Logisztikai folyamatok informatikai támogatottsága Magyarországon – Fókuszban a disztribúciós logisztika (Supporting logistics processes by information technology – current practice and improvement possibilities at Hungarian companies)

Az elemzés egy a Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem (BCE) Logisztika és Ellátási Lánc Menedzsment Tanszéke által végzett kérdőíves felmérés eredményeit foglalja össze. A kutatás alapvető célja, hogy felmérje és bemutassa a hazai vállalatok logisztikai, ezen belül is elsősorban disztribúciós logisztikai folyamatainak informatikai oldalról történő jelenlegi támogatottsági szintjét és a következő két-három év e téren várható fejlesztési irányait. A kutatás szisztematikusan kitért a logisztikai információs rendszer valamennyi alrendszerére, vizsgálta a különböző azonosítási megoldások elterjedtségét, a vállalatirányítási rendszer, illetve egyes moduljainak használatával kapcsolatban kialakult gyakorlatot, de a logisztika stratégiai döntéseinek informatikai támogatottságát és a használt kommunikációs technikákat is. Összességében megállapítható, hogy a logisztikai információs rendszerek fejlettségi szintje ma Magyarországon közepes, fontos megjegyezni azonban, hogy a kkv-szektor e téren is jelentősen lemaradt. Ez természetesen azt is jelenti, hogy az informatikai eszközök alkalmazásának kiterjesztésével még komoly teljesítményjavulás érhető el. ________ The essay summarizes the results of a survey carried out by Corvinus University of Budapest, Department of Logistics and Supply Chain Management. Aim of the survey was to analyze and describe the actual Hungarian company practice regarding the IT support of logistics – and particularly distribution – processes, and the plans to develop it within the next 2-3 years. Survey has systematically overviewed all fields of logistics information system, analyzed the prevalence of different identification techniques and systems. Generally the authors appoint that logistics information systems applied by Hungarian companies are on satisfactory level; however it is important to tell that SME companies are in huge lag. This means that improving logistics information system hides the possibility of considerable performance development.

Tanulás és innováció – Elméleti dilemmák és gyakorlati nézőpontok (Learning and innovation – Theoretical dilemmas and practical point of views)

A tanulmány egy nemrég lezárt TÁMOP-kutatás keretébe illeszkedik.1 A kutatás célja, hogy átfogó képet nyújtson az innovációról, tisztázza az innovációval kapcsolatos fogalmakat, bemutassa az innovációs trendeket és – egy empirikus felmérés nyomán – számot adjon arról, hogy ezek hogyan jelentkeznek Magyarország sajátos viszonyai között. Az innovációs fogalomkör megvilágításához hozzátartozik a tanulás és az innováció kapcsolatának tisztázása. Bár a témáról a menedzsment-szakirodalomban számtalan mű jelenik meg, a szerző saját diszciplináris elkötelezettségének megfelelően közgazdasági nézőpontból igyekszik megközelíteni a problémakört. Végül megkísérli Magyarországot elhelyezni a tanulás nemzetközi térképén. _______ This research aims to provide a comprehensive view on innovation, to clarify innovation concepts, to present innovation trends, and – based on an empirical survey – to give an account about how they appear specific conditions of Hungary. The refining of innovation category includes clarification of the relationship between learning and innovation. While many works have been published in this topic of management literature, the author in accordance his own disciplinary engagement tries to approach the problem area from economic point of view. Finally he attempts to place Hungary on the international map of learning.

Heteronormativity and teaching: A phenomenological study of lesbian teachers

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand what impact “heteronormativity” has on a lesbian teacher's perception of her instructional style, content, and context of curriculum taught. Through taped interviews with lesbian educators, this research examined the lived experience of the lesbian teacher. The framework for this study included theories related to historical, sociocultural, and psychosocial development while the methodology included a qualitative design using primary elements of a phenomenological study outlined without ignoring the influence associated with contextualism. Due to the sensitive nature of the study nine women who were the focus of this research were volunteers with the first serving as a “gatekeeper” to assist in the pilot study. The subsequent group evolved as a result of “snowballing” to gain more participants. ^ The data in the form of narrative derived from the interviews was transcribed, color-coded, and organized into four themes and associated sub-themes, based upon the perceptions of these educators. These themes characterized the coming out process of a lesbian, which directly paralleled the personal and professional development of the lesbian educator, emerged as a result of the analysis. They included: (a) self-acknowledgement; (b) self-indentification; (c) coming out to other lesbians by overcoming fear and establishing relationships; (d) coming out to others by overcoming heteronormativity by using support groups in defining a lesbian's role as a teacher. ^ The results of this study showed that the acceptance of the lesbian culture, shared with the acknowledgement, rather than compliance or defiance, of cultural hegemony can allow the lesbian educator to develop a curriculum and a classroom climate that will foster understanding and even generate social change among colleagues, parents, and students, one person at a time. ^

An incremental multilinear system for human face learning and recognition

This dissertation establishes a novel system for human face learning and recognition based on incremental multilinear Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Most of the existing face recognition systems need training data during the learning process. The system as proposed in this dissertation utilizes an unsupervised or weakly supervised learning approach, in which the learning phase requires a minimal amount of training data. It also overcomes the inability of traditional systems to adapt to the testing phase as the decision process for the newly acquired images continues to rely on that same old training data set. Consequently when a new training set is to be used, the traditional approach will require that the entire eigensystem will have to be generated again. However, as a means to speed up this computational process, the proposed method uses the eigensystem generated from the old training set together with the new images to generate more effectively the new eigensystem in a so-called incremental learning process. In the empirical evaluation phase, there are two key factors that are essential in evaluating the performance of the proposed method: (1) recognition accuracy and (2) computational complexity. In order to establish the most suitable algorithm for this research, a comparative analysis of the best performing methods has been carried out first. The results of the comparative analysis advocated for the initial utilization of the multilinear PCA in our research. As for the consideration of the issue of computational complexity for the subspace update procedure, a novel incremental algorithm, which combines the traditional sequential Karhunen-Loeve (SKL) algorithm with the newly developed incremental modified fast PCA algorithm, was established. In order to utilize the multilinear PCA in the incremental process, a new unfolding method was developed to affix the newly added data at the end of the previous data. The results of the incremental process based on these two methods were obtained to bear out these new theoretical improvements. Some object tracking results using video images are also provided as another challenging task to prove the soundness of this incremental multilinear learning method.

Assessment of biodegradable magnesium alloys for enhanced mechanical and biocompatible properties

Biomaterials have been used for more than a century in the human body to improve body functions and replace damaged tissues. Currently approved and commonly used metallic biomaterials such as, stainless steel, titanium, cobalt chromium and other alloys have been found to have adverse effects leading in some cases, to mechanical failure and rejection of the implant. The physical or chemical nature of the degradation products of some implants initiates an adverse foreign body reaction in the tissue. Some metallic implants remain as permanent fixtures, whereas others such as plates, screws and pins used to secure serious fractures are removed by a second surgical procedure after the tissue has healed sufficiently. However, repeat surgical procedures increase the cost of health care and the possibility of patient morbidity. This study focuses on the development of magnesium based biodegradable alloys/metal matrix composites (MMCs) for orthopedic and cardiovascular applications. The Mg alloys/MMCs possessed good mechanical properties and biocompatible properties. Nine different compositions of Mg alloys/MMCs were manufactured and surface treated. Their degradation behavior, ion leaching, wettability, morphology, cytotoxicity and mechanical properties were determined. Alloying with Zn, Ca, HA and Gd and surface treatment resulted in improved mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, reduced cytotoxicity, lower pH and hydrogen evolution. Anodization resulted in the formation of a distinct oxide layer (thickness 5-10 μm) as compared with that produced on mechanically polished samples (~20-50 nm) under ambient conditions. It is envisaged that the findings of this research will introduce a new class of Mg based biodegradable alloys/MMCs and the emergence of innovative cardiovascular and orthopedic implant devices.^

Scaffolding in Second Language Learning and Instruction

In a study of the triadic interaction among pairs of advanced second language learners engaged in a complex language task, it was found that the scaffolding provided by the researcher was determinant in keeping the participants on task and encouraging language production, thus facilitating both language development and comprehension.

The Role of Forgiveness in Adult Learning and Education

Adverse experiences can initiate angry and negative emotions and if not addressed and resolved have the ability to impede learning. Forgiveness counseling gives learners and educators a way to extinguish the power of these hindering emotions and thereby enhance learning.

Global Learning and the Human Capability Approach: Florida International University Case Study

This case study traced the process in which Florida International University engaged to determine what students want and need from their undergraduate education. Using grounded theory, the authors discovered that the process was reflective of the human capability approach in the development of its global learning student learning outcomes.

Teleconferencing Technology: Recent Development and Implications for Hotel Industry

Even though the popularity and usage of teleconferencing is evident primarily outside the lodging industry, lodging operators cannot choose to ifnore the role teleconferencing will play in meeting the changing needs of guests. The authors discuss the factors that spurred the growth of teleconferencing, the opportunities and threats faced by lodging operators, and suggestions for taking advantage of the technology.

Building bridges for future sustainability? Breaching the research-teaching nexus in engineering education

The relationship between research and learning and teaching represents what has been described as amongst the most intellectually tangled, managerially complex and politically contentious issues in mass higher education (Scott, 2005, p 53). Despite this, arguments that in order to achieve high quality scholarly outcomes, university teachers need to adopt an approach to teaching similar to that of research (founded upon academic rigour and evidence), has long been discussed in the literature. However, the practicalities of promoting an empirical and evidence-based approach to teaching in engineering education make dealing with the research / teaching nexus a somewhat challenging proposition. Using a phenomenographic approach, bringing together and applying the findings of a mixed methodological study, the workshop will adopt an activity based, interactive approach to encourage staff to consider the challenges and benefits of adopting an evidence-based approach to learning and teaching through the utilisation of research to inform their own practice. © 2009 Authors.

Engineering Highly-functional, Self-regenerative Skeletal Muscle Tissues with Enhanced Vascularization and Survival in Vivo

Tissue engineering of biomimetic skeletal muscle may lead to development of new therapies for myogenic repair and generation of improved in vitro models for studies of muscle function, regeneration, and disease. For the optimal therapeutic and in vitro results, engineered muscle should recreate the force-generating and regenerative capacities of native muscle, enabled respectively by its two main cellular constituents, the mature myofibers and satellite cells (SCs). Still, after 20 years of research, engineered muscle tissues fall short of mimicking contractile function and self-repair capacity of native skeletal muscle. To overcome this limitation, we set the thesis goals to: 1) generate a highly functional, self-regenerative engineered skeletal muscle and 2) explore mechanisms governing its formation and regeneration in vitro and survival and vascularization in vivo.

By studying myogenic progenitors isolated from neonatal rats, we first discovered advantages of using an adherent cell fraction for engineering of skeletal muscles with robust structure and function and the formation of a SC pool. Specifically, when synergized with dynamic culture conditions, the use of adherent cells yielded muscle constructs capable of replicating the contractile output of native neonatal muscle, generating >40 mN/mm2 of specific force. Moreover, tissue structure and cellular heterogeneity of engineered muscle constructs closely resembled those of native muscle, consisting of aligned, striated myofibers embedded in a matrix of basal lamina proteins and SCs that resided in native-like niches. Importantly, we identified rapid formation of myofibers early during engineered muscle culture as a critical condition leading to SC homing and conversion to a quiescent, non-proliferative state. The SCs retained natural regenerative capacity and activated, proliferated, and differentiated to rebuild damaged myofibers and recover contractile function within 10 days after the muscle was injured by cardiotoxin (CTX). The resulting regenerative response was directly dependent on the abundance of SCs in the engineered muscle that we varied by expanding starting cell population under different levels of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), an inhibitor of myogenic differentiation. Using a dorsal skinfold window chamber model in nude mice, we further demonstrated that within 2 weeks after implantation, initially avascular engineered muscle underwent robust vascularization and perfusion and exhibited improved structure and contractile function beyond what was achievable in vitro.

To enhance translational value of our approach, we transitioned to use of adult rat myogenic cells, but found that despite similar function to that of neonatal constructs, adult-derived muscle lacked regenerative capacity. Using a novel platform for live monitoring of calcium transients during construct culture, we rapidly screened for potential enhancers of regeneration to establish that many known pro-regenerative soluble factors were ineffective in stimulating in vitro engineered muscle recovery from CTX injury. This led us to introduce bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs), an established non-myogenic contributor to muscle repair, to the adult-derived constructs and to demonstrate remarkable recovery of force generation (>80%) and muscle mass (>70%) following CTX injury. Mechanistically, while similar patterns of early SC activation and proliferation upon injury were observed in engineered muscles with and without BMDMs, a significant decrease in injury-induced apoptosis occurred only in the presence of BMDMs. The importance of preventing apoptosis was further demonstrated by showing that application of caspase inhibitor (Q-VD-OPh) yielded myofiber regrowth and functional recovery post-injury. Gene expression analysis suggested muscle-secreted tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) as a potential inducer of apoptosis as common for muscle degeneration in diseases and aging in vivo. Finally, we showed that BMDM incorporation in engineered muscle enhanced its growth, angiogenesis, and function following implantation in the dorsal window chambers in nude mice.

In summary, this thesis describes novel strategies to engineer highly contractile and regenerative skeletal muscle tissues starting from neonatal or adult rat myogenic cells. We find that age-dependent differences of myogenic cells distinctly affect the self-repair capacity but not contractile function of engineered muscle. Adult, but not neonatal, myogenic progenitors appear to require co-culture with other cells, such as bone marrow-derived macrophages, to allow robust muscle regeneration in vitro and rapid vascularization in vivo. Regarding the established roles of immune system cells in the repair of various muscle and non-muscle tissues, we expect that our work will stimulate the future applications of immune cells as pro-regenerative or anti-inflammatory constituents of engineered tissue grafts. Furthermore, we expect that rodent studies in this thesis will inspire successful engineering of biomimetic human muscle tissues for use in regenerative therapy and drug discovery applications.