Small business collaboration through electronic marketplace

It is widely recognized that small businesses with less than 50 employees make significant contributions to the prosperity of local, regional, and national economies. They are a major source of job creation and a driving force of economic growth for developed countries like the USA (Headd, 2005; SBA, 2005), the UK (Dixon, Thompson, & McAllister, 2002; SBS, 2005), Europe (European Commission, 2003), and developing countries such as China (Bo, 2005). The economic potential is further strengthened when firms collaborate with each other; for example, formation of a supply chain, strategic alliances, or sharing of information and resources (Horvath, 2001; O’Donnell, Cilmore, Cummins, & Carson, 2001; MacGregor, 2004; Todeva & Knoke, 2005). Owing to heterogeneous aspects of small businesses, such as firm size and business sector, a single e-business solution is unlikely to be suitable for all firms (Dixon et al., 2002; Taylor & Murphy, 2004a); however, collaboration requires individual firms to adopt standardized, simplified solutions based on open architectures and data design (Horvath, 2001). The purpose of this article is to propose a conceptual e-business framework and a generic e-catalogue, which enables small businesses to collaborate through the creation of an e-marketplace. To assist with the task, analysis of data from 6,000 small businesses situated within a locality of Greater Manchester, England within the context of an e-business portal is incorporated within this study.

Gravity well visibility in haptic interfaces for motion-impaired

Haptic computer interfaces provide users with feedback through the sense of touch, thereby allowing users to feel a graphical user interface. Force feedback gravity wells, i.e. attractive basins that can pull the cursor toward a target, are one type of haptic effect that have been shown to provide improvements in "point and click" tasks. For motion-impaired users, gravity wells could improve times by as much as 50%. It has been reported that the presentation of information to multiple sensory modalities, e.g. haptics and vision, can provide performance benefits. However, previous studies investigating the use of force feedback gravity wells have generally not provided visual representations of the haptic effect. Where force fields extend beyond clickable targets, the addition of visual cues may affect performance. This paper investigates how the performance of motion-impaired computer users is affected by having visual representations of force feedback gravity wells presented on-screen. Results indicate that the visual representation does not affect times and errors in a "point and click" task involving multiple targets.

The effect of multiple haptic distractors on the performance of motion-impaired users

The effect of multiple haptic distractors on target selection performance was examined in terms of times to select the target and the associated cursor movement patterns. Two experiments examined: a) The effect of multiple haptic distractors around a single target and b) the effect of inter-item spacing in a linear selection task. It was found that certain target-distractor arrangements hindered performance and that this could be associated with specific, explanatory cursor patterns. In particular, it was found that the presence of distractors along the task axis in front of the target was detrimental to performance, and that there was evidence to suggest that this could sometimes be associated with consequent cursor oscillation between distractors adjacent to a desired target. A further experiment examined the effect of target-distractor spacing in two orientations on a user’s ability to select a target when caught in the gravity well of a distractor. Times for movements in the vertical direction were found to be faster than those in the horizontal direction. In addition, although times for the vertical direction appeared equivalent across five target-distractor distances, times for the horizontal direction exhibited peaks at certain distances. The implications of these results for the design and implementation of haptically enhanced interfaces using the force feedback mouse are discussed.

Multiple haptic targets for motion-impaired computer users

Although a number of studies have reported that force feedback gravity wells can improve performance in "point-and-click" tasks, there have been few studies addressing issues surrounding the use of gravity wells for multiple on-screen targets. This paper investigates the performance of users, both with and without motion-impairments, in a "point-and-click" task when an undesired haptic distractor is present. The importance of distractor location is studied explicitly. Results showed that gravity wells can still improve times and error rates, even on occasions when the cursor is pulled into a distractor. The greatest improvement is seen for the most impaired users. In addition to traditional measures such as time and errors, performance is studied in terms of measures of cursor movement along a path. Two cursor measures, angular distribution and temporal components, are proposed and their ability to explain performance differences is explored.

Collaboration of the weather and climate communities to advance subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction

The World Weather Research Programme (WWRP) and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) have identified collaborations and scientific priorities to accelerate advances in analysis and prediction at subseasonal-to-seasonal time scales, which include i) advancing knowledge of mesoscale–planetary-scale interactions and their prediction; ii) developing high-resolution global–regional climate simulations, with advanced representation of physical processes, to improve the predictive skill of subseasonal and seasonal variability of high-impact events, such as seasonal droughts and floods, blocking, and tropical and extratropical cyclones; iii) contributing to the improvement of data assimilation methods for monitoring and predicting used in coupled ocean–atmosphere–land and Earth system models; and iv) developing and transferring diagnostic and prognostic information tailored to socioeconomic decision making. The document puts forward specific underpinning research, linkage, and requirements necessary to achieve the goals of the proposed collaboration.

Haptic interfaces: the live and the recorded body in Beckett's Eh Joe on stage and screen

Beckett’s sparse and minimalist pieces have continuously addressed the nature and characteristics of the media for which they were written. What does it mean when a work written specifically for television is transposed to the stage, as film director Atom Egoyan did in his 2006 version of Beckett’s Eh Joe? This article will focus on the implications of such a transposition and discuss how Egoyan’s version reveals the haptic interface present in the original piece, between body and technology, between the flesh and “spirit made light” of the electronic broadcast.

The Haptic Aesthetic in Samuel Beckett's Drama

In their sparse and isolated spaces, Samuel Beckett's figures imagine the touch of a lost love or dream of the comfort and care that the hands of a dear one might bring. Applying philosophical writings that feature sensation, particularly touch, this study examines how Beckett's later work for stage and screen dramatizes moments of contact between self and self, self and world, and self and other. With implications for how gender and ethics can be approached within Beckett's aesthetic, this study explores the employment of haptic imagery as an alternative to certain dominant codes of visual representation.

Collaboration model for SSMEnetUK: a service science perspective

This paper aims to design a collaboration model for a Knowledge Community - SSMEnetUK. The research identifies SSMEnetUK as a socio-technical system and uses the core concepts of Service Science to explore the subject domain. The paper is positioned within the concept of Knowledge Management (KM) and utilising Web 2.0 tools for collaboration. A qualitative case study method was adopted and multiple data sources were used. In achieving that, the degree of co-relation between knowledge management activities and Web 2.0 tools for collaboration in the scenario are pitted against the concept of value propositions offered by both customer/user and service provider. The proposed model provides a better understanding of how Knowledge Management and Web 2.0 tools can enable effective collaboration within SSMEnetUK. This research is relevant to the wider service design and innovation community because it provides a basis for building a service-centric collaboration platform for the benefit of both customer/user and service provider.