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The pulp and paper sector is the fourth largest industrial sector in terms of energy use in the world. Of the numerous processes involved in paper-making by a paper machine, the dryer section is the process that consumes the largest amount of energy. A model-based method for estimating energy-saving potentials of the dryer section was put forward in the present study. It was done by four steps: establishing a mathematical model about energy consumption, determining the model parameters, benchmarking the drying performance to obtain the corresponding energy-saving measures, and estimating the energy-saving potentials by using the mathematical model. In a case study, a multi-cylinder dryer section was selected to illustrate the method. After a fundamental field test and observation, several operating problems that restricted the energy performance of paper drying were found. And then several reasonable energy-saving measures were suggested to the operators. Finally, applying the mathematic model, it was found that 0.32 ton of steam will be saved when producing 1 ton of paper in recommended operating conditions. With the designed capacity of 200,000 tons/year, the annual steam-savings will be 64,000 tons. Generally, the price of steam is 130–150 Chinese Yuan (about US$21–24) in China, and the annual economic benefits will be 8.32–9.60 million Chinese Yuan (about US$1.344–1.536 million). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a collaborative effort between academic researchers and practitioners to consider the conditions under which global benchmarking may be used as a tool for supporting urban transformation. Reflecting on WWF's One Planet City Challenge and UN-Habitat's Guiding Principles for City Climate Action Planning, the paper suggests that the practice of global benchmarking can be transformative through encouraging organisational learning and reflection, building relationships between cities and global and trans-local organisations, and governing for structurally transformative qualities. However, the practice of benchmarking is not without potential tensions: they may reify existing practices rather than reforming them, be less usable for or accessible to cities in lower income countries, and may neglect issues of climate justice, which are not easily reduced to comparative measures of success or failure. This suggests that a wholesale reliance on benchmarking as a mode of governing climate change might risk marginalising certain issues and amplifying others. We conclude by recommending improved material and technical support for urban data collection and suggest that benchmarking should be combined with a broader suite of performance indicators and reflective practices in order to support urban transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighbourhood search algorithms are often the most effective known approaches for solving partitioning problems. In this paper, we consider the capacitated examination timetabling problem as a partitioning problem and present an examination timetabling methodology that is based upon the large neighbourhood search algorithm that was originally developed by Ahuja and Orlin. It is based on searching a very large neighbourhood of solutions using graph theoretical algorithms implemented on a so-called improvement graph. In this paper, we present a tabu-based large neighbourhood search, in which the improvement moves are kept in a tabu list for a certain number of iterations. We have drawn upon Ahuja-Orlin's methodology incorporated with tabu lists and have developed an effective examination timetabling solution scheme which we evaluated on capacitated problem benchmark data sets from the literature. The capacitated problem includes the consideration of room capacities and, as such, represents an issue that is of particular importance in real-world situations. We compare our approach against other methodologies that have appeared in the literature over recent years. Our computational experiments indicate that the approach we describe produces the best known results on a number of these benchmark problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is one of the most important and also hazardous industries in Australia. Having a sound knowledge and understanding of the circumstance of injury events is critical to developing evidence-based intervention programs. This paper aims to provide a brief historical snapshot of the development of data systems underpinning the assessment of fatal farm injury in Australia and how it has impacted on safety policy and practice. The first Australian studies used coronial information to explore agricultural fatalities, these studies reviewed paper-based records (in-situ) and collected the information for analysis and reporting. This task was laborious and costly. When the National Coronial Information System (NCIS) was established in 2000, this allowed access to coronial records online. Information provided about the deceased includes demographics, contextual details on the nature of the fatality and autopsy, toxicology, and police reports, as-well-as the coroner's finding. Information from the NCIS, along with media reports, have been used to develop the farm fatality database. This information has been used to inform the safety goals and targets for farm commodity groups, identify key risks, provide long-term benchmark indicators and underpin the development of prevention materials and training resources. Without accurate, timely, concise and relevant data about injury occurring on farms, there is no evidence to drive policy and practice or to evaluate programs of work. As such, the continued utilization and extension of the NCIS data will prove crucial to further reducing the burden of preventable fatal injuries on Australian farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of increasing importance of servitisation for the success of automobile organisations, the factors that influence it are not well researched. In this paper, we discuss the important issue of computing service quality of an automobile organisation and put forward a graph theory-based methodology to evaluate the factors affecting the quality in the servitisation practices to propose a critical service quality index (CSQI) to measure the same. The application of the proposed methodology is demonstrated in three Indian automobile organisations. This ensures the validation of the proposed approach and also helps to evolve select key recommendations for improving servitisation quality in the Indian automobile organisation. This research advances the present body of knowledge by making three-fold contributions. First, it delivers an organised methodology for quantification of services on adoption of servitisation in an automobile manufacturer and integrates the results obtained in the form of a critical service quality index. The proposed methodology is equally beneficial for assessment and classification of a set of manufacturers. Second, it demonstrates an application of methodology for three Indian automobile organisations to develop select key recommendations which can be seen as a first attempt in the field of servitisation in the Indian context. Finally, the paper proposes a conceptual framework for addressing servitisation challenges and extends key recommendations for improving competitiveness of an automotive organisation through servitisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fluency Assessment and Benchmarking for Literacy in Education (FABLe) is the first mobile application being developed for the assessment of foundational literacy skills in India. FABLe passages are currently available in English for Grades 2, 3 and 4, with plans to expand to other Indian languages. FABLe is designed to administer curriculum-based measures for reading (R-CBMs) that have been validated in the Indian context. This paper describes the preliminary benchmarking procedures being undertaken for the Indian student population and how FABLe screens for students at-risk for reading difficulties. Student performance data based on initial FABLe results are compared with international benchmarks and teacher perception data. Overall, FABLe scores are lower than international benchmarks. FABLe was able to accurately identify students needing additional support, with the majority of students identified at-risk falling below the 19th percentile in FABLe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the no-wait flow shop scheduling problem with due date constraints. In the no-wait flow shop problem, waiting time is not allowed between successive operations of jobs. Moreover, a due date is associated with the completion of each job. The considered objective function is makespan. This problem is proved to be strongly NP-Hard. In this paper, a particle swarm optimisation (PSO) is developed to deal with the problem. Moreover, the effect of some dispatching rules for generating initial solutions are studied. A Taguchi-based design of experience approach has been followed to determine the effect of the different values of the parameters on the performance of the algorithm. To evaluate the performance of the proposed PSO, a large number of benchmark problems are selected from the literature and solved with different due date and penalty settings. Computational results confirm that the proposed PSO is efficient and competitive; the developed framework is able to improve many of the best-known solutions of the test problems available in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University libraries worldwide are reconceptualising the ways in which they support the research agenda in their respective institutions. This paper is based on a survey completed by member libraries of the Queensland university libraries Office of Cooperation (QulOC), the indings of which may be informative for other university libraries. After briefly examining major emerging trends in research support, the paper discusses the results of the survey specifically focussing on support for researchers and the research agenda in their institutions. All responding libraries offer a high level of research support, however , eResearch support, in general, and research data management support, in particular , have the highest variance among the libraries, and signal possible areas for growth. Areas for follow-up, benchmarking and development are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how to effectively provide product service system (PSS) in the supply chain with asymmetric information for service-oriented manufacturing (SOM). With a PSS, the manufacturer chooses the product quality, and the retailer, who possesses private cost information, is responsible for adding necessary value-added service based on the basic product. The analytical underpinnings of our work are provided by the principal-agent paradigm. In the paper, we develop three types of contracts and conduct a detailed comparison among the three contract models. With these studies, we find that: (i) the wholesale price contract is dominated by the other two contracts, (ii) The retail price maintenance contract can always generate a higher profit for the manufacturer and a higher welfare for the consumers, whereas the franchise fee (FF) contract can always generate a higher profit for the retailer and (iii) The FF contract can always stimulate more service from the retailer. Our theoretical and numerical results show that there are significantly different effects when the three types of contracts are utilized in the supply chain for SOM with asymmetric information, and which of them is the most attractive will depend largely on the power structure of the supply chain and/or their cost information types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a challenging problem of integrated order planning (IOP) in steelmaking-continuous casting-hot rolling production of multiple plants with consideration of four conflicting objectives. The objective functions refer to the earliness/tardiness ratio, the non-hot charge ratio and the imbalance ratio of production capacity utilisation corresponding to SCC plants and HR Plants. The IOP guided by the integration strategy, which includes the vertical integration of production stages and the horizontal integration of steel plants, is regarded as a large-scale many-objective optimisation problem. To deal with the difficulty of large-scale decision variables, we introduce a new concept named ‘order-set’ for modelling. In addition, a novel knee point-driven many-objective global-best harmony search (KGHS) algorithm, mainly integrating a KGHS process and a new knee point-driven Pareto optimisation, is developed to tackle this many-objective problem. The proposed model and algorithm were tested with benchmarks and real production data. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach generates effective solutions superior to those generated by the other popular many-objective optimisation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing companies are striving hard to remain competitive hence, they rely on a number of resources to meet customers’ expectations, among which cutting tools are included. This paper addresses the problems faced in the management of cutting tools activities. Production managers have highlighted the lack of procedures containing metrics and targets that would show them whether their company is able to perform an efficient management, and if it is capable of supporting the deployment process. In this context, this paper presents a novel lean environmental benchmarking (LEB) method for performing a diagnosis of practices and performances to support the implementation of a cutting tool management strategy and/or the effective management of these assets. Strategic, technical and logistical aspects are addressed, particularly, with regard to management focused on lean manufacturing and environmental aspects. Field studies were performed in nine Brazilian companies in the metal-mechanical sector to validate the LEB method proposed. The LEB method helped the participant organisations to clarify the various activities that involved the management of their cutting tools, while the field studies indicated that all nine organisations had a great concern regarding the preservations of the environment, and also an effective utilisation of resources spent for machining components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capture of manufacturing best practice knowledge in product lifecycle management systems has significant potential to improve the quality of design decisions and minimise manufacturing problems during new product development. However, providing a reusable source of manufacturing best practice is difficult due to the complexity of the viewpoint relationships between products and the manufacturing processes and resources used to produce them. This paper discusses how best to organise manufacturing best practice knowledge, the relationships between elements of this knowledge plus their relationship to product information. The paper also explores the application of UML-2 as a system design tool which can model these relationships and hence support the reuse of system design models over time. The paper identifies a set of part family and feature libraries and, most significantly, the relationships between them, as a means of capturing best practice manufacturing knowledge and illustrates how these can be linked to manufacturing resource models and product information. Design for manufacture and machining best practice views are used in the paper to illustrate the concepts developed. An experimental knowledge based system has been developed and results generated using a power transmission shaft example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a methodology for adaptation of the mutation factor within an evolutionary algorithm by means of measuring the improvement differential between successive generations. When no improvement is obtained in an evolutionary algorithm and it has not located the global optimum, it is an indication that the algorithm may have become trapped within a local minimum or maximum. Mutation is a tool within the algorithm that is designed to assist in escaping from these local extremes. It is therefore the premise of this paper that if the preset value for mutation probability is proving insufficient to release the algorithm from entrapment in a local minima or maxima, then a temporary increase in this mutation probability may assist in freeing the algorithm and therefore increasing its chances of ultimately converging on a global optimum. In order to determine when to implement the increase in mutation probability our algorithm measures the fitness improvement between successive generations in the algorithm. When no improvement is detected for a number of successive generations the probability is increased. The design structure matrix (DSM), a scheduling tool that has previously been optimized via the application of evolutionary algorithms, has been used as a practical implementation of differential adaptation to investigate its effectiveness in solving real world problems. Solutions provided by Todd, D. (Multiple criteria genetic algorithms in engineering design and operation, PhD thesis, Department of Marine Technology, University of Newcastle, 1997), are used to benchmark the algorithm's effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the new millennium, global economics and political spectra are getting more dynamic and tense. Companies of all types and sizes, particularly in the manufacturing sectors are finding that their survival in the market place is increasingly in doubt. What has been lacking is a robust solution in terms of new methodologies, techniques and tools to meet their own particular challenging needs. Some of the three-letter acronym programmes such as TQM, JIT, BPR and DFM are not highly effective because employees did not focus on those issues of strategic importance and significance in the market. This paper explores the role that a set of strategic functions plays in the long-term success of a company. The paper proposes a framework comprising those interrelated functions that may help to explain the extent to which companies fail to realize the importance of these functions as an integrated organism that cannot be individually focused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Foundations of Early Literacy Assessment – Northern Territory (FELA-NT) was funded, developed, and implemented as part of a strategy designed to address the English literacy learning needs of the Northern Territory's Aboriginal student population. In this paper we question whether the FELA-NT English literacy learning benchmarks are representative of remote and very remote Aboriginal students since many speak English as an Additional Language (EAL) or Dialect (EAD). Using a new data set of scores from 72 Aboriginal students from remote, very remote, and outer-regional communities on the FELA-NT, we demonstrate that it is the student's experience with Standard Australian English, not their remoteness, that impacts their early literacy development. We use this example to illustrate how current practices and policies homogenise the Australian Aboriginal student population, silencing linguistic diversity in the process. We call for clinical practitioners and educators to shift their practices to assessments and tools that recognise children and youths' diverse linguistic skills and pathways. We talk about what empowerment, participation, and inclusion might really mean in current Australian educational and clinical contexts. We argue here that we need to fundamentally rethink how we work with children with diverse language and literacy knowledge, skills, and backgrounds if we are to reduce inequalities (SDG 10), honour quality education (SDG 4), and support sustainable communities (SDG 11). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been well established that to find an optimal or near-optimal solution to job shop scheduling problems (JSSPs), which are NP-hard, one needs to harness different features of many techniques, such as genetic algorithms (GAs) and tabu search (TS). In this paper, we report usage of such a framework which exploits the diversified global search and the intensified local search capabilities of GA and TS, respectively. The system takes its input directly from the process information in contrast to having a problem-specific input format, making it versatile in dealing with different JSSP. This framework has been successfully implemented to solve industrial JSSPs. In this paper, we evaluate its suitability by applying it on a set of well-known job shop benchmark problems. The results have been variable. The system did find optimal solutions for moderately hard benchmark problems (40 out of 43 problems tested). This performance is similar to, and in some cases better than, comparable systems, which also establishes the versatility of the system. However for the harder benchmark problems it had difficulty in finding a new improved solution. We analyse the possible reasons for such a performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Stenter machines are used widely in textile dyeing and printing houses for drying and heat setting of fabric. This is one of the most thermal energy-consuming equipment in the textile process. In this paper, the advanced energy model of the stenter machine is developed using primary mass and energy balance equations for ideal conditions as well as standard operating conditions, accounting for various energy losses to understand energy flow. To find out the scope for reduction in energy consumption, energy benchmarking is very important; compared with it, the appropriate energy consumption of a plant can be checked and changed. Furthermore, to eliminate problems such as life, process conditions, and quality of dyeing and printing houses considered during the study, unlike statistical energy benchmarking, in this paper, energy model-based benchmarking is proposed and applied for literature problems. Based on the data given in the literature for conveyor belt, stenter 1 and stenter 2, the specific energy consumption (SEC) for cotton is 4889, 3586, and 4304 kJ/kg of water evaporation, respectively, which is lower than the polywool fabric, having 5185 kJ/kg of water evaporation for another stenter machine. The energy efficiency index (EEI) of conveyor belt dryer, stenter 1, and stenter 2 are 1.56,1.18 and 1.34 for cotton, respectively, and for polywool with another stenter it is 1.92, indicating the polywool process is not energy efficient even polywool do not have bound moisture. Further, Energy flow analysis is carried out for the given stenter and fabric drying process, indicating the highest losses are in the exhaust process even after direct heat recovery by partial recirculation of exhaust gases. By analyzing the energy consumption of stenter machines through energy model based benchmarking and energy efficiency index presents the condition of process and machine from an energy perspective, and energy flow model gives the scope of the energy-saving potential. By using the developed model, the effect of change in atmospheric air temperature and humidity ratio due to season and geographic location on the performance of the stenter machine is investigated and found that there is a variation in performance up to 10% of the total energy required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decolonisation is a socio-political movement which challenges Eurocentrism and post-colonial notions of power. This has numerous implications for higher education institutions (HEIs), where the content and delivery of curricula may be seen as products of colonial legacy. The decolonisation agenda has increasing support from students, the academy, and regulatory bodies, which together are invoking HEIs to act. This paper reports on research undertaken within a UK HEI, which benchmarked the extent to which programmes followed characteristics of (de)colonised curricula. A survey, based on existing open access resources, was completed by 99 staff and 290 students across four schools. Findings suggest differences in how curricula are perceived by staff and students, and between white and minority ethnic student groups. Given growing global interest in decolonisation and associated social justice themes, this research has important applications for other HEIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social entrepreneurship education is becoming a must-have for academic institutions. However, there is little agreement on how to consider dimensions like international scope, interdisciplinary participation and educational format. This paper illustrates how benchmarking can support the product creation and improvement process of such an educational program offered in a digital format. Social Entrepreneurship for Local Change (SELC) is a European Union funded Erasmus+ consortium, which developed a digital social entrepreneurship course. The program's goal was to serve basic educational objectives of its students and teachers as well as strategic goals of the universities and the European Commission. Benchmarking, which has evolved to benchlearning, is a strategic management tool that measures the practices of one organization against the best practices of leading organizations in the same area. In this paper, the practices of SELC's digital program were benchmarked against two more mature digital social entrepreneurship programs using qualitative methods and resulting in a comparative scorecard. By recognizing and addressing quality gaps revealed by the benchmarking process, SELC's administrators can improve their own quality and put the program in the best position to achieve its goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The permutation flowshop scheduling problem (PFSP) has been extensively studied in the scheduling literature. In this paper, we present an improved memetic algorithm (MA) to solve the PFSP to minimise the total flowtime. In the proposed MA, we develop a stochastic local search based on a dynamic neighbourhood derived from the NEH method. During the evolution process, the size of the neighbourhood is dynamically adjusted to change the search focus from exploration to exploitation. In addition, we introduce a new population generation mechanism to guarantee both the quality and diversity of the new populations. We also design a diversity index for the population to monitor the diversity of the current population. If the diversity index is less than a given threshold value, the current population will be replaced by a new one with good diversity so that the proposed MA has good ability to overcome local optima. We conduct computational experiments to test the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The computational results on randomly generated problem instances and benchmark problem instances show that the proposed MA is effective and superior or comparable to other algorithms in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates publication profiles of 137 accounting and finance faculty promoted to professor at UK universities during 1992–2007. On average, nine papers in established academic journals, with 5 at the highest 3*/4* quality levels in a portfolio of 20 outputs are required for promotion. Based on various theoretical perspectives, multivariate models of key performance benchmarks (quality and quantity measures) are constructed and have good explanatory power (R2 ≥ 0.7). Publication requirements seem to have increased over time, argued to be mainly attributable to government-initiated Research Assessment Exercises. For internal promotions, there is some evidence of higher hurdles but no evidence that quality requirements differ based on gender; sub-discipline; research intensity of institution peer group; or government-initiated research ranking of unit. Similarly, the quality benchmark is not reduced for those having an increased recent publication history, a high number of non-ABS outputs or sole-authored papers. Comparison with the US suggests underlying geographically-based paradigm differences. UK promotion benchmarks are argued to have evolved through a dynamic and complex interaction between university managers, the government and the accounting and finance academic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. A method of expanding a rating scale 3-fold without the expense of defining additional benchmarks was studied. The authors used an analytic rubric representing 4 domains of writing and composed of 4-point scales to score 120 writing samples from Georgia's 11th-grade Writing Assessment. The raters augmented the scores of papers on which the proficiency levels appeared slightly higher or lower than the benchmark papers at the selected proficiency level by adding a "+" or a "-" to the score. The results of the study indicate that the use of this method of rating augmentation tends to improve most indices of interrater reliability, although the percentage of exact and adjacent agreement decreases because of the increased number of rating possibilities. In addition, there was evidence to suggest that the use of augmentation may produce domain-level scores with sufficient reliability for use with diagnostic feedback to teachers about the performance of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The single row facility layout problem is to arrange a given number of facilities along a straight line so as to minimise the total cost associated with the interactions between the facilities. In this paper, a metaheuristic algorithm based on the cross-entropy method, incorporating a local search procedure and symmetry-breaking techniques, is developed to solve this problem. The proposed algorithm has been tested on some widely used benchmark instances. The computational results show that the proposed algorithm has found the optimal or the best solutions known so far for the instances of size with up to 100 facilities and is competitive with some existing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memristor-based combinational logic is one of the unique concepts of designing digital circuits to achieve compact design, faster operation, and lesser power consumption. This work presents a unique memristor-based transistor-less combinational logic circuits design and analyses the performance benchmarking with other state of the art methods. Observed results demonstrated that the proposed design performs comparatively well in terms of size, speed, and power consumption. Basic combinational logic circuits, such as full adder, multiplexer, decoder, and priority encoder are being designed using the University of Michigan Model. The basic logic gates which include AND, OR, XOR are also designed using the concept of memristor ratioed logic. The proposed design of full adder utilises 14 memristors and 2 inverters, the delay time is 26.5ps, and power consumption is 0.5nW which is less compared to the other design. The proposed 4 × 1 multiplexer, 2-to-4 decoder and 4-to-2 priority encoder consume 0.6nW, 0.15nW, and 0.87nW power respectively. The observed improvement in these significant parameters demonstrates the potential of using memristor-based transistor-less combinational logic circuits in modern electronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Word reordering is one of the challengeable problems of machine translation. It is an important factor of quality and efficiency of machine translation systems. In this paper, we introduce a novel reordering model based on an innovative structure, named, phrasal dependency tree. The phrasal dependency tree is a modern syntactic structure which is based on dependency relationships between contiguous non-syntactic phrases. The proposed model integrates syntactical and statistical information in the context of log-linear model aimed at dealing with the reordering problems. It benefits from phrase dependencies, translation directions (orientations) and translation discontinuity between translated phrases. In comparison with well-known and popular reordering models such as distortion, lexicalised and hierarchical models, the experimental study demonstrates the superiority of our model in terms of translation quality. Performance is evaluated for Persian → English and English → German translation tasks using Tehran parallel corpus and WMT07 benchmarks, respectively. The results report 1.54/1.7 and 1.98/3.01 point improvements over the baseline in terms of BLEU/TER metrics on Persian → English and German → English translation tasks, respectively. On average our model retrieved a significant impact on precision with comparable recall value with respect to the lexicalised and distortion models. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the analysis of a combined heat and power (CHP) system utilizing two power generation units operating simultaneously under differing operational strategies (D-CHP) on the basis of operational cost savings. A cost optimization metric, based on the facility monthly power-to-heat ratio (PHR), is presented in this paper. The PHR is defined as the ratio between the facility electric load and thermal load. Previous work in this field has suggested that D-CHP system performance may be improved by limiting operation of the system to months in which the PHR is relatively low. The focus of this paper is to illustrate how the facility PHR parameter could be used to establish the potential of a D-CHP system to reduce operational cost with respect to traditional CHP systems and conventional systems with separate heating and power. This paper analyzes the relationship between the PHR and the operational cost savings of eight different benchmark buildings. Achieving operational cost savings through optimal operation based on monthly PHR for these building types can enhance the implementation potential of D-CHP and CHP systems. Results indicate that the PHR parameter can be used to predict the potential for a D-CHP system to reduce the operational cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that new city-regional configurations are emerging and establishing a regional order beyond nation-states, both as a consequence of certain nationalistic political devolution claims and due to the economic renewal and nation-state re-scaling trend advocated by the 'new regionalism'. Based on the author's findings, which elucidate the distinction between four nationalistic (Scotland, Catalonia, Basque Country and Iceland) and four non-nationalistic city-region cases (Oresund, Liverpool/Manchester, Dublin and Portland), this paper highlights that there is no single model for city-regions and emphasizes that this trend has become increasingly complex due to its wide range of causes: political devolution and nation-state rescaling processes (Scotland, Catalonia, Basque Country, Liverpool and Manchester), flow of commuters (Oresund), democratic regeneration (Iceland), and economic renewal (Dublin and Portland). This paper benchmarks eight city-regions by systemically investigating their social innovation processes to understand better their dynamics beyond their respective nation-states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cell formation problem is extensively studied in the literature, but very few authors have proposed exact methods. In this paper a linear binary programming formulation is introduced to generate a solution for the cell formation problem. To verify the behaviour of the proposed model, a set of 35 benchmark problems is solved using the branch and cut method implemented in the IBM ILOG CPLEX 10.11 Optimiser. Moreover, these results allow us to validate the quality of the solution generated with heuristic methods proposed in the literature. This experimentation indicates that, for the smaller problems, the best-known solutions are the same as those generated with CPLEX 10.11 Optimiser. These results indicate a fair confidence in the optimality of the best-known solutions generated by the heuristic methods. Furthermore, our approach is the first exact method providing results of this quality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Effective management of information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services is becoming increasingly important due to the growing complexity of their context. These services are often delivered by employees who work at widely dispersed locations and interact with each other to constitute knowledge-intensive service delivery networks (KISDNs). This paper contributes to the effective design and management of KISDNs by presenting a mixed-integer programming model that integrates disparate streams of research. This model facilitates analysis and managerial benchmarking of KISDN performance. It captures how the performance of such networks depends on the interaction between workflow decisions, structure of information flow networks (IFNs), and knowledge management decisions. We propose that knowledge about IFNs and worker competence can be effectively used to make workflow decisions. Our results, based on the study of different IFN archetypes, illustrate practices for effective management of KISDNs. Managers can enhance business value by recognizing existing IFNs, increasing randomness in IFNs, nurturing weak or performative ties depending on the archetype, assigning tasks based on effective worker competence, and selectively delaying assignment of tasks to workers. In addition, our results illustrate the impact of training and network density on KISDN performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimised sequencing in the Mixed Model Assembly Line (MMAL) is a major factor to effectively balance the rate at which raw materials are used for production. In this paper we present an Ant Colony Optimisation with Elitist Ant (ACOEA) algorithm on the basis of the basic Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) algorithm. An ACOEA algorithm with the taboo search and elitist strategy is proposed to form an optimal sequence of multi-product models which can minimise deviation between the ideal material usage rate and the practical material usage rate. In this paper we compare applications of the ACOEA, ACO, and two other commonly applied algorithms (Genetic Algorithm and Goal Chasing Algorithm) to benchmark, stochastic problems and practical problems, and demonstrate that the use of the ACOEA algorithm minimised the deviation between the ideal material consumption rate and the practical material consumption rate under various critical parameters about multi-product models. We also demonstrate that the convergence rate for the ACOEA algorithm is significantly more than that for all the others considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective control of batch processors is very essential to improve on-time delivery of wafers in semiconductor manufacturing. In this paper, the focus is on mean tardiness performance of a batch processor in a two-stage processor system by including an upstream serial processor. Two new control strategies are proposed for this problem. The first strategy effectively incorporates the product information at the upstream serial station in batching decisions. The second strategy further applies a re-sequencing approach in the serial processor's queue when there is a benefit in shortening the arrival time of an urgent product. Discrete event simulation is used to test the performance of the strategies. Results are very promising as compared to benchmark control strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a simulated annealing-based meta-heuristic to minimise makespan in a flowshop manufacturing cell with sequence-dependent family setup times. To escape from local minima, Cauchy function - rather than the Boltzmann function - is used during the annealing process. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed simulated annealing-based meta-heuristic is compared against the existing heuristics on a benchmark problem dataset used in earlier studies. These computational results show that the proposed simulated annealing-based meta-heuristic is highly effective as compared to the state-of-the-art meta-heuristics for this problem on the same benchmark instances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bin-packing problem consists of determining the minimum number of bins needed to pack a given set of n items. It has been shown that the dual-feasible functions (DFF) proposed by Johnson and the data-dependent DFF (DDFF) proposed by the present authors can be used to obtain good lower bounds for bin-packing problems. In a recent paper we proposed fast bounds for the two-dimensional bin-packing problem using three (D)DFF. In this paper we discuss two new methods for generating (D)DFF, at a higher computational cost, to improve the results obtained. The first method consists of iteratively composing the three functions previously proposed. We show that the obtained set of functions contains a dominant set whose size is of O(n2). The second method uses the enumerative method of Carlier and Neron to generate discrete DFF. We provide computational experiments to compare the effectiveness of the two methods against classical benchmarks derived from the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the permutation flowshop scheduling problem with the objective of minimizing makespan. Genetic algorithm (GA) is one of the search heuristics used to solve global optimization problems in complex search spaces. It is observed that, the efficiency of GA in solving a flowshop problem can be improved significantly by tailoring the various GA operators to suit the structure of the problem. In this paper, an effective Improved Genetic Algorithm (IGA) for flowshop scheduling, incorporating multi-crossover operators, multi-mutation operators and hypermutation is proposed. Computation results based on some permutation flowshop scheduling benchmark problems (OR-Library) show that the IGA gives a better solution when compared with the earlier reported results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dispatching rules are widely used in industry because schedules obtained from optimization procedures can be difficult to implement in the face of executional uncertainties. Barua et al. (Barua, A., Narasimhan, R., Upasani, A. and Uzsoy, R., Implementing global factory schedules in the face of stochastic disruptions. Int. J. Prod. Res., 2005, 43(4), 793-818) implement global schedules obtained from an optimization-based heuristic using a dispatching rule, and outperform myopic dispatching rules in the face of disruptions. However, the computation of the global schedules is still time-consuming for realistic instances. Upasani et al. (Upasani, A., Uzsoy, R. and Sourirajan, K., A problem reduction approach for scheduling semiconductor wafer fabrication facilities. IEEE Trans. Semicon. Manuf., 2006, 19, 216-225) develop a problem reduction scheme based on load disparity between work centres, and report significant reduction in CPU times with minimal loss of solution quality in deterministic experiments. In this paper we integrate the problem-reduction scheme to obtain global schedules with the dispatching approach of Barua et al. (Barua, A., Narasimhan, R., Upasani, A. and Uzsoy, R., Implementing global factory schedules in the face of stochastic disruptions. Int. J. Prod. Res., 2005, 43(4), 793-818) in a multi-product environment with stochastic machine breakdowns and job arrivals. A simulation model of a scaled-down wafer fabrication facility is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed procedures. Results show that the integrated procedure outperforms the benchmark dispatching rules while significantly reducing computation times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite operating from the same professional accreditation standards, discrepancies in what is recorded as Direct Client Activities (DCA) in postgraduate psychology trainee logbooks have been noted across training programs in Australia. The aim of this study was to create a consensus-based list of DCA to guide the completion of trainee logbooks while undertaking practicums in clinical psychology or clinical neuropsychology. A modified Delphi approach was used to gather data across three rounds. Two expert panels, representing the two areas of practice endorsement (AoPEs), rated the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with a range of activities being recorded as DCA in trainee logbooks. Activities with over 80% agreement or disagreement during any round were accepted or rejected from the final list, respectively. Sixteen activities for clinical psychology and 30 activities for clinical neuropsychology were endorsed by the expert panels. Only nine activities across the two panels did not reach consensus over the three rounds. This study has created a list of consensus activities within these two AoPEs which will facilitate benchmarking activities, and reduce confusion and anxiety for trainees, supervisors, and placement coordinators. Discrepancies do, however, remain across the AoPEs, warranting further clarification and definition refinement. What is already known about this topic: Logbooks are a key strategy in ensuring individual trainees and postgraduate training programs are meeting minimum standards set by accrediting bodies. Although required by the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC) to be recorded in trainee logbooks, there is a lack of consensus across Australian postgraduate psychology program providers as to what constitutes "Direct Client Activities". Inconsistent logging practices prevents benchmarking and creates confusion and anxiety for trainees, supervisors, and placement coordinators. What this topic adds: This paper was the first, to our knowledge, to obtain expert consensus on trainee Direct Client Activities for logbook recording within the clinical psychology and clinical neuropsychology areas of practice endorsement. The list provides greater certainty for "what counts" as Direct Client Activities for logbook recording within these two areas of practice endorsement, with 16 clinical psychology and 30 clinical neuropsychology activities endorsed. There is a need to better clarify the rationale and principles for recording Direct Client Activities across areas of practice endorsement, to inform ongoing practices in these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treatment success is the desired outcome in aphasia rehabilitation. However, to date, there is a lack of consensus on what defines a 'successful' result on a given aphasia outcome measurement instrument (OMI). In this methodological paper, we present strategies for how to define and measure treatment success on a given OMI at the group-level, as well as for an individual person with aphasia. The latter is particularly important when research findings from group studies are clinically implemented for individuals in rehabilitation. We start by presenting methods to calculate the average statistically significant change across several (group) studies (e.g., standardised mean difference, raw unstandardised mean difference) for a given OMI. Such metrics are useful to summarise the overall effect of the intervention of interest, particularly in meta-analyses. However, benchmarks based on group effects are not feasible for assessing an individual participant's treatment success and thus for determining the proportion of patients who had a beneficial response to therapy (overall response rate of an intervention). We therefore recommend a distribution-based approach to determine benchmarks of a statistically significant treatment response at the individual level, i.e., the 'smallest detectable change' for a given OMI, which refers to the smallest change that can be detected by the OMI beyond measurement error. However, the statistical significance of an individual treatment effect does not necessarily correspond to its clinical impact. This requires an additional indicator. The benchmark to determine a clinically relevant improvement on a given OMI is the 'minimal important change'. The minimally important change is defined as the smallest OMI change score perceived as important by the relevant stakeholder group (i.e., people with aphasia, their relatives/caregivers, clinicians). It therefore requires relating the individual OMI change scores to 'anchors', i.e., meaningful external criteria, preferably based on patient-perceived therapy success. Currently, there is no consensus regarding the optimal 'anchors' and their respective definition of clinically important change in aphasia outcome research. Operationalising individual treatment success based on both statistically significant and (patient-reported) clinically meaningful benchmarks is a key priority in aphasia rehabilitation. Availability of such measures will (a) facilitate estimates of therapy response rate in intervention studies and thus optimise therapeutic decisions and (b) provide stakeholder groups (e.g., the society, the stroke team, people with aphasia, family, clinicians, healthcare professionals) with objective, statistically reliable and meaningful feedback on individual treatment response in the clinical setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there are established measurements and metricsfor academic libraries, there are few, if any, for presidential libraries, especially hybrid presidential libraries. The presidential library system, part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), administers and defines metrics for 13 libraries documenting the lives and work of U.S. presidents since Herbert Hoover (1929–1933). There is no equivalent system for the non-NARA Presidential Libraries, such as the ALPLM, that documents the lives of earlier presidents. Can the non-NARA Libraries be considered a peer group for benchmarking? This column examines benchmarking and the attempts of the ALPLM to define a peer group. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Benchmarking is a formalised evaluation process by which a university can measure the standard of their policies, processes, programmes or strategies through comparison with other universities. Currently, there is a paucity of research that focuses on the documentation associated with external benchmarking undertaken by Australian universities. Given that Australia's higher education regulatory body requires universities to reflect the purposes of external benchmarking within policy frameworks and for external referencing to be overseen by peak academic governance bodies such limited research is of significance. This paper contributes to the literature by investigating whether documented structures, policies and guidelines are in place to inform learning and teaching external referencing processes. Using a qualitative documentary thematic analysis, policies, procedures and guidelines found on university governance websites were investigated and analysed. The findings indicate that many Australian universities are at risk of not meeting mandatory regulatory requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the design of gesture-based user interfaces, traditional gesture elicitation studies suffer from the legacy bias problem. In this paper, we conducted an exploratory study about the practical effects of frame-based design for gestural interaction with immersive VR shopping applications. In this study, we derived gestures via the traditional guessability and the framed guessability approaches. Experimental results indicated that priming participants with a frame, or a scenario, could significantly reduce the impact of legacy bias, and result in superior gesture vocabulary. However, no evidence was found that the priming technique would generate more gesture types, which may lead to lower agreement scores due to the reduction of legacy bias. Based on our findings, we propose some concrete design guidelines for gesture-based interaction. We highlight the implications of this work for the design of all gesture-based applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conceptual design of most computer-based information systems reflects a dualism of technology. During the development phase, part of the work-domain-related knowledge is formalized and encoded in the software, making it difficult for users to reflect on and use this knowledge. This design/use dualism contributes to the deterioration of the interpretive flexibility of information systems. The authors propose an information systems architecture called Dual Information Systems (DIS) that helps bridge the design/use dualism by providing organizations with a set of services that enable and reinforce both effective, institutionalized working and the questioning and (re)construction of computer-supported work routines. DIS have a four-layered conceptual structure: (1) people draw on the business layer to work and learn; (2) people use the breakdown layer to handle unexpected breakdowns; (3) self-organizing project teams use the project layer to create innovative work and IS (re)designs; and (4) the knowledge-sharing server stores these redesigns and makes them organizationally available to facilitate working and learning as well as subsequent redesign efforts. In this paper, the authors first outline the theoretical background, conceptual design, and generic services of DIS. Next, they elaborate on the work-process benchmarking service of DIS, which supports project teams in analyzing and redesigning computer-supported work through lateral sharing of knowledge of work processes between business units. Finally, they demonstrate the benchmarking service with the help of the ReDIS prototype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of low cost directly printable RFID tag antennas is essential for item level tracking. We present evolutionary design approach to achieve robust extremely versatile RFID antennas on paper/flexible substrates which allow a simple integration directly on, e.g., paperboard in a roll-to-roll production line. Fully integrated printed tags for 'green' electronics are designed for operability in frequencies 866-868 MHz & 902-928 MHz. We present benchmarking results for various challenges of antennas in terms of ruggedness, reliability and flexing performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficiency of communications among all the organizations which are somewhat connected to a seaport is crucial for effective port administration. The absence of such communication in Turkish maritime industry causes severe problems. Thus, this paper aims to develop a guideline for successful development of a port community system in Turkey on the basis of Strength-Weakness-Opportunity-Threat (SWOT) analysis of the current situation and benchmarking successful cases around the world. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were carried out with field experts of both public and industrial organizations. As a result, a three-stage development strategy was proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information technology (IT) infrastructure has been identified in recent years in some businesses as having a critical impact on the firm's ability to use IT competitively. Although a flexible infrastructure is considered highly valuable under certain circumstances, it is difficult to plan and to measure because there is no common, operational definition. This paper addresses the problem at two levels. First, it presents and explores various efforts to define or describe infrastructure flexibility in the literature. It identifies basic components of IT infrastructure and previously proposed characteristics of flexibility. The discussion considers concepts of IT resource management, including technological architecture, alignment of planning, and human resource skills, all of which have also been linked to definitions of infrastructure flexibility. Second, the paper explores how the concept of infrastructure flexibility is viewed among IT executives. The characteristics of infrastructure may vary with firm resources and industry characteristics such as information intensity; consequently, we may expect flexibility to be either developed or thwarted in a great number of ways. An informal study of IT executives' experience with and opinions of infrastructure flexibility results in a view of the practical issues of infrastructure flexibility. Based on the outcome of this study, a framework is presented for developing tools for future efforts to evaluate infrastructure flexibility. Methods by which the framework may be used to develop individualized infrastructure benchmarking tools are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The marketing audit has a long and distinguished provenance as a diagnostic device in marketing planning. Indeed, as any good marketing student will tell you, the marketing audit should be the starting-point for any considered course of managerial action in marketing. Yet, in practice there is often confusion about how to conduct a marketing audit to good effect. This paper argues that confusion does not arise out of uncertainty about what to do, for there is a wealth of accessible literature setting out the steps. Rather, this confusion is seen to be a product of an implicit bias towards means rather than ends in the existing literature. This bias manifests itself in a clear emphasis on the content of marketing audits, i.e. the checklists and questionnaires which facilitate diagnosis, but to facilitate collective action in the light of that diagnosis. Thus, if the end of the marketing audit is learning and change, then the auditing process is inevitably an organizational intervention. In this paper, the author attempts to redress the balance between the means of marketing auditing, i.e. diagnosis, and its end, i.e. organizational change. It sets out an approach to the process of marketing auditing that places benchmarks and benchmarking at its centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews recent literature concerning the nature of competition in markets for undifferentiated products and investigates the role and effectiveness of marketing activities in such markets. In particular, the paper seeks to explore the relationship if any) between good marketing practice and success in the marketplace amongst companies supplying basic industrial products. The work is based on a study of the marketing activities of steel stockholders in the UK. The findings lend some support to the view that marketing can and should be used to differentiate the offerings of competing suppliers in so-called "stalemate industries", and that the investment of management time and effort is more important to the development of effective marketing practices than the size of the marketing budget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The desire to enhance the quality of the services provided by higher education institutions in the UK has led to the development of a series of benchmarking performance indicators to aid the quality management process. This paper examines whether or not similar indicators could be developed for use as tools in the management of quality within students' unions. In the UK a significant part of the services that the higher education 'customer' (the student) receives are provided by independently run students' unions. The focus on quality maintenance and enhancement within these organisations is generally less than that found in their parent institutions. Part of any attempt by unions to increase their focus on quality is likely to involve identifying the quality of the services that they provide. In this paper the author identifies potential benchmark performance indicators for students' unions service provision and suggests that a similar approach might be appropriate in the quality management of similar student services provided by a third party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the dynamics and bottlenecks in the commercialisation of biotechnology in Finland by using the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry as a benchmark. The paper considers both ICT and biotechnology within the dynamic life-cycle model of technological revolutions by Perez. For an empirical comparison, it applies the concept of a 'competence bloc' as an interpretive and focusing device. A competence bloc may be defined as a set of actors, functional competences, and institutions that are necessary for large-scale commercialisation and industrialisation of new emerging technologies. In spite of the many differences between the ICT and biotechnology industries, the comparison serves as a heuristic device for pinpointing important features in the framework conditions of commercialisation in biotechnology. The paper shows that a major bottleneck in the development of the biotechnology industry in Finland is the scarcity of industrialists to transform innovations into large-scale production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing awareness about the significance of Total Quality Management (TQM) as a tool for improving work culture and organisational efficiency. However, there is a gap in the understanding of how and why the challenges of consolidating TQM differ from one cultural setting to another. This paper compares and contrasts quality visions and practice in five countries: Malaysia, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Libya. On the basis of such comparison, the paper proposes a model of international benchmarking for successful implementation of TQM. The paper argues that while the model derives from the cultural settings, corporate conditions, visions and experiences of developing countries (Africa, Middle East and Asia), it potentially carries the making of a generic framework for successful implementation of TQM in other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is compelling evidence that typical decision-makers, including individual investors and even professional money managers, care about the difference between their portfolio returns and a reference point, or benchmark return. In the context of financial markets, likely benchmarks against which investors compare their own returns include easy-to-focus-on numbers such as one's own past payoffs, historical average payoffs, and the payoffs of competitors. Referring to the gap between one's current portfolio return and the benchmark return as 'tracking error', this paper develops a simple model to study the consequences and possible origins of investors who use expected tracking error to guide their portfolio decisions, referred to as 'tracking error types'. In particular, this paper analyses the level of risk-taking and accumulated wealth of tracking error types using standard mean-variance investors as a comparison group. The behaviour of these two types are studied first in isolation, and then in an equilibrium model. Simple analytic results together with statistics summarizing simulated wealth accumulations point to the conclusion that tracking error--whether it is interpreted as reflecting inertia, habituation, or a propensity to make social comparisons in evaluating one's own performance--leads to greater risk-taking and greater shares of accumulated wealth. This result holds even though the two types are calibrated to be identically risk-averse when expected tracking error equals zero. In the equilibrium model, increased aggregate levels of risk-taking reduce the returns on risk. Therefore, the net social effect of tracking-error-induced risk-taking is potentially ambiguous. This paper shows, however, that tracking error promotes a pattern of specialization that helps the economy move towards the path of maximum accumulated wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]