The effects of potentiallydisruptive technology on business model - a case study of new technologies in ICT industry

This study examines how firms interpret new, potentially disruptive technologies in their own strategic context. The work presents a cross-case analysis of four potentially disruptive technologies or technical operating models: Bluetooth, WLAN, Grid computing and Mobile Peer-to-peer paradigm. The technologies were investigated from the perspective of three mobile operators, a device manufacturer and a software company in the ICT industry. The theoretical background for the study consists of the resource-based view of the firm with dynamic perspective, the theories on the nature of technology and innovations, and the concept of business model. The literature review builds up a propositional framework for estimating the amount of radical change in the companies' business model with two middle variables, the disruptiveness potential of a new technology, and the strategic importance of a new technology to a firm. The data was gathered in group discussion sessions in each company. The results of each case analysis were brought together to evaluate, how firms interpret the potential disruptiveness in terms of changes in product characteristics and added value, technology and market uncertainty, changes in product-market positions, possible competence disruption and changes in value network positions. The results indicate that the perceived disruptiveness in terms ofproduct characteristics does not necessarily translate into strategic importance. In addition, firms did not see the new technologies as a threat in terms of potential competence disruption.

Origins of production errors and significance of employee empowerment in reducing production error amount in sheet metal fabricating industry

The market place of the twenty-first century will demand that manufacturing assumes a crucial role in a new competitive field. Two potential resources in the area of manufacturing are advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) and empowered employees. Surveys in Finland have shown the need to invest in the new AMT in the Finnish sheet metal industry in the 1990's. In this run the focus has been on hard technology and less attention is paid to the utilization of human resources. In manymanufacturing companies an appreciable portion of the profit within reach is wasted due to poor quality of planning and workmanship. The production flow production error distribution of the sheet metal part based constructions is inspectedin this thesis. The objective of the thesis is to analyze the origins of production errors in the production flow of sheet metal based constructions. Also the employee empowerment is investigated in theory and the meaning of the employee empowerment in reducing the overall production error amount is discussed in this thesis. This study is most relevant to the sheet metal part fabricating industrywhich produces sheet metal part based constructions for electronics and telecommunication industry. This study concentrates on the manufacturing function of a company and is based on a field study carried out in five Finnish case factories. In each studied case factory the most delicate work phases for production errors were detected. It can be assumed that most of the production errors are caused in manually operated work phases and in mass production work phases. However, no common theme in collected production error data for production error distribution in the production flow can be found. Most important finding was still that most of the production errors in each case factory studied belong to the 'human activity based errors-category'. This result indicates that most of the problemsin the production flow are related to employees or work organization. Development activities must therefore be focused to the development of employee skills orto the development of work organization. Employee empowerment gives the right tools and methods to achieve this.

Instalación de Generador fotovoltaico aislado de red en explotación de ganado porcino en la provincia de Zaragoza

El creixement del mercat de les renovables impulsat pels governs per lluitar contra els efectes de l'emissió de CO2, ha permès un descens dels costos dels equips fotovoltaics i la consegüent reducció del cost de producció del kWh produït per aquesta tecnologia, fent-la competitiva enfront de la generació per mitjà de motors de gasoil. Les explotacions ramaderes allunyades de la xarxa de distribució que en l'actualitat es proveeixen per mitjà de generadors de gasoil poden millorar el resultat del seu compte d'explotació gràcies a aquest tipus de generadors. La instal·lació trifàsica a què fa referència aquest projecte tindrà una potència màxima del generador (pic) de 24,42 kWp, amb tres inversors carregadors de 7 kW nominals, i una bancada de bateries de Níquel Cadmi de 48V i 3300Ah, permetrà satisfer els requeriments energètics de l'explotació amb la qualitat i seguretat necessària reduint el consum actual de gasoil en un 95% i una reducció de les emissions de CO2 de 160 Tm.

Diseño e implementación de una base de datos para la gestión de regalos en grupo de una red social

Trabajo final de carrera del área de bases de datos relacionales en el que se realiza el análisis, diseño y implementación de una base de datos para gestionar un sistema de regalos en grupos de una red social.

Diseño e implementación de la base de datos para la gestión de regalos grupales en una red social

Este proyecto consiste en la implementación de un sistema de base de datos que permite gestionar un sistema de regalos grupales entre los miembros de una red.

Asociaciones entre la red social y la discapacidad al comienzo de la vejez en las ciudades de Madrid y Barcelona en 2005

La pérdida de autonomía a edades avanzadas no se asocia únicamente con el envejecimiento sino también con características del entorno físico y social. Investigaciones recientes han demostrado que la red social, la integración social y la participación, actúan como predictores de la discapacidad en la vejez. El objetivo de este trabajo es nalizar el efecto de la red social sobre el nivel de autonomía(en términos de discapacidad instrumental y básica) en etapas iniciales de la vejez.

Semantic Web applications: a framework for industry and business exploitation – What is needed for the adoption of the Semantic Web from the market and industry

In recent years, Semantic Web (SW) research has resulted in significant outcomes. Various industries have adopted SW technologies, while the ‘deep web’ is still pursuing the critical transformation point, in which the majority of data found on the deep web will be exploited through SW value layers. In this article we analyse the SW applications from a ‘market’ perspective. We are setting the key requirements for real-world information systems that are SW-enabled and we discuss the major difficulties for the SW uptake that has been delayed. This article contributes to the literature of SW and knowledge management providing a context for discourse towards best practices on SW-based information systems.

The Omega model: from bankruptcy to occupation times in the red

Ruin occurs the first time when the surplus of a company or an institution is negative. In the Omega model, it is assumed that even with a negative surplus, the company can do business as usual until bankruptcy occurs. The probability of bankruptcy at a point of time only depends on the value of the negative surplus at that time. Under the assumption of Brownian motion for the surplus, the expected discounted value of a penalty at bankruptcy is determined, and hence the probability of bankruptcy. There is an intrinsic relation between the probability of no bankruptcy and an exposure random variable. In special cases, the distribution of the total time the Brownian motion spends below zero is found, and the Laplace transform of the integral of the negative part of the Brownian motion is expressed in terms of the Airy function of the first kind.

An embedded real-time red peach detection system based on an OV7670 camera, ARM Cortex-M4 processor and 3D Look-Up Tables

This work proposes the development of an embedded real-time fruit detection system for future automatic fruit harvesting. The proposed embedded system is based on an ARM Cortex-M4 (STM32F407VGT6) processor and an Omnivision OV7670 color camera. The future goal of this embedded vision system will be to control a robotized arm to automatically select and pick some fruit directly from the tree. The complete embedded system has been designed to be placed directly in the gripper tool of the future robotized harvesting arm. The embedded system will be able to perform real-time fruit detection and tracking by using a three-dimensional look-up-table (LUT) defined in the RGB color space and optimized for fruit picking. Additionally, two different methodologies for creating optimized 3D LUTs based on existing linear color models and fruit histograms were implemented in this work and compared for the case of red peaches. The resulting system is able to acquire general and zoomed orchard images and to update the relative tracking information of a red peach in the tree ten times per second.

Definition of linear color models in the RGB vector color space to detect red peaches in orchard images taken under natural illumination

This work proposes the detection of red peaches in orchard images based on the definition of different linear color models in the RGB vector color space. The classification and segmentation of the pixels of the image is then performed by comparing the color distance from each pixel to the different previously defined linear color models. The methodology proposed has been tested with images obtained in a real orchard under natural light. The peach variety in the orchard was the paraguayo (Prunus persica var. platycarpa) peach with red skin. The segmentation results showed that the area of the red peaches in the images was detected with an average error of 11.6%; 19.7% in the case of bright illumination; 8.2% in the case of low illumination; 8.6% for occlusion up to 33%; 12.2% in the case of occlusion between 34 and 66%; and 23% for occlusion above 66%. Finally, a methodology was proposed to estimate the diameter of the fruits based on an ellipsoidal fitting. A first diameter was obtained by using all the contour pixels and a second diameter was obtained by rejecting some pixels of the contour. This approach enables a rough estimate of the fruit occlusion percentage range by comparing the two diameter estimates.

Diseño de un modelo de red domótica libre basada en componentes OpenDomo para aplicación a un pequeño hotel

El objeto de este proyecto es crear un diseño tipo de instalación domótica para un hotel de hasta 100 habitaciones, basada en componentes OpenDomo y fundamentalmente en el controlador ODControl. El modelo de instalación propuesto está orientado principalmente al ahorro energético y, por tanto, al control de los principales elementos que tienen impacto sobre el ahorro, esto es: la iluminación y la climatización del hotel.

Creación de red de sensores de monitorización

Creación de red de sensores y sistemas de monitorización para la Autoridad Portuaria de Gijón.