This study deals with modeling of production risk by means of a two-step procedure. In contrast to earlier studies of production risk, we do not immediately adopt restrictive functional forms for the risky production technology. We first test for the presence of production risk. If production risk is found to be present, the mean and risk functions are estimated separately. This allows the use ...

This paper argues for the immediate use of Kansei engineering to help deal with the chaotic situation of poorly implemented and disconnected technologies. A theoretical criticism of the current industrial capitalism, together with the promotion of a new post-industrial form of capitalism lays the foundation for a explanation of how this transition can be achieved through a proper understanding ...

An Egyptian national program targets annual reuse of 2.4 billion m3 of treated wastewater (TWW) to irrigate 84,000 ha of manmade forests in areas close to treatment plants and in the desert. To evaluate the feasibility of such afforestation efforts, we describe information about TWW irrigation strategies based on (1) water use of different tree species, (2) weather conditions in different clima...

There is a general belief in the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) community that the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) is a bad estimator of the link quality. This belief is due to the existence of many asymmetry links in older radios such as CC1000 and TR1000. Newer radios that are based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard such as CC2420 implement another parameter called link quality indicator (LQ...

In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of a prototype software video production switcher, vps, that improves the quality of the content of MBone broadcasts. vps is modeled after the broadcast television in-dustry's studio production switcher. It provides special eeects processing to incorporate audience discussions, add titles and other information, and integrate stored videos...

 Imperfect production processes lead to imperfect products and decrease the profit of a business. Improvement in the production process by increasing the investment cost will decrease the defective percentage of items. This study develops an EPQ model with investments on imperfect production processes under limited capital. An algorithm is developed to derive the replenishment and investment p...

Researchers interested in knowledge communication within communities of practice tend to focus on tasks, skills, or the shared interests of the group, while relegating other aspects of interaction and communication to the ‘cultural context’. But from a participant perspective, knowledge communication includes knowledge about group culture and identity. Attention to participant perspectives and ...

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Coping with evolution in automated production systems implies cross-disciplinary challenges along the system’s life-cycle for variant-rich systems of high complexity. We provide an interdisciplinary survey on challenges and research directions in the evolution of automated production systems. After an initial discussion about the nature of automated production systems and their specific develop...

This paper probes effects of the evolvement of labor resources on technical efficiency in crop production in rural China. Based on twelve years of data on crop production of 30 provinces in China, a stochastic frontier production function model is used to measure crop production efficiency in three crop-functional areas—the production area, the consumption area, and the balanced area. Then effe...