Understanding value creation in closed loop supply chains – Past findings and future directions

The topic of value creation through the recovery of returned products in closed loop supply chains is scattered across various bodies of literature. We undertake a systematic literature review of 144 articles in relevant green, reverse and closed loop supply chain literature to synchronize existing knowledge on value creation. Value manifestations of four types of value, namely economic, environmental, information and customer value, are identified. Value adding concepts from the forward- and reverse supply chain may leverage the process of value creation. They are classified into six subclasses, namely partnerships and collaboration, product design characteristics, service concepts, IT solutions, supply chain processes and organizational characteristics. We present a conceptual framework on a strategic level. In this way companies can create competitive advantages by closing the loop. The results of the literature analysis suggest avenues for future research on the operational and strategic level.     

Small-scale CDM projects in a competitive electricity industry: How good is a simplified baseline methodology?

Setting baseline emissions is one of the principal tasks involved in awarding credits for greenhouse gas emission (GHG) mitigation projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). An emission baseline has to be project-specific in order to be accurate. However, project-specific baseline calculations are subject to high transaction costs, which disadvantage small-scale projects. For this reason, the CDM-Executive Board (CDM-EB) has approved simplified baseline methodologies for selected small-scale CDM project categories. While the simplified methods help reduce the transaction cost, they may also result in inaccuracies in the estimation of emission reductions from CDM projects. The purpose of this paper is to present a rigorous economic scheduling method for calculating the GHG emission reduction in a hypothetical competitive electricity industry due to the operation of a renewable energy-based power plant under CDM and compare the GHG emission reduction derived from the rigorous method with that obtained from the use of a simplified (i.e., standardized) method approved by the CDM-EB. A key finding of the paper is that depending upon the level of power demand, prices of electricity and input fuels, the simplified method can lead to either significant overestimation or substantial underestimation of emission reduction due to the operation of renewable energy-based power projects in a competitive electricity industry.     

A Dynamic Dictionary for Priced Information with Application

In this paper we design a dynamic dictionary for the priced information model initiated by Charikar et al. Assume that a set S consisting of n elements is given such that each element has an associated price, a positive real number. The cost of performing an operation on elements of S is a function of their prices. The cost of an algorithm is the sum of the costs of all operations it performs. The objective is to design algorithms which incur low cost. In this model we propose a dynamic dictionary, supporting search, insert and delete, for keys drawn from a linearly ordered set. As an application we show that the dictionary can be used in computing the trapezoidal map of a set of line segments, a fundamental problem in computational geometry.     

Analysis and visualisation with host-based software – The features of STNAnaVist™

This article is based on experiences with data and text mining to gain information for strategic business decisions, using host-based analysis and visualisation (A/V), primarily in the field of patents. The potential advantages of host-based A/V are pointed out and the features of the first such A/V software, STN^®AnaVist™, are described in detail. Areas covered include the user interfaces, initial set of documents for A/V, data mining, text mining, reporting, and suggestions for further development.     

NEURAL NETS SPEED FLOW CALCULATION

Neural Nets Successfully Solve Complex Fluid Flow Problem. Much research is being done in the area of neural networks, and industry is actively seeking successful application to real world problems. We describe here a successful application. We have used neural networks to model complex coolant flow patterns, such as those encountered in design of hypersonic aircraft. Previous calculation methods, while reasonably accurate, are iterative and extremely time consuming. Our new approach uses a hierarchical neural network architecture to model coolant flow distribution in multiple heat exchanger panels. This method is direct, fast, and accurate.     

人类HLA-DRB1基因型与民族和人群的神经网络无监督模式分类

HLA-DRB1等位基因主要参与人类的抗原免疫功能,对其进行比较研究,有助于追溯人类的进化迁移史,开发类群特异性药物.本研究以Matlab为平台,用自组织竞争网络(Self-Organizing Competitive Neural Network),对世界54个民族和人群、14个HLA-DRB1等位基因,进行了无监督模式分类.结果表明,各民族之间存在差异性,同民族的各人群之间有相似性.西伯利亚各人群,澳洲各土著人群,黑人各人群,南美印第安各人群,犹太族各人群,日本各人群,及欧美白人各人群有相对独立性:南美印第安人与西伯利亚人有高度相似性;中国民族在南方人群和北方人群间存在较大差异;中国汉族中,广东汉族地位特殊,与少数民族如拉祜族、瑶族关系密切.     

信息化时代企业情报工作与时俱进

针对信息化时代企业情报工作面临的新课题，结合本企业情况，从成为企业技术创新的加油站、成为职工素质提高的资源库、成为企业获取和分析竞争环境的侦察兵、成为企业信息安全的保护伞等方面论述了企业情报工作与时俱进等理念和方法。     

On-Line File Caching

Abstract. Consider the following file caching problem: in response to a sequence of requests for files, where each file has a specified size and retrieval cost , maintain a cache of files of total size at most some specified k so as to minimize the total retrieval cost. Specifically, when a requested file is not in the cache, bring it into the cache and pay the retrieval cost, and remove other files from the cache so that the total size of files remaining in the cache is at most k . This problem generalizes previous paging and caching problems by allowing objects of arbitrary size and cost, both important attributes when caching files for world-wide-web browsers, servers, and proxies. We give a simple deterministic on-line algorithm that generalizes many well-known paging and weighted-caching strategies, including least-recently-used, first-in-first-out, flush-when-full, and the balance algorithm. On any request sequence, the total cost incurred by the algorithm is at most k/(k-h+1) times the minimum possible using a cache of size h ≤ k . For any algorithm satisfying the latter bound, we show it is also the case that for most choices of k , the retrieval cost is either insignificant or at most a constant (independent of k ) times the optimum. This helps explain why competitive ratios of many on-line paging algorithms have been typically observed to be constant in practice.     

我国企业科技发展弊端之分析

通过对经济发展与科技发展模式的分析 ,提出做大我国企业的经济规模 ,提高我国企业的国际竞争力 ,进行技术开发与技术创新。采取企业与科技部门相结合 ,处理科技部门与企业之间的关系及科技成果转化困难的问题     

An extension of Wagner's analysis of competing scale formation

Wagner's criterion to predict the minimum concentration of solute (N _B(min) ⁰ )necessary for the exclusive formation of its scale has been modified to incorporate both thermodynamic and kinetics requirements. The analysis presented here involves a receding alloy/scale interface for which the composition of the alloy at this interface is governed by thermodynamic equilibrium between the two competing scale phases and the base alloy. This is a more rigorous analysis than that of Wagner's, who assumed the alloy/scale interface to be immobile and the solute composition at the interface to be zero. A comparison is made between values of N _B(min) ⁰ found experimentally and those predicted by Wagner's and the present criterion for a number of alloy-gas systems. It is shown that the criterion developed in the present analysis can often provide a better approximation of the actual N _B(min) ⁰ .The expressions derived from the present analysis have been extended also in a semiquantitative manner to provide a criterion for the minimum amount of solute in the alloy required for the transition from internal to external scale formation.