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Scientific data is being collected and maintained in digital form in high volumes by many research groups. The need for access to and interoperability between these repositories is growing. Research […], Our work is aimed at enabling a new style of virtual, distributed scientific research. We have designed, built, and deployed an interdisciplinary virtual observatory--an online service providing access to what appears to be an integrated collection of scientific data. The Virtual Solar-Terrestrial Observatory (VSTO) is a production semantic web data framework providing access to observational data sets from fields spanning upper atmospheric terrestrial physics to solar physics. The observatory allows virtual access to a highly distributed and heterogeneous set of data that appears as if all resources are organized, stored, and retrieved or used in a common way. The end-user community includes scientists, students, and data providers. We will introduce interdisciplinary virtual observatories and their potential impact by describing our experiences with VSTO. We will also highlight some benefits of the embedded semantic web technology and also provide evaluation results after the first year of use.

The examination of the management of research and development processes in the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom is presented.

A study is conducted on pharmaceutical industry to examine advantages and issues concerned with cross functional integration of marketing and research activities.

The international context in which U.S. scientists and engineers create new knowledge and ideas is changing. Nations typically track such things by watching trends in the output of scientific papers [...]

How do you keep track of the data from your science experiment? And how do you turn the collected information into something visually interesting, such as charts and graphs? First, […]

An investigation is made to examine how five Japanese Research &Development (R&D) programmes promote inter-sectoral and inter-institutional networks. The result shows that the projects of the Next Generation Programme for pre-competitive research formed multiple university-industry-government linkages within each project by designing the complementary relationships among the participants.

The study analyses how students' growing understanding of the topic and search experience were related to their choice of search tactics and terms while preparing a research proposal for a small empirical study. In addition to that, the findings of the study are used to test Vakkari's (2001) theory of task-based IR. The research subjects were 22 students of psychology attending a seminar for preparing the proposal. They made a search for their task in PsychINFO database at the beginning and end of the seminar. Data were collected in several ways. A pre- and post-search interview was conducted in both sessions. The students were asked to think aloud in the sessions. This was recorded as were the transaction logs. The results show that search experience was slightly related to the change of facets. Although the students' vocabulary of the topic grew generating an increased use of specific terms between the sessions, their use of search tactics and operators remained fairly constant. There was no correlation between the terms and tactics used and the total number of useful references found. By comparing these results with the findings of relevant earlier studies the conclusion was drawn that domain knowledge has an impact on searching assuming that users have a sufficient command of the system used. This implies that the tested theory of task-based IR is valid on condition that the searchers are experienced. It is suggested that the theory should be enriched by including search experience in its scope. Keywords: Task-based information searching; Search terms; Search tactics; Search success; Relevance

The paper identifies different classes of distributed decision making problems in supply chain management. Since, these problem classes have been developed in various sciences like applied mathematics, operations research, economics and artificial intelligence, the paper gives a systematic overview as to the specific contribution each single science is providing, particularly indicating possible synergies. Moreover, it points to those distributed decision-making problems that prove to be of major relevance for supply chain management. Keywords: Distributed decision making; Supply chain management; Coordination

This paper updates and expands upon a previous study (Int. J. Prod. Econom. 54 (1998) 41) on cost and location factors used in the US and internationally. The current study includes 43 US cost and location factors and 30 international cost and location factors for 12 countries. In addition, cost scale-up factors for a wide variety of equipment, plants and processes from air pollution abatement to waste-to-energy facilities are presented. This study reviews the use of these indexes and scale-up factors, and presents caveats for their use. Keywords: Cost estimation; US and international inflation and location indexes; Cost-capacity factors; Scale-up factors; R factors

Studying the impact of market orientation on business performance has been a popular research topic in recent years. However, there seems to be a lack of empirical studies that measure market orientation in quality management environments, even though marketing and quality management are considered complementary business approaches. This paper explores the effects of market orientation on a sample of 304 quality-oriented firms, and its impact on their performance. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the measures of market orientation, quality management implementation, and business performance. Correlation analysis was performed to determine whether market orientation is associated with quality management implementation and a firm's performance. Three aspects of market orientation are found to correlate with 10 critical factors of quality management implementation, and with four dimensions of business performance. The findings indicate that market orientation is strongly correlated with quality management implementation and business performance in a positive direction in the sampled firms. The implications of the results are discussed, and suggestions for further research are proposed. Keywords: Quality; Marketing; Implementation; Survey; Performance

This study presents a general description of the state of the art of capital budgeting methods used by Swedish corporations. It is based on a questionnaire sent to 528 companies selected from 500 of the largest Swedish corporations and some from the O-list of companies. The response rate is 24.4%. The study shows that the public sector companies are most frequent users of discounted cash flow (DCF) methods. The payback method is the most used in all industries; also matters size of company. The use of the net present value method has increased over the years, although the use of DCF methods is generally unchanged. Value-based management models have been introduced in the listed companies. Another conclusion is that tradition is an important factor explaining the choice of capital budgeting method. Large companies within the manufacturing industry use DCF methods more often than other companies. In general, the companies seem unconcerned with the tax consequences of capital budgeting decisions. It would appear as if the public companies have not adopted capital budgeting practices supporting shareholder value increases. Keywords: Capital budgeting methods; Investments; Cost of capital; Capital budgeting decisions; Survey

Business process reengineering (BPR) has been a popular business improvement strategy for the past decade. However, Holland and Kumar (Getting past the obstacles to successful reengineering, Business Horizons, 1995, p. 79) noted that 60-80% of BPR initiatives have been unsuccessful. An extensive review of the literature revealed significant gaps in research in this area of technology and innovation management. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to report on a cross-sectional study based on a survey questionnaire sent to strategic business units within the Australian Financial Services Sector that have implemented BPR. A response rate of 32% was obtained. The central finding of the study is that the proactive implementation of BPR as part of the organisation's business strategy, coupled with focusing BPR efforts on core-customer business processes are the most significant predictors of BPR success. Using multiple regression analysis, these BPR practices were found to explain more than 30% of the variance in organisational performance. On the other hand, there was no significant and positive relationship between the increased use of information technology and process cycle time reduction. The implication of these results is that managers must reengineer their core processes from a customer perspective. The paper concludes that the key challenges for successful BPR implementation are changing attitudes and culture, ensuring extensive communications and dealing with resistance to change from middle management. Keywords: BPR; Customers; Performance

University professors are more likely to retire early if the produce less publishable research than their colleagues. This is also true of professors whose research productivity has declined more than the average.

A research conducted to discover unarticulated customer needs and technologies with completely novel applications is presented. It is emphasized that the success of customer oriented research management depends on the self-understanding of modern industrial research center as goal-oriented solution providers.

CSIRO head Geoff Garrett unveils his six-year plan, which he believes will turn the company into a unified, self-supporting partner of business. The two main objectives of the plan include increasing collaborations between divisions and increasing the company's commercial relevance and external revenues. The article includes some more specific aspects and goals of Garrett's plan.

While the entire world is consumed with grief over the losses resulting from the 9-11 acts of terror, natural disasters take a toll each and every year. Indeed, as final […]

NCR, the company that brought us the cash register and the ATM, has a glitzy new research division - funded partly by the company's customers. Will it remake technology? Or […]

Kraft's Research & Development Center is a crucial component of the company's drive to reign supreme in the food industry. In R&D, where science and business converge, people have to [...]

A few years ago, IBM's vaunted Research division went through a stormy upheaval. But the labs have bounced back, and the future looks bright. You hear Bernie Meyerson before you […]