Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes

Plants and traditional knowledge: An ethnobotanical investigation on Monte Ortobene (Nuoro, Sardinia)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Most of the traditional knowledge about plants and their uses is fast disappearing as a consequence of socio-economic and land use changes. This trend is also occurring in areas that are historically exposed to very few external influences, such as Sardinia (Italy). From 2004 to 2005, an ethnobotanical investigation was carried out in the area of Monte Ortobene, a mountain located near Nuoro, in central Sardinia.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews. All the records – defined as 'citations', i.e. a single use reported for a single botanical species by a single informant – were filed in a data base ('analytical table'), together with additional information: i.e. local names of plants, parts used, local frequencies, and habitats of plants, etc. In processing the data, plants and uses were grouped into general ('categories') and detailed ('secondary categories') typologies of use. Some synthetic indexes have also been used, such as Relative Frequency of Citation (RFC), Cultural Importance Index (CI), the Shannon-Wiener Index (H'), and Evenness Index (J).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Seventy-two plants were cited by the informants as being traditionally used in the area. These 72 'ethnospecies' correspond to 99 botanical taxa (species or subspecies) belonging to 34 families. Three-hundred and one citations, 50 secondary categories of use, and 191 different uses were recorded, most of them concerning alimentary and medicinal plants.</p> <p>For the alimentary plants, 126 citations, 44 species, and 13 different uses were recorded, while for the medicinal plants, there were 106 citations, 40 species, and 12 uses. Few plants and uses were recorded for the remaining categories. Plants and uses for each category of use are discussed. Analyses of results include the relative abundance of botanical families, wild vs. cultivated species, habitats, frequency, parts of plant used, types of use, knowledge distribution, and the different cultural importance of the species in question.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The study provides examples of several interesting uses of plants in the community, which would seem to show that the custom of using wild plants is still alive in the Monte Ortobene area. However, many practices are no longer in use, and survive only as memories from the past in the minds of elderly people, and often only in one or just a few informants. This rapidly vanishing cultural diversity needs to be studied and documented before it disappears definitively.</p

Properties of Graphene: A Theoretical Perspective

In this review, we provide an in-depth description of the physics of monolayer and bilayer graphene from a theorist's perspective. We discuss the physical properties of graphene in an external magnetic field, reflecting the chiral nature of the quasiparticles near the Dirac point with a Landau level at zero energy. We address the unique integer quantum Hall effects, the role of electron correlations, and the recent observation of the fractional quantum Hall effect in the monolayer graphene. The quantum Hall effect in bilayer graphene is fundamentally different from that of a monolayer, reflecting the unique band structure of this system. The theory of transport in the absence of an external magnetic field is discussed in detail, along with the role of disorder studied in various theoretical models. We highlight the differences and similarities between monolayer and bilayer graphene, and focus on thermodynamic properties such as the compressibility, the plasmon spectra, the weak localization correction, quantum Hall effect, and optical properties. Confinement of electrons in graphene is nontrivial due to Klein tunneling. We review various theoretical and experimental studies of quantum confined structures made from graphene. The band structure of graphene nanoribbons and the role of the sublattice symmetry, edge geometry and the size of the nanoribbon on the electronic and magnetic properties are very active areas of research, and a detailed review of these topics is presented. Also, the effects of substrate interactions, adsorbed atoms, lattice defects and doping on the band structure of finite-sized graphene systems are discussed. We also include a brief description of graphane -- gapped material obtained from graphene by attaching hydrogen atoms to each carbon atom in the lattice.Comment: 189 pages. submitted in Advances in Physic

Entry Mode Degree of Control, Firm Performance and Host Country Institutional Development: A Meta-Analysis

Among studies on performance outcomes of entry mode choices disagreement fueled by ambiguous research findings is apparent as regards whether the best per- formers are those firms that enter foreign countries with high or low entry mode degree of control. To solve this dilemma and test new hypotheses, the relationship between entry mode degree of control and firm performance is examined by meta- analyzing 133 studies (740,114 observations) covering entry mode choices from 1980 to 2010. We find that (a) overall high-control entry modes lead to higher per- formance, and (b) adopting high-control entry modes is particularly important for firms entering developing countries

The Economies and Diseconomies of Industrial Clustering:Multinational Enterprises versus Uninational Enterprises

This study’s objective is to compare cluster economies and diseconomies for multinational enterprises (MNEs) and uninational enterprises (UNEs) within the London financial services cluster. In contrast to the implicit assumption of the cluster participation literature that the economies and diseconomies of clusters are valued similarly by all firms, we find that economies relating to social capital and labour market pooling are equally important to MNEs and UNEs, economies relating to local competition and diseconomies relating to congestion costs are more important to MNEs than to UNEs, and economies relating to the reputational effects of locating in a world-leading cluster and access to specialised suppliers are more important to UNEs than to MNEs. That MNEs and UNEs do not experience cluster economies and diseconomies in the same way indicates that both cluster participation theory and international business theory need augmentation to recognise that cluster incumbents benefit and suffer from cluster membership differently

The Transformation Towards Smart (er) Factories:Integration Requirements of the Digital Twin

The vision of the smart factory with its interconnected systems is based on the seamless (real-time) integration of data across the information system (IS) landscape. Yet, due to the existence of many legacy systems, this task is far from trivial. In industrial practice, the IS landscape comprises systems of different application functionality which can be characterized as technologically heterogeneous, e.g. transaction processing versus real-time systems. Integrating such systems has always been a major challenge and constraining force for many organizations. This problem is receiving renewed attention in the context of the implementation of the digital twin in manufacturing. Due to its central role in the IS landscape, the digital twin needs to communicate with a number of heterogeneous applications to achieve its full potential, i.e. achieving a complete virtual representation of an asset, process or product. This research analyses the integration requirements from the perspective of the digital twins’ application functionality. In particular, we provide an explicit mapping of the integrations needed between the digital twin and existing information systems (IS) in manufacturing, which serves as a basis to better understand integration issues. These findings provide an explanation for and a conceptualization of some of the challenges that emerge when transforming towards an interconnected smart factory