Managing sequential ambidexterity in the electronics industry: roles of temporal switching capability and contingent factors

Researchers on organisational ambidexterity have proposed several solutions to address the potential conflicts between exploration activities and exploitation activities. Unlike simultaneous ambidexterity, sequential ambidexterity – defined as temporal switching between exploration and exploitation – has not been examined fully, and the conditions under which this temporal switching can be successful are unclear. This paper proposes the concept of temporal switching capability to better understand the process by which sequential ambidexterity is executed. In addition, we hypothesise that performance effects are contingent upon firm-specific factors: a firm’s business strategy and absorptive capacity. Utilising three sources of data – a secondary database, annual reports and a survey administered to 145 firms in the electronics industry with 10-year observations – we find support for our hypotheses. The results show that the temporal switching capability positively relates to new product performance and that business strategy type and absorptive capacity have moderating effects. The results are meaningful in both theory and practice.     

Noninvasive glucose monitoring in vivo with an optical heterodyne polarimeter

An amplitude-sensitive optical heterodyne polarimeter was set up to monitor noninvasively the aqueous glucose concentration in a rabbit's eye. A Zeeman laser in conjunction with a Glan-Thompson analyzer was used to generate an optical heterodyne signal. The amplitude of the heterodyne signal linearly related to the optical rotation angle of the aqueous glucose. The concentration of the aqueous glucose in a rabbit's eyeball was measured in vivo. There was a 30-min time delay between observations of aqueous glucose and blood glucose. The detection capability and the reproducibility of the experiment are demonstrated and discussed.     

A multi-streaming SIMD multimedia computing engine

Current multimedia extensions provide a mechanism for general-purpose processors to meet the growing performance demand of multimedia applications. However, the computing performance of these extensions is often limited for the design conceptions of the single data stream. This paper presents an architecture called “multi-streaming SIMD” that enables current multimedia extensions to simultaneously manipulate multiple data streams. To efficiently and flexibly realize the proposed architecture, an operation cell is designed by fusing the logic gates and the storage cells together. Multiple operation cells then are connected to compose a register file with the ability of performing SIMD operations called “Multimedia Operation Storage Unit (MOSU)”. Further, many MOSUs are used to compose a multi-streaming SIMD computing engine that can simultaneously manipulate multiple data streams and exploit the subword parallelisms of the elements in each data stream. This paper also designs three instruction modes (global, coupling, and isolated modes) for programmers to dynamically configure the multi-streaming SIMD computing engine at the instruction level to manipulate different amounts of data streams. Simulation results show that when the multi-streaming SIMD architecture has four 4-register MOSUs, it provides a factor of 3.3×–5.5× performance enhancement for traditional MMX extensions on 12 multimedia kernels.     

Laser‐irradiated zinc oxide thin‐film transistors fabricated by solution processing

Abstract— This study investigates the effects of subjecting zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films to laser irradiation. The optical, structural, and electrical properties of the as‐deposited and laser‐irradiated films at different laser energies were studied. The transmittances without/with laser irradiation showed a net increase from 85 to 92% (@550 nm) for 250‐nm ZnO films, indicating an improvement in sample crystal linity. In addition, laser treatment decreased the ZnO band gap. Composition structure analysis shows that the crystallinity increased when the laser energy increased. Thin‐film transistors (TFTs) with a ZnO active layer were fabricated. The mobility of as‐deposited ZnO TFT devices (0.19 cm²/V‐sec) increased more than 2.5 times for ZnO of unirradiated laser treatment (0.49 cm²/V‐sec).     

Improved image interpreting and modeling technique for automated structural optimization system

The automated structural optimization system (ASOS) proposed in the previous work incorporates the image-preprocessing techniques, the image-interpreting technique, and the automated shape-optimization modeling techniques to successfully obtain an autonomously integrated topology and shape optimization. However, the characteristic value-based image-interpreting technique used in ASOS is unable to accurately interpret complicated hole shapes, necessitating the use of the hole shape-adjusting strategy in addition to the hole-expanding strategy and the interference analysis in the automated shape-optimization modeling techniques to obtain a viable initial design and side constraints of design variables. In order to solve the above-mentioned problem in ASOS, this paper proposes the improved automated structural optimization system (IASOS) and uses the polygonal image-interpreting technique to replace the characteristic value-based image-interpreting technique used in ASOS. This alteration significantly increases the accuracy of image interpretation. Moreover, it can simplify the process of automated shape-optimization modeling techniques, reduce the design duration, and produce better results.     

Modified BVD model of PZT actuator using high-voltage square pulse method for micropumps

The field of micro–electro–mechanical systems and microfabrication has produced micro-total-analysis systems, which are widely used in medicine, diagnostics, and biological and chemical research. For the development of high precision drug delivery systems, micropumps with a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) actuator, which has a fast response time and high resolution, are most likely to be applied in implementations. To improve the performance of PZT micropumps utilized in the microfluidics field, suitable models are required to enable the optimization of the PZT actuator driving circuits. This study proposes a modified Butterworth–Van Dyke (BVD) model which consists of a BVD model in series with an electrical resistance that describes a PZT actuator driven by a square pulse with a relatively high voltage and low frequency for micropump applications. Experiments were conducted to assess parameters of the model at various voltages; they indicate that the electrical resistance is essential for modeling the PZT actuator of the micropump. The electrical model was verified using a SPICE simulation, whose numerical results were compared with the experimental data for the current response of the PZT actuator. The results show a close correlation between the simulation of the electrical model and the measurements of the PZT actuator under real operating conditions.     

A revised method for ranking fuzzy numbers using maximizing set and minimizing set

A large number of methods have been proposed for ranking fuzzy numbers in the last few decades. Nevertheless, none of these methods can always guarantee a consistent result for every situation. Some of them are even non-intuitive and not discriminating. Chen proposed a ranking method in 1985 to overcome these limitations and simplify the computational procedure based on the criteria of total utility through maximizing set and minimizing set. However, there were some shortcomings associated with Chen’s ranking method. Therefore, we propose a revised ranking method that can overcome these shortcomings. Instead of considering just a single left and a single right utility in the total utility, the proposed method considers two left and two right utilities. In addition, the proposed method also takes into account the decision maker’s optimistic attitude of fuzzy numbers. Several comparative examples and an application demonstrating the usage, advantages, and applicability of the revised ranking method are presented. It can be concluded that the revised ranking method can effectively resolve the issues with Chen’s ranking method. Moreover, the revised ranking method can be used to differentiate different types of fuzzy numbers.     

The impact of media on collaborative learning in virtual settings: The perspective of social construction

This study examines an alternative function of information sharing – social construction of meaning. Drawing on social construction, social interaction, and task closure theories, we explored the influence of both the media environment in which students are situated and the medium that group members choose to communicate with one another on the intricate relationships among breadth of information sharing, depth of information sharing, and performance of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). A total of 126 students participated in the experiment – including 63 students (15 groups of four students and one group of three students) in the control and experimental groups respectively. Our findings show that most of the proposed hypotheses are supported. Intersubjective interpretation underlies groups information sharing and plays a key role in student learning performance. Evidence shows that when facing a relatively complex task in multimedia environments, students who choose to utilize a medium lower in social presence (i.e., electronic information sharing) are more likely to achieve task closure than a medium higher in social presence (i.e., verbal information sharing). This in turn leads to higher learning performance. The implications for both theory and pedagogy are also discussed.     

A collaborative desktop tagging system for group knowledge management based on concept space

The advent of internet has led to a significant growth in the amount of information available, resulting in information overload, i.e. individuals have too much information to make a decision. To resolve this problem, collaborative tagging systems form a categorization called folksonomy in order to organize web resources. A folksonomy aggregates the results of personal free tagging of information and objects to form a categorization structure that applies utilizes the collective intelligence of crowds. Folksonomy is more appropriate for organizing huge amounts of information on the Web than traditional taxonomies established by expert cataloguers. However, the attributes of collaborative tagging systems and their folksonomy make them impractical for organizing resources in personal environments.This work designs a desktop collaborative tagging (DCT) system that enables collaborative workers to tag their documents. This work proposes an application in patent analysis based on the DCT system. Folksonomy in DCT is built by aggregating personal tagging results, and is represented by a concept space. Concept spaces provide synonym control, tag recommendation and relevant search. Additionally, to protect privacy of authors and to decrease the transmission cost, relations between tagged and untagged documents are constructed by extracting document’s features rather than adopting the full text.Experimental results reveal that the adoption rate of recommended tags for new documents increases by 10% after users have tagged five or six documents. Furthermore, DCT can recommend tags with higher adoption rates when given new documents with similar topics to previously tagged ones. The relevant search in DCT is observed to be superior to keyword search when adopting frequently used tags as queries. The average precision, recall, and F-measure of DCT are 12.12%, 23.08%, and 26.92% higher than those of keyword searching.DCT allows a multi-faceted categorization of resources for collaborative workers and recommends tags for categorizing resources to simplify categorization easier. Additionally, DCT system provides relevance searching, which is more effective than traditional keyword searching for searching personal resources.