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There is a shortage of qualified people in the IT industry in the world. To address this shortage, transition programmes are being created that help people change to careers in IT. To provide useful programmes, we need to know if the current curriculum provides value to its graduates. Moreover, as the IT industry undergoes continuous change, we need to regularly review what the industry needs and update any existing programmes as appropriate. In this paper we present the results of a survey of graduates of one such programme, the PGCertInfoTech at University of Auckland, with the view to evaluating the currency of the existing programme and to gather data on which to base decisions on updating it. Our conclusion is that our programme is largely useful to graduates, but could be improved with the addition of material on continuous integration, and some adjustment to the time spent on testing, concurrency, and project management. Our results will be useful to any other institutions having, or considering to have, IT transition programmes.

In New Zealand, there is currently no shared Electronic Health Record (EHR) system integrated between major healthcare organisations, such as hospitals, medical centres, and specialists. Thanks to its characteristics, blockchain technology can be a suitable platform for building a large-scale EHR system for New Zealand. In this paper, we present MedBloc, a blockchain-based secure EHR system that enables patients and healthcare providers to access and share health records in a usable yet privacy-preserving manner. MedBloc captures a longitudinal view of the patient's health story and enables patients to give or withdraw consent for regulating access to their records. To protect medical data, MedBloc uses an encryption mechanism and enforces a smart contract based access control mechanism for regulating access. MedBloc not only demonstrates how the blockchain can establish New Zealand's first shared EHR system but it shows how blockchain can potentially disrupt the entire medical technology domain.

Recently, there has been a strong demand for talented ICT (Information and Communication Technology) graduates in the software industry in New Zealand. To meet this demand, in 2015, the government of New Zealand provided funding for three new ICT Graduate Schools. The challenge for the schools was twofold: to provide a qualification for students transitioning into ICT and to prepare those with an ICT education for the workforce. Each of the Schools offer different programmes. We offer two postgraduate programmes for growing talent and knowledge to support the New Zealand's ICT sector. In this paper, we describe our experience with delivering one of the postgraduate programmes, the Postgraduate Certificate in Information Technology. The programme consists of two courses, Programming for Industry and Programming with Web Technologies. The courses focus on providing industry-focused education to students with non-ICT backgrounds for a career in IT. The programme has been running for 2 years and runs over one semester (12 weeks) in a "boot-camp" style, which has proved to be successful. In this paper, we provide an overview of the features of the programme, which incorporates industry-focused activities for building students' knowledge relevant to the software industry. Finally, we discuss key challenges and identify directions for improvement.

Effective communication is important to successful software development, but it is difficult to achieve. We believe transparency -- the visibility of information to stakeholders -- is an important factor in the effectiveness of communication in software projects. We theorise that more effective communication results from more transparent requirements documents. To test our theory, we conducted an experiment. We developed an operational definition of transparency with three attributes: accessibility, understandability, and relevance. We had students and software practitioners use requirements documents of differing levels of transparency based on these attributes to answer questions. We found that participants with the more transparent document spent less time, answered more questions correctly, and were more confident about their answers, than participants with the less transparent document. The results of our experiment provide evidence that our view of transparency may help evaluate the effectiveness of documents as a form of communication. Further work is needed to reproduce our results, and to determine whether they are generalizable to other types of stakeholders and forms of communication.

Investigation of customer participation in new product development (NPD) performance has yielded conflicting results. This study explores the idea that intensive customer participation is not always better. Instead, the usefulness of customer participation in NPD is determined by the fit between product innovativeness and customer participation as information providers and as co-developers. An empirical study of 196 NPD projects of Taiwanese high-tech firms is analyzed by structural equation modeling. The findings show that product innovativeness negatively moderates the impact of customer participation as information providers on NPD outcome. Thus, the greater the involvement of customer participation as information providers in radical innovation projects, the lower the NPD outcome. Moreover, our results also indicate that product innovativeness positively affects the relationship between customer participation as a co-developer and NPD outcome, which suggest that the more customer participation as a co-developer in a radical innovation project, the better the NPD outcome.

Huang [ Journal of Statistics and Management Systems, Vol. 6 (2003), No. 2, pp. 171– 180 ] studied the EOQ (Economic Order Quantity) and EPQ (Economic Production Quantity) models with backlogging and defective items using the algebraic approach. He assumed 100% inspection policy and the known proportion of defective items was removed prior to storage or use after the screening process. In this paper, we will off er both basic inequalities, arithmetic-geometric mean inequality (AGM) and Cauchy-Bunyakovsky-Schwarz inequality (CBS), to derive both the optimal lot size and backorder level under the total relevant cost per unit time minimized. Without the method of completing perfect square, the proposed methods derive the global minimum of the total relevant cost per unit time more easily than the algebraic approach used by Huang (2003)

This study deals with retailer's ordering policy under dependent delay payments period. Most of the published articles dealing with retailer's inventory model with delay payments independent of cycle time interval. Therefore, this study will be modifi ed above assumption and assumed the delay payments period dependent on the cycle time interval and develop the retailer's inventory model under the total relevant cost for the retailer minimized to fi t practical situations. In addition, we use a diff erent approach to obtain the retailer's optimal ordering decision based on simple cost comparison not by derivatives. Finally, numerical examples are provided to illustrate the proposed model and obtain some managerial insights.

Wu and Ouyang (Production Planning & Control, Vol. 14 (2003), No. 6, pp.555–561) derived the integrated vendor-buyer system with shortages using algebraic method to determine the optimal replenishment policy. In this note, we will off er both basic inequalities, arithmetic-geometric mean inequality (AGM) and Cauchy-Bunyakovsky-Schwarz inequality (CBS), to derive both the optimal buyer's lot size and backorder level under the integrated total cost per unit time of the vendor and buyer minimized. Without the method of completing perfect square, the proposed methods derive the global minimum of the integrated total cost per unit time of the vendor and buyer more easily than the algebraic approach used by Wu and Ouyang (2003).

Huang et al. [Journal of Information & Optimization Sciences, Vol. 29, No. 5, pp 923–929] investigated an optimal inventory policy for imperfect quality production system where the products produced are a mixture of perfect and imperfect quality. But we fi nd a small shortcoming in their model. Therefore, this article willcorrect the shortcoming and use two methods to fi nd the optimal solution under the annual profi t maximized without derivatives. The proposed methods are easy-to-understand and simple-to-use.

Hsiao and Lin (International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, published online: 7 April 2004) discussed Stackelberg game in supply chain and investigated the supplier's optimal lead time and the retailer's optimal cycle time. But the authors just derived the approximate solution of the optimal lead time and optimal cycle time. Recently, Huang and Hsu (Journal of Information & Optimization Sciences, Vol. 29 (2008), pp. 305–310) offered an algebraic approach to find the exact optimal lead time and optimal cycle time in the constant marker's demand rate situation. In addition, Huang et al. found that their exact solution is better than Hsiao and Lin's approximate solution from the numerical examples. In this paper, we will offer another simple approach to derive Hsiao and Lin's model and find the exact solution same as Huang and Hsu.

In practice, in the supply chain there are two levels of trade credit: one is offered to the retailer from its supplier; the other is offered to the customer from its retailer. Moreover, the commodity under consideration usually deteriorates over time. The present study therefore proposes a retailer's EOQ (economicorder quantity) model by considering deteriorating items under two-level trade credit. The proposed model takes into account both levels of trade credit. In the first place, the authors model the retailer's inventory decision as a cost minimization problem. Secondly, the authors prove the convexity of the inventory function in terms ofrelevant annual costs. The authors then move on to construct an easy-to-use theorem to efficiently determine the optimal replenishment cycle, hence, the optimal order quantity. Finally, the authors provide several numerical examples to illustrate the theorem and to conduct a sensitivity analysis. Based on the proposedmodel, theauthors conclude that a longer repleni...

In this paper, we want to investigate the retailer's inventory policy when the retailer maintains a powerful position in two-echelon supply chain. That is, we assumed that the retailer can obtain the full trade credit offered by the supplier yet the retailer just offers the partial trade credit to his/her customers under two-level trade credit situation. Then, we investigate the retailer's inventory system as a cost minimization problem to determine the retailer's optimal inventory policy in two-echelon supply chain. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the results and to obtain managerial insights.

Huang [Mathematical Problems in Engineering, Vol. 2006, ID 79028, pp. 1–5] offered the algebraic approach to investigate the effect of service level constraint on the economic production quantity (EPQ) model with random defective rate. In this paper, we propose an arithmetic-geometric mean inequality method to simplify the algebraic method of completing perfect square established by Huang (2006) to find the optimal solution under the expected annual cost minimized. The proposed method is easy-to-understand and simple2 to-use.

Huang [Mathematical Problems in Engineering, (2006), ID 79028, pp. 1–5] studied the effect of service level constraint on the economic production quantity (EPQ) model with random defective rate. He offered an algebraic approach to replace his differential calculus skill to find the optimal solution under the expected annual cost minimized. In this article, we want to use an easy and simple arithmetic-geometric mean inequality approach to determine the retailer's optimal solution under minimizing the expected annual cost. This approach could therefore be used easily to introduce the basic inventorytheories to younger students who lack the knowledge of calculus

This paper discusses the economic order quantity (EOQ) under conditions of permissible delay in payments. In 1985, Goyal assumes that the unit selling price and the unit purchasing price are equal. This view is debatable sometimes. The main purpose of this paper is to modify Goyal's model to allow theunit selling price and the unit purchasing price not necessarily be equal to reflect the real-life situations. A modified inventory model is developed. Furthermore, three theorems are developed to efficiently determine the optimal cycle time and the optimal order quantity. Goyal's model is considered as a special case. Numerical examples are given to illustrate these theorems

In the previous related articles, the inventory replenishment problems under permissible delay in payments are independent of the order quantity. In this paper, the restrictive assumption of the trade credit independent of the order quantity is relaxed. This paper discusses the inventory policies under permissible delay in payments when a larger order quantity.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the retailer’s inventory policy under two-level delay permitted to reflect the supply chain management situation. In this paper, we assume that the retailer maintains a powerful position. So, it is assumed that the retailer can obtain the full trade credit offered by the supplier yet the retailer just offers the partial trade credit to his customers. Under these conditions, the retailer can obtain the most benefits. Then, an algebraic approach is provided to investigate the retailer’s inventory system as a cost minimization problem to determine the retailer’s optimal inventory policy under the supply chain management. One ease-to-use theorem is developed to efficiently determine the optimal inventory policy for the retailer. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the theorem.

This paper modifies the assumptions of the classical economic order quantity (EOQ) to two-level trade credit and two-level storage. That is, we assume that the supplier would offer the retailer a delay period and the retailer also adopts the trade credit policy to stimulate his customer demand to develop the retailer's replenishment model under the retailer' storage capacity is limited. It is common practice in most inventory systems to hold excess stocks in a rented warehouse (RW) whenever the storage capacity of the owned warehouse (OW) is insufficient. Under these conditions, we model the retailer's inventory system and three effective theorems are developed to efficiently determine the optimal cycle time for the retailer. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate these theorems and the managerial insights from these numerical examples are also obtained.

Textual entailment in Chinese differs from the way handling English because of the lack of word delimiters and capitalization. Information from word segmentation and Wikipedia often plays an important role in textual entailment recognition. However, the inconsistency of boundaries of word segmentation and matched Wikipedia titles should be resolved first. This paper proposed 4 ways to incorporate Wikipedia title matching and word segmentation, experimented in several feature combinations. The best system redoes word segmentation after matching Wikipedia titles. The best feature combination for BC task uses content words and Wikipedia titles only, which achieves a macro-average F-measure of 67.33% and an accuracy of 68.9%. The best MC RITE system also achieves a macro-average F-measure of 46.11% and an accuracy of 58.34%. They beat all the runs in NTCIR-10 RITE-2 CT tasks.

There are diverse stakeholders for requirements documents in many development environments, and yet these requirements documents should be presented in such a way that all stakeholders will be able to engage them successfully. In order to produce effective requirements documents, analysts need guidance when developing new documents. They also need a convenient and accurate way to evaluate the effectiveness of existing documents. We have been exploring whether our three-factor measurement of document “transparency” would be useful in these ways. Our experimental results, presented in this article, support the hypothesis that transparency can be usefully characterised by accessibility, understandability, and relevance.

We proposed a definition of transparency in software development to improve communication among stakeholders. The notion of transparency is important, because it enables stakeholders to identify and understand the information exchanged during communication. We designed a survey to gather evidence to support or refute our beliefs about transparency in software development. We discovered a superiority bias in our respondents when answering questions regarding communication problems. In this paper, we present our survey design and preliminary results of our survey.

Huang [Journal of Statistics and Management Systems, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 171-180, 2003.] studied the EOQ (Economic Order Quantity) and EPQ (Economic Production Quantity) models with backlogging and defective items using the algebraic approach. He assumed that a 100% inspection policy and the known proportion of defective items was removed after the screening process prior to storage or use. In this paper, we will offer another simple approach to find both the optimal lot size and backorder level under the minimized total relevant cost per unit time.