Opportunity Returns : Southern Region.

Opportunity Returns is Governor Blagojevich's comprehensive plan for restoring economic opportunity to Illinois -- an approach designed to create jobs and spur growth. This is a new approach to economic development in Illinois that focuses the state's resources on the specific strengths and needs of each region -- recognizing that local communities understand their strengths and needs the best. Ten regional plans have been developed to fit each of the regions. This plan outlines economic goals for the Southern region, which consists of Alexander, Edwards, Franklin, Gallatin, Hamilton, Hardin, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Massac, Perry, Pope, Pulaski, Saline, Union, Wabash, Wayne, White, and Williamson counties.

Opportunity Returns : Northern Stateline region.

Describes Opportunity Returns, Governor Blagojevich's plan for aiding economic growth in Illinois, and outlines the plan's goals for the region consisting of Boone, Ogle, Stephenson and Winnebago counties.

Opportunity Returns : Central Region.

Opportunity Returns is Governor Blagojevich's comprehensive strategy to restore jobs and economic vitality throughout Illinois. This new and innovative plan recognizes that we can't solve the challenges of economic development with a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, Opportunity Returns focuses on the specific strengths and needs of each region in the state. Opportunity Returns divides the state into ten geographic regions with each region receiving its own unique and tailored strategy. The plan outlines the economic development priorities for the Central region, which consists of Cass, Christian, Greene, Logan, Macon, Macoupin, Menard, Montgomery, Morgan, Sangamon, Scott, and Shelby Counties. Governor Blagojevich understands that no one knows a community better than the people who live and work in it. This plan is the result of extensive community input from business, community and government leaders throughout the Central region.

Opportunity Returns : East Central Region.

Opportunity Returns is Governor Blagojevich's comprehensive strategy to restore jobs and economic vitality throughout Illinois. This new and innovative plan recognizes that we can't solve the challenges of economic development with a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, Opportunity Returns focuses on the specific strengths and needs of each region in the state. Opportunity Returns divides the state into ten geographic regions with each region receiving its own unique and tailored strategy. This plan outlines the economic development priorities for the East Central region, which consists of Champaign, Douglas, Ford, Iroquois, Piatt, and Vermilion Counties. Governor Blagojevich understands that no one knows a community better than the people who live and work in it. This strategy is the result of extensive community input from business, community and government leaders throughout the East Central region.

Opportunity Returns : Southwest Region.

Opportunity Returns is Governor Blagojevich's comprehensive plan for restoring economic opportunity to Illinois -- an approach designed to create jobs and spur growth. This is a new approach to economic development in Illinois that focuses the state's resources on the specific strengths and needs of each region -- recognizing that local communities understand their needs the best. Ten regional plans will be developed to fit each of the regions. This plan outlines economic and workforce goals for the Southwest region, which consists of Bond, Calhoun, Clinton, Jersey, Madison, Monroe, Randolph, St. Clair and Washington counties.

Opportunity Returns : West Central Region.

Opportunity Returns is Governor Blagojevich's comprehensive plan for restoring economic opportunity to Illinois -- an approach designed to create jobs and spur growth. This historic approach to economic development in Illinois focuses the state's resources on the specific strengths and priorities of each region -- recognizing that local communities understand their needs the best. Ten regional plans have been developed to fit each of the regions. This plan outlines economic and workplace goals for the West Central region, which is comprised of Adams, Brown, Hancock, Henderson, Knox, McDonough, Pike, Schuyler and Warren counties.

Recommendations for enterprise zone success /

"December, 1982."

Summary report to the Governor and 85th Illinois General Assembly /

"March, 1987"--Cover.

Hydrogen from coal: Production and utilisation technologies

Error condition detected Although coal may be viewed as a dirty fuel due to its high greenhouse emissions when combusted, a strong case can be made for coal to be a major world source of clean H-2 energy. Apart from the fact that resources of coal will outlast oil and natural gas by centuries, there is a shift towards developing environmentally benign coal technologies, which can lead to high energy conversion efficiencies and low air pollution emissions as compared to conventional coal fired power generation plant. There are currently several world research and industrial development projects in the areas of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycles (IGCC) and Integrated Gasification Fuel Cell (IGFC) systems. In such systems, there is a need to integrate complex unit operations including gasifiers, gas separation and cleaning units, water gas shift reactors, turbines, heat exchangers, steam generators and fuel cells. IGFC systems tested in the USA, Europe and Japan employing gasifiers (Texaco, Lurgi and Eagle) and fuel cells have resulted in energy conversions at efficiency of 47.5% (HHV) which is much higher than the 30-35% efficiency of conventional coal fired power generation. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) and molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFC) are the front runners in energy production from coal gases. These fuel cells can operate at high temperatures and are robust to gas poisoning impurities. IGCC and IGFC technologies are expensive and currently economically uncompetitive as compared to established and mature power generation technology. However, further efficiency and technology improvements coupled with world pressures on limitation of greenhouse gases and other gaseous pollutants could make IGCC/IGFC technically and economically viable for hydrogen production and utilisation in clean and environmentally benign energy systems. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Building a holarchy using business process-oriented holonic (PrOH) modeling

The application of systems thinking to designing, managing, and improving business processes has developed a new "holonic-based" process modeling methodology. The theoretical background and the methodology are described using examples taken from a large organization designing and manufacturing capital goods equipment operating within a complex and dynamic environment. A key point of differentiation attributed to this methodology is that it allows a set of models to be produced without taking a task breakdown approach but instead uses systems thinking and a construct known as the "holon" to build process descriptions as a system of systems (i.e., a holarchy). The process-oriented holonic modeling methodology has been used for total quality management and business process engineering exercises in different industrial sectors and builds models that connect the strategic vision of a company to its operational processes. Exercises have been conducted in response to environmental pressures to make operations align with strategic thinking as well as becoming increasingly agile and efficient. This unique methodology is best applied in environments of high complexity, low volume, and high variety, where repeated learning opportunities are few and far between (e.g., large development projects). © 2007 IEEE.

Managing risk in a large rural electrification programme in India

Rural electrification projects and programmes in many countries have suffered from design, planning, implementation and operational flaws as a result of ineffective project planning and lack of systematic project risk analysis. This paper presents a hierarchical risk-management framework for effectively managing large-scale development projects. The proposed framework first identifies, with the involvement of stakeholders, the risk factors for a rural electrification programme at three different levels (national, state and site). Subsequently it develops a qualitative risk prioritising scheme through probability and severity mapping and provides mitigating measures for most vulnerable risks. The study concludes that the hierarchical risk-management approach provides an effective framework for managing large-scale rural electrification programmes. © IAIA 2007.

The effects of external linkages on new product innovativeness:an examination of moderating and mediating influences

Our study of 116 new product development projects in Taiwanese Information Technology (IT) firms show that horizontal linkages more strongly impact on new product innovativeness than vertical linkages. The firm's learning ability or absorptive capacity increases new product innovativeness. It also moderates the impacts of corporate and research institute linkages on new product innovativeness. Moreover, we confirm that knowledge gains mediate the positive impacts of absorptive capacity and external linkages on new product innovativeness.

Informal boundary-spanning links and networks in successful technological innovation

The sources of ideas embodied within successful technological innovation has been a subject of interest in many studies since the 1950s. This research suggests that sources external to the innovating organisation account for between one and two-thirds of the inputs important to the innovation process. In addition, studies have long highlighted the important role played by the personal boundary-spanning relationships of engineers and scientists as a channel for the transference of such inputs. However, research concerning the role and nature of personal boundary-spanning links in the innovation process have either been primarily structurally orientated, seeking to map out the informal networks of scientists and engineers, or more typically, anecdotal. The objective of this research was to reveal and build upon our knowledge of the role, nature and importance of informal exchange activity in the innovation process. In order to achieve this, an empirical study was undertaken to determine the informal sources, channels and mechanisms employed in the development of thirty five award-winning innovations. Through the adoption of the network perspective, the multiple sources and pluralistic patterns of collaboration and communication in the innovation process were systematically explored. This approach provided a framework that allowed for the detailed study of both the individual dyadic links and morphology of the innovation action-sets in which these dyads were embedded. The research found, for example, that the mobilisation of boundary-spanning links and networks was an important or critical factor in nineteen (54%) of the development projects. Of these, informal boundary-spanning exchange activity was considered to be important or critical in eight (23%).

Requirements-aware systems:a research agenda for RE for self-adaptive systems

Requirements are sensitive to the context in which the system-to-be must operate. Where such context is well-understood and is static or evolves slowly, existing RE techniques can be made to work well. Increasingly, however, development projects are being challenged to build systems to operate in contexts that are volatile over short periods in ways that are imperfectly understood. Such systems need to be able to adapt to new environmental contexts dynamically, but the contextual uncertainty that demands this self-adaptive ability makes it hard to formulate, validate and manage their requirements. Different contexts may demand different requirements trade-offs. Unanticipated contexts may even lead to entirely new requirements. To help counter this uncertainty, we argue that requirements for self-adaptive systems should be run-time entities that can be reasoned over in order to understand the extent to which they are being satisfied and to support adaptation decisions that can take advantage of the systems' self-adaptive machinery. We take our inspiration from the fact that explicit, abstract representations of software architectures used to be considered design-time-only entities but computational reflection showed that architectural concerns could be represented at run-time too, helping systems to dynamically reconfigure themselves according to changing context. We propose to use analogous mechanisms to achieve requirements reflection. In this paper we discuss the ideas that support requirements reflection as a means to articulate some of the outstanding research challenges.

Using process-oriented holonic (PrOH) modelling to increase understanding of information systems

Methodologies for understanding business processes and their information systems (IS) are often criticized, either for being too imprecise and philosophical (a criticism often levied at softer methodologies) or too hierarchical and mechanistic (levied at harder methodologies). The process-oriented holonic modelling methodology combines aspects of softer and harder approaches to aid modellers in designing business processes and associated IS. The methodology uses holistic thinking and a construct known as the holon to build process descriptions into a set of models known as a holarchy. This paper describes the methodology through an action research case study based in a large design and manufacturing organization. The scientific contribution is a methodology for analysing business processes in environments that are characterized by high complexity, low volume and high variety where there are minimal repeated learning opportunities, such as large IS development projects. The practical deliverables from the project gave IS and business process improvements for the case study company.