Verification of RNN-based neural agent-environment systems

We introduce agent-environment systems where the agent is stateful and executing a ReLU recurrent neural network. We define and study their verification problem by providing equivalences of recurrent and feed-forward neural networks on bounded execution traces. We give a sound and complete procedure for their verification against properties specified in a simplified version of LTL on bounded executions. We present an implementation and discuss the experimental results obtained

Barriers to Technological and non-Technological Innovation Activities in Malaysia

The complication of innovation activities has resulted to a massive increase in the adoption of external networks by Small, Medium to Large (SML) firms. The main objective of this study is to investigate the barriers to technological and non-technological innovation activities in SML firms both in the service and manufacturing sectors in Malaysia. It was reported that the gathering and distribution of data on innovation activities of a nation is unquantifiable to the prosperity and development of that nation. However, National Innovation Survey (NIS) in Malaysia dates back to the initial survey carried out in 1994 to gather data on innovation activities among SML firms in areas such as inventions, product developments, process creation, development and organizational change. The research philosophy adopted was multiple regression analysis executed on the collected interview data. Aside that, T-tests was also used to compare the means of variables between the randomly chosen domestic and foreign companies. In this research, the data was analyzed using Statistical Product and Service Solution (SPSS) version 18. Descriptive data analysis were used to explain the findings and were presented in the forms of tables and figures to describe the amount of innovation activities and the barriers to innovation activities in both the manufacturing and services sector

Campus Entrepreneurship, Innovativeness and Business Productivity

The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of institutional entrepreneurship and innovativeness on productivity of entrepreneurship ventures particularly those situated in institutions of higher learning in Nigeria. Giving that institutions are expanding beyond their main campuses admitting more students to different satellite campuses with different levels of infrastructures, skills, capabilities and necessities, it sought to find out if there was any significant improvement in business productivity by reason of introduction of innovation in entrepreneurs activities. This study formulated four hypotheses to find the level of relationship among the investigated variables. In order to test the hypotheses, the survey research method was used in a cross sectional design through the use of comprehensive questionnaires which were distributed to entrepreneurs in four tertiary institutions campuses situated in Lagos state. Results from regression analysis finds that innovation adaptation has a significant impact on labor and material productivity. In view of this, the researchers suggested that entrepreneurs should formulate and coordinate policies that will encourage these ideas to be made manifest in the labour capabilities of the enterprises. Hence, findings from this study will be useful for entrepreneurs who do not have adequate capacity to embrace innovation so as to produce at optimum capacity and gain competitive advantage as it would inform them of the innovation-enhancing role of productivity

Forecasting Effect of Creativity on Entrepreneurial Sustainability

Certain variables are important quest for managers of businesses to achieving high level of success for the benefit of the enterprise. This research investigated creativity as predictor to entrepreneurial success and performance. Creativity strategies needs to be formulated so as to help the entrepreneurs strategize by setting up grand plans that enable them attain competitive advantage in the marketplace. This could be in areas of creating new products to attract more customers. In addition, new process strategy are required by business entrepreneur’s managers to boost customer base of the organization and increase the sales volume. Others variables such as new market, new service, new value, new places and needs of consumers should be addressed. However, this study tries to find out the degree of improvement in entrepreneurial firm’s performance when creativity is adopted in the operations of the organization. To test the hypotheses for this study, quantitative survey method was used by distributing 350 closed ended questionnaires to entrepreneurs in some selected markets in Lagos state. Data analysis of the 288 completed questionnaires for this study was carried out with the use of Statistical Product of Social Scientists (SPSS 22). The study finds that creativity adaptation has a positive impact on return on investment and customer base of the sampled business enterprises. This study will be relevant to manufacturing firms and business enterprises who do not adequately adopt creativity strategy to operate at optimum capacity

Financing Early Staged Technology Based Firms in Malaysia

The establishment of various agencies to support and finance researches in universities and research institutes capable to grow Technology Based Firms was due to the Malaysian government’s recognition of Technology Entrepreneurship as an avenue to develop the economy industrially. Technology Based Firms (TBFs) have been widely accepted as a key influence in the economic development, wealth generation, employment and creation of new innovations. Although, despite huge investment in Research and Development and other public support from government to these group of firms, they still encounter difficulty in accessing the right and adequate amount of investment capital required to grow their firms to successful and global companies. The objective of this particular research is to find out the financing sources for early staged firms in Malaysia. The researchers interviewed 28 Technology Based Firms and 19 Venture Capital Firms in Malaysia through a qualitative approach to data collection. The data collected was transcribed, analyzed and coded with the aim of identifying the emergent themes relevant for the theme development for the study. This study finds that certain agencies of government are dedicated to supporting the growth requirements of young firms until they are capable to stand alone as independent companies

Review of Global Marketing Environment and Entrepreneurship Development

In recent times, globalization of new entrepreneurial ventures are both expanding and this may possibly contribute to a greater number of economic actors pursuing foreign markets. Empirical studies reveals that the expansion and acceleration of cross-border entrepreneurship should be considered in the light of substantial changes that has taken place in the past decades and that resulted in a reduction of transaction costs for undertaking international business. In view of this, business venture owners globally find avenues of taking their brands to global markets, but marketing environment at the global arena presents several challenges to overseas players. The political, cultural and technological atmosphere has many influence on entrepreneurial success in foreign markets. The purpose of this study is to understand the challenges that entrepreneurial firms encounter in trying to launch their brands in global market. This study adopted a secondary approach to data collection by reviewing archival literatures in this domain of investigation. This study concludes that cross-border business activities are essential avenues through which emerging entrepreneurs could create value, generate growth and access new knowledge and technologies via their exposure to foreign markets

Evaluation of the Correlation between Mission Statement and Company Performances in the Banking Industry

For effective performance of any business, the enterprise must clearly define its purpose-driven mission statement, technology, values, concern for society and public image in order to survive, remain relevant and successful. All five factors are significant characteristics in mission statements that show how effective the organization can attain high productivity. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between mission statement and company performance in the banking sector in Nigeria. Data were collected through the use of structured questionnaires administered to a pre-determined sample size of five selected major banks in Nigeria. Data were analyzed and the five hypotheses tested using correlation and multiple regression. This study shows that with purpose-driven mission statement, companies’ turnover, customers’ satisfaction, social responsibility and shareholders’ equity can be achieved. Though it is observed that to achieve the afore–mentioned factors, concepts such as purpose, technology, values, concern for society and public image should be regarded with extreme importanc

Formal Verification of Neural Network Controlled Autonomous Systems

In this paper, we consider the problem of formally verifying the safety of an autonomous robot equipped with a Neural Network (NN) controller that processes LiDAR images to produce control actions. Given a workspace that is characterized by a set of polytopic obstacles, our objective is to compute the set of safe initial conditions such that a robot trajectory starting from these initial conditions is guaranteed to avoid the obstacles. Our approach is to construct a finite state abstraction of the system and use standard reachability analysis over the finite state abstraction to compute the set of the safe initial states. The first technical problem in computing the finite state abstraction is to mathematically model the imaging function that maps the robot position to the LiDAR image. To that end, we introduce the notion of imaging-adapted sets as partitions of the workspace in which the imaging function is guaranteed to be affine. We develop a polynomial-time algorithm to partition the workspace into imaging-adapted sets along with computing the corresponding affine imaging functions. Given this workspace partitioning, a discrete-time linear dynamics of the robot, and a pre-trained NN controller with Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) nonlinearity, the second technical challenge is to analyze the behavior of the neural network. To that end, we utilize a Satisfiability Modulo Convex (SMC) encoding to enumerate all the possible segments of different ReLUs. SMC solvers then use a Boolean satisfiability solver and a convex programming solver and decompose the problem into smaller subproblems. To accelerate this process, we develop a pre-processing algorithm that could rapidly prune the space feasible ReLU segments. Finally, we demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithms using numerical simulations with increasing complexity of the neural network controller

Effects of Subcontracting on Modern Day Organizations

Many small businesses hire subcontractors to assist with a wide variety of functions. Subcontracting is a business strategy which came about in Nigeria as an outfall of the practices that were inherent in the industrial sector of the 1960s and 1970s. The adoption of subcontracting to most business organizations in advanced nations has been acknowledged to help such organisations attain organisational goals and aids economic growth and development. Empirical literature in Nigeria reported that the concept is not fully adopted despite emergence of manufacturing and services firms as a result of thriving economy. This study investigates the awareness, adoption and impact of the subcontracting strategy among business organizations in Nigeria. Quantitatively designed questionnaires were distributed to 120 respondents from selected manufacturing and service organisations around Lagos. A Multiple Regression Analysis was carried out to investigate the push and pull factors to subcontracting which could help to find out the decision of organisations to subcontract. Results from the Multiple Regression Analysis reported various levels of significance after testing H1-H4. However, the Pearson Correlation also reported different shared variance figures which is the amount of correlation that exists between both the push and pull factors to the subcontracting decision. However, results from analysis finds that majority of the respondents agreed that subcontracting has indeed assisted the company in realizing positive growth. This study has stirred up the need for a more detailed effort in the use of subcontracting as a tool for success in business activities even in light of the current waves of global financial crisis

ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF ORGANISATION MISSION THROUGH APPROPRIATE IMPLEMENTATION OF STRATEGIES

The study examines accomplishments of organization mission through appropriate implementation of strategies with a major focus on mission statements of two multi-national companies in Nigeria. Resource-based theory and competence-based theory were adopted as theoretical framework for the study. This study benefited immensely from the established concept of business strategies comprising of differentiation strategy, overall cost leadership strategy and focus strategy. Data for this research were obtained from both primary and secondary sources. The primary data were obtained through questionnaire. Two-stage probability and non-probability sampling techniques was adopted using two multinational companies which were selected on purpose from the list of manufacturing companies in Nigeria. In the second stage, a simple random sampling procedure was employed to draw respondents randomly from the organizations. Qualified participants were those who have spent more than two years in the choice companies. Overall, 291 respondents were involved in the ratio of 47: 50 between the two organizations contrary to 50:50 ratio initially planned. The data analysis procedures employed were, univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses. In this study, two hypotheses were formulated. The results showed that overall cost leadership strategy affects product/service quality and employees’ satisfaction. In addition, differentiation strategy affects employees’ satisfaction but the significance of its effect on process improvement could not be ascertained. However, the effect of focus strategy on customer service and community development could not be established. In other words, there are variations in the effectiveness of these business strategies depending on the component of the mission that the organization is set to achieve. The study recommends that there is need for thorough environmental scanning in order to select the appropriate business strategy to be adopted in accomplishing the specific aspect of the organization mission