Review of R&D progress and practical application of the solar photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) technologies

In this paper, the global market potential of solar thermal, photovoltaic (PV) and combined photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) technologies in current time and near future was discussed. The concept of the PV/T and the theory behind the PV/T operation were briefly introduced, and standards for evaluating technical, economic and environmental performance of the PV/T systems were addressed. A comprehensive literature review into R&D works and practical application of the PV/T technology was illustrated and the review results were critically analysed in terms of PV/T type and research methodology used. The major features, current status, research focuses and existing difficulties/barriers related to the various types of PV/T were identified. The research methods, including theoretical analyses and computer simulation, experimental and combined experimental/theoretical investigation, demonstration and feasibility study, as well as economic and environmental analyses, applied into the PV/T technology were individually discussed, and the achievement and problems remaining in each research method category were described. Finally, opportunities for further work to carry on PV/T study were identified. The review research indicated that air/water-based PV/T systems are the commonly used technologies but their thermal removal effectiveness is lower. Refrigerant/heat-pipe-based PV/Ts, although still in research/laboratory stage, could achieve much higher solar conversion efficiencies over the air/water-based systems. However, these systems were found a few technical challenges in practice which require further resolutions. The review research suggested that further works could be undertaken to (1) develop new feasible, economic and energy efficient PV/T systems; (2) optimise the structural/geometrical configurations of the existing PV/T systems; (3) study long term dynamic performance of the PV/T systems; (4) demonstrate the PV/T systems in real buildings and conduct the feasibility study; and (5) carry on advanced economic and environmental analyses. This review research helps finding the questions remaining in PV/T technology, identify new research topics/directions to further improve the performance of the PV/T, remove the barriers in PV/T practical application, establish the standards/regulations related to PV/T design and installation, and promote its market penetration throughout the world.

Content validation for level of use of feature rich systems: a Delphi study of electronic medical records systems

Introduction. Feature usage is a pre-requisite to realising the benefits of investments in feature rich systems. We propose that conceptualising the dependent variable 'system use' as 'level of use' and specifying it as a formative construct has greater value for measuring the post-adoption use of feature rich systems. We then validate the content of the construct as a first step in developing a research instrument to measure it. The context of our study is the post-adoption use of electronic medical records (EMR) by primary care physicians. Method. Initially, a literature review of the empirical context defines the scope based on prior studies. Having identified core features from the literature, they are further refined with the help of experts in a consensus seeking process that follows the Delphi technique. Results.The methodology was successfully applied to EMRs, which were selected as an example of feature rich systems. A review of EMR usage and regulatory standards provided the feature input for the first round of the Delphi process. A panel of experts then reached consensus after four rounds, identifying ten task-based features that would be indicators of level of use. Conclusions. To study why some users deploy more advanced features than others, theories of post-adoption require a rich formative dependent variable that measures level of use. We have demonstrated that a context sensitive literature review followed by refinement through a consensus seeking process is a suitable methodology to validate the content of this dependent variable. This is the first step of instrument development prior to statistical confirmation with a larger sample.

Characterizing intuition in information systems research

The study of intuition is an emerging area of research in psychology, social sciences, and business studies. It is increasingly of interest to the study of management, for example in decision-making as a counterpoint to structured approaches. Recently work has been undertaken to conceptualize a construct for the intuitive nature of technology. However to-date there is no common under-standing of the term intuition in information systems (IS) research. This paper extends the study of intuition in IS research by using exploratory research to cate-gorize the use of the word “intuition” and related terms in papers published in two prominent IS journals over a ten year period. The entire text of MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research was reviewed for the years 1999 through 2008 using searchable PDF versions of these publications. As far as could be deter-mined, this is the first application of this approach in the analysis of the text of IS academic journals. The use of the word “intuition” and related terms was catego-rized using coding consistent with Grounded Theory. The focus of this research was on the first two stages of Grounded Theory analysis - the development of codes and constructs. Saturation of coding was not reached: an extended review of these publications would be required to enable theory development. Over 400 incidents of the use of “intuition”, and related terms were found in the articles reviewed. The most prominent use of the term of “intuition” was coded as “Intui-tion as Authority” in which intuition was used to validate a research objective or finding; representing approximately 37 per cent of codes assigned. The second most common coding occurred in research articles with mathematical analysis, representing about 19 per cent of the codes assigned, for example where a ma-thematical formulation or result was “intuitive”. The possibly most impactful use of the term “intuition” was “Intuition as Outcome”, representing approximately 7 per cent of all coding, which characterized research results as adding to the intui-tive understanding of a research topic or phenomena. This research contributes to a greater theoretical understanding of intuition enabling insight into the use of intuition, and the eventual development of a theory on the use of intuition in academic IS research publications. It also provides potential benefits to practi-tioners by providing insight into and validation of the use of intuition in IS man-agement. Research directions include the creation of reflective and/or formative constructs for intuition in information systems research.

HMEF: framework to evaluate merging of Higher Education Institutions – application of Enterprise Architecture

Mergers of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are organisational processes requiring tremendous amount of resources, in terms of time, work, and money. A number of mergers have been seen on previous years and more are to come. Several studies on mergers have been conducted, revealing some crucial factors that affect the success of mergers. Based on literature review on these studies, factors are: the initiator of merger, a reason for merger, geographical distance of merging institutions, organisational culture, the extend of overlapping course portfolio, and Quality Assurance Systems (QASs). Usually these kind of factors are not considered on mergers, but focus is on financial matters. In this paper, a framework (HMEF) for evaluating merging of HEIs is introduced. HMEF is based on Enterprise Architecture (EA), focusing on factors found to be affecting the success of mergers. By using HMEF, HEIs can focus on matters that crucial for merging.

Institutional pressures on financial services firms: the role of information systems in regulatory compliance

The financial crisis of 2008 led to new international regulatory controls for the governance, risk and compliance of financial services firms. Information systems play a critical role here as political, functional and social pressures may lead to the deinstitutionalization of existing structures, processes and practices. This research examines how an investment management system is introduced by a leading IT vendor across eight client sites in the post-crisis era. Using institutional theory, it examines changes in working practices occurring at the environmental and organizational levels and the ways in which technological interventions are used to apply disciplinary effects in order to prevent inappropriate behaviors. The results extend the constructs of deinstitutionalization and identify empirical predictors for the deinstitutionalization of compliance and trading practices within financial organizations.

Evaluating business value of IT towards optimisation of the application portfolio

Information technology has become heavily embedded in business operations. As business needs change over time, IT applications are expected to continue providing required support. Whether the existing IT applications are still fit for the business purpose they were intended or new IT applications should be introduced, is a strategic decision for business, IT and business-aligned IT. In this paper, we present a method which aims to analyse business functions and IT roles, and to evaluate business-aligned IT from both social and technical perspectives. The method introduces a set of techniques that systematically supports the evaluation of the existing IT applications in relation to their technical capabilities for maximising business value. Furthermore, we discuss the evaluation process and results which are illustrated and validated through a real-life case study of a UK borough council, and followed by discussion on implications for researchers and practitioners.

Novel Application of 2D and 3D-Similarity Searches To Identify Substrates among Cytochrome P450 2C9, 2D6, and 3A4

Cytochrome P450 (CYP450) is a class of enzymes where the substrate identification is particularly important to know. It would help medicinal chemists to design drugs with lower side effects due to drug-drug interactions and to extensive genetic polymorphism. Herein, we discuss the application of the 2D and 3D-similarity searches in identifying reference Structures with higher capacity to retrieve Substrates of three important CYP enzymes (CYP2C9, CYP2D6, and CYP3A4). On the basis of the complementarities of multiple reference structures selected by different similarity search methods, we proposed the fusion of their individual Tanimoto scores into a consensus Tanimoto score (T(consensus)). Using this new score, true positive rates of 63% (CYP2C9) and 81% (CYP2D6) were achieved with false positive rates of 4% for the CYP2C9-CYP2D6 data Set. Extended similarity searches were carried out oil a validation data set, and the results showed that by using the T(consensus) score, not only the area of a ROC graph increased, but also more substrates were recovered at the beginning of a ranked list.

Organizations redesign and building of information systems

Develop software is still a risky business. After 60 years of experience, this community is still not able to consistently build Information Systems (IS) for organizations with predictable quality, within previously agreed budget and time constraints. Although software is changeable we are still unable to cope with the amount and complexity of change that organizations demand for their IS. To improve results, developers followed two alternatives: Frameworks that increase productivity but constrain the flexibility of possible solutions; Agile ways of developing software that keep flexibility with less upfront commitments. With strict frameworks, specific hacks have to be put in place to get around the framework construction options. In time this leads to inconsistent architectures that are harder to maintain due to incomplete documentation and human resources turnover. The main goals of this work is to create a new way to develop flexible IS for organizations, using web technologies, in a faster, better and cheaper way that is more suited to handle organizational change. To do so we propose an adaptive object model that uses a new ontology for data and action with strict normalizing rules. These rules should bound the effects of changes that can be better tested and therefore corrected. Interfaces are built with templates of resources that can be reused and extended in a flexible way. The “state of the world” for each IS is determined by all production and coordination acts that agents performed over time, even those performed by external systems. When bugs are found during maintenance, their past cascading effects can be checked through simulation, re-running the log of transaction acts over time and checking results with previous records. This work implements a prototype with part of the proposed system in order to have a preliminary assessment its feasibility and limitations.

Application of intelligent systems for specification of automotive equipments using LEDs

The advantages offered by the electronic component light emitting diode ( LED) have caused a quick and wide application of this device in replacement of incandescent lights. However, in its combined application, the relationship between the design variables and the desired effect or result is very complex and it becomes difficult to model by conventional techniques. This work consists of the development of a technique, through artificial neural networks, to make possible to obtain the luminous intensity values of brake lights using LEDs from design data. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Application of neural networks to identify features of dynamical grounding systems

The accurate identification of features of dynamical grounding systems are extremely important to define the operational safety and proper functioning of electric power systems. Several experimental tests and theoretical investigations have been carried out to obtain characteristics and parameters associated with the technique of grounding. The grounding system involves a lot of non-linear parameters. This paper describes a novel approach for mapping characteristics of dynamical grounding systems using artificial neural networks. The network acts as identifier of structural features of the grounding processes. So that output parameters can be estimated and generalized from an input parameter set. The results obtained by the network are compared with other approaches also used to model grounding systems.