For the crews and assets of the European Union’s (EU’s) Joint Operations available today, but a vast area in the Mediterranean Sea to monitor, detection of small boats and rafts…
Abstract
Purpose
For the crews and assets of the European Union’s (EU’s) Joint Operations available today, but a vast area in the Mediterranean Sea to monitor, detection of small boats and rafts in distress can take up to several days or even fail at all. This study aims to outline how an energy-autonomous swarm of Unmanned Aerial System can help to increase the monitored sea area while minimizing human resource demand.
Design/methodology/approach
A concept for an unattended swarm of solar powered, unmanned hydroplanes is proposed. A swarm operations concept, vehicle conceptual design and an initial vehicle sizing method is derived. A microscopic, multi-agent-based simulation model is developed. System characteristics and surveillance performance is investigated in this delimited environment number of vehicles scale. Parameter variations in insolation, overcast and system design are used to predict system characteristics. The results are finally used for a scale-up study on a macroscopic level.
Findings
Miniaturization of subsystems is found to be essential for energy balance, whereas power consumption of subsystems is identified to define minimum vehicle size. Seasonal variations of solar insolation are observed to dominate the available energy budget. Thus, swarm density and activity adaption to solar energy supply is found to be a key element to maintain continuous aerial surveillance.
Research limitations/implications
This research was conducted extra-occupationally. Resources were limited to the available range of literature, computational power number and time budget.
Practical implications
A proposal for a probable concept of operations, as well as vehicle preliminary design for an unmanned energy-autonomous, multi-vehicle system for maritime surveillance tasks, are presented and discussed. Indications on path planning, communication link and vehicle interaction scheme selection are given. Vehicle design drivers are identified and optimization of parameters with significant impact on the swarm system is shown.
Social implications
The proposed system can help to accelerate the detection of ships in distress, increasing the effectiveness of life-saving rescue missions.
Originality/value
For continuous surveillance of expanded mission theatres by small-sized vehicles of limited endurance, a novel, collaborative swarming approach applying in situ resource utilization is explored.
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Leticia Bode, David S. Lassen, Young Mie Kim, Dhavan V. Shah, Erika Franklin Fowler, Travis Ridout and Michael Franz
Despite the growing use of social media by politicians, especially during election campaigns, research on the integration of these media into broader campaign communication…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the growing use of social media by politicians, especially during election campaigns, research on the integration of these media into broader campaign communication strategies remains rare. The purpose of this paper is to ask what the consequences of the transition to social media may be, specifically considering how Senate candidates’ use of a popular social network, Twitter, is related to their messaging via broadcast media in the form of campaign advertising, in terms of content and tone.
Design/methodology/approach
To address this research question, a unique data set combining every tweet (10,303) and every television ad aired (576,933 ad airings) by candidate campaigns for the US Senate during the 2010 campaign is created. Using these data, tweets and ads are analyzed for their references to issues as well as their overall tone.
Findings
Findings demonstrate that social messaging often resembles broadcast advertising, but that Twitter nonetheless occupies a unique place in modern campaigns in that its tone tends to be quite different than that of advertisements.
Research limitations/implications
This sheds light on a larger debate about whether online campaigning has produced a fundamental change in election practices or whether new media simply extend “campaigning as usual.”
Originality/value
This study uses a novel data set, encompassing the complete universe of ads and tweets distributed by candidates for Senate in 2010.
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Keywords
John J. Lawrence and Michael A. McCollough
The lessons of quality management apply to services as well as tangible goods. Awareness also has been increasing that services, like tangible goods, can be guaranteed as a means…
Abstract
The lessons of quality management apply to services as well as tangible goods. Awareness also has been increasing that services, like tangible goods, can be guaranteed as a means of implementing a total quality management (TQM) orientation in the organization. While higher education has been exploring some of the tenents of TQM, it has been slow to embrace the power of service guarantees. In this conceptual article we present a system of service guarantees designed to foster a TQM orientation in higher education. We propose that institutions consider a system of guarantees aimed at three primary constituent groups – students, faculty, and employers – over the short, medium and long term. The rationale and implications of the guarantee system are explored, and possible impediments are discussed.
Rebecca G. Smith and Joseph Tse-Hei Lee
The five-decade-long Chinese colonialization of Tibet has led to a refugee flow. No longer confined to the Tibetan Plateau, Tibetans are scattered over the world, placing deep…
Abstract
Purpose
The five-decade-long Chinese colonialization of Tibet has led to a refugee flow. No longer confined to the Tibetan Plateau, Tibetans are scattered over the world, placing deep roots in host nations, in cities stretching from Oslo to New York City. Faced with new ideas, cultures and ways of life, diasporic Tibetans confront the same challenges as countless refugees before them. The purpose of this study is to investigate the efforts of Tibetan New Yorkers to preserve their language and culture. To what extent should they integrate themselves into host countries? What mechanisms could they use to hold onto their native heritage without isolating themselves in a foreign environment? How should they construct new diasporic identities and reconcile such efforts with their ongoing political struggles?
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on documentary sources and interviews to examine the ways in which diasporic Tibetans understood and portrayed the conventional categories of language, cultural heritage and religion, especially with respect to the Tibetan Government-in-exile in India, and in which they maintained and reinvented their linguistic and cultural heritage in the cosmopolitan environment of New York City.
Findings
There is a gradual process of identity formation among Tibetan New Yorkers. While exiled Tibetans are asserting their agency to reinvent a new sense of belonging to America, they still hold onto the regional identity of their family households. Meanwhile, the US-born younger generations strengthen their ties with the larger Tibetan diaspora through community events, socio-cultural activism and electronic media.
Research limitations/implications
Despite the small sample size, this study presents the first investigation of the Tibetan New Yorkers, and it provides an insider’s perspective on the efforts to preserve their native heritage in a globalized environment.
Practical implications
This study is a useful case study of the Tibetan diasporas in comparison with other Chinese diasporas in the West and beyond.
Originality/value
This study is the first scholarly investigation of the sociocultural experiences of Tibetan New Yorkers.
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H. Roxbee Cox and A. Rowlett Jones
IT appears from published work on brakes that no general theoretical basis has been presented on which the problem of the servo shoe brake can be studied, though empirical…
Abstract
IT appears from published work on brakes that no general theoretical basis has been presented on which the problem of the servo shoe brake can be studied, though empirical procedures have been used and special cases have been examined analytically. In this essay a simple theory is presented for dealing with brakes having any number of shoes; in it the pressure distribution on any shoe is a function of the conditions of equilibrium, of the system and of simple assumptions which it is thought will be generally acceptable. By means of this theory, the effects of variations in the factors involved in servo shoe brake design can be investigated, and it is hoped that it may consequently prove useful to brake designers.
This paper aims to explore various tensions related to the diffusion and reception of the New Qing History (NQH) in China, and more specifically, it aims at underlying a recurrent…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore various tensions related to the diffusion and reception of the New Qing History (NQH) in China, and more specifically, it aims at underlying a recurrent tension within the core of this debate, between a Global and a Nationalist historical narrative.
Design/methodology/approach
The author’s focus is to analyze various texts published in China between 2006 and 2018.
Findings
The author argues that the intensity of the current debate is partly related on the one hand, to the fact that NQH undermines various aspects of China’s Nationalist teleology and territorial claims and, on the other hand, to the basic difficulty of accepting the coexistence of various historical representations that are risking to weaken contemporary’s justifications of its rising schemes.
Originality/value
The text presents an original reading of some important issues raised by the NQH debate.
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Hsiu Ying Huang and Ming Huei Hsieh
The purpose of this study is to explore and conceptualize the process of how an emerging‐market firm develops a successful international brand.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore and conceptualize the process of how an emerging‐market firm develops a successful international brand.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative case study approach was employed in this study. Two rounds of data collection were conducted. Data sources include archival, interview and field notes. A total of 13 in‐depth interviews were conducted. Interviewees were drawn from across different functions and comprised top management to lower‐level employees. Collected data were analyzed in the iterate process, and emergent themes from the case form the basis of strategy conceptualizing.
Findings
An effective international branding process can be conceptualized as four sequential strategic steps: create a transcultural brand name; identify a universal appeal for its products; develop a global brand essence; and convey the brand essence through products. The case finding also shows that the ability to fuse three pairs of seemingly contrasting elements across geographical and temporal boundaries is essential in the strategic process. The three pairs of elements include Western and Eastern cultures, historical and modern elements and craftsmanship and mass‐production.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is rich in qualitative detail, but with all single case study research, its limitations regard applicability to other contexts. The applicability may suffer from the idiosyncratic characteristics of the case company as well as the difference between industries and products.
Practical implications
The finding provides insights into how an emerging‐market firm can craft its international brand both faster and more effectively. The identified international branding process has managerial implications for international marketers in both emerging‐market and non‐emerging‐market firms.
Originality/value
The study fills the void in the research of international branding strategy of emerging‐market firms. The conceptualization of an international branding provides a basis for further research on how to effectively craft an international brand.
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Michael DeBellis and Biswanath Dutta
The purpose of this paper is to describe the CODO ontology (COviD-19 Ontology) that captures epidemiological data about the COVID-19 pandemic in a knowledge graph that follows the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the CODO ontology (COviD-19 Ontology) that captures epidemiological data about the COVID-19 pandemic in a knowledge graph that follows the FAIR principles. This study took information from spreadsheets and integrated it into a knowledge graph that could be queried with SPARQL and visualized with the Gruff tool in AllegroGraph.
Design/methodology/approach
The knowledge graph was designed with the Web Ontology Language. The methodology was a hybrid approach integrating the YAMO methodology for ontology design and Agile methods to define iterations and approach to requirements, testing and implementation.
Findings
The hybrid approach demonstrated that Agile can bring the same benefits to knowledge graph projects as it has to other projects. The two-person team went from an ontology to a large knowledge graph with approximately 5 M triples in a few months. The authors gathered useful real-world experience on how to most effectively transform “from strings to things.”
Originality/value
This study is the only FAIR model (to the best of the authors’ knowledge) to address epidemiology data for the COVID-19 pandemic. It also brought to light several practical issues that generalize to other studies wishing to go from an ontology to a large knowledge graph. This study is one of the first studies to document how the Agile approach can be used for knowledge graph development.