated with mineral N at the appropriate crop stages is the solution to be recommended

Generalized conductance sum rule in atomic break junctions

When an atomic-size break junction is mechanically stretched, the total conductance of the contact remains approximately constant over a wide range of elongations, although at the same time the transmissions of the individual channels (valence orbitals of the junction atom) undergo strong variations. We propose a microscopic explanation of this phenomenon, based on Coulomb correlation effects between electrons in valence orbitals of the junction atom. The resulting approximate conductance quantization is closely related to the Friedel sum rule.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, appears in Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop ``Size dependent magnetic scattering'', Pecs, Hungary, May 28 - June 1, 200

An analysis of efficiency and loan loss provisioning behaviour in Japanese banking

The dissertation aims to investigate the loan loss provision behaviours in Japanese banks over the sample period 2010 to 2016 with respect to cost efficiency and three hypotheses (earning management, capital management and business cycle) based on relevant empirical literatures and 64 Japanese banks. There are two main models employed in the dissertation. First of all, cost efficiency will be assessed via the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA) model which explored that overall efficiency score for Japanese banks in each year is nearly over 80% and indicated Japanese banks maintained financial stability efficiently. In addition, Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) model is adopted to analyse loan loss provision behaviours. As a consequence, some available results support cost efficiency in Japanese banks, while there is no clear evidence to support earning management, capital management and business cycle

Experimental investigation of flow and segregation behaviour of bulk solids in silos under high gravity conditions

Many researchers have investigated the flow and segregation behaviour in model scale experimental silos at normal gravity conditions. However it is known that the stresses experienced by the bulk solid in industrial silos are high when compared to model silos. Therefore it is important to understand the effect of stress level on flow and segregation behaviour and establish the scaling laws governing this behaviour. The objective of this paper is to understand the effect of gravity on the flow and segregation behaviour of bulk solids in a silo centrifuge model. The materials used were two mixtures composed of Polyamide and glass beads. The discharge of two bi-disperse bulk solids in a silo centrifuge model were recorded under accelerations ranging from 1g to 15g. The velocity distribution during discharge was evaluated using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) techniques and the concentration distribution of large and small particles were obtained by imaging processing techniques. The flow and segregation behaviour at high gravities were then quantified and compared with the empirical equations available in the literature

Higgs algebraic symmetry of screened system in a spherical geometry

The orbits and the dynamical symmetries for the screened Coulomb potentials and isotropic harmonic oscillators have been studied by Wu and Zeng [Z. B. Wu and J. Y. Zeng, Phys. Rev. A 62,032509 (2000)]. We find the similar properties in the responding systems in a spherical space, whose dynamical symmetries are described by Higgs Algebra. There exists a conserved aphelion and perihelion vector, which, together with angular momentum, constitute the generators of the geometrical symmetry group at the aphelia and perihelia points $(\dot{r}=0)$.Comment: 8 pages, 1 fi

Global Incidence and mortality of oesophageal cancer and their correlation with socioeconomic indicators temporal patterns and trends in 41 countries

Oesophageal cancers (adenocarcinomas [AC] and squamous cell carcinomas [SCC]) are characterized by high incidence/mortality in many countries. We aimed to delineate its global incidence and mortality, and studied whether socioeconomic development and its incidence rate were correlated. The age-standardized rates (ASRs) of incidence and mortality of this medical condition in 2012 for 184 nations from the GLOBOCAN database; national databases capturing incidence rates, and the WHO mortality database were examined. Their correlations with two indicators of socioeconomic development were evaluated. Joinpoint regression analysis was used to generate trends. The ratio between the ASR of AC and SCC was strongly correlated with HDI (r = 0.535 [men]; r = 0.661 [women]) and GDP (r = 0.594 [men]; r = 0.550 [women], both p < 0.001). Countries that reported the largest reduction in incidence in male included Poland (Average Annual Percent Change [AAPC] = −7.1, 95%C.I. = −12,−1.9) and Singapore (AAPC = −5.8, 95%C.I. = −9.5,−1.9), whereas for women the greatest decline was seen in Singapore (AAPC = −12.3, 95%C.I. = −17.3,−6.9) and China (AAPC = −5.6, 95%C.I. = −7.6,−3.4). The Philippines (AAPC = 4.3, 95%C.I. = 2,6.6) and Bulgaria (AAPC = 2.8, 95%C.I. = 0.5,5.1) had a significant mortality increase in men; whilst Columbia (AAPC = −6.1, 95%C.I. = −7.5,−4.6) and Slovenia (AAPC = −4.6, 95%C.I. = −7.9,−1.3) reported mortality decline in women. These findings inform individuals at increased risk for primary prevention

Spin-orbit coupling in bulk GaAs

We study the spin-orbit coupling in the whole Brillouin zone for GaAs using both the $sp^3s^{\ast}d^5$ and $sp^3s^{\ast}$ nearest-neighbor tight-binding models. In the $\Gamma$-valley, the spin splitting obtained is in good agreement with experimental data. We then further explicitly present the coefficients of the spin splitting in GaAs $L$ and $X$ valleys. These results are important to the realization of spintronic device and the investigation of spin dynamics far away from equilibrium.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, Physica E, in pres

Feature correspondences From Multiple Views of Coplanar Ellipses

International audienceWe address the problem of feature correspondences in images of coplanar ellipses with objective to benefit of robust ellipse fitting algorithm. The main difficulty is the lack of projective invariant points immediately available. Therefore, our key idea is to construct virtual line and point features using the property of tangent invariance under perspective projection. The proposed method requires first a robust detection of ellipse edge points to fit a parametric model on each ellipse. The feature lines are then obtained by computing the 4 bitangents to each couple of ellipses. The points are derived by considering the tangent points and the intersection points between bitangents. Results of experimental studies are presented to demonstrate the reliability and robustness of the feature extraction process. Subpixel accuracy is easily achieved. A real application to camera self-calibration is also described

Characteristics of regional new particle formation in urban and regional background environments in the North China Plain

Long-term measurements of particle number size distributions were carried out both at an urban background site (Peking University, PKU) and a regional Global Atmospheric Watch station (Shangdianzi, SDZ) from March to November in 2008. In total, 52 new particle formation (NPF) events were observed simultaneously at both sites, indicating that this is a regional phenomenon in the North China Plain. On average, the mean condensation sink value before the nucleation events started was 0.025 s−1 in the urban environment, which was 1.6 times higher than that at regional site. However, higher particle formation and growth rates were observed at PKU (10.8 cm−3 s−1 and 5.2 nm h−1) compared with those at SDZ (4.9 cm−3 s−1 and 4.0 nm h−1). These results implied that precursors were much more abundant in the polluted urban environment. Different from the observations in cleaner environments, the background conditions of the observed particle homogeneous nucleation events in the North China Plain could be characterized as the co-existing of a stronger source of precursor gases and a higher condensational sink of pre-existing aerosol particles. Secondary aerosol formation following nucleation events results in an increase of particle mass concentration, particle light scattering coefficient, and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentration, with consequences on visibility, radiative effects, and air quality. Typical regional NPF events with significant particle nucleation rates and subsequent particle growth over a sufficiently long time period at both sites were chosen to investigate the influence of NPF on the number concentration of "potential" CCN. As a result, the NPF and the subsequent condensable growth increased the CCN number concentration in the North China Plain by factors in the range from 5.6 to 8.7. Moreover, the potential contribution of anthropogenic emissions to the CCN number concentration was more than 50%, to which more attention should be drawn in regional and global climate modeling, especially in the polluted urban areas