ROCHA I O, VIDAL L M and GUTERRES C D
Due to the Brazilian large territory, the network of ports was structured in order to to meet the demands at national and global scales. In southern Brazil, more specifically in…
Abstract
Due to the Brazilian large territory, the network of ports was structured in order to to meet the demands at national and global scales. In southern Brazil, more specifically in the State of Santa Catarina, the ports are an inseparable component of the set of characteristics which allowed the state to become, over the 20th century, one of the most industrialized regions in Brazil. The increase in industrial exports of Santa Catarina, mainly after the 1980s, resulted in a more diversified exporting agenda, which benefited from the existing transport infrastructure: roads, airports, rail ways, and ports. This research aimed at identifying and analyzing the main problems regarding ports infrastructure of the state, which affects the large exporting industries. The research methods used were: a) bibliographic and documents review; b) questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews with a diversified sample including 40 of the largest exporting companies in Santa Catarina; and c) processing and analysis of the data and information collected. The use of questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews aimed at: eliciting and characterizing the main problems facing the ports infrastructure in the state and identifying the competitive advantages and disadvantages compared to worldwide market competitors.
Details
Keywords
Danila Feitosa, Diego Dermeval, Thiago Ávila, Ig Ibert Bittencourt, Bernadette Farias Lóscio and Seiji Isotani
Data providers have been increasingly publishing content as linked data (LD) on the Web. This process includes guidelines (i.e. good practices) to publish, share, and connect data…
Abstract
Purpose
Data providers have been increasingly publishing content as linked data (LD) on the Web. This process includes guidelines (i.e. good practices) to publish, share, and connect data on the Web. Several people in different areas, for instance, sciences, medicine, governments and so on, use these practices to publish data. The LD community has been proposing many practices to aid the publication of data on the Web. However, discovering these practices is a costly and time-consuming task, considering the practices that are produced by the literature. Moreover, the community still lacks a comprehensive understanding of how these practices are used for publishing LD. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate and better understand how best practices support the publication of LD as well as identifying to what extent they have been applied to this field.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a systematic literature review to identify the primary studies that propose best practices to address the publication of LD, following a predefined review protocol. The authors then identified the motivations for recommending best practices for publishing LD and looked for evidence of the benefits of using such practices. The authors also examined the data formats and areas addressed by the studies as well as the institutions that have been publishing LD.
Findings
In summary, the main findings of this work are: there is empirical evidence of the benefits of using best practices for publishing LD, especially for defining standard practices, integrability and uniformity of LD; most of the studies used RDF as data format; there are many areas interested in dissemination data in a connected way; and there is a great variety of institutions that have published data on the Web.
Originality/value
The results presented in this systematic review can be very useful to the semantic web and LD community, since it gathers pieces of evidence from the primary studies included in the review, forming a body of knowledge regarding the use best practices for publishing LD pointing out interesting opportunities for future research.
Details
Keywords
João Pedro C. de Souza, António M. Amorim, Luís F. Rocha, Vítor H. Pinto and António Paulo Moreira
The purpose of this paper is to present a programming by demonstration (PbD) system based on 3D stereoscopic vision and inertial sensing that provides a cost-effective pose…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a programming by demonstration (PbD) system based on 3D stereoscopic vision and inertial sensing that provides a cost-effective pose tracking system, even during error-prone situations, such as camera occlusions.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed PbD system is based on the 6D Mimic innovative solution, whose six degrees of freedom marker hardware had to be revised and restructured to accommodate an IMU sensor. Additionally, a new software pipeline was designed to include this new sensing device, seeking the improvement of the overall system’s robustness in stereoscopic vision occlusion situations.
Findings
The IMU component and the new software pipeline allow the 6D Mimic system to successfully maintain the pose tracking when the main tracking tool, i.e. the stereoscopic vision, fails. Therefore, the system improves in terms of reliability, robustness, and accuracy which were verified by real experiments.
Practical implications
Based on this proposal, the 6D Mimic system reaches a reliable and low-cost PbD methodology. Therefore, the robot can accurately replicate, on an industrial scale, the artisan level performance of highly skilled shop-floor operators.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the sensor fusion between stereoscopic images and IMU applied to robot PbD is a novel approach. The system is entirely designed aiming to reduce costs and taking advantage of an offline processing step for data analysis, filtering and fusion, enhancing the reliability of the PbD system.
Details
Keywords
A.F. Rocha and E. Massad
Since proposed by Darwin, evolution is considered to be dependent on a source of genetic variability that must be constrained by environmental conditions in order to generate…
Abstract
Purpose
Since proposed by Darwin, evolution is considered to be dependent on a source of genetic variability that must be constrained by environmental conditions in order to generate stable (adapted) phenotypes. Several sources and causes of this variability have been proposed so far. This paper aims to posit that ambiguity of fuzzy grammars is the main source of genetic variability on which natural selection operates.
Design/methodology/approach
Formal grammars (FG) were proposed as the tool to deal with human and artificial languages. Fuzzy formal grammars (FFGs) are the extension of the formalism in the Theory of Fuzzy Logic and are ambiguous grammars. Here, the ambiguity of the ordered set of chemical interactions – the so‐called signal transduction pathways (stp), linking membranes events to DNA reading and protein synthesis – is assumed as an inner source of variability that must be constrained by environmental conditions. Fuzzy formal languages (FFL) theory is used to mathematically formalize the biology concept of stp.
Findings
The genome variability is the result of the constraints imposed by the environment on the grammar intrinsic ambiguity.
Practical implications
The formalism of this model provides a new way to analyze and interpret the findings of the different genome sequencing projects.
Originality/value
The theoretical framework developed here provides a new perspective of understanding the code of life and evolution.
Details
Keywords
José Nogueira da Mata Filho, Antonio Celio Pereira de Mesquita, Fernando Teixeira Mendes Abrahão and Guilherme C. Rocha
This paper aims to explore the optimization process involved in the aircraft maintenance allocation and packing problem. The aircraft industry misses a part of the optimization…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the optimization process involved in the aircraft maintenance allocation and packing problem. The aircraft industry misses a part of the optimization potential while developing maintenance plans. This research provides the modeling foundation for the missing part considering the failure behavior of components, costs involved with all maintenance tasks and opportunity costs.
Design/methodology/approach
The study models the cost-effectiveness of support against the availability to come up with an optimization problem. The mathematical problem was solved with an exact algorithm. Experiments were performed with real field and synthetically generated data, to validate the correctness of the model and its potential to provide more accurate and better engineered maintenance plans.
Findings
The solution procedure provided excellent results by enhancing the overall arrangement of the tasks, resulting in higher availability rates and a substantial decrease in total maintenance costs. In terms of situational awareness, it provides the user with the flexibility to better manage resource constraints while still achieving optimal results.
Originality/value
This is an innovative research providing a state-of-the-art mathematical model and an algorithm for efficiently solving a task allocation and packing problem by incorporating components’ due flight time, failure probability, task relationships, smart allocation of common preparation tasks, operational profile and resource limitations.
Details
Keywords
Umabharati Rawat and Ramesh Anbanandam
The digital evolution of production and logistics systems requires seamless integration of various functions. Cyber-physical systems (CPS) can streamline operations, reduce costs…
Abstract
Purpose
The digital evolution of production and logistics systems requires seamless integration of various functions. Cyber-physical systems (CPS) can streamline operations, reduce costs and optimise freight transport dynamics. Therefore, CPS adoption is essential to transform existing logistics infrastructure by connecting logistical equipment to cyberspace. This research addresses the critical issue of low CPS adoption in logistics. By analysing the barriers, the study proposes effective strategies to increase CPS integration significantly.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework and identified 18 barriers to CPS adoption in freight logistics. The barriers were then analysed using the fuzzy data-driven multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method, i.e. fuzzy-based decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (Fuzzy-DEMATEL).
Findings
The computational analysis of the proposed framework shows that “the complexity of CPS and lagged data-driven logistics infrastructure” (T1) is a major technological inhibitor to CPS adoption. The “high cost of CPS technology” (O8) and a “lack of top management support” (O3) are the top causal inhibitors at the organisational level. “Lack of data governance and regulatory framework” (E2) is the main environmental inhibitor.
Practical implications
The causal mapping of the TOE-based barriers helps policymakers and logisticians to develop strategies or follow recommended adoption strategies to improve CPS adoption in logistics.
Originality/value
This study is a pioneering effort to unveil the adoption barriers of CPS in the freight logistics industry and suggest strategies for fostering adoption. This research could provide valuable insights for logistics organisations to support CPS-driven logistics modernisation.
Details
Keywords
Cecília Gravina da Rocha and Carlos Torres Formoso
Mass customisation involves the provision of product variants that fulfil clients' specific requirements seeking to increase product values. The configuration process involves a…
Abstract
Mass customisation involves the provision of product variants that fulfil clients' specific requirements seeking to increase product values. The configuration process involves a chain of decisions, which needs to be undertaken to create product variants that meet each client specific requirements. In this paper, this chain of decisions is conceptualized in terms of customisation units. Each customisation unit encompasses a customisable attribute (e.g. size, colour) and the range of items offered for this attribute. A design science approach was adopted in this investigation. In this approach, knowledge is produced by creating and testing a solution, which provides practical and theoretical contributions. A method is proposed to analyse and improve the configuration process by conceptualizing this process as a tree diagram. The proposed method is used to analyse the configuration process developed by organisations of the house-building sector based in the U.K. and Brazil: a manufacturer of floor tiles, contractors, and registered providers. These analyses enabled a comparison of the distinct configuration processes adopted. In addition, problems associated to the configuration process (such as burden of choice) and opportunities for improvements were also identified. Finally, alternative chains of decision were also devised based on these analyses to address the problems identified.
Details
Keywords
E. Massad and A.F. Rocha
This second part of a companion paper seeks to extend the theory proposed to apply the hierarchy of fuzzy formal language to cope with the three major phenomenon of life…
Abstract
Purpose
This second part of a companion paper seeks to extend the theory proposed to apply the hierarchy of fuzzy formal language to cope with the three major phenomenon of life: replication, control and shuffling of genetic information.
Design/methodology/approach
In order to cope with the proposal, three new classes of FFG are proposed: replicating grammars: to formalize properties and consequences of DNA duplication; self‐controlled grammars: to provide the tools to control the grammar ambiguity and to improve adaptability, and recombinant grammars: to formalize properties and consequences of the sexual reproduction to life evolution. Considering all these facts, FFG are proposed as the key instrument to formalize the basic properties of the chemical transactions supporting life.
Findings
The formalism of the model provides a new way to analyze and interpret the findings of the different genome sequencing projects.
Originality/value
The theoretical framework developed here provides a new perspective of understanding the code of life and evolution.
Details
Keywords
This paper evaluates the existing main workplace spirituality concept specifications and points out their inadequacies and the resulting adverse implications. It also outlines a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper evaluates the existing main workplace spirituality concept specifications and points out their inadequacies and the resulting adverse implications. It also outlines a set of workplace spirituality concept specifications as a resolution.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper does a detailed evaluation of chronologically evolved existing main workplace spirituality concept specifications to point out their inadequacies and outlines a resolution to address the inadequacies.
Findings
This paper reveals that there are differences, inconsistencies, and inadequate clarity in workplace spirituality concept specifications and that these have had adverse implications. This paper yields a proposed resolution with its associated merits.
Research implications
This paper can potentially improve the future workplace spirituality research as reflected in its six theoretical implications and three directions for future research.
Practical implications
This paper’s description of the inadequacies in the existing workplace spirituality concept specifications and the proposed resolution can improve the practice of workplace spirituality research.
Social implications
Improvement in the research on a socially relevant topic of workplace spirituality is likely to benefit the society.
Originality/value
This is, to the author’s best knowledge, the first paper to evaluate workplace spirituality concept specifications and to propose a resolution to address their inadequacies.