Commercial Product Line Research Articles

Tailoring business models for small-medium food enterprises in Eastern Africa can drive the commercialization and utilization of vitamin A rich orange-fleshed sweet potato puree

Abstract Orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP), a promising crop for alleviating vitamin A deficiency (VAD), can be utilized at home and in commercial food processing as a basic and functional ingredient. The root can be processed into puree that is incorporated in baked and fried products and other products, with a high acceptability rate. When used as a wheat substitute in a bakery, the OFSP puree significantly cuts the production cost. In the last few years and with the intensified promotion of OFSP and OFSP puree products as a sustainable food-based strategy to tackling VAD at the population level, many small-medium food enterprises (SMEs) in the Eastern Africa Region (EAR) have shown great interest in utilizing the OFSP puree in their commercial product lines. However, the OFSP and OFSP puree value chain for commercial usage is still underdeveloped poising raw material supply challenges. In addition, the SMEs are early-stage businesses lacking the capacity and proper business models to propel them to sustainably venture into OFSP processing. As such, there is a need to engage and support SMEs in tailoring business models suitable for their scaling needs along the OFSP value chain to make available in the market, affordable nutrient-dense OFSP-puree products. This article presents the approach that was used to offer tailored Business Development Services (BDS) for selected SMEs in EAR to scale up their capacity to commercialize OFSP puree and puree-based products. The BDS designed and supported six integrated modules: business profile development, business model canvas, understanding the numbers/finances, OFSP value chain analysis, SWOT analysis, and growth plan, to develop and document individual business capacities and aspirations. The SMEs identified numerous opportunities and entry points for OFSP value chain development and expansion through the BDS depending on their business needs.

Practice Summary: GE Optimizes for Aircraft Engine Overhaul Scheduling and Shop Assignment

We present an optimization-based decision support system to generate optimal aircraft engine maintenance schedules that reflect qualitative and quantitative trade-offs from customer, business, and shop perspectives. The approach is currently implemented at GE Aviation Services for global overhaul network induction planning for all commercial product lines.

The Effect of Perceived Value on Consumers' Repurchase Intention of Commercial Ice Stadium: The Mediating Role of Community Interactions.

The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics has created unprecedented opportunities for China’s commercial ice rinks, where improving consumers’ repurchase intention is essential for their high-quality development. This paper explores the mediation effect of community interactions between perceived value and commercial ice rink consumers’ repurchase intention based on the theory of perceived value. Through a questionnaire survey, we collected 347 valid questionnaire from consumers of commercial ice rinks. Based on a structural equation model, the results show that consumers’ perceived risk value significantly impacts community interactions and consumers’ repurchase intention. Perceived functional, social, and emotional values positively affect community interactions but have an insignificant impact on the consumers’ repurchase intention. Community interactions play a full mediation role between perceived emotional and social values and consumers’ repurchase intention; they play partially mediating role between consumers’ perceived risk value and repurchase intention and do not have mediating role between perceived functional value and consumers’ repurchase intention. Therefore, we provide some practical suggestions: extending commercial ice rink product lines, creating unique intellectual property systems, improving consumer sports career planning, and enhancing risk management.

An Extended Complementary Filter for Full-Body MARG Orientation Estimation

Inertial sensing suites now permeate all forms of smart automation, yet a plateau exists in the real-world derivation of global orientation. Magnetic field fluctuations and inefficient sensor fusion still inhibit deployment. In this article, we introduce a new algorithm, an extended complementary filter (ECF), to derive 3-D rigid body orientation from inertial sensing suites addressing these challenges. The ECF combines computational efficiency of classic complementary filters with improved accuracy compared to popular optimization filters. We present a complete formulation of the algorithm, including an extension to address the challenge of orientation accuracy in the presence of fluctuating magnetic fields. Performance is tested under a variety of conditions and benchmarked against the commonly used gradient decent inertial sensor fusion algorithm. Results demonstrate improved efficiency, with the ECF achieving convergence 30% faster than standard alternatives. We further demonstrate an improved robustness to sources of magnetic interference in pitch and roll and to fast changes of orientation in the yaw direction. The ECF has been implemented at the core of a wearable rehabilitation system tracking movement of stroke patients for home telehealth. The ECF and accompanying magnetic disturbance rejection algorithm enables previously unachievable real-time patient movement feedback in the form of a full virtual human (avatar), even in the presence of magnetic disturbance. Algorithm efficiency and accuracy have also spawned an entire commercial product line released by the company x-io. We believe the ECF and accompanying magnetic disturbance routines are key enablers for future widespread use of wearable systems with the capacity for global orientation tracking.

The Rapid Embrace of Legal Design and the Use of Co-Design to Avoid Enshrining Systemic Bias

After decades of delay, the U.S. legal profession is finally embracing digital technology in the delivery of civil justice. Much more rapidly, design methods are being embraced by legal institutions as a means reforming everything from commercial legal product lines to civil court forms. What explains the rapid embrace of legal design when digital legal technology took decades to break through? We think that a deliberately human-centered approach to law helps explain the sudden advantageousness of legal design. But what must be done about the bias and inequity that is embedded within the legal systems we seek to redesign, and within the legal design movement itself? We propose that a radical iterative and collaborative effort that is deliberately structured to address systemic bias has the strongest potential to deliver on the promise of both design and justice.

High performance lithium-sulfur batteries by facilely coating a conductive carbon nanotube or graphene layer

Lithium sulfur (Li-S) batteries are regarded as promising candidates for next-generation rechargeable batteries. However, the insulation characteristic of sulfur and severe polysulfide dissolution hindered their development. We presented a facile approach to fabricate Li-S batteries by coating commercial carbon nanotube or graphene slurries on normal sulfur cathode electrode to construct a dual-layer cathode electrode. The conductive CNT or graphene layer could not only improve the conductivity of sulfur cathode, but also suppress the polysulfide diffusion. The CNT@S cathode delivered a high reversible capacity of 740 mAh/g over 300 cycles at 1 C and 870 mAh/g over 100 cycles at 0.2 C. Furthermore, this strategy could be realized on the commercial product line of lithium-ion batteries, which made it possible to large-scale produce Li-S batteries.

Impact of Hands‐On Research Experience on Students’ Learning in an Introductory Management Information System Course

ABSTRACTAlthough students in Introductory Information Systems courses are taught new technology concepts, the complexity and constantly changing nature of these technologies makes it challenging to deliver the concepts effectively. Aiming to improve students’ learning experiences, this research utilized the five phases of design science methodology to develop an experiment to solve a real‐world problem, and then implemented it in an undergraduate classroom. As part of their classwork, students participated as subjects testing new information technologies to solve a real‐world problem. They were asked to complete a questionnaire and answer questions in a focus group to assess the effectiveness of the technologies tested and determine whether the experience had added to the learning they gained from the course. The results revealed that the students were able to use the new technologies effectively and provide useful feedback to the company sponsoring the study, contributing to the release of a new commercial product line. Students also reported that participating in this research project improved their satisfaction with the introductory MIS course. These results encourage educators to conduct hands‐on experience involving real‐world research projects since they provide valuable additional learning opportunities in introductory MIS courses.

A hybrid approach to minimising manufacturing costs - study in a heating ventilation and air conditioning industry

A leading producer of commercial air-conditioning equipment faces the need to update its sheet metal operations in support of its commercial chiller product line. Currently, the producer meets the majority of its sheet metal needs through in-house manufacturing operations. Thus, three basic alternatives confront the producer. Capital can be invested to maintain existing in-house operations. It could also be invested to develop outsource suppliers to completely fill the sheet metal requirements. Finally, an investment could be made involving substantial reliance on both in-house and outsource suppliers. To effectively analyse the true cost associated with each alternative, realistic cost structures are derived employing activity-based costing (ABC) techniques in conjunction with probabilistic market forecast data. The alternative including both in-house manufacturing and outsource suppliers was identified as optimal through linear programming (LP) techniques. The implementation of this optimal solution is then analysed using the programme evaluation and review technique (PERT).

Assessing the Bioequivalence of Topical Retinoid Products by Pharmacodynamic Assay

Purpose: To develop a simple pharmacodynamic (PD) assay for the evaluation of the bioequivalence of topically applied retinoid products. Methods: Daily applications of products containing tretinoin or adapalene were made to the forearms of human subjects for up to 21 days. Percutaneous absorption was enhanced through the use of polyethylene film occlusion (5 h). Pharmacologic activity was assessed through the daily measurement of three cutaneous responses intimately linked to retinoid-induced changes in epidermal differentiation: (1) erythema; (2) exfoliation (scaling/peeling), and (3) increased transepidermal water loss. Results: The PD model exhibited the sensitivity and specificity required to function as a bioequivalence surrogate. It was possible to differentiate between: (1) three concentrations of tretinoin in a commercial cream product line; (2) two concentrations of tretinoin in a commercial gel product line; (3) different vehicles (gel vs. cream) containing the same concentration of tretinoin, and (4) tretinoin and adapalene at the same concentration. The applicability of this model for bioequivalence testing was established by showing that it had sufficient power to determine that three test tretinoin cream products and two approved generic tretinoin gel products were equivalent to their corresponding reference products. Conclusions: A surrogate PD model to assess retinoid bioequivalence has been developed.

Demonstration of PMD compensation by using a DSP-Based OPMDC prototype in a 43-Gb/s RZ-DQPSK, 1200 km DWDM transmission

This paper reports the DSP-based prototype compensator we have made to compensate the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) in fibers . It was tested in one channel of a 40 × 43-Gb/s DWDM DQPSK system, which is the commercial product line, either in the back-to-back case by using a PMD emulator, or in a 1200-km transmission testbed. The prototype showed a good performance under the tests of fast SOP and PSP rotation, DGD jump variation, and moderate knock on the testbed in a period as long as 12 h.

Experience of using a lightweight formal specification method for a commercial embedded system product line

A simple specification method is introduced and the results of its application to a series of projects in Philips are reported. The method is principally designed to ensure that that every unusual scenario is considered in a systematic way. In practice, this has led to high-quality specifications and accelerated product development. While the straightforward tabular notation used has proved readily understandable to non-technical personnel, it is also a formal method, producing a model of system behaviour as a finite state machine. In this respect, the notation is unusual in being designed to preserve as far as possible a view of the overall system state and how this changes. The notation also features a constraint table which may be described as a kind of spreadsheet for invariants to help define the states of the system.

Bike frame races carbon consumer goods forward

Carbon fibre composite bicycle frames have developed into a high volume consumer application over the past decade, and are now dominate on high-end racing bikes. Ron Nelson of ClosedMold Composites, primary inventor of the Trek OCLV bicycle frame, explains how the integrated development of a manufacturing process and frame design lead to a successful commercial product line.

Provider Order Entry with Integrated Decision Support: from Academia to Industry

To describe the evolution of a provider order entry system with integrated decision support, from a research prototype to full implementation at one academic center, and finally to a commercial product. Describe the institutional environment and planning process in which the system originated. Highlight the historical evolution of the provider entry system, and analyze its system architecture and functionality. Describe the requirements for successful design and deployment both within a single health care organization and as part of a commercial product line. Over a period of eight years the system evolved from a research prototype to a fully integrated order entry system in routine use on most inpatient units of a large academic medical center. Around 12,000 orders are entered every day into the computer system; 70% of those are entered directly by the responsible physician. The system embeds best-of-care practice guidelines, and is used to reduce resource utilization by limiting unnecessary testing and suggesting more effective or less costly therapeutic replacements. The system was recently acquired by a large HIS software vendor and is being rapidly implemented at numerous customer sites. Large-scale development or deployment of complex health information systems requires considerable organizational agreement and resources, as well as close attention to iterative system design that explicitly includes constant feedback from the user community. The transformation of such a system from a single-site success to a widely deployed product requires convergence of resources and needs.

Putting the "D" in UCD: User-Centered Design in the ThinkPad Experience Development

This article describes the application of user-centered design (UCD) principles to an existing product line in a focused attempt to reshape customers' attitudes about individual product offerings as well as the product brand as a whole. Examples of user research, design development, and validation are given to demonstrate the challenges of applying participatory design principles, and the methods used by the ThinkPad(r) UCD team to overcome those challenges. Special attention was given in three areas. First, the organizational design, or macro-UCD aspect of a successful product design effort is analyzed. Second, a mobile computer frustrations research project is reviewed as the baseline for the ThinkPad UCD effort. To address the frustrations, 4 UCD initiatives were conceived as part of a product-line redesign: a product line simplification based on common building blocks, a common user interface and aesthetic design language, a battery and power management improvement, and an intelligent user assistance architecture. Results are discussed in terms of improved brand equity, customer satisfaction, marketshare, and product cost savings. Key learning is discussed in terms of the success of the product realized through UCD as well as specific user engineering approaches that proved successful when applied to a mature commercial electronics product line.

Advanced microelectronics technologies for future small satellite systems

Future small satellite systems for both Earth observation as well as deep-space exploration are greatly enabled by the technological advances in deep sub-micron microelectronics technologies. Whereas these technological advances are being fueled by the commercial (non-space) industries, more recently there has been an exciting new synergism evolving between the two otherwise disjoint markets. In other words, both the commercial and space industries are enabled by advances in low-power, highly integrated, miniaturized (low-volume), lightweight, and reliable real-time embedded systems. Recent announcements by commercial semiconductor manufacturers to introduce Silicon On Insulator (SOI) technology into their commercial product lines is driven by the need for high-performance low-power integrated devices. Moreover, SOI has been the technology of choice for many space semiconductor manufacturers where radiation requirements are critical. This technology has inherent radiation latch-up immunity built into the process, which makes it very attractive to space applications. In this paper, we describe the advanced microelectronics and avionics technologies under development by NASA's Deep Space Systems Technology Program (also known as X2000). These technologies are of significant benefit to both the commercial satellite as well as the deep-space and Earth orbiting science missions. Such a synergistic technology roadmap may truly enable quick turn-around, low-cost, and highly capable small satellite systems for both Earth observation as well as deep-space missions.

2 Optimizing Systems Engineering for a Commercial Product Line: A Case Study in International Air Traffic Control

AbstractThe development of the ASR‐12 international air traffic control (ATC) radar offers a case study in a shift from the more formal processes and products of the 1980's U.S. government contracts to a commercial product line environment. Both the radar development team and the product had to transition to new approaches. By effectively optimizing the SE process for this new environment, it is the key cost‐effective framework to optimize the product.

STATIONARY AND DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF A WATER RELIEF VALVE

The use of water as a working fluid in hydraulic circuits is being receiving an increasing attention by both manufacturers and users, due to its environmental characteristics. Although the use of water is neither new nor innovative (more than one hundred years ago it was widely used to transfer power, and many pump and valve manufacturers have commercial product lines for water hydraulics) its introduction in the product line of a manufacturers brings many problems to the attention of the designers, from technology adaptation to material compatibility, from erosion to cavitation.The purpose of this paper, based on a joint activity by Cemoter, University of Modena, Aron SpA and Cermet, is to show how the use of a combined approach to valve analysis can provide useful information to shorten the time to market of a valve using tap water as working fluid. Starting from an initial reminder of the basic differences between mineral oil and water in hydraulic circuits, the paper shows the results of some CFD computations on a relief valve, to evaluate the qualitative form of the pressure and velocity field, and to assess the influence of the increased turbulence on the field of motion.In the final part, the results of a comprehensive experimental characterization of the component are presented and considered in view of the indication provided by CFD analysis, both in term of steady state characteristic curves, and dynamic response.

Rationale and Strategy for a 21st Century Scientific Computing Architecture: The Case for using Commercial Symmetric Multiprocessors as Supercomputers

Rationale and Strategy for a 21st Century Scientific Computing Architecture: The Case for using Commercial Symmetric Multiprocessors as Supercomputers

The Computer in the United States: From Laboratory to Market, 1930 to 1960 by James W. Cortada

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 205 somatism, “whereby an invading solution, although it leaves the out­ ward form or body of the host rock unchanged, nevertheless entirely transforms its intrinsic character” (p. 157). Let the infrastructural work continue. Edward W. Constant Dr. Constant teaches history of technology at Carnegie Mellon University. His arti­ cle “Cause or Consequence: Science, Technology, and Regulatory Change in the Oil Business in Texas, 1930-1975,” appeared in Technology and Culture 30 (April 1989): 426-55. The Computer in the United States: From Laboratory to Market, 1930 to 1960. By James W. Cortada. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharp, 1993. Pp· xix+183; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $45.00 (cloth); $16.50 (paper). Of all of the artifacts of 20th-century technology, the computer has had the greatest impact on the culture of science, technology, and business. The first successful computers emerged in scientific and engineering laboratories in the 1930s and 1940s. In this little book, James Cortada portrays the commercialization of the computer in the 1950s and accounts for its acceptance by the business machine indus­ try, whose market the computer penetrated. In so doing, Cortada carries forward an argument begun with his earlier book, Before the Computer, that continuity, rather than change, and evolution, rather than revolution, express the development of the computer from 1865 through the 1950s. The evolutionary meta­ phor is borrowed from George Basalla. It serves to underscore the importance of office machinery as the progenitors of computers, of the relation of machina recta to machina sapienta. The missing link in this evolution is the scientific computer, whose career Cortada traces from its origins in the analog, electromechani­ cal, and digital machines of the 1930s and 1940s. These last two were variants, in a manner of speaking, of the office machines, while the analog computer sprang from a different tradition, stretching back two thousand years. The preconditions for the emergence of scientific computing were developments in mathematics and information the­ ory that supplied a binary logic and architecture and in electrical engineering that provided for switching and relays. In the cauldron of war, these provided the underpinning of the first electronic digital computers, like ENIAC. Born in the laboratory, scientific computers offered little to the traditional makers of office machines at first. The punch-card equip­ ment that had served the needs of the business community and been permuted for wartime calculations at Los Alamos and elsewhere seemed to meet market needs. The development of the Harvard Mark I, an IBM-sponsored machine, led the company to create the 206 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Selective Sequence Calculator after the war, but that was a showcase computer rather than a prototype for IBM’s product line. The evolu­ tion of scientific computing eventually produced machines like the UNIVAC and the IBM 701, which found only incidental commercial applications. In transforming office calculating equipment to electronics, the punched-card paradigm initially dominated IBM and its competi­ tors. Only after it became obvious, thanks in part to governmentsupported research and development, that the digital computer could replace its traditional lines in the marketplace was IBM ready to com­ mit to a strategy of a commercial product line of computers in the 650 series. By that time, Cortada argues, the technical and business community had been introduced to the computer through trade and mass-market publications. Technically oriented personnel in com­ mercial firms could appreciate the contribution these machines might make to their operations. Companies like IBM could respond and, with a strong service relationship, influence their customers to re­ spond. By 1960, computing had become a $1 billion industry. Although computers shared with other 20th-century technologies a substantial scientific and technical heritage and, like most of them, required considerable public investment in their development, they found widespread application largely by following the channels of commerce that had been carved out by office-equipment manufactur­ ers, in Cortada’s view. Although he recognizes his “office equipocentrism ,” Cortada defends it as consistent with the goal of tracing the computer from laboratory to market. If one were to trace its development in scientific and engineering applications or in cryptol­ ogy, different paths would presumably...

The Taiwan Aerospace-McDonnell Douglas Agreement: A Modest Expansion of the Trend toward Globalization in Aerospace

The proposed sale by McDonnell Douglas of a portion of its commercial subsidiary to Taiwan Aerospace Corporation has provoked considerable controversy. Although the precise terms of the agreement had not been disclosed at this writing, they are likely to involve the purchase of a 40 percent share of the equity of a new corporate entity that contains Douglas Aircraft's commercial aircraft operations by a group of foreign investors that may include representatives from other East Asian nations, in addition to Taiwan. The joint venture of East Asian and U.S. firms will undertake the development and manufacture of the MD-12, a 400-seat commercial transport that will compete with the Boeing 747. In addition, this entity will manage the manufacture, marketing, and support of Douglas Aircraft's current commercial aircraft product line. A thorough analysis and evaluation of this agreement requires information on its structure and aims that is not yet available. Nevertheless, I believe that the concerns raised by critics of the agreement-most of which cite the agreement's adverse effects on U.S. technology and jobs-are exaggerated. The McDonnell Douglas agreement is a response to the new realities of global competition in the commercial aircraft industry. It may strengthen Douglas Aircraft, even as it may make life more difficult for other U.S. firms. Overall, the agreement is more a consequence of, rather than a likely contributor to, intensified foreign competition in this industry.