Construction Of Chains Research Articles

Research on AI-RPA-based Enterprise Empowerment and Cost Decision System Taking the Xiaomi Group as an Example

Since its establishment in 2010, Xiaomi Technology Co., Ltd. has been a global mobile Internet enterprise and innovative technology enterprise focusing on the research and development of intelligent hardware and electronic products, smartphones, smart electric vehicles, Internet TV, and smart home ecological chain construction. However, with the increasing industry competition, we should effectively use our own resources in internal management to occupy a larger market share. Therefore, from Xiaomi Technology Liability Co., LTD.'s perspective, it is particularly important to improve the cost decision and find a scientific cost decision to achieve a better strategic goal. Based on its existing cost decision analysis and operation, this paper puts forward the combination of "RPA + AI" technology in the cost decision structure. The first part of the paper determines the research background, significance, method, and background. The second part details the relevant concepts: cost decision, artificial intelligence, and "RPA + AI", the theoretical basis. In the third part, Xiaomi Technology Liability Co., Ltd. is taken as a case to analyze the specific application of the cost composition and cost decision of "RPA + AI", including technical advantages and specific applications. In the fourth part, based on the analysis of the third part, "RPA + AI" is optimized and integrated in Xiaomi Group, the current situation of cost management is compared, analyzed, and finally put forward the problems and challenges faced. The fifth part summarizes the research in this paper and summarizes them systematically.

Structural supply chain complexity index and construct validity: a data-driven empirical approach

PurposeGiven the lack of focus on a standardized measurement framework (e.g. benchmarking tool) to assess and quantify complexity within the supply chain, this study has developed a unified supply chain complexity (SCC) index and validated its utility by examining the relationship with firm performance. More importantly, it examines the role of firm owners' business knowledge, sales strategy and board management on the relationship between SCC and firm performance.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the unit of analysis is Indian manufacturing companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). This research has merged panel data from two secondary data sources: Bloomberg and Prowess and empirically operationalized five key SCC drivers, namely, number of suppliers, the number of supplier countries, the number of products, the number of plants and the number of customers. The study employs panel data regression analyses to examine the proposed conceptual model and associated hypotheses. Moreover, the present study employs models that incorporate robust standard errors to account for heteroscedasticity.FindingsThe results show that complexity has a negative and significant effect on firm performance. Further, the study reveals that an owner's business knowledge and the firm's effective sales strategy and board management can significantly lessen the negative effect of SCC.Originality/valueThis study develops an SCC index and validates its utility. Also, it presents a novel idea to operationalize the measure for SCC characteristics using secondary databases like Prowess and Bloomberg.

Dimension-independent spectral gap of polar slice sampling

Polar slice sampling, a Markov chain construction for approximate sampling, performs, under suitable assumptions on the target and initial distribution, provably independent of the state space dimension. We extend the aforementioned result of Roberts and Rosenthal (Stoch Model 18(2):257–280, 2002) by developing a theory which identifies conditions, in terms of a generalized level set function, that imply an explicit lower bound on the spectral gap even in a general slice sampling context. Verifying the identified conditions for polar slice sampling yields a lower bound of 1/2 on the spectral gap for arbitrary dimension if the target density is rotationally invariant, log-concave along rays emanating from the origin and sufficiently smooth. The general theoretical result is potentially applicable beyond the polar slice sampling framework.

Role of Green Logistics in the Construction of Sustainable Supply Chains

Abstract The global supply chain has been growing strongly in recent years. This development brings many benefits to the economy, society, and human resources in each country but also causes a large number of concerns related to the environment since traditional logistics activities in the supply chain have been releasing a significant amount of emissions. For that reason, many solutions have been proposed to deal with these environmental pollution problems. Among these, three promising solutions are expected to completely solve environmental problems in every supply chain: (i) Application of blockchain in the supply chain, (ii) Use of renewable energy and alternative fuels, and (iii) Design of a closed supply chain. However, it seems to lack a comprehensive study of these solutions aiming to overcome the drawbacks of traditional logistics. Indeed, this work focuses on analyzing and evaluating the three above-mentioned solutions and the impacts of each solution on solving problems related to traditional logistics. More importantly, this work also identifies critical factors and challenges such as policies, laws, awareness, and risks that are found to be remarkable difficulties in the shifting progress of traditional logistics to green logistics. Finally, directions for developing and deploying green solutions to the logistics, supply chain, and shipping sectors toward decarbonization strategies and net-zero goals are discussed in detail.

AGROTECHNOLOGY FOR FEED CULTIVATION AND CREATION OF HAYFIELDS AND PASTURES IN THE FOREST AND STEPPE ZONE OF NORTHERN KAZAKHSTAN

A high-quality feed base is a must to ensure the growing of numerous animals via selecting promising high-yielding crops that can provide livestock with feeds at the entire production stage. This study purposed to develop new technologies for reinstating a balanced use of pastures in Kazakhstan’s steppe and forest-steppe zones. Several investigations succeeded in 2019–2022 at the Service-ZHARS Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) production fields of District Kyzylzhar, North Kazakhstan. Five chosen pasture combinations created multifactor pasture lands, as follows: common alfalfa + Festulolium; awnless brome + yellow sweet clover; common alfalfa + pasture ryegrass + Festulolium; white sweet clover + awnless brome + Timothy grass, and sainfoin + Festulolium + pasture ryegrass + Timothy grass. For haymaking and pasture chain construction, the following grass combinations selected comprised two-pasture grasses (previous years' brome and Timothy grass + common alfalfa + sainfoin) and seven hay grasses (vetch + oats, Sudan grass, sorghum-Sudan grass hybrid + sorghum, corn for silage, sorghum, peas + oats + barley + wheat, and peas). The use of droughtresistant legumes, cereals, and arable crops and their mixtures positively impacted intensifying the feed base and reducing the pasture areas’ degradation. Thus, in the first experiment, the green mass collection was higher than 3.33 t ha-1 , while in the second one, it was below 4.75 t ha-1 , which fully bestowed the physiological needs of animals. The species diversity of pasture vegetation has improved because of beans’ inclusion, possibly enhancing the protein ratio in green feed and hay as the main component of the farm animals' diet.

Optimization of logistics processes of transportation of raw materials and materials

One of the main tasks of the economic activity of enterprises is to provide production with material resources because of the logistic approach. Any downtime reduced work efficiency causes financial losses for the company. To reduce losses caused by delivery problems, optimizing logistics processes is becoming increasingly crucial for the modern automotive industry. The paper examines the main theoretical directions of optimizing the transportation of materials and raw materials and characterizes their role in preventing the stoppage of the technological process. At a production enterprise of any industrial direction, the technological process or packaging line is stopped due to a shortage of raw materials, equipment components, or packaging materials. The scenarios of production recovery were considered. The scheme and stages of the logistics process are analyzed: external and internal logistics. In connection with the large variety of parts and their application on the production line, the paper considers the compelling concept of determining the "sequencing point". For a complete understanding of the construction of logistics supply chains according to the JIT principle, each element of the parts delivery scheme is considered. Any manufacturing industry faces a fundamental dilemma: higher inventory costs and lower shipping costs due to fewer shipments or vice versa. Today, it is practically impossible to ensure the daily transportation of the required number of parts, that is, to foresee the formation of small batches without the involvement of warehouses, which is explained by the large number of required parts. Logistics connections' main task is dividing work by stages of goods movement, leading to individual processes' division. The solution to this task is carried out by organizing within a single process the movement of materials and information along the entire chain from the producer to the consumer, ensuring the interaction of individual stages and coordinating the actions of all participants in the logistics chain. Keywords: consumers, logistics chain, downtime, transportation, logistics processes.

Bayesian estimation in multivariate inter-laboratory studies with unknown covariance matrices

In the paper we present Bayesian inference procedures for the parameters of multivariate random effects model, which is used as a quantitative tool for performing multivariate key comparisons and multivariate inter-laboratory studies. The developed new approach does not require that the reported covariance matrices of participating laboratories are known and, as such, it can be used when they are estimated from the measurement results. The Bayesian inference procedures are based on samples generated from the derived posterior distribution when the Berger and Bernardo reference prior and the Jeffreys prior are assigned to the model parameter. Three numerical algorithms for the construction of Markov chains are provided and implemented in the CCAUV.V-K1 key comparisons. All three approaches yield similar Bayesian estimators with wider credible intervals when the Berger and Bernardo reference prior is used. Also, the Bayesian estimators for the elements of the inter-laboratory covariance matrix are larger under this prior than for the Jeffreys prior. Finally, the constructed joint credible sets for the components of the overall mean vector indicate the presence of linear dependence between them which cannot be captured when only univariate key comparisons are performed.

Perspective: A proposal on solutions of modern supply chain construction for lactoferrin

Lactoferrin is an iron-binding glycoprotein of the transferrin family that is found in most bodily fluids of mammals and has a variety of biological and beneficial functions, with great importance in health enhancement as a supplement for humans and other animals. More than 300 t of lactoferrin were produced in 2021, and this number is expected to grow yearly by 10% to 12%, to over 580 t in 2030. With new and important functions of lactoferrin being revealed and studied, focus on its industrial production and application is increasing accordingly. However, lactoferrin is mainly sourced from cheese whey or skim milk by cation-exchange column chromatography, which is a costly and low-quality method. A potential solution for lactoferrin global supply chain construction is proposed in this article as a complement to traditional routes of purification from whey or skim milk. The large-scale production of lactoferrin, mainly by recombinant yeast, mammal, and grain systems, as well as the market niche and product design, are discussed.

Black-boxing Journalistic Chains, an Actor-network Theory Inquiry into Journalistic Truth

ABSTRACT Understanding journalistic truth has always been important in Journalism Studies, but it is increasingly significant in a society influenced by constantly evolving digital technologies and information disorder. This article explores the potential of “actor-network theory” to enhance the understanding of journalistic truth, surpassing the limitations of existing perspectives that categorise it as objective, subjective, or a combination of the two. Alternatively, through the utilisation of a plausibility probe case study in investigative journalism, the article suggests examining news-making as black-boxing and conceptualises journalistic truth as arising from the skilful construction of journalistic chains comprising heterogeneous actors. We discuss these as pivotal steps toward gaining a deeper understanding of journalistic truth that paves the way for constructing an alternative but empirical account of journalism.

Facile construction of giant polymeric chains through strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition

Facile construction of giant polymeric chains through strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition

Towards sustainable and resilient ASEAN-Korea economic integration 2.0

Korea and ASEAN are currently seeing a golden age in their partnership; their trade and investment relations are strengthening rapidly, and ASEAN has become a key player in Korea's diplomacy. However, there are a number of challenges in this relationship, such as Korea's high level of reliance on a single ASEAN member (Vietnam), Korean businesses’ relatively short history in ASEAN, and inconsistencies and ambiguities in Korea's diplomatic approach towards ASEAN. In order to overcome these issues, Korean entities could consider seeking local partners in ASEAN, spotting economic and societal priorities in national and ASEAN development strategies, and taking advantage of ASEAN's intra-regional integration. There are two areas, namely Indonesia's electric vehicle value chain and smart city construction, in which Korea's public and private entities are attempting to gain a foothold by adopting these strategies.

The Position and Function of the Silk Road Economic Belt in the Global Value Chain Exploring

The construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt refers to the enhancement of trade and cultural communication among China and the countries along the Silk Road, aiming to achieve mutually beneficial and friendly development and promote global economic growth. The global value chain represents a global business organization that integrates commodity manufacturing, production, sales, and after-sales services. The Silk Road Economic Belt holds a significant position and plays a crucial role in the global value chain by enhancing the security of global value chain construction, promoting trade among countries along the Silk Road, and driving global economic development. Based on this, it is necessary to establish a scientific and reasonable trade model, introduce excellent professionals, improve monetary circulation systems, strengthen policy exchanges and road infrastructure construction among countries, and implement measures to promote global economic development.

Induced green innovation of suppliers: The “green power” from major customers

In the context of green development, the major challenge is to incentivize companies as key players to participate in green innovation. This paper focuses on the market incentive mechanism for green innovation to investigate whether major customers with green development concepts can enhance the green innovation of upstream suppliers, which means the “green power” from major customers. The research is based on paired data of Chinese A-share listed companies and their major clients from 2009 to 2018. The findings show that: (1) Major customers with green development concepts can enhance the green innovation of upstream suppliers, and this conclusion remains robust after a series of tests. (2) The study also identifies the influence mechanisms, which include: (a increasing the purchase amount to green suppliers, and (b providing green innovation-related resource support to upstream suppliers. (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that major customers with green development concepts can significantly drive the green innovation of private and smaller suppliers to a greater extent. (4) The induced green innovation of suppliers from major accounts is more significant in samples with high customer concentration. This research identifies the “green power” from major customers as an important market mechanism for incentivizing green innovation. The conclusions of this paper will lead to some policy implications for the promotion of green innovation and the construction of green supply chains.

One-Pot, Photocontrolled Enzymatic Assembly of the Structure-Defined Heterotypic Polyubiquitin Chain.

Heterotypic polyubiquitins are an emerging class of polyubiquitins that have attracted interest because of their potential diversity of structures and physiological functions. There is an increasing demand for structure-defined synthesis of heterotypic chains to investigate the topological factors underlying the intracellular signals that are characteristically mediated by the heterotypic chain. However, the applicability of chemical and enzymatic polyubiquitin synthesis developed to date has been limited by laborious rounds of ligation and purification or by a lack of modularity of the chain structure with respect to the length and the branch position. Here, we established a one-pot, photocontrolled synthesis of structurally defined heterotypic polyubiquitin chains. We designed ubiquitin derivatives with a photolabile protecting group at a lysine residue used for polymerization. Repetitive cycles of linkage-specific enzymatic elongation and photoinduced deprotection of the protected ubiquitin units enabled stepwise addition of ubiquitins with appropriate functionalities to control the length and branching positions. The positional control of branching was achieved without isolation of intermediates, allowing one-pot synthesis of K63 triubiqutin chains and a K63/K48 heterotypic tetraubiquitin chain with defined branching positions. The present study provides a chemical platform for the efficient construction of long polyubiquitin chains with defined branch structures that will facilitate the understanding of the essential relationships between functions and structures of the heterotypic chain that have hitherto been overlooked.

Digital advanced work packaging – a case study in construction-led delivery

Advanced Work Packaging (AWP), a Project Management methodology, has been adopted to deliver the Viva Energy Gas Terminal Project. AWP is a recognised industry best practice, which aligns Engineering, Supply Chain Management and Construction towards an optimised execution sequence, driven by Construction and Commissioning. AWP accomplishes this through standardised project planning and effective information and data flow for the duration of the project under a unified plan. Worley has developed a unique framework and digital delivery method for AWP based on the Construction Industry Institute standard. The underlying strategy that enables AWP to succeed is defining the execution sequence early and collaboratively, as well as, committing to a unified plan between Engineering, Supply Chain, Fabrication, Construction, Completions and Start-Up. Construction-led delivery using digital AWP enables the sequencing of engineering deliverables based on Construction and Commissioning sequences, allowing the right people to work on the right issues at the right time. Through application of an AWP compliant Level III Schedule that provides visibility across Engineering, Procurement and Construction, we have been able to determine the impact of delays and mitigate to facilitate successful execution. Based on the application of AWP on projects using the Construction Industry Institute standard, significant improvements in overall project delivery outcomes have been achieved; with productivity improvements of up to 25%, improved schedule outcomes with 80% of projects either on time or ahead of schedule and Total Installed Cost savings of 3–10%.

Enabling the smart supply chain ecosystems: A multi-parameter decentralized model for Supply Chain 5.0

The paper presents a decentralized mechanism for multiple contract parameters agreement within a group of companies that may act as suppliers or as consumers in the process of Supply Chain Formation (SCF). The suppliers and consumers are acted by agents and each agent has an utility function which provides for different combinations of values of contract parameters a particular utility level. The agents decide on different combinations of the values for the shared parameters during the supply chain construction process. Contracts between the parties include multiple parameters, and each is working to maximize utility, based on the specified contract parameters. The SCF problem is transposed into a cluster graph in which the nodes represent clusters over the agent’s utility function variables. Agents communicate through a message exchange mechanism which provides also constraints propagation from the underlying suppliers. The proposed model enhances the current state-of-the-art for SCF by using multiple contract parameters in the process of decentralized SCF and also provides means for dealing with complementary inputs.

Regional Carbon Emissions and Downstream and Upstream Supply Chain Decisions for Firms

The supply chain is essential for comprehending the financial behavior and decision-making of firms. Under the macro trend of reducing carbon emissions, there is a close connection between regional carbon emissions and corporate supply chain decisions. However, there exist few researches on the relationship between "regional carbon emissions" and "downstream and upstream supply chain concentration of firms". In view of this, this paper empirically analyses the impact of regional carbon emissions on the decision of downstream and upstream concentrations of firms, using the panel statistics of A-share listed firms in Shenzhen and Shanghai between 2008 and 2020 as the research samples. The findings show that regional carbon emissions have a significant heterogeneous impact on the downstream and upstream supply chain decisions of firms, reducing the upstream concentration of firms but strengthening the downstream concentration of firms. The mechanism analysis illustrates that regional carbon emissions decrease upstream supply chain concentration by forcing local firms to increase green innovation and weaken corporate governance and increase downstream supply chain concentration by raising the financial constraints of local firms. This paper not only enriches the field of research on influencing factors in corporate supply chain decision-making but also serves as a reference for the construction of green supply chains in the background of carbon neutrality, thus having significant practical implications as well as policy implications.

The impact of digital supply chain capabilities on enterprise sustainable competitive performance: an ambidextrous view

PurposeThe construction of digital supply chains to integrate internal and external resources is becoming an important path for manufacturing enterprises to gain competitiveness. However, at present, research on the internal mechanisms of digital supply chain capabilities (DSCC) and enterprise sustainable competitive performance (ESCP) has not been sufficiently studied. Based on contextual ambidexterity theory, this study investigates whether DSCC could enable the realization of supply chain ambidexterity and further explains the mediating role of supply chain ambidexterity on DSCC and ESCP, and the boundary conditions of supply chain governance on supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP.Design/methodology/approachWith a survey data set of 232 Chinese manufacturing enterprises from different industries, the study empirically tests a moderated mediating model and conducts hierarchical linear modeling and bootstrap to test the study's hypotheses.FindingsThe results demonstrate that: (1) DSCC positively enhance ESCP; (2) supply chain ambidexterity, which can be regarded as a synergic ability of supply chain alignment and adaptability, partially mediates the positive relationship between DSCC and ESCP; and (3) supply chain governance such as incentive governance positively moderates the association between supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP, but there is no evidence that relational governance moderates their relationship.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a new interpretive perspective to understand digital supply chains. More importantly, it reveals the importance of DSCC in contributing toward supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP, and demonstrates the differential regulating action of incentive and relational governance on the association between supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP, with implications for both academics and practitioners.

The introduction of the disconnection approach into polymer synthesis

AbstractThe disconnection approach, a widely utilized method of design synthesis route, has played crucial roles in contemporary organic chemistry for decades. Here, we provide an introduction to the construction of polymer main chains. The implementation of the strategy hinges on determining where to disconnect based on the successful polymerization reaction in order to infer a suitable monomer. By investigating specific covalent bonds and structures in polymers, several specific linkers are highlighted to demonstrate how to design and synthesize polymer main chains using reverse thinking, thus inspiring those in polymer synthesis.

Stochastic chaining and strengthened information-theoretic generalization bounds

We propose a new approach to apply the chaining technique in conjunction with information-theoretic measures to bound the generalization error of machine learning algorithms. Different from the deterministic chaining approach based on hierarchical partitions of a metric space, previously proposed by Asadi et al., we propose a stochastic chaining approach, which replaces the hierarchical partitions with an abstracted Markovian model borrowed from successive refinement source coding. This approach has three benefits over deterministic chaining: (1) the metric space is not necessarily bounded, (2) facilitation of subsequent analysis to yield more explicit bound, and (3) further opportunity to optimize the bound by removing the geometric rigidity of the partitions. The proposed approach includes the traditional chaining as a special case, and can therefore also utilize any deterministic chaining construction. We illustrate these benefits using the problem of estimating Gaussian mean and that of phase retrieval. For the former, we derive a bound that provides an order-wise improvement over previous results, and for the latter we provide a stochastic chain that allows optimization over the chaining parameter.