The implementation of supply chain management theory in practice:an empirical investigation

Purpose: The purpose of the research described in this paper is to disentangle the rhetoric from the reality in relation to supply chain management (SCM) adoption in practice. There is significant evidence of a divergence between theory and practice in the field of SCM. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a review of extant theory, the authors posit a new definitional construct for SCM – the Four Fundamentals – and investigated four research questions (RQs) that emerged from the theoretical review. The empirical work comprised three main phases: focussed interviews, focus groups and a questionnaire survey. Each phase used the authors’ definitional construct as its basis. While the context of the paper’s empirical work is Ireland, the insights and results are generalisable to other geographical contexts. Findings: The data collected during the various stages of the empirical research supported the essence of the definitional construct and allowed it to be further developed and refined. In addition, the findings suggest that, while levels of SCM understanding are generally quite high, there is room for improvement in relation to how this understanding is translated into practice. Research limitations/implications: Expansion of the research design to incorporate case studies, grounded theory and action research has the potential to generate new SCM theory that builds on the Four Fundamentals construct, thus facilitating a deeper and richer understanding of SCM phenomena. The use of longitudinal studies would enable a barometer of progress to be developed over time. Practical implications: The authors’ definitional construct supports improvement in the cohesion of SCM practices, thereby promoting the effective implementation of supply chain strategies. A number of critical success factors and/or barriers to implementation of SCM theory in practice are identified, as are a number of practical measures that could be implemented at policy/supply chain/firm level to improve the level of effective SCM adoption. Originality/value: The authors’ robust definitional construct supports a more cohesive approach to the development of a unified theory of SCM. In addition to a profile of SCM understanding and adoption by firms in Ireland, the related critical success factors and/or inhibitors to success, as well as possible interventions, are identified.

Application of the Artificial Intelligence Algorithms for System Analysis of Multi Dimension Physiological Data for Developing Polyparametric Information System of Public Health Diagnostics

The polyparametric intelligence information system for diagnostics human functional state in medicine and public health is developed. The essence of the system consists in polyparametric describing of human functional state with the unified set of physiological parameters and using the polyparametric cognitive model developed as the tool for a system analysis of multitude data and diagnostics of a human functional state. The model is developed on the basis of general principles geometry and symmetry by algorithms of artificial intelligence systems. The architecture of the system is represented. The model allows analyzing traditional signs - absolute values of electrophysiological parameters and new signs generated by the model – relationships of ones. The classification of physiological multidimensional data is made with a transformer of the model. The results are presented to a physician in a form of visual graph – a pattern individual functional state. This graph allows performing clinical syndrome analysis. A level of human functional state is defined in the case of the developed standard (“ideal”) functional state. The complete formalization of results makes it possible to accumulate physiological data and to analyze them by mathematics methods.

State–society relations in a dynamic framework:the case of the Far East and Sub-Saharan Africa

According to the textbook approach, the developmental states of the Far East have been considered as strong and autonomous entities. Although their bureaucratic elites have remained isolated from direct pressures stemming from society, the state capacity has also been utilised in order to allocate resources in the interest of the whole society. Yet, society – by and large –has remained weak and subordinated to the state elite. On the other hand, the general perception of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been just the opposite. The violent and permanent conflict amongst rent-seeking groups for influence and authority over resources has culminated in a situation where states have become extremely weak and fragmented, while society – depending on the capacity of competing groups for mobilising resources to organise themselves mostly on a regional or local level (resulting in local petty kingdoms) – has never had the chance to evolve as a strong player. State failure in the literature, therefore, – in the context of SSA – refers not just to a weak and captured state but also to a non-functioning, and sometimes even non-existent society, too. Recently, however, the driving forces of globalisation might have triggered serious changes in the above described status quo. Accordingly, our hypothesis is the following: globalisation, especially the dynamic changes of technology, capital and communication have made the simplistic “strong state–weak society” (in Asia) and “weak state–weak society” (in Africa) categorisation somewhat obsolete. While our comparative study has a strong emphasis on the empirical scrutiny of trying to uncover the dynamics of changes in state–society relations in the two chosen regions both qualitatively and quantitatively, it also aims at complementing the meaning and essence of the concepts and methodology of stateness, state capacity and state-society relations, the well-known building blocks of the seminal works of Evans (1995), Leftwich (1995), Migdal (1988) or Myrdal (1968).

The challenges of representing human behaviour in simulation models:some case examples from supply chain, evacuation modelling and rail disruption

As more of the economy moves from traditional manufacturing to the service sector, the nature of work is becoming less tangible and thus, the representation of human behaviour in models is becoming more important. Representing human behaviour and decision making in models is challenging, both in terms of capturing the essence of the processes, and also the way that those behaviours and decisions are or can be represented in the models themselves. In order to advance understanding in this area, a useful first step is to evaluate and start to classify the various types of behaviour and decision making that are required to be modelled. This talk will attempt to set out and provide an initial classification of the different types of behaviour and decision making that a modeller might want to represent in a model. Then, it will be useful to start to assess the main methods of simulation in terms of their capability in representing these various aspects. The three main simulation methods, System Dynamics, Agent Based Modelling and Discrete Event Simulation all achieve this to varying degrees. There is some evidence that all three methods can, within limits, represent the key aspects of the system being modelled. The three simulation approaches are then assessed for their suitability in modelling these various aspects. Illustration of behavioural modelling will be provided from cases in supply chain management, evacuation modelling and rail disruption.

Agitation conditions for the culture and detachment of hMSCs from microcarriers in multiple bioreactor platforms

In our recent work in different bioreactors up to 2.5L in scale, we have successfully cultured hMSCs using the minimum agitator speed required for complete microcarrier suspension, N JS. In addition, we also reported a scaleable protocol for the detachment from microcarriers in spinner flasks of hMSCs from two donors. The essence of the protocol is the use of a short period of intense agitation in the presence of enzymes such that the cells are detached; but once detachment is achieved, the cells are smaller than the Kolmogorov scale of turbulence and hence not damaged. Here, the same approach has been effective for culture at N JS and detachment in-situ in 15mL ambr™ bioreactors, 100mL spinner flasks and 250mL Dasgip bioreactors. In these experiments, cells from four different donors were used along with two types of microcarrier with and without surface coatings (two types), four different enzymes and three different growth media (with and without serum), a total of 22 different combinations. In all cases after detachment, the cells were shown to retain their desired quality attributes and were able to proliferate. This agitation strategy with respect to culture and harvest therefore offers a sound basis for a wide range of scales of operation.

'Forced to Friendship'? Russian (mis-)understandings of soft power and the implications for audience attraction in Ukraine

This article argues that for all its efforts to implement soft power techniques, the Kremlin still fails to grasp the subtle, voluntaristic essence of soft power. This is reflected in a style of public interaction that has practical implications for how Russian soft power overtures are received by the audience. This is demonstrated through the findings of mixed-method empirical research from four Ukrainian regions. Thus, while surveys show that the worldview promoted by Russian public diplomacy resonates to some extent, insights from focus groups indicate that potential attraction is nevertheless limited by Russia's 'hard' and obtrusive approach to cultural influence.

Augmented Reality as a Method for Expanded Presentation of Objects of Digitized Heritage

Augmented reality is the latest among information technologies in modern electronics industry. The essence is in the addition of advanced computer graphics in real and/or digitized images. This paper gives a brief analysis of the concept and the approaches to implementing augmented reality for an expanded presentation of a digitized object of national cultural and/or scientific heritage. ACM Computing Classification System (1998): H.5.1, H.5.3, I.3.7.

Preface

The Semantic Web has come a long way since its inception in 2001, especially in terms of technical development and research progress. However, adoption by non- technical practitioners is still an ongoing process, and in some areas this process is just now starting. Emergency response is an area where reliability and timeliness of information and technologies is of essence. Therefore it is quite natural that more widespread adoption in this area has not been seen until now, when Semantic Web technologies are mature enough to support the high requirements of the application area. Nevertheless, to leverage the full potential of Semantic Web research results for this application area, there is need for an arena where practitioners and researchers can meet and exchange ideas and results. Our intention is for this workshop, and hopefully coming workshops in the same series, to be such an arena for discussion. The Extended Semantic Web Conference (ESWC - formerly the European Semantic Web conference) is one of the major research conferences in the Semantic Web field, whereas this is a suitable location for this workshop in order to discuss the application of Semantic Web technology to our specific area of applications. Hence, we chose to arrange our first SMILE workshop at ESWC 2013. However, this workshop does not focus solely on semantic technologies for emergency response, but rather Semantic Web technologies in combination with technologies and principles for what is sometimes called the "social web". Social media has already been used successfully in many cases, as a tool for supporting emergency response. The aim of this workshop is therefore to take this to the next level and answer questions like: "how can we make sense of, and furthermore make use of, all the data that is produced by different kinds of social media platforms in an emergency situation?" For the first edition of this workshop the chairs collected the following main topics of interest: • Semantic Annotation for understanding the content and context of social media streams. • Integration of Social Media with Linked Data. • Interactive Interfaces and visual analytics methodologies for managing multiple large-scale, dynamic, evolving datasets. • Stream reasoning and event detection. • Social Data Mining. • Collaborative tools and services for Citizens, Organisations, Communities. • Privacy, ethics, trustworthiness and legal issues in the Social Semantic Web. • Use case analysis, with specific interest for use cases that involve the application of Social Media and Linked Data methodologies in real-life scenarios. All of these, applied in the context of: • Crisis and Disaster Management • Emergency Response • Security and Citizen Journalism The workshop received 6 high-quality paper submissions and based on a thorough review process, thanks to our program committee, the decision was made to accept four of these papers for the workshop (67% acceptance rate). These four papers can be found later in this proceedings volume. Three out of four of these papers particularly discuss the integration and analysis of social media data, using Semantic Web technologies, e.g. for detecting complex events in social media streams, for visualizing and analysing sentiments with respect to certain topics in social media, or for detecting small-scale incidents entirely through the use of social media information. Finally, the fourth paper presents an architecture for using Semantic Web technologies in resource management during a disaster. Additionally, the workshop featured an invited keynote speech by Dr. Tomi Kauppinen from Aalto university. Dr. Kauppinen shared experiences from his work on applying Semantic Web technologies to application fields such as geoinformatics and scientific research, i.e. so-called Linked Science, but also recent ideas and applications in the emergency response field. His input was also highly valuable for the roadmapping discussion, which was held at the end of the workshop. A separate summary of the roadmapping session can be found at the end of these proceedings. Finally, we would like to thank our invited speaker Dr. Tomi Kauppinen, all our program committee members, as well as the workshop chair of ESWC2013, Johanna Völker (University of Mannheim), for helping us to make this first SMILE workshop a highly interesting and successful event!

Future trends in human resource management in emerging markets

In many ways the emerging markets represent something of a new frontier for academics and practitioners alike, or as one author puts it, ‘a significant topic of interest for a multitude of constituencies’ (Alkire, 2014: 334). The very term itself ‘emerging markets’ is something of a portmanteau one built on a series of layered insights garnered from several academic fields and multiple levels of analysis. Originally coined as a term in the 1980s, albeit with several earlier linked terminologies, this is an evolving and diverse literature. Inherent in its diversity lies a whole series of opportunities, encompassing the purely theoretical through to the methodological and the analytical. Capturing the essence of this in his Editorial in the inaugural edition of The International Journal of Emerging Markets, Akbar (2006) noted that from an academic perspective the emerging markets as a context for the creation and execution of a sustainable research agenda represent ‘a heterogeneous group of economies and societies’ and an ‘important testing ground for our existing theories, models and concepts of business and management’ affording those who focus on them as a research location the opportunity for ‘the development of new theoretical contributions in the field’. In this volume, we have sought to bring some systematics to this evolving literature dedicated to charting HRM in these emerging markets.

FREADMAN, AnneThe Livres-Souvenirs of Colette Genre and the Telling of Time Oxford: Legenda, August 2012200 pp., £40.00, ISBN: 978-1-906540-93-7

Full text: The title of the book gives us a major clue on the innovative approach developed by Anne Freadman in her analysis of a particular Colette corpus, the one devoted to auto-biographical writing: Les Vrilles de la vigne, Mes apprentissages, La Maison de Claudine, Sido ,L’E ́toile Vesper and Le Fanal bleu. Freadman follows the powerful lure of Rimbaldianvieilles vieilleries and its echoes with Colette’s fondness for collecting objects, people and memories. To this must be added a technical aspect, that of the study of the genre of Colette’s writing. Freadman argues that, by largely avoiding the autobiographical form, the writer achieves a new way of ‘telling time’, collecting anecdotes and detail taken from the quotidian and setting them within an all-encompassing preoccupation with time. This provides the second part of the title.The sonata form directs the sequence of the book, orchestrated into five parts,from ‘exposition’ to ‘first subject’ to‘bridge’ to ‘second subject’ to ‘recapitulation’. This has the advantage of enabling Freadman to move and progress between distinct themes—autobiography first,then alternative forms—with grace,whilst preserving within her own writing what she sees as the essence of Colette’s relationship to time in her ‘Livres-Souvenirs’, the telling of time. This‘telling of time’ is itself therefore cleverly subjected to the time constraints and freedoms of musical composition. Freadman’s ‘Exposition’ takes us through a discussion of the autobiographical genre, analysing the texts against anumber of theorists, from Lejeune to Benjamin and Ricoeur, before launching into ‘Colette and Autobiography’. It argues pertinently that Colette did not write a ‘sustained’ autobiography, even inthe most autobiographical of her writings, Mes apprentissages. Measured against Goodwin’s three sources for autobiography, confession, apologia and memoirs, Colette’s autobiographical writings appear to be at odds with all of them. Freadman then goes on in Part II of her argument, to persuasively uncover a project that rejects self-scrutiny and with no autobiographical strategy. In ‘Collecting Time’, despite claims of continuity, narrative logic and causality areabandoned in favour of a collection offragments, family stories that are built up generation after generation into familylegends. A close and fruitful analysis of Sidoleads us to a study of ‘The Art of Ending’, concentrating on L’E ́toile Vesperandle Fanal Bleu. The closing chapter gives a fascinating reading of La Naissance du jouras an exemplar of the way in which the two subjects developed in Freadman’s volume are cast together:Colette’s own working through the autobiographical genre, and her refusal to write memoirs, in favour of collecting memories, and the strategies she uses for her purpose. In ‘Recapitulation’, her concluding chapter, Freadman adroitlyen capsulates her analysis in a fetching title: ‘Fables of Time’. Indeed, the wholepremise of her book is to move away from autobiographical genre, having acknowledged the links and debt the corpus owes to it, and into a study of the multiple and fruitful ways in which Colette tells time.The rich and varied readings of thematerial, competently informed by theoretical input, together with acute sensitivity to the corpus, mark out this study as incontournable for Colette scholars.

State–society relations in a dynamic framework: The case of the Far East and Sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the textbook approach, the developmental states of the Far East have been considered as strong and autonomous entities. Although their bureaucratic elites have remained isolated from direct pressures stemming from society, the state capacity has also been utilised in order to allocate resources in the interest of the whole society. Yet, society – by and large –has remained weak and subordinated to the state elite. On the other hand, the general perception of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been just the opposite. The violent and permanent conflict amongst rent-seeking groups for influence and authority over resources has culminated in a situation where states have become extremely weak and fragmented, while society – depending on the capacity of competing groups for mobilising resources to organise themselves mostly on a regional or local level (resulting in local petty kingdoms) – has never had the chance to evolve as a strong player. State failure in the literature, therefore, – in the context of SSA – refers not just to a weak and captured state but also to a non-functioning, and sometimes even non-existent society, too. Recently, however, the driving forces of globalisation might have triggered serious changes in the above described status quo. Accordingly, our hypothesis is the following: globalisation, especially the dynamic changes of technology, capital and communication have made the simplistic “strong state–weak society” (in Asia) and “weak state–weak society” (in Africa) categorisation somewhat obsolete. While our comparative study has a strong emphasis on the empirical scrutiny of trying to uncover the dynamics of changes in state–society relations in the two chosen regions both qualitatively and quantitatively, it also aims at complementing the meaning and essence of the concepts and methodology of stateness, state capacity and state-society relations, the well-known building blocks of the seminal works of Evans (1995), Leftwich (1995), Migdal (1988) or Myrdal (1968).

The Closed Loop Model by Regional Economics or How Big is the Ants’ Footprint?

The economy is communication between Man and Nature. It is an interaction-network between our outside and inside Nature, that is, the external Nature surrounding us and the internal nature expressing our human essence. Money is an institution of the society, an infrastructure that ensures division of labour, enables the flow of information and material between the participants. The concept of regional material and financial circular flow will be more important with the oncoming peak-oil and post-carbon era. We should describe in time the outlines of closed or semi-closed loops economy. The fundamentals of Input-Output will flourish once again; it could help us formulate the link between the efficiency and resiliency of a regional complex system.

Karl Marx és Karl Menger néhány gondolata a pénz eredetéről = The thoughts of Karl Marx and Karl Menger about the origin of money

Kisebb bizonytalankodás után a legtöbb közgazdászhallgató a pénz funkcióinak felsorolásába kezd, ha megkérdezik, hogyan határozná meg a pénz fogalmát. A gyakorlatiasabb, vagy a számvitel iránt elkötelezettebb diákok esetleg felidézik a banki mérleget és – részben helyesen – a pénzt kötelezettségként helyezik el benne. Mintha azonban még mindig egy kicsit pironkodnánk, hogy nem találjuk a megfelelő definíciót. És ez már így megy évszázadok óta. Jelen tanulmányban két XIX. századi közgazdász – Karl Marx és Karl Menger – néhány pénzelméleti következtetését igyekszem összehasonlítani, figyelembe véve az általuk képviselt közgazdasági elmélet alapvető eltéréseit. A mára általánosan elfogadottá váló szubjektív értékelmélet és a kissé elfeledett munkaérték-elmélet látszólag teljesen eltérő feltevéseire alapozva a két gondolkodó egészen hasonló eredményre jutott. Számukra a pénz nem egy egyszerű eszköz, sem követelés és kötelezettség, ahogyan most elkönyvelnénk, hanem áru. Eredetét nem állami törvényekből vezetik le, hanem társadalmi konszenzus során létrejött jelenségnek tekintik a pénzt, ami fölötte áll a törvényeknek, eredendően nem jelképet testesít meg, hanem különleges jószágként válik alkalmassá értékjel kifejezésére. / === / If being asked how to define money most students of economics would start listing the functions of money, or those students with more practical insight would place money as liability in the balance sheet of banks. It seems, however, as if we were still embarrassed by not finding the right definition. In the present study I am endeavouring to give a brief overview of various theoretical findings on the essence of money in the economy preceding the 19th century and then compare some money theoretical conclusions of two economists – Karl Marx and Karl Menger – considering the major differences of the economic theories represented by them. On the basis of the premises of the widely accepted subjective value theory and the somewhat forgotten labour theory of value the two 19th century thinkers came to rather similar results. For them money is not a simple means of payment, nor liability or claim, the way we would account for them now, but a special commodity. They do not attach its creation to the appearance of state laws on money as a legal tender but regard it as a social phenomenon which became capable of expressing a value token due to its peculiar characteristics.

A nettó jelenérték maximalizálása erőforrás-korlátos projektekben - egy új harmóniakereső metaheurisztika (A harmony search metaheuristic for the resourceconstrained project scheduling problem with discounted cash flows)

Ebben a tanulmányban a szerző egy új harmóniakereső metaheurisztikát mutat be, amely a minimális időtartamú erőforrás-korlátos ütemezések halmazán a projekt nettó jelenértékét maximalizálja. Az optimális ütemezés elméletileg két egész értékű (nulla-egy típusú) programozási feladat megoldását jelenti, ahol az első lépésben meghatározzuk a minimális időtartamú erőforrás-korlátos ütemezések időtartamát, majd a második lépésben az optimális időtartamot feltételként kezelve megoldjuk a nettó jelenérték maximalizálási problémát minimális időtartamú erőforrás-korlátos ütemezések halmazán. A probléma NP-hard jellege miatt az egzakt megoldás elfogadható idő alatt csak kisméretű projektek esetében képzelhető el. A bemutatandó metaheurisztika a Csébfalvi (2007) által a minimális időtartamú erőforrás-korlátos ütemezések időtartamának meghatározására és a tevékenységek ennek megfelelő ütemezésére kifejlesztett harmóniakereső metaheurisztika továbbfejlesztése, amely az erőforrás-felhasználási konfliktusokat elsőbbségi kapcsolatok beépítésével oldja fel. Az ajánlott metaheurisztika hatékonyságának és életképességének szemléltetésére számítási eredményeket adunk a jól ismert és népszerű PSPLIB tesztkönyvtár J30 részhalmazán futtatva. Az egzakt megoldás generálásához egy korszerű MILP-szoftvert (CPLEX) alkalmaztunk. _______________ This paper presents a harmony search metaheuristic for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with discounted cash flows. In the proposed approach, a resource-constrained project is characterized by its „best” schedule, where best means a makespan minimal resource constrained schedule for which the net present value (NPV) measure is maximal. Theoretically the optimal schedule searching process is formulated as a twophase mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem, which can be solved for small-scale projects in reasonable time. The applied metaheuristic is based on the "conflict repairing" version of the "Sounds of Silence" harmony search metaheuristic developed by Csébfalvi (2007) for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP). In order to illustrate the essence and viability of the proposed harmony search metaheuristic, we present computational results for a J30 subset from the well-known and popular PSPLIB. To generate the exact solutions a state-of-the-art MILP solver (CPLEX) was used.

Framing the Game: Objections to Bapat’s Game-Theoretic Modeling of the Afghan Surge

In a recently published article in the prestigious journal Foreign Policy Analysis, Navin A. Bapat uses a rationalist approach to explain key bargaining processes related to the Afghanistan conflict, concluding that “the Afghan mission may continue for political reasons until it is impossible to sustain militarily.” The article captures the essence of the strategic situation in Afghanistan: the losing dynamic involved. This brief commentary in response is an attempt to shed light on where the tenets of Bapat’s game-theoretic model may be erroneous, even while the model does produce conclusions that appear valid overall.