Store Operations Research Articles

Letter To The Editor: Smartphone Apps for Orthopaedic Surgeons

To The Editor We read with interest the article “Smartphone apps for Orthopaedic Surgeons” by Franko in the July 2011 issue of CORR® [5]. We welcome any technology that would augment surgical training and lead to prudent use of time and resources, and even more so in the UK health system. The introduction of the European Working Time Directive [2] has meant shortening of total time spent in training. Although Franko reported that there are few specific highly ranked orthopaedic apps available [5], we think there are numerous applications that may be used to meet the needs of an orthopaedic trainee. Anatomy is the fundamental basis of surgery, and titles such as Grays Anatomy for Students [3], Instant Anatomy [11], Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy [8], and others are available as apps in various formats such as flashcards, three-dimensional animation, quizzes, video lectures, and podcasts. Pastest (PasTest Ltd., Knutsford, Cheshire, United Kingdom) also produces a handy revision application that allows access to question banks and podcasts via the smartphone or iPad (Apple Inc, Cupertino, CA), but it requires an existing subscription. AO Surgery Reference (AO Foundation, Davos. Switzerland) is a free comprehensive trauma application. It discusses fracture diagnosis, classification, management of the fracture and the surgical approach to the area in question. The app also explains the evidence basis behind management options. Campbell’s Operative Orthopaedics [1] also has an app that includes images and videos for 242 trauma and elective procedures. CORE (Clinically Relevant Technologies, Philadelphia, PA, USA) is a clinical examination application that uses images, video, and text to show techniques and diagnostic tests and is ideal for clinical examinations and revision. Surgical Instrument app (DD Surgical LLC, Allentown, PA, USA) teaches commonly used surgical instruments via a game. Furthermore the popular resource Orthobullets [9], which has comprehensive information for trauma, elective subspecialties, anatomy, physiology, pathology, and an extensive question bank, is aimed at senior trainees preparing for postgraduate examinations. Orthobullets is free and has a mobile version of its desktop site and is in the process of developing an app. The Kindle app (Amazon Mobile LLC, Seattle, WA, USA) allows many books available on Amazon to be available as ebooks on a smartphone or tablet device. Thus popular titles such as Review of Orthopaedics [7], Netter’s Concise Orthopaedic Anatomy [10], and other books that do not have apps are available on your smartphone. Other useful applications include the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Surgery [6] and the British National Formulary (MedHand International AB, London, UK) which are useful in perioperative and postoperative management of patients, especially for junior doctors. The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and many other journals are available as apps, which are useful at numerous levels, but often require a subscription, but provide free abstracts. The eLogbook [4] is an integral part of British surgical training, and Mobile eLogbook app (NR IT LTD, Gravesend, Kent, United Kingdom) that can be used to store and upload operation data to this website is available. Other functions of a smartphone include internet connectivity, email, calculator, camera, voice recording and dictation, and calendar can facilitate organization, administration, and communication between professionals. Many smartphones also can store policies and procedures specific to one’s local hospital. Finally, the use of certain apps and functions of smartphones can be fraught with danger regarding medicolegal and ethical issues. The Mobile eLogbook is one such app that stores patient data such as hospital number, age, sex, date of birth, and operative details. The app has enhanced security in place for users to be sure that patient confidentiality and data are protected. Other functions of a smartphone such as the use of the camera, video, and email have the propensity to breach patient data and confidentiality. Thus, surgeons must remain vigilant as power comes with responsibility, and patient confidentiality and data, and the surgeon’s integrity and professionalism must be safeguarded when using new technologies.

Cyber-Plagiarism for Sale! : The Growing Problem of Blatant Copyright Infringement in Online Digital Media Stores

While much ink and rhetoric have been spilled over cyber-piracy, there has been little mention of the problem of what we shall call 'cyber-plagiarism': thieves copying completely the works of others and selling them on online digital media stores like Apple’s App Store and Amazon’s Kindle Store. Because the current state of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act does not properly address cyber-plagiarism and digital media stores, this article suggests a new safe harbor to be added to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that is fair both to the legitimate authors and to digital media store operators. The proposed safe harbor would clarify many of the ambiguities of the current § 512(c) safe harbor for “Information Residing on Systems or Networks At Direction of Users”; it would place slightly more stringent duties on digital media store operators, in return for significantly limiting the amount of damages for which the operators would be liable under secondary copyright liability.

Chromogranin A-Derived Peptides Are Involved in Innate Immunity

New endogenous antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) derived from chromogranin A (CgA) are secreted by nervous, endocrine and immune cells during stress. They display antimicrobial activities by lytic effects at micromolar range using a pore-forming mechanism against Gram-positive bacteria, filamentous fungi and yeasts. These AMPs can also penetrate quickly into neutrophils (without lytic effects), where, similarly to "cell penetrating peptides", they interact with cytoplasmic calmodulin, and induce calcium influx via Store Operated Channels therefore triggering neutrophils activation. Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella enteritis are bacteria responsible for severe infections. We investigated here the effects of S. aureus and S. enteritis bacterial proteases on CgA-derived peptides and evaluated their antimicrobial activities. We showed that the Glu-C protease produced by S. aureus V8 induces the loss of the AMPs antibacterial activities and produces new antifungal peptides. In addition, four antimicrobial CGA-derived peptides (chromofungin, procatestatin, human/bovine catestatin) are degraded when treated with bacterial supernatants from S. aureus and S. enteritis, whereas, cateslytin, the short active form of catestatin, resists to this degradation. Finally, we demonstrate that several antimicrobial CgA-derived peptides are able to act synergistically with antibiotics against bacteria and fungi indicating their roles in innate defense.

Abstract interpretation of microcontroller code: Intervals meet congruences

Bitwise instructions, loops and indirect data access present challenges to the verification of microcontroller programs. In particular, since registers are often memory mapped, it is necessary to show that an indirect store operation does not accidentally mutate a register. To prove this and related properties, this article advocates using the domain of bitwise linear congruences in conjunction with intervals to derive accurate range information. The paper argues that these two domains complement one another when reasoning about microcontroller code. The paper also explains how SAT solving, which applied with dichotomic search, can be used to recover branching conditions from binary code which, in turn, further improves interval analysis.

A study on the promotion of the business service for regional retail store using smart technology

Recently, large supermarkets causing new changes in the domestic distribution structure with price break and large store operation are expanding their advancement of super supermarket (SSM) into sm...

The Use of e-Business by Small Companies in Emerging Countries: Reflections on a Business Model

Organizations have been taking advantage of e-business as an innovative opportunity to improve business results, but small companies have not been adopting this tool as quickly as large corporations. There are several studies on the adoption of e-business in developed countries, but there are fewer studies on this topic in emerging Latin American countries. Thus, the goal of this study is to describe the business model of small companies that have adopted e-business in the trade and service sectors of an emerging Latin American country. We evaluate the results and difficulties of adopting e-business using a quantitative approach trough a survey data. The main results of the study are as follows: the owners/shareholders evidently play a central role in making decisions about the adoption of e-business, the main value delivered from using the internet is improved brand or product awareness, and one-third of the companies surveyed have already separated physical store operations from the virtual store. The companies using e-business achieved increased business and an expanded geographic scope of sales. The main difficulty that they encountered was training personnel to work on the internet.

Eliminating read barriers through procrastination and cleanliness

Managed languages typically use read barriers to interpret forwarding pointers introduced to keep track of copied objects. For example, in a multicore environment with thread-local heaps and a global, shared heap, an object initially allocated on a local heap may be copied to a shared heap if it becomes the source of a store operation whose target location resides on the shared heap. As part of the copy operation, a forwarding pointer may be established in the original object to point to the copied object. This level of indirection avoids the need to update all of the references to the object that has been copied. In this paper, we consider the design of a managed runtime that eliminates read barriers. Our design is premised on the availability of a sufficient degree of concurrency to stall operations that would otherwise necessitate the copy. Stalled actions are deferred until the next local collection, avoiding exposing forwarding pointers to the mutator. In certain important cases, procrastination is unnecessary -- lightweight runtime techniques can sometimes be used to allow objects to be eagerly copied when their set of incoming references is known, or when it can be determined that having multiple copies would not violate program semantics. We evaluate our techniques on 3 platforms: a 16-core AMD64 machine, a 48-core Intel SCC, and an 864-core Azul Vega 3. Experimental results over a range of parallel benchmarks indicate that our approach leads to notable performance gains (20 - 32% on average) without incurring any additional complexity.

Micro business enterprise of Bumiputera Malays, Malaysia

This research focuses on micro-enterprise of Malaysian Malays that are involved in very small-scaled business activities. Among them include food stall and burger stall operators, night market hawkers, grocery store operators as well as construction and small service activities works. The study seeks to explore why some micro-entrepreneurs still lag in entrepreneurship and what needs to be rectified. This quantitative study is conducted on 173 Malay micro-enterprise owners (MEOs) and 58 Malay failed micro-enterprise owners (FMEOs) involved in all range of businesses throughout the state of Perak, Malaysia. The main aims are to identify the gaps between the failed micro-enterprise owners (FMEOs) and existing micro-enterprise owners (MEOs) and the problems faced among FMEOs. The results reveal that the MEOs had strong motivations and better marketing approaches as compared to FMEOs. Furthermore, the FMEOs failed in the business ventures mainly due to lack of management, sales and marketing skills and poor competitive abilities to keep up with rivals. Key words: Micro-enterprises, Malays, entrepreneurship, rivals.

RFID tracking in the book supply chain: the transition from postponed to speculative tagging

This paper addresses the question regarding the point at which books should be tagged in the book supply chain, and where tracking could begin at different levels of adoption among retailers. Alternative solution designs are analysed by comparing the costs and benefits of the supply chain-wide radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging with RFID tracking solutions that cover only part of the supply chain. The analysis is based on modelling the RFID tag as a product feature and considering the tagging of books as a potential postponement decision. The cost estimates are based on activity-based costing and used to compare alternative solution designs for introducing RFID tracking in book retailing. Attaching RFID tags in the manufacturing phase is in many settings likely to be cheaper than downstream tagging. However, early tagging requires a threshold share of retailers to adopt RFID tracking in their store operations and be willing to bear the additional product costs.

의류 판매원의 감정 노동에 관한 질적 연구 -패스트 패션 판매원을 중심으로-

This study investigates the emotional labor of fast fashion sales personnel using the qualitative research method. The research was performed through an in-depth interview with 10 sales personnel (managers, coordinators, head cashiers, and sales associates) who experienced fast fashion brands from July to October in 2011. The results of this study provide that fast fashion brands do have specific feeling rules and display behavior. Even though the sales personnel spend an extremely short time (about 1 minute) to serve customers, most of them experience exhaustion, fatigue, burnout and self-alienation because of emotional dissonance. Sales personnel do deep-acting and surface acting simultaneously and interviewees who have longer and more sales experience express less emotional dissonance. To reduce the negative results of emotional labor, the company plays an important role through the organizational culture; in addition, deep-acting could be recommended for a beginner until they are comfortable with sales. The results of this study provide the elements of emotional labor in a fast fashion and practical suggestions for store operation and sales personnel training.

A balanced scorecard for item-level RFID in the retail sector: a Delphi study

Item-level Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) adoption is on the agenda for many retailers. However, before adopting this technology, managers need to be able to identify its direct and indirect benefits. These benefits are expected to be significant and have begun to be studied empirically and analytically in narrow, isolated segments (e.g., supply chain management). In this paper, we focus on applications of RFID in the retail sector, specifically in store operations. We have adapted the balanced scorecard (BSC) model as a decision-making framework to build a holistic model of RFID-enabled changes throughout retail store operations including marketing, merchandising, and supply chain management. After reviewing the existing literature, we conducted a Delphi study in which 10 consultants and senior managers from leading U.S. retailers were interviewed. The results indicate that benefits in the areas of merchandising and marketing may not be realized as directly as those in the supply chain, but their effects should not be underestimated. The proposed BSC model can also indicate potential opportunities for item-level RFID use in retailing and serve as a guideline for further studies.

Experimental and theoretical investigations of solidification and melting of ice for the design and operation of an ice store

The Institute for Thermodynamics and Thermal Engineering (ITW) of the University of Stuttgart has developed a novel solar powered 10 kW absorption chiller. This chiller was implemented in the cooling system of the institute's building. To achieve a higher efficiency of the cooling system and to extend the hours of operation, a small ice store was designed, constructed and experimentally investigated. The experimental investigations include charging and discharging processes at different inlet temperatures and for different heat exchanger areas. For theoretical investigations a simulation program was developed and validated. Based on the results of these investigations a final heat exchanger design was established. In a further step the ice store was integrated into the building's cooling system. Long term measurements of the cooling system have shown good in-service behaviour of the ice store which fits the specific requirements of the cooling system in combination with the absorption chiller quite well.

Evaluation and Control of Break-Even Time of Nonvolatile Static Random Access Memory Based on Spin-Transistor Architecture with Spin-Transfer-Torque Magnetic Tunnel Junctions

The energy performance of a nonvolatile static random access memory (NV-SRAM) cell for power gating applications was quantitatively analyzed for the first time using the performance index of break-even time (BET). The NV-SRAM cell is based on spin-transistor architecture using ordinary metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) and spin-transfer-torque magnetic tunnel junctions (STT-MTJs), whose circuit representation of spin-transistor is referred to as a pseudo-spin-MOSFET (PS-MOSFET). The cell is configured with a standard six-transistor SRAM cell and two PS-MOSFETs. The NV-SRAM cell basically has a short BET of submicroseconds. Although the write (store) operation to the STT-MTJs causes an increase in the BET, it can be successfully reduced by the proposed power-aware bias-control for the PS-MOSFETs.

Evaluation and Control of Break-Even Time of Nonvolatile Static Random Access Memory Based on Spin-Transistor Architecture with Spin-Transfer-Torque Magnetic Tunnel Junctions

The energy performance of a nonvolatile static random access memory (NV-SRAM) cell for power gating applications was quantitatively analyzed for the first time using the performance index of break-even time (BET). The NV-SRAM cell is based on spin-transistor architecture using ordinary metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) and spin-transfer-torque magnetic tunnel junctions (STT-MTJs), whose circuit representation of spin-transistor is referred to as a pseudo-spin-MOSFET (PS-MOSFET). The cell is configured with a standard six-transistor SRAM cell and two PS-MOSFETs. The NV-SRAM cell basically has a short BET of submicroseconds. Although the write (store) operation to the STT-MTJs causes an increase in the BET, it can be successfully reduced by the proposed power-aware bias-control for the PS-MOSFETs.

Savings from Recommissioning and Beyond

ABSTRACT Recommissioning, or periodically resolving the operational shortcomings of building systems such as lighting; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC); water heating; and refrigeration has been demonstrated to be one of the most cost effective methods for reducing energy use. However, there are simple control or design strategies beyond recommissioning that can be implemented post-design and save energy. There is often resistance to energy savings strategies that require changes to the status quo. Accordingly, it is important for building managers striving to achieve voluntary or mandatory energy intensity reduction goals to achieve “buy in” throughout all levels of their organization. This includes designers, management, store associates, and maintenance personnel. If any of these key players does not understand or does not support the recommendations, it will not be long before the energy saving measures are disabled or overridden. The building selected for this study is a supermarket located in the southeastern U.S. It occupies 71,000 square feet and is open six days a week, 24 hours per day. The refrigeration system, consisting of five compressor racks (three medium-temperature and two low-temperature) with associated air-cooled condensers, serves refrigerated display cases and walk-in coolers. The primary HVAC system is a constant volume, dual path, packaged rooftop air handler with direct expansion cooling. Heating is provided from either hot gas heat reclaim or electric resistance heating. The refrigerated display case lighting, sales area lighting, HVAC, and refrigeration are controlled by an integrated refrigeration monitoring and control system (RMCS). In addition to the recommissioning, four energy savings measures were studied. These measures are listed below, along with typical objections to implementation. 1. Cycle air handling units (AHUs) after business hours, based on space temperature and humidity setpoint changes. Many designers and supermarket store operators feel that if the sales area AHUs are turned off, then the temperature and humidity levels will vary too much. This could cause additional maintenance problems due to extra display case defrosts and the possibility of accompanying product loss.2. Adjust anti-sweat heater control settings to reduce operating times. Often the anti-sweat heater settings are set so conservatively that the heaters operate at higher levels than needed. Will the new settings cause condensation to form on glass doors and mullions?3. Implement floating head pressure control strategy. Will reduced pressures cause problems with incomplete oil distribution throughout the refrigeration system? Will reduced head pressures cause heat reclaim to be uneconomical?4. Return the domestic hot water recirculation loop to the heat reclaim tank rather than bypassing it and going directly to the primary heating tank. Does this change create additional problems? Are the additional savings worth the effort? To measure and verify the savings generated by these energy savings measures, the supermarket's systems were extensively metered, including the following systems: 1. Sales area AHU 1 fan, compressors, and electric resistance heat2. Sales area AHU 2 fan, compressors, and electric resistance heat3. Sales area AHU 1 electric resistance heat4. Sales area AHU 2 electric resistance heat5. Refrigeration systems A-D (two low- and two medium-temperature compressor racks, including their associated condensers)6. Refrigeration system E (medium-temperature compressor rack with associated condenser)7. Domestic water heater electric resistance heating8. Domestic water heater cold water supply volume9. Main electric utility supply feed All meter readings were collected on site and transmitted to an off-site server that is accessible via the internet. Data for outside air temperature and relative humidity from a local weather site were also recorded. The RMCS was the focus of our efforts. We adjusted mechanical control valves and reprogrammed the RMCS to minimize energy consumption while maintaining the required temperatures in the display cases and walk-in coolers. Electricity consumption and weather data were collected before and after each test. We performed regression analyses on each set of data, using the hourly outside air temperature as the independent variable. The results produced equations that can be used to estimate supermarket power use as a function of outside air temperature. These equations were developed for the baseline, after recommissioning and after implementing each of the four energy savings measures. This article documents our efforts to quantify energy savings attributable to recommissioning and the four energy conservation measures (ECMs) that go beyond recommissioning. At the same time, we verified that the objections accompanying each ECM were refuted with both measureable data and on-site observations.

유통매장 내 쇼핑 동선 분석을 위한 에이전트 기반 시뮬레이터 개발

Recently the effort of retailers improving the efficiency of store operations by using the information technology (IT) is increasing. Among them, the analysis of the shoppers’ flow in retail stores is one of the critical tasks since it is an essential part in optimizing store layout and item grouping, and in developing the customized services specialized to shoppers’ classification. Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation (ABMS) is one of the most promising methods which support analyzing the shoppers’ flow. In this paper, we suggested a shopper’s behavior model and developed an agent-based simulator for optimizing the operations of retail stores. In order to model the shoppers’ behavior, we analyzed the behavioral characteristics of shoppers based on their shopping lists, suggesting BDI-based agent models of the shoppers’ behavior. The shopping agent model were suggested, which has an additional mental state, the shopper’s behavioral characteristic, as well as the original mental states of the BDI theory which has beliefs, desires and Intentions. The result of this study can be used in as a preliminary study for modeling and simulation of retail stores congestion and in the end the optimization of item grouping and store layout.

Challenges And Opportunities For Development of Retail in India: a Review of Foreign Direct Investment (Fdi)

Indian customer is younger, more tech savvy, willing to experiment, demanding and short on patience, but on the other hand, willing to spend and patronize a brand if treated well and given a good deal. As a result the store operations in general have evolved significantly in the last five years. The Indian retail market is estimated to exceed US$750 billion by 2015 (Indian Retail Report, 2013), presenting a strong potential for foreign retailers planning to enter India. The recent wave of reforms by the government to incentivize Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in various sectors is bringing a new zeal to the investment climate in India. One of the most debated reforms is the policy for allowing 51percent FDI in multi-brand retail. However, the foreign retailers will have to accept the policy with number of conditions laid down by the policy makers. This paper will review the implications of the policy across retail segments as well as foreign retailers.

SERAF, a Novel Regulator of Store Operated Calcium Entry

Store operated calcium entry (SOCE) is a principal cellular process by which cells regulate basal calcium, refill intracellular calcium stores and execute a wide range of specialized activities. In recent years tremendous progress has been made in understanding the nature of the molecular components and events that govern SOCE activation. STIM and Orai were identified as the essential components able to reconstitute Ca2+ release-activated Ca2+ (CRAC) channels that mediate SOCE. Here, we report the molecular identification of SERAF, a novel regulator of SOCE. Using heterologous expression, RNAi-mediated silencing and site directed mutagenesis, combined with electrophysiological, biochemical and imaging techniques; we show that SERAF is an endoplasmic reticulum membrane protein that associates with STIM to facilitate SOCE inactivation following calcium refilling. SERAF, therefore, plays a key role in shaping cytosolic Ca2+ signals and determining the content of the major intracellular calcium stores, role that is likely to be important for protecting cells from calcium overfilling.

Experimental evaluation of business impacts of RFID in apparel and retail supply chain

The purpose of this paper is to present and quantify the business benefits that can be achieved through the deployment of Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in the apparel and fash- ion supply chain. The goal is to provide quantitative results regarding logistics and store processes, as well as different areas and processes that could be affected by RFID, including both operational aspects (e.g. shipping and receiving, inventory counts, etc.) and strategic issues related to garments try-ons, store replenishment, inventory management, customer satisfaction and sales volume. Results presented stem from an experimental campaign carried out in Italy in 2010. We applied RFID UHF gen2 tags to approximately 20,000 garments of the spring/summer and fall/winter 2010 collections, shipped from a distribution centre to a retail store of a major Italian fashion brand. We monitored the flow of goods through the logistics pipeline by means of mobile and fixed RFID readers, and collected the related data. Through proper elaboration of those data, we provided an estimate of the RFID benefits, both at operational and strategic levels. The main findings of our research have to be found in a punctual assessment of savings and increase in sales volume that can be achieved in the apparel supply chain through RFID deployment, with a special focus at the store level. Specifically, RFID is proven to provide benefits at operational levels through increased visibility of materials flows, labour reduction and higher accuracy of the store operations; moreover, it is demonstrated that the greatest contribution of RFID lies in its ability to provide new data, which allows consistently increasing sales and improving customer satisfaction.

RFID-enabled shelf replenishment with backroom monitoring in retail stores

This contribution is concerned with the value of RFID for retail store operations, particularly the use of the technology to automate shelf replenishment decisions. We construct and test an inventory control policy based on RFID data with case-level tagging. Our model incorporates RFID hardware capable of detecting bidirectional product movements between a store's backroom and the sales floor. In contrast to prior research, we account for detection errors caused by imperfect RFID read rates. Furthermore, we propose and evaluate a simple heuristic extension to avoid some of the inherent downsides of fully automatic inventory control. We compare the performance of these policies under stochastic demand, lost sales, and shrinkage to the traditional scheme with periodic reviews in a simulation study. Our results indicate that RFID-based policies have the potential to improve cost efficiency and service levels. However, different sensitivities to cost factors and suboptimal read rates must be considered when choosing a policy.