Enterprise Resource Planning: Past,Present, and Future

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to provide a broad overview of the history and development of ERPs and outline recent developments with the advent of digital innovations like cloud computing. The research approach in this article was to review literature from both academic journals and industry reports. The article found that ERPs have changed dramatically from precursor systems like integrated control (IC) packages and material resource planning (MRP) systems. They continue to change with the advent of cloud computing, as well as digital innovations like artificial intelligence. While several articles have addressed the evolution of ERPs, this article’s unique contribution is that it covers the most recent developments, including discussions on cloud ERPs and postmodern ERPs.     

Comments, with reply, on `Adding data abstraction to FortranSoftware' by K.W. Miller, et al

The commenter observes that the history of using preprocessors to add data types to Fortran is richer than indicated in the above article (see ibid., vol.5, no.6, p.50-8, Nov. 1988). He mentions a number of efforts, including one of his own, called Augment, which is similar to the FAD system described in the article. One of the authors, K.W. Miller, replies that he was unaware of Crary's work and comments on the Augment system     

Disasters,Lessons Learned,and Fantasy Documents

This article develops a general theory of why post‐disaster ‘lessons learned’ documents are often ‘fantasy documents’. The article describes the political and organizational barriers to effective learning from disasters, and builds on general theory building on learning from extreme events to explain this phenomenon. Fantasy documents are not generally about the ‘real’ causes and solutions to disasters; rather, they are generated to prove that some authoritative actor has ‘done something’ about a disaster. Because it is difficult to test whether learning happened after an extreme event, these post‐disaster documents are generally ignored after they are published.     

Comments, with reply, on `A noninvasive architecture to monitorreal-time distributed systems', by J. Tsai et al

The commenter maintains that the above-titled article (see ibid., vol.23, no.3, p.22-3, 1990) on unobtrusive real-time system monitoring fails to demonstrate much appreciation for the software side and as a result provides a somewhat misleading view of the state of the art in real-time system monitoring. He states that the article fails to mention that modern real-time application software written in a high-level programming language rarely conforms to the static structure assumed by the monitor. The authors reply that their article clearly states that the principal objective is to develop a hardware-based noninvasive real-time monitoring system to ensure minimal interference in the execution of a target real-time distributed computing system. They point out that the monitor does not assume that the application software has to be a static structure and present an argument in support of this claim     

ENVI,ERDAS,PCI,ER_Mapper的特点与统计分类

介绍了四种软件的主要功能并比较了在遥感图像处理中应用的特点。PCI更适合于影像制图,ERDAS的数据融合效果最好,ENVI在针对像元处理的信息提取中功能最强大。ER Mapper对于处理高分辨率影像效果较好。     

Knowledge management: problems, promises, realities, and challenges

This article explores the implications of a design perspective for knowledge management (KM). We examine the major problems which our approach must address, the promises it offers, the realities we have explored in our work and the continuing challenges. The authors' KM approach assumes that knowledge is not a commodity but that it is collaboratively designed and constructed.     

Factoring: Algorithms,computations, and computers

This article discusses the computational structure of the most effective methods for factoring integers and the computer architectures—existing and used, proposed, and under construction—which efficiently perform the computations of these various methods. New developments in technology and in pricing of computers are making it possible to build powerful parallel machines, at relatively low cost, which can substantially outperform standard computers on specific types of computations. The intent of this article is to use factoring and computers for factoring to provoke general thought about this matching of computer architectures to algorithms and computations.The author's research at Louisiana State University was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Security Agency under grants NSF DCR 83-115-80 and NSA MDA904-85-H-0006.     

A high-speed, reconfigurable fuzzy logic controller

The modular architecture and reconfigurable inference engine of this analog fuzzy controller offer more flexibility than existing implementations. Its high inference speed and small size make the controller suitable for embedded system applications. The journal issue contains a concise summary of this article. The complete article is linked to Micro's home page on the World Wide Web (http://www.computer.org/pubs/micro/micro.htm)     

Autonomous miniature flying robots: coming soon! - Research, Development, and Results

The exponential growth of the interest and investigations in UAVs is strongly pushing the emergence of autonomous MFRs. This article presented some developments in the ASL-MFR project. A new design methodology was introduced and applied to a quadrotor and a coaxial helicopter enhancing appreciably the robots characteristics by allowing 100% thrust margin and 30 min autonomy (respectively, 40% and 20 min for CoaX). An original concept of hybrid active and passive control is introduced for CoaX. A simulation software permitting rapid MFR reconfiguration and various testing conditions was shown. Finally, a simulation of an obstacle avoidance controller was presented. The numerous developments presented in this article reinforce our conviction in the emergence of autonomous MFRs.     

Multispecies methods,technologies for play

ABSTRACT

This article discusses methodological considerations of user-centred design for non-human animals. These considerations are illustrated through a design research project that aims to apply digital technology to build games for orangutans’ enrichment. The article argues that design for other species reveals limitations of designers’ knowledge of prospected users. The article explores how to approach participants who cannot express themselves verbally and how to recognise play that may not look familiar to the designer. The article finally presents a participatory design method that allows for non-human contributions in design. This method applies play as an interspecies co-creative act and can be used as a starting point for addressing questions of difference in play and designing games that allow for ambiguous play.     

Autonomous Vehicles and Avoiding the Trolley (Dilemma): Vehicle Perception,Classification, and the Challenges of Framing Decision Ethics

Abstract

This article aims to introduce a degree of technological and ethical realism to the framing of autonomous vehicle perception and decisionality. The objective is to move the socioethical dialog surrounding autonomous vehicle decisionality from the dominance of “trolley framings” to more pressing ethical issues. The article argues that more realistic ethical framings of autonomous vehicle technologies should focus on the matters of HMI, machine perception, classification, and data privacy, which are some distance from the decisionality framing premise of the MIT Moral Machine experiment. To support this claim the article appeals to state-of-the-art technologies and emerging technologies concerning autonomous vehicle perception and decisionality, as a means to inform and frame ethical contexts. This is further supported by considering a context specific ethical framing for each time phase we anticipate regarding emerging autonomous vehicle technology.     

Transitory image sequences, asymptotic properties, and estimationof motion and structure

A transitory image sequence is one in which no scene element is visible through the entire sequence. This article deals with some major theoretical and algorithmic issues associated with the task of estimating structure and motion from transitory image sequences. It is shown that integration with a transitory sequence has properties that are very different from those with a nontransitory one. Two representations, world-centered (WC) and camera-centered (CC), behave very differently with a transitory sequence. The asymptotic error rates derived in this article indicate that one representation is significantly superior to the other, depending on whether one needs camera-centered or world-centered estimates. We introduce an efficient “cross-frame” estimation technique for the CC representation. For the WC representation, our analysis indicates that a good technique should be based on camera global pose instead of interframe motions. Rigorous experiments were conducted with real-image sequences taken by a fully calibrated camera system     

集装箱建筑改造——品牌概念店

分析了何为集装箱建筑,本文结合几个经典的设计案例阐释集装箱建筑的可行性和优越性。重点分析集装箱建筑改造中的品牌概念店,体现出以集装箱为建筑的设计元素是"节能"又"低碳"的。符合建筑模式多样化的新思路,符合可持续发展的趋势。坚信中国进一步加强对于集装箱建筑改造的研究,定能在集装箱改造领域得到更为广阔的平台。     

优化网通、电信因特网互联的实用技术

本文分析了网通、电信因特网互联的现状，指出了存在的互联互通质量不佳问题，提出了优化互联的四种实用技术，分别介绍了其实现原理、典型应用、应用效果。特别对双路由技术作了详细说明，并认为双路由技术具有广泛的应用前景。     

New means of cybernetics,informatics, computer engineering,and systems analysis

The class of combinatorial problems equivalent to the problem of determination of relative positions of n interval sequences is formulated. It is shown that an adequate mathematical model of solving a stated problem is a finite dynamic memoryless automaton and that the adequate mathematical apparatus is continuous logic. Algorithms that solve the problem are constructed. Misc  Translated from Kibernetika i Sistemnyi Analiz, No. 3, pp. 173–181, May-June 2009. Original article submitted July 4, 2007.     

Topical, temporal, and spatial constraints on linguistic realization

Previous work in natural language génération has exploited discourse focus to guide the selection of propositional content and the génération of referring expressions (e.g., pronominalization, définite noun phrase génération). However, there are many other sources of contextual information which can be used to constrain linguistic realization. The realization of certain classes of temporal and spatial référents, for example, can be guided by more detailed models of time and space. Therefore, this article first identifies a number of contextual coordinates or points of référence (known as indexicals in linguistics). Next, we formalize three of these contextual coordinates – topic, time, and space – in a computational model. In doing so, the article describes the use of a Reichenbachian temporal model which is exploited to guide the realization of verb tense and aspect as well as the realization of temporal référents (e.g., temporal connectives and adverbials such as "meanwhile" and "ten minutes later"). The article then describes a spatial model which is used to guide the linguistic realization of spatial référents (e.g., "here,""there") and spatial adverbials (e.g., "two miles away"). We discuss the relation between these temporal and spatial models and illustrate their use in generating text from two different application systems. We find that the combined use of topical, temporal, and spatial contextual coordinates enhances the fluency, connectivity, and conciseness of the resulting text.     

An efficient LMI approach for the quadratic stabilisation of a class of linear,uncertain, time-varying systems

The purpose of this article is to provide a numerically efficient method for the quadratic stabilisation of a class of linear, discrete-time, uncertain, time-varying systems. The considered class of systems is characterised by an interval time-varying (ITV) matrix and constant sensor and actuator matrices. It is required to find a linear time-invariant (LTI) static output feedback controller yielding a quadratically stable closed-loop system independently of the parameter variation rate. The solvability conditions are stated in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). The set of LMIs includes the stability conditions for the feedback connection of a unique suitably defined extreme plant with an LTI output controller and the positivity of a closed-loop extremal matrix. A consequent noticeable feature of the article is that the total number of LMIs is independent of the number of uncertain parameters. This greatly enhances the numerical efficiency of the design procedure.     

School leaders, ICT competence and championing innovations

The implementation of new technology is becoming more important to schools and the success of such implementations is often due to the presence of ICT champions. This article examines ICT champions to determine whether the intention to champion ICT is determined by the ICT competence of school leaders. This article, based on responses from 64 school leaders in New Zealand, reports that professional development and ICT usage are antecedents of ICT competency and that school leaders are ICT competent and willing ICT champions. These findings are contrary to existing research which has found that school leaders have poor ICT competency.     

FUZZY SETS,PROBABILITIES, AND DECISION

The purpose of this article is to show how fuzzy sets can be used to help make decisions in a probabilistic environment. We first show that in the face of uncertainty a one-dimensional decision becomes a multidimensional one. We then apply fuzzy multiobjective techniques to solve this. We extend this to the case where we have more than one consideration. We then examine two stage decisions.     

CLIX — Learning-Management-System für Unternehmen, Bildungsdienstleister und Hochschulen

This article describes typical situations in which learning management systems are used. Afterwards, it is pointed out which requirements for the architecture of learning management systems result from the examples mentioned. Based on this, the technical and technological system architecture of the learning management system CLIX® is presented. The article is concluded by theses about the evolution of learning management systems.