A sector analysis for RFID technologies: fundamental and technical analysis for financial decision making problems

Automatic identification technologies have been used in a wide range of applications for reducing the amount of time and labor needed to input data and improving data accuracy. As an important automatic identification technology, radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies allow contactless reading and these technologies are particularly successful in manufacturing and other environments where traditional identification technologies such as bar codes can not perform well. By integrating the RFID technology into their business models, companies may save time, lower labor cost, improve products quality and provide better service. RFID is the wireless technology that uses RF communication to identify, track and manage objects and collect and store data. RFID technology enables companies to develop applications that create value by tracking and identifying objects, animals or people. Business applications of RFID technology can be seen in areas such as manufacturing, supply chain management, software integration, security systems, asset tracking and many others. RFID technology was predicted to be one of the “top ten” technologies in 2004 by CNN. Although, the RFID market is less than five years old, it has been applied to many different industries, from retail industry to logistics, or from healthcare to service business industry – and it is still growing. Particularly, RFID has fundamental influences on today's retailing and supply chain management for applications like asset tracking the inventory control and management. RFID technology also finds major application in mobile phones and is widely used in toll collection of highways, for payments in restaurants, vending machines, retail and parking lots. There are a wide range of RFID systems currently being used or being developed. Examples to these systems include but not limited to the following; automatic vehicle and personnel access control for security (Simpson, 2006), airport passenger and baggage tracking (Ferguson, 2006), tracing blood for cutting down errors such as giving patients wrong blood types (Ranger, 2006), payment process systems (Ramachandran, 2006), production control in manufacturing (Liu & Miao, 2006), transfusion medicine (Knels, 2006) real-time inventory control by automated identification of items in warehouses, tracking and management of physical files, tracking of books in the libraries (Shadid, 2005). For some other applications, interested reader is referred to (Finkenzeller, 2003; Smith, 2004). RFID solution providers claim that their technology and solutions bring significant benefits and have valuable advantages in practice. As new RFID solutions being developed and more RFID tags and equipments being used, these solutions will become more cost effective and RFID businesses are expected to grow rapidly. Since RFID is fairly new, it’s difficult to measure resulting sales increases or heightened customer satisfaction quotients. On the other hand, according to IDC estimation (IDC is a subsidiary of International Data Group, a leading technology media, research, and events company and provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets), companies in the retail sector will spend nearly $1.3 billion on RFID in their supply chain operations in 2008, compared to about$91.5 million in 2003 which corresponds to annual growth rate of 70 percent. In a similar look; the Wireless Data Research Group projected that the global market for RFID increased from $1 billion in 2003 to$3 billion in 2007 (Asif & Mandviwalla, 2005). There are two major drivers of this growth. The first one is the adoption of RFID technology by major retailers and government agencies. The second one is the reduction in the price of RFID tags, readers, and IT systems required to deploy RFID. Given the huge potential of RFID technology, there has been a huge emergence of RFID specialty companies and the development of RFID practices within many market-leading companies. Due to huge emergence, it is desirable to make a sector analysis. In this study, we perform a sector analysis for RFID technologies for researchers and analysts. We investigate public RFID companies traded on the stock exchange markets, summarize their financial performance, describe their RF products, services, and applications, and perform fundamental and technical analysis

Charge transport in selenium based amorphous xerographic photoreceptors

Imperial Users onl

Effect of sample dimensions on observed photoluminescence from Er³⁺ ions in GeGaS and LaGaS glass hosts

The 4I9/2 - 4I13/2 emission band of trivalent Er3+ is potentially interesting light source for methane (CH4) detection because of its closeness to CH4 absorption band at 1.67 µm. In the present paper we report the influence of glass sample geometry on the shape of spectra and relative emission intensity of 4I9/2 - 4I13/2 band as well as three main 4I13/2 - 4I15/2 , 4I11/2 - 4I15/2 and 4I9/2 - 4I15/2 emission bands in sulfide glasses (GeGaS and LaGaS) doped with 0.5 at.% of Er. We show that the increase of sample size leads to a significant broadening of emission spectra as well as to the substantial suppression of 4I13/2 - 4I15/2 and 4I11/2 - 4I15/2 bands. The observed effects are explained by excitation diffusion or photon trapping (consecutive absorption and emission of light by Er3+ ions [1,2]) which turns out to be more effective in large samples. We present the results of Monte-Carlo simulations supporting our considerations and we discuss the possibility of increasing the 4I9/2 - 4I13/2 emission by controlling photon trapping

A study of Neospora caninum antibody seroprevalence ın dairy cows in Turkey

ΔΕΝ ΔΙΑΤΙΘΕΤΑΙ ΠΕΡΙΛΗΨΗNeospora caninum is a intracellular protozoan parasite and is one of the major causes of repeated abortions, foetal malformations, pre-term deliveries, stillbirth and possible loss of milk yield in livestock. The presence of specific antibodies against N. caninum in the blood serum of dairy cows is investigated in the present study. A total of 184 blood serum samples of dairy cows were examined in Bursa province in the Marmara Region. N. caninum antibodies were measured using an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (The Svanovir Neospora-Ab ELISA). From the total sample, antibodies to N. caninum were detected in 62 of the 184 examined cows (33.3%) and neurological findings were seen in a calf

Determination of two-dimensional electron and hole gas carriers in AlGaN/GaN/AlN heterostructures grown by Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Resistivity and Hall effect measurements on nominally undoped Al0.25Ga0.75N/GaN/AlN heterostructures grown on sapphire substrates prepared by metal organic chemical vapor deposition have been carried out as a function of temperature (20-300 K) and magnetic field (0-1.4 T). Variable magnetic field Hall data have been analyzed using the improved quantitative mobility spectrum analysis technique. The mobility and density of the two-dimensional electron gas at the AlGaN/GaN interface and the two-dimensional hole gas at the GaN/AIN interface are separated by quantitative mobility spectrum analysis. The analysis shows that two-channel conduction is present in nominally undoped Al0.25Ga0.75N/GaN/AlN heterostructures grown on sapphire substrate. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved

Unconventional Hall effect in oriented Ca3_3Co4_4O9_9 thin films

Transport properties of the good thermoelectric misfit oxide Ca$_3$Co$_4$O$_9$ are examined. In-plane resistivity and Hall resistance measurements were made on epitaxial thin films which were grown on {\it c}-cut sapphire substrates using the pulsed laser deposition technique. Interpretation of the in-plane transport experiments relates the substrate-induced strain in the resulting film to single crystals under very high pressure ($\sim$ 5.5 GPa) consistent with a key role of strong electronic correlation. They are confirmed by the measured high temperature maxima in both resistivity and Hall resistance. While hole-like charge carriers are inferred from the Hall effect measurements over the whole investigated temperature range, the Hall resistance reveals a non monotonic behavior at low temperatures that could be interpreted with an anomalous contribution. The resulting unconventional temperature dependence of the Hall resistance seems thus to combine high temperature strongly correlated features above 340 K and anomalous Hall effect at low temperature, below 100 K.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review B (2005

Photoreforming of lignocellulose into H2 using nano-engineered carbon nitride under benign conditions

Photoreforming of lignocellulose is a promising approach toward sustainable H2 generation, but this kinetically challenging reaction currently requires UV-absorbing or toxic light absorbers under harsh conditions. Here, we report a cyanamide-functionalized carbon nitride, NCNCNx, which shows enhanced performance upon ultra-sonication. This activated NCNCNx allows for the visible-light driven conversion of purified and raw lignocellulose samples into H2 in the presence of various proton reduction co-catalysts. The reported room-temperature photoreforming process operates under benign aqueous conditions (pH ~2-15) without the need for toxic components.Austrian Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs, the National Foundation for Research, Technology and Development, OM