Software engineering technology innovation - Turning research results into industrial success

This paper deals with the innovation of software engineering technologies. These technologies are methods and tools for conducting software development and maintenance. We consider innovation as a process consisting of two phases, being technology creation and technology transfer. In this paper, we focus mainly on the transfer phase.Technology transfer is of mutual interest to both academia and industry. Transfer is important for academia, because it shows the industrial relevance of their research results to, for example, their sponsoring authorities. Showing the industrial applicability of research results is sometimes referred to as valorization of research. Nowadays, valorization is often required by research funding bodies. The transfer is important for industries, because innovating their development processes and their products is supportive in gaining a competitive edge or remaining competitive in their business. We describe the technology transfer phase by means of three activities: technology evaluation, technology engineering, and technology embedding. The technology evaluation activity is perceived as the main gate between the technology creation phase and the technology transfer phase. With two case studies, originating from the Dutch high-tech systems industry, we will illustrate the activities in the transfer phase.In addition to the process we will also define the main roles in a software engineering technology innovation, namely: the technology provider (academic research, industrial research and technology vendor) and the technology receiver (industrial development). With those roles we also address the issues concerning the ownership of technologies.     

Technology Transfer and the Tech Broker

Technology transfer is the process of transferring an idea from its originator to someone who can use it. Typically, this implies the transfer of research developed in academia to industry. While there's no dearth of technologies that academic researchers have available and are anxious to transfer, precious little technology transfer involving academia takes place, at least in the software development community. Why don't we see more tech transfer in our field? What the software community needs is an infrastructure that matches researchers with adopters at a specific point in time and helps them overcome the administrative barriers. One example of a successful technology broker is SERC, a two-decade-old consortium of industrial organizations and universities that facilitates the brokering of technology transfer from academia to industry.     

Consortia partnerships: Linking industry and academia

A model is described for research consortium partnership formation, management and technology transfer. Industrial engineering strategies and computer technology utilization applications are addressed. Actual examples are presented and analyzed. Projections are made regarding the future role of consortia partnerships in advancing technology and fostering linkages between industry and academia.     

Guest Editor's Introduction: Micro's Top Picks from Microarchitecture Conferences

With this special issue, IEEE Micro continues its yearly tradition of showcasing some of the most industry-relevant research presented at the top computer architecture conferences of the previous year.     

Entrepreneurs’ Intentions and Partnership Towards Innovation: Evidence from the Japanese Film Industry

Many scholars have researched in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation; nevertheless, little attention has been given to a causal relationship between these two concepts; entrepreneurial intention and innovation. In the conventional view, a single outstanding entrepreneur has an intention to induce innovation, and connects market opportunities and resources. However, this view cannot fully explain the situation of entrepreneurial activities led by a team. This article presents a new research framework in entrepreneurship research. First, an entrepreneur can have a relational intention that leads to constructing a partnership. Second, such a partnership, not an individual entrepreneur, has an emerged innovative intention that leads to carrying out innovation in order to establish the competitive advantage. Adopting this framework, we examine cases in the Japanese film industry and clarifying the relational development between entrepreneur’s intention and innovation. From this study a new theoretical foundation on the dynamics of entrepreneurial intentions and outcomes in creative industries arises, and it unpacks the initial stage of innovation where organizations are newly created by employing micro viewpoints such as individuals and partnerships.     

Early user involvement in the development of information technology-related products for older people

The UTOPIA project (Usable Technology for Older People—Inclusive and Appropriate) is focused on developing effective methods for the early involvement of older people in the development of information technology-related products for people aged 60 and over, and on providing industry with tools to assist in the development of information technology products for such older people. An essential part of this methodology is building a diverse user base, forming a long-lasting partnership with older people, and developing approaches for effective interaction with this target user group. Our experiences with eliciting information from groups of older people about technology is described, together with a report on seminars for Scottish industry designed to raise an awareness of these issues.     

‘Because it’s boring, irrelevant and I don’t like computers’: Why high school girls avoid professionally-oriented ICT subjects

The current paper details results from the Girls and ICT survey phase of a three year study investigating factors associated with low participation rates by females in education pathways leading to professional level information and communications technology (ICT) professions. The study is funded through the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Linkage Grants Scheme. It involves a research partnership between Education Queensland (EQ), industry partner Technology One and academic researchers at (affiliation removed for review purposes). Respondents to the survey were 1453 senior high school girls. Comparisons were drawn between Takers (n = 131) and Non Takers (n = 1322) of advanced level computing subjects. Significant differences between the groups were found on four questions: “The subjects are interesting”; “I am very interested in computers”; “The subject will be helpful to me in my chosen career path after school”; and “It suited my timetable”. The research has demonstrated that senior high school girls tend to perceive advanced computing subjects as boring and they express a strong aversion to computers.     

Infrastructure for science portals

A major driver of Internet growth has been the USA's decades-long national policy of funding basic research and infrastructure prototyping in its universities. This unique national system has enabled universities to experiment with capabilities years ahead of their mass commercial distribution. From Arpanet to NSFnet, this far-reaching partnership between government, universities and industry planted the seeds that grew into the modern cyberworld. More recently, NCSA Mosaic and NCSA's Web server software catalyzed the development of the World Wide Web. This “explore the future” methodology has been institutionalized in the National Science Foundation's Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) program. Each PACI partnership brings together dozens of leading researchers at some 75 institutions to create the services necessary to prototype a seamless, integrated computational and collaborative environment known as the Grid     

Brazil: cooperative development of a software industry

The research arm of Brazil's Ministry of Science and Technology, CNPq, assembled a community of professors, entrepreneurs, and policy makers. Their goal was to define a strategic program that would eventually replace Brazil's existing information technology policy. At that time, a strict policy regulated the internal market, protecting the local IT industry by imposing many restrictions on importing goods from abroad similar to those produced domestically. Partnerships that existed between local groups and global producers supported this hardware production, whereas software was treated as an accessory. The community proposed specific interrelated actions aimed at improving the country's computing and human resource information infrastructure, fostering cooperative basic research and development and developing an indigenous IT industry focused on software and exports. The author analyzes the program's results     

2001 technology roadmap for semiconductors

The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) is a collaborative effort within the semiconductor industry to confront the challenges implicit in Moore's law. The roadmap's goal is to present an industry-wide consensus on the "best current estimate" of its R&D needs out to a 15-year horizon. As such, the ITRS provides a guide to the efforts of companies, research organizations, and governments to improve the quality of R&D investment decisions made at all levels. The 2001 Roadmap is notable because it was developed with truly international representation. In this article, representatives of the International Technology Working Groups for Design and Test showcase some of the contributions from 839 international experts seeking to address the difficult and exciting challenges facing the design and test communities and the semiconductor industry as a whole     

Taking Moore's law into the next century

The Semiconductor Research Corp. is one of the few organizations to get fierce competitors like Intel, Motorola, and IBM to the same table, let alone cooperate, and it has also wrangled money-$37 million annually-from these companies and others. With this money, it funds future research to keep the engines of semiconductor production churning. In short, the SRC is bent on taking Moore's law into the next century by coordinating “precompetitive” academic research to meet industry's needs. Together with its sister organizations-the Semiconductor Industry Association and Sematech-SRC helps chart and promote the continued progress of the semiconductor industry. Their main tool for doing so is the National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. Published every two years, this document outlines research areas that need attention so that the industry can maintain the pace of semiconductor production. This article discusses two of those areas-interconnects, and design and test-in depth     

技术转移转化交易云服务平台的建设

技术转移转化是科学成果转化为生产力的主要方式,是科学技术与经济建设相结合的重要纽带。科学技术只有应用到经济活动中,形成高新技术产品或产业,实现社会价值和经济价值,实现资源成本最低化和生态环境破坏最小化,其成果转化转移才算成功实现。我国科研机构尤其是国有科研院所经过多年发展,科研水平得到明显提升,综合实力不断增强,积累和沉淀了较为丰厚的科技资源。这些机构在推动科技成果转化和技术转移,促进企业技术创新,实现我国经济发展方式根本转变方面有很大潜力。本文从技术转移的需求出发,介绍了技术交易平台系统的建设与实现过程。     

Flexible microelectronics: New application for thin‐film transistors in fingerprint sensors

Abstract— Thin‐film transistors (TFTs) are field‐effect transistors that can be used to create large‐scale‐integrated (LSI) circuits. The combination of high‐performance TFTs and transfer technology of the TFTs has the potential to foster the rise of a new flexible microelectronics industry. This paper discusses the current status of flexible microelectronics, using a TFT fingerprint sensor (FPS) as an example. Technology used in active‐matrix displays can easily be applied to the TFT FPS. TFT technology should not be confined to the display industry; its use should be expanded into the semiconductor industry. With the result presented in this paper, we declare a new era of flexible microelectronics open.     

基于xml的网络申报方式的研究与实现

XML技术如今已经在各行业被广泛使用。本文介绍了一种在J2EE系统框架下,使用XML来表示申报信息,用SOAP来传递申报信息,使用SSL技术实现申报信息安全的网络申报系统的实现方法。     

The impact of socialization mechanisms and technological innovation capabilities on partnership quality and supply chain integration

The aim of this study is to contribute to the advent of supply chain management research from social exchange theory and resource-based view and shed light on whether socio-technical factors affect a firm’s ability to enhance partnership quality and increase the level of supply chain integration. This study develops a research model to examine the impact of socialization mechanisms (e.g., knowledge sharing and communication quality) and technological innovation capabilities on supply chain integration, directly or indirectly through an increase on partnership quality (partner trust and partner commitment). The research model is empirically tested with data obtained through a field survey involving a sample of 179 large Taiwanese manufacturing firms. The results support the theorized relationships indicating that the level of partnership quality and supply chain integration is positively influenced by socialization mechanisms and technological innovation capabilities. For both socialization and technological innovation constructs, partnership quality partially mediates the relationship with supply chain integration. Theoretical and managerial implications of the research findings for industrial managers are discussed.     

关于面向对象集散式控制系统的继承性与多态性的讨论

集散式控制系统是目前工业控制自动化的最新研究成果，它已被广泛应用于工业的各个部门，面向对象技术又是目前软件开发方法的主注，它的提出解决了许多传统设计方法所很难解决的困难，在本文中，从继承性与多态性两方面讨论了将这两项最新技术相结合的方法及受益之外，并提出了自己的一些看法。     

产学研一体的工程型、复合型、国际化计算机人才培养

总结了浙江大学计算机科学与技术学院基于产学研一体培养工程型、复合型、国际化计算机高级人才的一些基本经验。浙江大学计算机学院通过建立多层次的工程实践能力培养体系、建设全方位的国际交流能力培养体系、创建多学科融合的人才培养知识体系等手段,逐步探索出产学研共同参与的新型高级计算机人才培养模式。     

Business–IT fit in e-procurement systems: evidence from high-technology firms in China

Abstract.  Because of the influence of globalization and updated information technologies (IT), firms in China face an urgent need to adopt e-procurement systems (EP) to deal with their daily procurement activities. However, implementing EP in China encounters various uncertainties from internal and external business environments. To address this issue, this research aims to examine the fit between business and the IT environment and to study its impact on system performance. The literature review allows the proposal of two internal business environmental uncertainties and two external business environmental uncertainties covering the perspectives of process, knowledge, partnership and environment. Based on a multiple-case study performed in four Chinese firms that supply various personal computer components to a Taiwanese original equipment manufacturer via an EP, it was found that the firms' external and internal uncertainty factors affected the performance of EP. In addition, an EP with a low level of integration – the EP type used most frequently in China – can only achieve great performance when the adopting firms faced a low uncertainty of environment, partnership and process, and had low levels of IT knowledge. It was also observed that lack of fit between the business environment and EP produced extra burdens and costs in the buyer–supplier relationship. This significantly reduced the system performance of the Chinese firms. Hence, the contribution of this research can be twofold. First, practitioners in China can use this framework to diagnose their environmental conditions and then choose the appropriate type of EP to implement. Second, researchers can build upon this model to further examine the impact of fit on EP performance and generalize the results.     

国产处理器研究与发展现状综述

CPU是电子产品的核心,代表着国家信息产业的发展水平,随着近年来国产CPU的发展,国内CPU涌现出中国科学院研究所、国防科技大学、北京君正、北大众志、苏州国芯等一批研究单位,研发龙芯系列、FT系列、XBurst系列、UniCore系列、C＊Core系列等许多优秀的CPU产品,介绍国产主流CPU的分类、研究单位及研发产品的特点和应用,并提出国产CPU所面临的主要困难。