Information Processing Industry Research Articles

Ultrahigh thermal rectification based on near-field thermal radiation between dissimilar nanoparticles

The capability of manipulating heat flux at the nanoscale has many promising applications in modern electronics and information processing industries. In this paper, a design to achieve ultrahigh thermal rectification is proposed based on near-field thermal radiation between nanoparticles made of intrinsic silicon and a dissimilar material. A record-high rectification ratio of more than 104 is theoretically demonstrated, and the underlying mechanism lies in the prominent increase of imaginary part of dielectric function of intrinsic silicon induced by thermally excited electrons at high temperatures. Effects of gap distances, materials and configurations of nanoparticles on the rectification ratio are also investigated. This work may pave the way for the design of efficient thermal diodes, thermal transistors, and other thermotronics devices.

High-performance noncontact thermal diode via asymmetric nanostructures

Electric diodes, though laying the foundation of modern electronics and information processing industries, suffer from ineffectiveness and even failure at high temperatures. Thermal diodes are promising alternatives to relieve above limitations, but usually possess low rectification ratios, and how to obtain a high-performance thermal rectification effect is still an open question. This paper proposes an efficient contactless thermal diode based on the near-field thermal radiation of asymmetric doped silicon nanostructures. The rectification ratio computed via exact scattering theories is demonstrated to be as high as 10 at a nanoscale gap distance and period, outperforming the counterpart flat-plate diode by more than one order of magnitude. This extraordinary performance mainly lies in the higher forward and lower reverse radiative heat flux within the low frequency band compared with the counterpart flat-plate diode, which is caused by a lower loss and smaller cut-off wavevector of nanostructures for the forward and reversed scheme, respectively. This work opens new routes to realize high performance thermal diodes, and may have wide applications in efficient thermal computing, thermal information processing, and thermal management.

Spontaneous valley splitting and valley pseudospin field effect transistors of monolayer VAgP2Se6.

Valleytronics has attracted much attention due to its potential applications in the information processing industry. Creation of permanent valley polarization (PVP), i.e. unbalanced occupation at different valleys, is a vital requirement for practical devices in valleytronics. However, the development of an appropriate material with PVP remains a main challenge. Here we used first-principles calculations to predict that the spin-orbit coupling and magnetic ordering allow spontaneous valley Zeeman-type splitting in the pristine monolayer of VAgP2Se6. After suitable doping of VAgP2Se6, the Zeeman-type valley splitting results in a PVP, similar to the effect of spin polarization in spintronics. The VAgP2Se6 monolayer has nonequivalent valleys which can emit or absorb circularly polarized photons with opposite chirality. It thus shows great potential to be used as a photonic chirality filter and a circularly polarized light source. We then designed a valley pseudospin field effect transistor (VPFET) based on the monolayer VAgP2Se6, akin to the spin field effect transistors. In contrast to the current common transistors, VPFETs carry information of not only the electrons but also the valley pseudospins, far beyond common transistors.

A Survey of Big Data Issues in Electronic Health Record Analysis

ABSTRACTThe Electronic Health Record (EHR) groups all digital documents related to a given patient such as anamnesis, results of the laboratory tests, prescriptions, recorded medical signals as ECG or images, etc. Dealing with such data representation incurs a plethora of problems, such as different data types, even unstructured data (i.e., doctor’s notes), huge and fast-growing volume, etc. Therefore. EHR should be considered as one of the most complex data objects in the information processing industry. Accordingly, taking into consideration its complexity, heterogeneity, fast growth, and size, the analysis of EHR data increasingly needs big data tools. Such tools should be able to analyze datasets characterized by the so-called 4Vs (volume, velocity, variety, and veracity). These notwithstanding, we should also add the fifth V—value—because analytics tool deployment makes sense only if it leads to health-care improvement (as personalized patient care, decreasing unnecessary hospitalization, or reducing patient readmissions). In this study, we focus on the selected aspects of EHR analysis from the big data perspective.

An organic jelly made fractal logic gate with an infinite truth table.

Widely varying logic gates invented over a century are all finite. As data deluge problem looms large on the information processing and communication industry, the thrust to explore radical concepts is increasing rapidly. Here, we design and synthesis a molecule, wherein, the input energy transmits in a cycle inside the molecular system, just like an oscillator, then, we use the molecule to make a jelly that acts as chain of oscillators with a fractal like resonance band. Hence, with the increasing detection resolution, in the vacant space between two energy levels of a given resonance band, a new band appears, due to fractal nature, generation of newer energy levels never stops. This is natural property of a linear chain oscillator. As we correlate each energy level of the resonance band of organic jelly, as a function of pH and density of the jelly, we realize a logic gate, whose truth table is finite, but if we zoom any small part, a new truth table appears. In principle, zooming of truth table would continue forever. Thus, we invent a new class of infinite logic gate for the first time.

Comparing concepts for shop floor control of information-processing services in a job shop setting: a case from the financial services sector

Controlling information-based service processes in the short term is a major challenge. Within these processes, information is collected, generated and transformed while customers are directly involved. Typically, such processes are characterised by a job shop layout that increases complexity relating to shop floor control. In contrast to manufacturing, such settings have rarely been addressed in the literature to date. This is surprising, as information-processing services exist in every industry. Thus, evidence about the impact of concepts for shop floor control in such pure service environments is needed. As a case study, we use one of the most intense information-processing industries – the financial services sector. A simulation model is built using process mining as a novel approach to gather a major part of the relevant data from business information systems. We identify nine concepts for shop floor control and simulate the usage of these in six scenarios. The results show that the concept that prioritises customer orders with the longest expected processing time is superior in cycle time over all six scenarios. The application of this concept leads to a reduction of the average cycle time of almost 50% in the case study.

The History of Computing in Colour: A Picture Essay

This article explores the use of colour imagery in the history of computing. Colour pictures were expensive to produce and were created for reasons largely unconnected with the technology they were illustrating, and therefore offer new pathways through the history of information processing. The first part of this article describes photographic and printed sources of images. It then goes on to illustrate some early developments in the information processing industry and computer applications.

Early punched card equipment: 1880-1951 [Scanning Our Past

Punched card tabulating equipment, invented and developed by Herman Hollerith, was the first mechanized means for compiling and analyzing statistical information. For over half a century, its continued improvement created and expanded the global information processing industry.

The Rise of the Information Processing Patent

Now is the right time to revisit an old but still contentious question: should software and business methods be patentable? On the legal front, the debate hinges over whether a claimed invention consisting of an information processing step plus a trivial physical step can be claimed as a bona fide physical innovation. The Supreme Court ruled three times that it can not, but the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the combination must be considered as a whole, meaning that it is to be treated like any other physical invention. On the economic front, there is no self-contained information processing industry: every business in every field uses software and business methods. For a multitude of reasons, patents are ill-suited for such massively decentralized industries. Therefore, this paper recommends a return to the distinction that inventions consisting of information processing plus a trivial physical step be barred from patentability.

Response to the Symposium: Framing Business History

The contribution by Richard Langlois essentially supports my approach. Naomi Lamoreaux, Dan Raff, and Peter Temin (LRT) disagree in terms of economic theory. Charles Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin, again in terms of economic theory, disagree with both Langlois and LRT on the creation of the New Economy. I begin my comments by challenging Langlois's statement that quarter century later, however, the firm no longer domi nates the landscape. It is under siege from a panoply of decentralized and market-like forms (p. 355}. This statement is echoed by the other contributors, but it violates historical realities. As the new preface to Inventing the Electronic Century indicates, the information revolution that created today's New Economy was carried out by enterprises as large as those that created the earlier industrial revolution. RCA commercialized the new audio and video technology. After RCA destroyed itself in the 1960s and 1970s through unrelated diver sification, Japanese giants, Sony, Matshushita, Sanyo, (split off from Matshushita), and Sharp fully dominated the American, European, and the rest of the world's markets in a way that the Chandlerian com panies in the industrial revolution never did. (For example, Ford only achieved 50 percent of the U.S. market in one year, 1920}. So, too, in information technology (IT}, IBM had dominated the information-processing industry from its beginnings in 1912. This dominance increased once it completed the conversion from the

The Strategy and Action in the Information Processing Industry Course (S370) at Stanford Business School: Themes, Conceptual Frameworks, Related Tools

This paper provides an overview of the key themes, conceptual frameworks and related tools that are used to examine cases and industry notes in the course 'Strategy and Action in the Information Processing Industry' an applied industry analysis course that we have co-taught at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business since 1991. Through at least two business cycles and an Internet boom and bust the course has explored the impact of relentless technological change, major deregulation, and increasing globalization of competition on the structure and evolution of the information technology industry.

The evolution of user-centered focus in the human-computer interaction field

About 20 years have passed since the first conferences dedicated to human-computer interaction (HCI) were held. In that time many changes have occurred in how we think about making use of data gathered from users of technology to guide the process of designing and developing new hardware and software systems. Throughout this process there has been a productive dialog among academic and industry-based researchers and usability engineering practitioners. Academic research has provided insights into methods for understanding and modeling user behavior, and industry has provided a wide range of exciting technologies for consideration by researchers in HCI. This paper looks at the evolution of the field from the behavioral science perspective. We consider the evolution of the field within professional groups, such as the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI) and the International Federation for Information Processing Technical Committee (IFIP TC13), academic departments (primarily in computer science departments), and industry (primarily within IBM). In this paper we offer a view of this journey of 20 years, along with some visions and challenges of the future.

AN INFORMATION SHARING, INTERNET-BASED, SYSTEM FOR PROJECT CONTROL

The construction industry is an intensive information processing industry. Historically, there have always been problems in exchanging information between the various project participants. A comprehensive literature review highlighted the difficulties and problems with present information systems. An Internet-based model was developed to enhance information sharing and access on construction projects. The model is based on a single repository of all project databases residing on the project main server which is accessible using Internet and Web related technologies.

The Subsidiarization of the Securities Industry and the Organization of Securities Fraud Networks to Return Profits in the 1980s

This article examines 48 well-known but little analyzed 1980s security fraud cases. Organizational and archival data, personal interviews, and court documents are used as data sources to define the networks involved in insider trading, parking, skimming warrants, taxfraud, and market manipulation. The fraud analyzed was embedded in a high information processing industry with fast-changing markets. It returned exceptional rewards to both host units and individual members who retained nearly one half of every million dollars they grossed from fraud. Findings demonstrate that securities fraud activities require high centrality and intensity of communication combined with highly centralized decision making. These characteristics are incompatible in most multidivisional decentralized firms. Fraud networks emulate neither the structural contingency nor the secrecy models. The answer is found in the structural transformation of securities firms, during the late 1970s and 1980s, from multidivisional to multisubsidiary structures.

Information Technology as Business History: Issues in the History and Management of Computers

Preface General Introduction to the Study of Computing History The Industry's Structure An Introduction to the History of the Information Processing Industry Patterns in Office Equipment Technology and Business Practices The Applications for Computers The Case for Studying the History of How Computers Were Used Commercial Applications of the Digital Computer in American Corporations, 1945-1995 The Management of Information Processing Issues to be Studied in the History of Information Processing Management Information--the Corporate Asset Evolution of Information Processing Management, 1945-1995 Bibliographic Essay Index

The modern university: contributor to industrial innovation and recipient of industrial R&D support

The interface between industry and the universities is of key importance in the promotion of technological change in many industries. There is intense interest in the characteristics of universities that have contributed most importantly to industrial innovation in various fields, but unfortunately very little systematic study has been devoted to this important and complex topic. Also, we know little about the factors determining which universities firms will support to do R&D of various types. Based on data obtained from a carefully selected sample of major US firms in the electronic, information processing, chemical, petroleum, pharmaceutical, instruments, and metal industries, this paper sheds new light on these topics.

Second bibliographic guide to the history of computing, computers, and the information processing industry

Second bibliographic guide to the history of computing, computers, and the information processing industry

Ferroelectric Thin Films in Micro-electromechanical Systems Applications

Ferroelectric ceramic thin films fit naturally into the burgeoning field of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Microelectromechanical systems combine traditional Si integrated-circuit (IC) electronics with micromechanical sensing and actuating components. The term MEMS has become synonymous with many types of microfabricated devices such as accelerometers, infrared detectors, flow meters, pumps, motors, and mechanical components. These devices have lateral dimensions in the range of 10 μm–10 mm. The ultimate goal of MEMS is a self-contained system of interrelated sensing and actuating devices together with signal processing and control electronics on a common substrate, most often Si. Since fabrication involves methods common to the IC industry, MEMS can be mass-produced. Commercial applications for MEMS already span biomedical (e.g., blood-pressure sensors), manufacturing (e.g., microflow controllers), information processing (e.g., displays), and automotive (e.g., accelerometers) industries. More applications are projected in consumer electronics, manufacturing control, communications, and aerospace. Materials for MEMS include traditional microelectronic materials (e.g., Si, SiO2, Si3N4, polyimide, Pt, Al) as well as nontraditional ones (e.g., ferroelectric ceramics, shapememory alloys, chemical-sensing materials). The superior piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties of ferroelectric ceramics make them ideal materials for microactuators and microsensors.

Computer technology in eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union: An interpretative bibliography

Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States are going through deep and dramatic changes and are entering a new era. The development of high‐technology industries is considered crucial to help revitalize the economies of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the eastern provinces of Germany (former German Democratic Republic), Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the old Soviet Union. Moreover, the current status, operation, and progress of the information processing industry represent the most fascinating areas of old East Bloc industrialization. It is widely known that the majority of industries in these countries are obsolete in comparison with the Western countries. Computer and communications technologies comprise this branch of industry where the technological gap between East and West is the widest. Catching up with western countries would take eastern countries ten years for software and supercomputers, eight years for mainframes, six years for microprocessors, and five years for minicomputers. Western countries consider this necessity to catch up as one of the main obstacles to future European integration.

Modeling new venture performance: An analysis of new venture strategy, industry structure, and venture origin

This study examined the relative role of strategy, industry structure, and origin (independent vs. corporate or parental venture) on the profitability and growth of 247 new ventures in two segments of the information processing industry: computer-related and communications-related equipment manufacturing. Each of the 247 ventures was eight years old or less. Most previous research examining the role of these three factors in new venture performance has examined them singularly or in limited combinations with very few firms in their sample. The theoretical agenda in this study was to advance this research stream by simultaneously examining origin, strategy, and industry structure as well as the interaction between strategy and industry structure using a large sample of new ventures. The applications agenda in the study was to uncover patterns in the interactive role of strategy, structure, and origin that might provide meaningful insights to aid strategic decisions in new ventures. From the theoretical perspective, the study found that variability in new venture performance was better “accounted for” when all three factors were included in a statistical model. Overall, these results suggested that new venture strategy and industry structure and their interaction are essential for understanding new venture performance while origin is secondary (more important in explaining market share growth than higher profitability). Several study findings may be of interest to the practicing new venture strategist. The study uncovered eight basic strategy patterns across the 247 firms. A detailed description of these eight distinct patterns is provided in Appendix A of this article. Overall performance results suggest that no one strategy is always the best new venture strategy. But when we examined the fit of different strategies with different industry structures, we were able to distinguish high from low performing new ventures dramatically. In other words, specific new venture strategies were very effective in some industry settings and ineffective in others. For example, new venture entrepreneurs were able to successfully enter and compete in high barrier industries by employing strategies emphasizing superior product quality and higher customer service. Alternatively, when entry barriers were low, strong marketing skills offered the best advantage. The key to the success of these marketing-oriented ventures was the establishment of a distribution system in which products were pulled through by their strong brand identification and name recognition. These venture managers supported brand identification and name recognition with a high level of advertising and promotion experience and gave constant attention to adding new channels of distribution. Although earlier studies suggested that parented new ventures are more effective in achieving profitability, origin was not a significant explainer of profitability for the new ventures in this study. Much has been written recently that argues for creating an entrepreneurial climate in a corporation. Many corporations have wholeheartedly embraced efforts to foster an independent spirit among parented ventures, so much so that many corporations have attempted to replicate an independent climate in their corporate-sponsored start-ups. Rather than an origin difference between new ventures, perhaps it is the difference in the climate or spirit of the venture, or more specifically the manner in which the corporation manages the start-up, that accounts for profitability differences.