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The authors of this paper aim to describe the design of distributed architectures for the remote control of multirobot systems. A very good example of remote robot programming in order to validate these architectures is in fact the remote visual servoing control. It uses sequences of camera inputs in order to bring the robots to the desired position, in an iterative way. In fact, in this paper, we enabled the students and scientists in our university to experiment with their remote visual servoing algorithms through a remote real environment instead of using simulation tools.

Since 2001, the authors have been using the UJI‐TeleLab as a tool to allow students and scientists to program remotely several vision‐based network robots. During this period it has been learnt that multithread remote programming combined with a distributed multirobot architecture, as well as advanced multimedia user interfaces, are very convenient, flexible and profitable for the design of a Tele‐Laboratory. The distributed system architecture permits any external algorithm to have access to almost every feature of several network robots.

Presents the multirobot system architecture and its performance by programming two closed loop experiments using the Internet as communication media between the user algorithm and the remote robots (i.e. remote visual servoing). They show which conditions of Internet latencies and bandwidth are appropriate for the visual servoing loop. We must take into account that the real images are taken from the remote robot scenario and the experiment algorithm is executed from the client side at the user place. Moreover, the distributed multirobot architecture is validated by performing a multirobot programming example using two manipulators and a mobile robot.

Future work will pursue the development of more sophisticated visual servoing loops using external cameras, pan/tilt and also stereo cameras. Indeed, the stereo cameras control introduces an interesting difficulty related to their synchronization during the loop, which introduces the need to implement Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) based camera monitoring. By using camera servers that support RTSP (e.g. Helix Producer, etc.) it means sending the differences between the frames instead of sending the whole frame information for every iteration.

The distributed multirobot architecture has been validated since 2003 within the education and training scenario. Students and researchers are able to use the system as a tool to rapidly implement complex algorithms in a simple manner. The distributed multirobot architecture is being applied as well within the industrial robotics area in order to program remotely two synchonized robots.

This paper is an original contribution to the network robots field, since it presents a generic architecture to program remotelly a set of heterogeneous robots. The concept of network robot recently came up at the Workshop “network robots” within the IEEE ICRA 2005 World Congress.

This chapter presents the results of the collective experience of two professors and three students in implementing WebQuests in a preservice English education component. The first part of the chapter provided a definition of WebQuests, situating this particular proposal within the literature on second language education and the Colombian and Latin American contexts. The authors found that the paucity of studies on designing WebQuests, specifically in Latin America, became one of the strengths of their work. The next section situated how implementing WebQuests in this preservice program enabled an expansion of the actual conceptual framework that is currently in place for WebQuests by adding ideas about competences and socio-cultural and critical thinking theories. However, there is an explanation about how WebQuests became a very feasible alternative to respond to the curricular demands of their institution. Next, the authors shared a multi-vocal account, from every author's vantage point, of how they carried out their work with WebQuests. This implementation process generated a series of changes in the way students saw themselves as learners and future teachers, gaining more ownership of the idea of WebQuests beyond a semester assignment. The instructors, as the result of their work, are now thinking of better ways to redefine how they use WebQuests and how they will get their other cohorts involved in collaborative academic efforts. This chapter is, then, not only an account of an experience, but an invitation to think about how to expand the boundaries of preservice teacher education through technological mediation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effect of business networks on the export performance of firms.

Following recent studies conducted from a network perspective, this moderating effect is studied for different types of business networks. To do this, a two-step Heckman-probit model is implemented for a sample of more than 2,000 manufacturing companies with information from the years 2006 to 2012. This study analyses the effect of nine variables of institutional distance between Spain and four geographical areas for collaborating and non-collaborating firms.

The main contribution of this paper is suggesting that vertical networks reduce the negative effects of institutional distance faced by the company in the early stages of its export process.

According to the results of this paper, managers should make a greater effort to expand their networks when they want to start exporting to further markets, as some networks reduces the negative effect of distance on export propensity. Moreover, the results also suggest that participating within a network may not be sufficient to increase the propensity to export of a firm, being important the kind of network in which companies participate.

The originality of this paper lies in providing empirical evidence that distinct kind of networks have different effect on the internationalisation process of companies, and that they affect not only directly as previous studies showed but also indirectly moderating the negative effect of the differences between markets.

This chapter aims to contribute to the study of social protests around the world and particularly in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s, with a focus on an Argentinean case. Throughout these years, Argentina like many other Latin American societies witnessed the growth and development of intense social and political struggles in concert with the armed insurgency. Did workers or other popular social sectors support guerrilla organizations in Argentina? What was the interconnection between working-class and armed insurgent struggle? This chapter examines these liaisons by studying the case of an industrial city that has been identified to be a paradigm of labor radicalization and political violence in Argentina—Villa Constitución. Through the reanalysis of documents and sources as well as interviews, we discuss established interpretations on armed and labor struggles that reveal a broader heterogeneity in the forms of social support to revolutionary violence. Solidarity among workers and armed militants appears in (1) the actions of militant workers at their workplaces, and (2) the armed actions organized by militants in support of worker’s fights.” These two groups reinforced each other's activism. But, by no means can we directly deduct from this that rank and file workers immediately identified their strikes with ideologically revolutionary objectives.

This chapter examines the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in promoting industrial development, and asks, if FDI is such an important avenue to promote development, why is there little evidence on concomitant industrial development in most developing countries?

I look at the secondary evidence on FDI and development and explore some of the causes for this ambiguity.

The complexities of global value chains and networks have begun to trivialise the simplistic principle that increased multinational enterprise (MNE) activity automatically implies a proportional increase in spillovers and linkages.

Policies towards MNEs need to be closely linked and integrated with industrial policy. MNE activity needs to be evaluated by considering the kinds of externalities that are generated; whether and how domestic actors can internalise them, and building up absorptive capacities to achieve this.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and model collaboration and information exchange enabler strategies, designed to accomplish significant improvements in supply chain (SC) performance. Some of these improvements to the SC include the reduction of the bullwhip effect and increased customer and SC partner benefits. The authors propose a fully collaborative replenishment model. The study details the information flow required to implement new SC collaboration strategies, clarifying a specific strategy for information sharing involving inventory levels (on hand, in process, etc.), orders and demand forecast.

The authors suggest the adoption of business process modelling (BPM) methodology, aimed at identifying which information should be shared by SC partners, in order to create fully collaborative strategies.

The features of BPM allow for the effortless integration of the modelled information collaboration strategies into a general network information system, creating a flexible structure that can be quickly and even automatically adapted to new conditions.

In this paper, a serial SC has been analysed, but enterprises also commonly manage more complex kind of chains. Chains composed of more than one member in the same echelon, divergent chains, convergent chains, network chains are all different configurations that require their own algorithm. The authors use the order up to policy, but there are other policies that can be considered to extend the scope of the model.

BPM, specifically through Unified Modelling Language (UML) and Business Process Modelling Notation standards, represents a suitable technique to develop and implement new SC collaboration practices, serving as a communication link between managers and software developers.

The expected results of this work imply the proposal of a reference model for collaborative supply chain (CSC) organisations, contributing to the enhancement of value creation for the whole CSC.

The aim of this paper is to clarify the information-sharing algorithm required to implement a collaborative structure for an SC. This algorithm is expressed using the BPM technique, specifically UML and Business Process Model and Notation standards.

Este documento propone y modela estrategias de colaboración y habilitación de intercambio de información, diseñadas para lograr mejoras significativas en el rendimiento de la cadena de suministro (SC). Algunas de estas mejoras incluyen la reducción del efecto látigo y mayores beneficios para los clientes y socios de la cadena de suministro. Proponemos un modelo de reabastecimiento totalmente colaborativo. El estudio detalla el flujo de información requerido para implementar nuevas estrategias de colaboración en la cadena de suministro, aclarando una estrategia específica para el intercambio de información que involucra niveles de inventario (en mano, en proceso, etc.), pedidos y previsión de la demanda.

Sugerimos la adopción de la metodología de Modelado de Procesos de Negocio, dirigida a identificar qué información debe ser compartida por los socios de la cadena de suministro, a fin de crear estrategias totalmente colaborativas.

las características del Modelado de Procesos de Negocio permiten la integración, sin un excesivo esfuerzo, de las estrategias de colaboración modeladas en un sistema de información general, creando una estructura flexible que puede adaptarse rápida e incluso automáticamente a las nuevas condiciones.

en este documento, se ha analizado una cadena de suministro en serie, sin embargo las empresas también suelen administrar cadenas más complejas. Cadenas compuestas de más de un miembro en el mismo escalón, cadenas divergentes, cadenas convergentes, cadenas de red, son todas configuraciones diferentes que requieren su propio algoritmo. Igualmente, en este artículo usamos la política de pedido “order up to” aunque también existen otras políticas que se pueden considerar para ampliar el alcance del modelo.

el modelado de procesos BPM, específicamente a través del Lenguaje Unificado de Modelado (UML) y estándares para la notación de Modelado de Procesos de Negocio (BPMN), representa una técnica adecuada para desarrollar e implementar nuevas prácticas de colaboración de cadena de suministro, que sirve como un enlace de comunicación entre los gerentes y los desarrolladores de software.

los resultados esperados de este trabajo implican la propuesta de un modelo de referencia para la colaboración de las organizaciones de la cadena de suministro, contribuyendo a la mejora de la creación de valor para toda la cadena de suministro colaborativa.

el objetivo de este documento es aclarar el algoritmo de intercambio de información requerido para implementar una estructura colaborativa para una cadena de suministro. Este algoritmo se expresa utilizando la técnica BPM, específicamente a través de los estándares UML y BPMN.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the potential benefits of identifying homogeneous territorial units of the urban-tourism space at a local scale.

The territory is an essential variable for designing tourist activities adapted to the characteristics of each urban-tourism space. However, your consideration presents a series of problems, including the lack of alphanumeric, microscale, georeferenced statistical information. The territorial segmentation of the tourist accommodations supply is approached as a methodology, a technique and an instrument that can be used to apply marketing strategies in coastal tourism areas.

One of the most important results is that territorial segmentation is a methodology and technique that can mitigate this issue because it is well-suited to defining spatial patterns of tourist behaviour through the delimitation of territorial units that have a certain degree of homogeneity.

The idea of territorial segmentation is the ideal technique for understanding tourists and their behaviour in the territory by integrating all the variables that intervene in a trip, the different aspects of the destination and data regarding tourist behaviour, allowing them to be understood at the greatest level of territorial disaggregation and making it a good tool for public and private actors, capable of facilitating intelligent decisions in strategic territorial planning and in defining the marketing approach of tourism companies.

This paper aims to develop a wearable-based human-manipulator interface which integrates the interval Kalman filter (IKF), unscented Kalman filter (UKF), over damping method (ODM) and adaptive multispace transformation (AMT) to perform immersive human-manipulator interaction by interacting the natural and continuous motion of the human operator’s hand with the robot manipulator.

The interface requires that a wearable watch is tightly worn on the operator’s hand to track the continuous movements of the operator’s hand. Nevertheless, the measurement errors generated by the sensor error and tracking failure signicantly occur several times, which means that the measurement is not determined with sufficient accuracy. Due to this fact, IKF and UKF are used to compensate for the noisy and incomplete measurements, and ODM is established to eliminate the influence of the error signals like data jitter. Furthermore, to be subject to the inherent perceptive limitations of the human operator and the motor, AMT that focuses on a secondary treatment is also introduced.

Experimental studies on the GOOGOL GRB3016 robot show that such a wearable-based interface that incorporates the feedback mechanism and hybrid filters can operate the robot manipulator more flexibly and advantageously even if the operator is nonprofessional; the feedback mechanism introduced here can successfully assist in improving the performance of the interface.

The interface uses one wearable watch to simultaneously track the orientation and position of the operator’s hand; it is not only avoids problems of occlusion, identification and limited operating space, but also realizes a kind of two-way human-manipulator interaction, a feedback mechanism can be triggered in the watch to reflect the system states in real time. Furthermore, the interface gets rid of the synchronization question in posture estimation, as hybrid filters work independently to compensate the noisy measurements respectively.

This article introduces readers to the Special Issue (SI, 34-1) of ARLA, edited (not exclusively) with the best papers of the Academy of Management's Specialized Conference, scheduled for April 2020 in Mexico City. The COVID-19 pandemic forced its cancellation, but the expert peer review and editorial work continued, to contribute to the emerging literature on Latin American Management and Sustainability.

Guest editors contributed their expertise based on required editorial processes and focused literature reviews on Management and Sustainability.

There are large management and sustainability challenges to Latin American practitioners and researchers, resulting in an increasingly urgent need to systematically document similarities and differences in the fields of Management and Sustainability. It is so because the region has been affected as few others before, during and after the pandemic. Thus, this issue summarizes the literature, presents eight new studies and offers suggestions for future research.

Management and sustainability in Latin America are wide subjects, with different dimensions and issues. This is a specific contribution that leaves much ground to be covered in the different subfields of the area, in research methodologies and conclusions.

An agenda for advancing the field of management and sustainability in Latin America, highlighted by the COVID-19 disruption; additionally, eight of the most advanced research in the field are presented, chosen from two tracks of a large number of contributions to a recent specialized conference organized by the Academy of Management.

Este artículo presenta el Número Especial (SI, 34-1) de ARLA, editado (no exclusivamente) con los mejores artículos de la Conferencia Especializada de la Academy of Management, programada para abril de 2020 en la Ciudad de México. La pandemia COVID-19 obligó a su cancelación, pero se continuó la revisión por pares expertos y el trabajo editorial, para contribuir a la literatura emergente sobre Gestión y Sostenibilidad en América Latina.

Los editores invitados contribuyeron con su experiencia con base en los procesos editoriales requeridos y revisiones de literatura enfocadas en Gestión y Sostenibilidad.

Existen grandes desafíos de gestión y sostenibilidad para los profesionales e investigadores de América Latina, lo que genera una necesidad cada vez más urgente de documentar sistemáticamente las similitudes y diferencias en los campos de la gestión y la sostenibilidad. Es así porque la región se ha visto afectada como pocas antes, durante y después de la pandemia. Por lo tanto, este número resume la literatura, presenta ocho nuevos estudios y ofrece sugerencias para futuras investigaciones.

La gestión y la sostenibilidad en América Latina son temas amplios, con diferentes dimensiones y temáticas. Se trata de un aporte específico que deja mucho terreno por recorrer en los distintos subcampos del área, en metodologías de investigación y conclusiones.

Una agenda para avanzar en el campo de la gestión y la sostenibilidad en América Latina, destacada por la disrupción del COVID-19. Además, se presentan ocho de las investigaciones más avanzadas en el campo, elegidas entre dos temas de un gran número de contribuciones a una reciente conferencia especializada organizada por la Academy of Management.

The purpose of this paper is to review the contributions of what has been established as Latin American thought, as science, technology, and innovation (STI) in Latin America have been strongly related to development.

The analysis method is based on the review of a group of Latin American and Latinoamericanista (Latin Americanist) authors who were selected on the basis of their contributions to the explanation and proposals of public policy related to STI. The following are some of the questions that guide the analysis. How much has STI in Latin American thought contributed to the development theory? Given the fact that there are other dominant mainstreams, can we say that Latin American thought is still relevant?

The main conclusion of this work is that Latin American thought is still applied to current Latin American development discussions. This can be proven by the creation of particular concepts and analytical frameworks such as structural heterogeneity, development styles, authentic and spurious competitiveness, Sabato’s Triangle, the centre-periphery model, and STI policy practices.

This paper gathered contributions and categorised them into three dimensions: state participation (intensity, composition), industrialisation as the impulse for development, and instruments and public policy actions that can be implemented or have already been implemented.

El propósito de este trabajo es el de reflexionar sobre algunas aportaciones provenientes de lo que hemos denominado pensamiento latinoamericano en relación con la innovación, la ciencia, la tecnología y su relación con el desarrollo.

El método de análisis se basa en la revisión de un conjunto de autores latinoamericanos y latinoamericanistas que hemos seleccionado con base en sus aportaciones para la explicación y sus propuestas de política pública en relación con la CTI. Algunas preguntas que guían nuestro análisis son las siguientes: ¿en qué medida el pensamiento latinoamericano en CTI ha contribuido a la teoría del desarrollo? y ¿dada la existencia de otros enfoques que predominan como pensamiento único, podemos hablar de una vigencia del pensamiento latinoamericano?

La principal conclusión de nuestro trabajo es que hay un pensamiento latinoamericano vigente que ha sido y aún es un referente actual para la discusión del desarrollo en la región latinoamericana, como lo muestran la creación de conceptos y esquemas analíticos como los de heterogeneidad estructural, estilos de desarrollo, la competitividad auténtica y espuria, el Triángulo de Sábato, centro-periferia, así como estrategias de política en CTI.

Como parte del marco analítico hemos agrupado al conjunto de aportaciones en tres direcciones: a) la participación del Estado (intensidad, composición); b) la industrialización como impulso al desarrollo y c) los instrumentos y medidas de política pública a implementar o que han sido implementados.