THE DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNOLOGY-ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND INDUSTRIAL DIFFERENTIATION

There is ample evidence that motor learning changes the function of perceptual systems. Previous studies examining the interactions between speech production and perception have shown that the discrimination of phonetic contrasts characterized by the difference in articulatory place features is altered following their production changes caused by the perturbation of auditory feedback. The present study focused on a voiced-voiceless contrast in stop consonants, which is characterized by a temporal articulatory parameter, voice-onset time (VOT). In the experiment, we manipulated the participants' motor functions concerning VOT using a cross-categorical auditory feedback (CAF) paradigm (Mitsuya et al. in J Acoust Soc Am 135:2986-2994, 2014), in which a pre-recorded syllable sound starting with a voiced stop consonant (/da/) was fed back simultaneously with the participant's utterance of a voiceless stop consonant (/ta/), and vice versa. The VOT difference between /da/ and /ta/ productions was increased by the CAF, which is consistent with the result of Mitsuya's study. In addition, we conducted perceptual identification tasks of /da/-/ta/ continuum stimuli varying in VOT before and after the CAF task, and found that the identification function became sharper after as compared to before the CAF task. A significant positive correlation between such production and perception changes was also found. On the basis of these results, we consider that the change in motor function concerning VOT affected voiced-voiceless perceptual processing. The present study is the first to show the involvement of the speech production system in the perception of phonetic contrasts characterized by articulatory temporal features.

SummaryThroughout the 1980s the Asian‐Pacific region (and especially fast Asian countries) has achieved rapid economic growth accompanied by drastic changes in industrial production and trade. In the textile and clothing industry (‘textile’ industry hereafter), exporting countries display the ‘flying geese’ pattern. The first‐tier exportec Japan, had retreated by the mid‐ 1970s. The second‐tier exporters, the East Asian newly industrializing economies (NIEs, consisting of South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong), are now being replaced by the third‐tier, ASEAN and Chinese exporters. The drastic changes in production and trade have resulted from the spread of modern textile production techniques in response to changing comparative advantage. This has been caused by increased labour costs and exchange rate alignment in the first‐and second‐tier exporters, but it has also been affected by the trade policies of industrial importer countries.The textile industry trade has been tightly managed under the Multi‐Fibre Arrangement (MFA), and individual trade flows have been restricted by quota allocation under the MFA. At the current GATT Uruguay Round negotiations the major contracting parties agreed, in the Dunkel text of December 7997, on the gradual phasing out of the MFA restrictions over ten years. How will textile industry trade develop in the absence of the MFA restrictions? This paper focuses on the trade and production of textiles and clothing, but the case of this industry exemplifies important trade policy issues arising from the rapidly changing industrial structure in the Asian‐Pacific region.In discussing textile trade policy issues, economists often focus on the MFA. However, the MFA has not produced a watertight regime. Textile production and trade have changed through product and process innovation, new management styles, and the ever‐changing tastes of consumers. The MFA restrictions have effected these innovative changes, but the policy issues need to be discussed in this context of industrial change.1

Changes in Mexico's domestic agricultural policy (PROCAMPO) and continued liberalization of trade through GATT and NAFTA have had strong effects on Mexico's agricultural production, consumption, and trade with the United States. The main objective of this study is to analyze these effects in Mexico's grain and livestock sectors. Policies within the NAFTA and GATT international trade agreements may overlap to some degree, and Mexico's domestic agricultural liberalization program (PROCAMPO) may include policies that overlap those in one or both of the international trade agreements. This study analyzes the effects of PROCAMPO, NAFTA, and pre-GATT policies compared to a baseline of current policy for 1994 through 2000 and forecast to 2005;To achieve this objective, the study analyzes the crop and livestock sectors within Mexico's economy and develops a domestic econometric supply and demand system based on economic theory. International agricultural trade is analyzed by deriving import demand and export supply relationships from the agricultural supply and demand model. Policy instruments for agricultural and trade liberalization are incorporated into the economic sectors developed in the model. Finally, changes in Mexico's production, consumption, and net trade patterns with the United States for grain crops and livestock are analyzed;The following procedures are employed in this research. An econometric model is developed for Mexico's livestock and crop sectors that includes supply and demand systems. An argument for determining the appropriate type of model is presented. The model represents economic behavior and policies as closely as possible, given such constraints as data availability and reliability. Mexico's import demand and export supply are derived from the supply and demand system. Policy instruments are incorporated into the model for PROCAMPO, GATT, pre-GATT, and NAFTA economic policies. Current trade and domestic policy as implemented by the government of Mexico are incorporated into the model's baseline scenario. The impacts of PROCAMPO, pre-GATT, and NAFTA policies on changes in production, consumption, and trade in Mexico's grain and livestock sectors are analyzed. An alternative scenario that depicts changes in Mexico's exchange rate is analyzed.

The use of a Quality by Design (QbD) approach in the development of pharmaceutical products is known to bring many advantages to the table, such as increased product and process knowledge, robust manufacturing processes, and regulatory flexibility regarding changes during the commercial phase. However, many companies still adhere to a more traditional pharmaceutical process development—in some cases due to the difficulty of going from a theoretical view of QbD to its actual application. This article presents a real-world case study for the development of an industrial pharmaceutical drug product (oral solid dosage form) using the QbD methodology, demonstrating the activities involved and the gains in obtaining systematic process and product knowledge.

This paper studies how communication allows for the specialized acquisition of knowledge. It shows that a knowledge-based hierarchy is a natural way to organize the acquisition of knowledge when matching problems with those who know how to solve them is costly. In such an organization, production workers acquire knowledge about the most common or easiest problems confronted, and specialized problem solvers deal with the more exceptional or harder problems. The paper shows that the model is consistent with stylized facts in the theory of organizations and uses it to analyze the impact of changes in production and information technology on organizational design.

Manufacturing knowledge (MK) is enjoying a “new golden age” in the academic domain, marked by vast reuse to support product-related production problems (PPs) solving decision making for manufacturing enterprises in the industry sector. However, the practice of MK reuse and research is fragmented and insufficient, which cannot be mature to provide a systemic solution for that a decision-maker has to consider the involving issues: how MK can be used earlier and rightly; what kind of practical problems can be solved? In order to answer those interconnecting issues, this paper firstly proposes a connectivism framework to clarify the compressive relationship of problem-to-problem, knowledge-to-knowledge and problem-to-knowledge with knowledge integration, knowledge matching, and problem-solving layers. Then, based on the framework, an ontology-based MK graph (MKG) is constructed with a unified MK-filter to collect and integrate multifactor and multilevel MK, and a graph-oriented meta-knowledge model (MKM) is proposed to represent the details between the knowledge entities (i.e., concept and instance), which also shows the contribution to knowledge reasoning. After that, driven by a structure temporal query (i.e., 5W2H), a semantics-based knowledge computation is developed to compute the intrinsic term similarity (IS) and relational term similarity (RS) between two knowledge entities in the MKG. Finally, a case study is taken to demonstrate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed methods.

Synthesis of natural gas from thermochemical and power-to-gas pathways for industrial sector decarbonization in California

The development of production and the economic sustainability of a company are intrinsically linked to its workforce. Manufacturing processes, for the most part, rely on human labor. Every task performed is ultimately a product of human effort, and the efficiency of that effort directly reflects in the company’s economic performance indicators. This article explores the critical connection between workforce management and economic sustainability, covering key aspects of personnel policy, including the formation of a healthy and capable team, the composition and qualifications of personnel based on demographic factors, and their strategic placement within the production process. It highlights the importance of timely adaptation to changes in production and working conditions, alongside the integration of scientific and technological advancements, and the promotion of novel production techniques. Furthermore, the article provides a case study analyzing the current state of workforce utilization within a specific economic entity, culminating in actionable recommendations aimed at optimizing employee contributions, especially their intellectual and physical potential.

Structural changes in economy become the important goal of economic development in the developing countries. During the ongoing globalization process, the successful execution of special analysis and approaches caused the growing interest in macroeconomic planning and development policies. In this context, input-output analysis is emerging as an alternative research method among the other economic planning methods. The purpose of the present paper is to describe the structural changes in production, compare the structural parameteres of production for the years 2005-2009, investigate the sources of differences and give recommendations that will bring solutions to the problems. Research is based on input-output analysis and used input-output tables prepared for the years 2005 and 2009 by The National Statistical Committee Kyrgyz Republic. Industrial structure dependency, production techniques, efficiency of input usage, were calculated in this paper. The results are as follows: there were found some sub-sectors in agriculture, manufacturing and service sector, on which economy depends on; equal efficiency of production techniques and input usage. It is notable that for achieving economic growth, economy needed investments to stimulate the production capacity, which strengthening inter-sectoral relationship and stable macro-economic planning.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) belongs to a new trend in technology in which tiny and resource constrained devices are wirelessly interconnected and are able to interact with the surrounding environment by collecting data such as temperature and humidity. Recently, due to the huge growth in the use of mobile devices with Internet connection, smartphones are becoming the center of future ubiquitous wireless networks. Interconnecting WSNs with smartphones and the Internet is a big challenge and new architectures are required due to the heterogeneity of these devices. Taking into account that people are using smartphones with Internet connection, there is a good opportunity to propose a new architecture for wireless sensors monitoring using push notifications and smartphones. Then, this paper proposes a ubiquitous approach for WSN monitoring based on a REST Web Service, a relational database, and an Android mobile application. Real-time data sensed by WSNs are sent directly to a smartphone or stored in a database and requested by the mobile application using a well-defined RESTful interface. A push notification system was created in order to alert mobile users when a sensor parameter overcomes a given threshold. The proposed architecture and mobile application were evaluated and validated using a laboratory WSN testbed and are ready for use.

Pneumatic instruments have coped with new industries and new trend of technology. Hereinafter, express the flexible pneumatic instruments as “Smart Pneumatics”. Explain “Smart Pneumatics” through pneumatics relating semiconductor, i.e., pneumatics for clean room.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a new trend in technology that is already changing the world in which we live by interconnecting physical objects that can collect or transmit information to us and to each other. In this paper, an application of the use of the IoT is presented by the development of a semi-autonomous utility vehicle using off-the-shelf home automation (smart) components. The system is composed of hardware and software elements that are integrated into a self-propelled scaled down version of an off-road vehicle, a lawn mower. A Web application was built and enabled for Android devices to command and control the vehicle, various applets in the application were enabled to be triggered using the Alexa voice service and an Amazon Tap speaker. The vehicle can be controlled through voice commands and is capable of moving in four directions at five different speeds. It is able to move at an average velocity of 35.7 m/min among its five speeds on vinyl floor, and at an average velocity of 20.8 m/min and 16.3 m/min on concrete and grass, respectively. The ultrasonic sensors installed on the vehicle proved their reliability by stopping the vehicle at an average distance of 7.3 cm away from different obstacles. This paper contributes to existing knowledge on the IoT by providing a demonstration of a semi-autonomous vehicle capable of cloud-based control both with voice commands and through a Web app.

(Title: The Use of Video Broadcast in Teaching Listening-Speaking). The latest technology, which comes like storm, gives us extra help in revealing the unseen that is beyond our reach and touch the untouchable in our hands. The technology gives us potential to do things we haven’t been able to do before. One of the greatest challenges to the classrooms of today is mobile technology. As teachers, it’s our job to make sure that students who are considered as digital natives learn through the omnipresence of the mainstream media. The world around us is changing in terms of communication and interaction that affect the way people see, think and learn the present environment, and connect with others. In education, we have three options when dealing with these changes: avoid it, struggle with it, or embrace it. It is our duty to prepare and adjust the classroom of today ready for tomorrow. Thus, this writing attempts to review the new trend in technology, the use of video broadcasting in teaching listening-speaking.Keywords: listening-speaking, video broadcasting, media

Since e-Government is a nascent academic field, its structure is still evolving. While initial emphases wither, new directions of practice and research are forming. Whereas some new trends in technology and management cut across existing perspectives, other new topics such as mobile Government may have the potential to become a subfield in their own right. Furthermore, the research foundations of the field still need to be spelled out more explicitly and rigorously. Many scholars propose multi-method designs in e-Government research, and also more multi- and interdisciplinary approaches, for which even beyond e-Government accepted standards and procedures still need initial grounding and further development. More new topics and trends are likely to emerge in e-Government, for which it may be difficult to locate a nurturing home at one of the existing minitracks within the e-Gov Track at HICSS. Therefore, this minitrack provides a home for incubating those new topics and trends. This year, we are launching the new minitrack with one session and three papers: The first paper under the title of “Multi-Method Approaches to Digital Government Research: Value Lessons and Implementation,” co-authored by J. Ramon Gil-Garcia and Theresa A. Pardo (University at Albany/SUNY), makes the case for multi-method designs when studying e-Government phenomena, which the authors argue are complex and multifaceted in nature. The high complexity defies single-method approaches rendering results from single-method research unsatisfactory at best. With two case studies the authors document a multi-method approach and the lessons learned from employing this approach. Gil-Garcia and Pardo illustrate the effectiveness of multi-method approaches in e-Government research and conclude that those designs hold the promise of a higher explanatory power of the research results. In the second paper, entitled “Infusing an Architectural Framework with Neo-institutional Theory: Reports from recent change management initiatives within the Swedish Public Administration” is co-authored by Johan Magnusson and Andreas Nilsson of the Gothenburg School of Business, Economics, and Commercial Law. The authors invoke neoinstitutional theory as an analytical lens for understanding the governmental environment, in which organizational change is supposed to take place. Using that theoretical lens, they augment an already existing architectural framework used in technology-induced change management project with that theory. The study analyzes 13 cases in Swedish government. Although results were mixed, the authors found the use of neo-institutional theory informative and helpful within a governmental organizational setting. The third paper, entitled “Can Government be a good eBayer? The Use of Online Auctions in the Sale of Surplus Property” by Enrico Ferro of the Istituto Superiore Mario Boellla, Turin, Italy, and Lucy Dadyan of the College of Computing and Information at SUNY/Albany, presents the case and discusses the experiences of online auctions conducted by the State of New York over three years. The paper concludes that the online auctions observed were highly outcome and cost effective. Also, the employee incentive structure crafted after the private sector model was found instrumental in attaining high customer service and satisfaction levels.

It is clear that the field of Cooperating Objects is a very dynamic one that has the potential of drastically changing the way people interact with the physical world. We are still at the dawn of an era where the convergence of different technologies and the collaboration and cooperation of existing technologies will lead to unprecedented solutions. We have already started to see the effects of how new trends in technology affect the way people socialise, communicate and, in the long-run, cooperate.KeywordsCooperation ObjectivesApplication-specific DetailsEnergy Harvesting TechniquesProlate GroundHardware IssuesThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.