Charalampos Makatsoris

War and famine, peace and light? The economic dynamics of conflict in Somalia 1993-2009

The literature on war economies argues that prolonged civil wars have an economic logic: certain groups may obtain material gains from committing acts of violence and hence resist peacebuilding efforts. Objective tests of these predictions have so far been limited, as corruption and conflict prevent the collection of reliable economic data on the ground. Remote sensing and Geographic Information Science techniques enable us to overcome these problems of terrestrial data collection. Electricity consumption manifested as night-time light emissions recorded in satellite images is proposed as a proxy for changes in disposable income in Somalia’s cities. The nightlight images provide striking illustrations of economic decline and recovery and clearly show the contrast between the stable regions of Northern Somalia and the chaos and anarchy of Southern Somalia. Based on geospatial analyses of settlement patterns in Somali cities, we argue that specific metrics of light output can be used to proxy for the incomes of different social groups. We use geo-coded conflict event data to analyze the economic impact of conflict on local light output and therefore incomes. We find a significant peace dividend for poorer households located at the margins of cities, which benefit both from local stability and more peaceful conditions in the country as a whole. By contrast, the central business districts are relatively well insulated from the effects of local conflict, and violence in Mogadishu has positive effects on light output from cities where humanitarian aid agencies are located. Future peace initiatives need to confront these economic incentives for continued conflict and state failure in Somalia.

Supply chain control: trade-offs and system requirements

A paper describes the underlying forces which drive change in manufacturing enterprises and supply chains. It sets out the complexities in modern capitalism and global economics and illustrates the trade-offs that can be made. IT systems which are required to assist improvements to both customer service and enterprise manufacturing performance are explained, alluding to the special case for the semiconductor industry. Arguments are presented showing how the new tools being developed with the ESPRIT project 20544, X-CITTIC, will satisfy the control needs for a virtual enterprise. This paper describes the underlying forces which drive change in manufacturing enterprises and supply chains. It sets out the complexities in modem capitalism and global economics and illustrates the trade-offs that can be made. IT systems which are required to assist improvements to both customer service and enterprise manufacturing performance are explained alluding to the special case for the semiconductor industry. Finally it shows how the new tools being developed with the ESPRIT project 20544, XCITTIC, will satisfy the control needs for a virtual enterprise.

RFID- and WSN-based intelligent cold chain management

The cold chain management plays a vital role to preserve perishables and deliver them to market in safe and good condition. This paper presents a cold chain management system that is implemented by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The important aspects of management in cold chain such as legislations, monitoring, execution, planning and traceability systems are briefly discussed. Furthermore, the specific use of RFID and WSN in cold chain is reviewed, and the integrated management system that enables to achieve traceability, quality assurance and enhance cold chain operations is also proposed. [Received 1 September 2009, Revised 29 April 2010, Accepted 22 October 2010]

A Consumer-Centric Open Innovation Framework for Food and Packaging Manufacturing

Closed innovation approaches have been employed for many years in the food industry. But, this sector recently perceives its end-user to be wary of radically new products and changes in consumption patterns. However, new product development involves not only the product itself but also the entire manufacturing and distribution network. In this paper, we present a new ICT based framework that embraces open innovation to place customers in the product development loop but at the same time assesses and eventually coordinates the entire manufacturing and supply chain. The aim is to design new food products that consumers will buy and at the same time ensure that these products will reach the consumer in time and at adequate quantity. On the product development side, our framework enables new food products that offer an integrated sensory experience of food and packaging, which encompass customization, healthy eating, and sustainability.

A Study of Condition Based Preventive Maintenance Model for Repairable Multi Stage Deteriorating system

This paper presents a preventive maintenance model considering inspection for condition based maintenance. Preventive maintenance is a prevention of system breakdowns to failures with schedule of planned maintenance actions. This paper discusses the inspection of product item condition for product deterioration. We assume that there could be three types of maintenance actions after the inspection: minimal repair (as bad as old), imperfect repair (between of minimal and major repair) and perfect or major repair (as good as new). The purpose of this study is to present a condition based preventive maintenance model for the lifespan of sold product that could maximize the system availability by using Markov process. The presented results make it clear to verify that comparison of closed form analytical result and RELEX reliability commercial software result.

Linking human and machine - towards consumer-driven automated manufacturing

In this paper we establish a link between linguistic descriptors describing food preferences and product manufacturing processes. We show how this is achieved using a model-based methodology that translates consumer preferences into product and process specifications. The ultimate goal is the large scale personalization of formulated food product manufacture where consumers are also the co-creators of the food products they wish to buy. Firstly, we investigate how those sensory attributes for such products can map onto product and process specifications. Fuzzy set modelling is used to capture the preferences and perception for these attributes by different groups of people. Specifically, type-1 fuzzy sets are generated from interval-valued survey data for the linguistic descriptors (i.e., thin, thick, smooth, pulpy) and the sensory indicators (i.e., smoothness, roughness and orange flavor) that describe how consumers perceive and select orange based beverages. Then, the models are employed to establish the links between such product attributes and the actual formulation parameters to make the product. We demonstrate the manufacture of the desired orange beverage that emerged from the modelling approach by deploying the process parameters, which map onto those descriptors, on the controller of a continuous food formulation system which was selected due to its flexibility and its computer controller that provides the ability to redeploy new formulation specifications rapidly. With this overall methodology we demonstrate for the first time the digital, on-demand manufacture of soft beverages with targeted attributes, selected directly by a consumer group.

Vision-Augmented molecular dynamics simulation of nanoindentation

We present a user-friendly vision-augmented technique to carry out atomic simulation using hand gestures. The system is novel in its concept as it enables the user to directly manipulate the atomic structures on the screen, in 3D space using hand gestures, allowing the exploration and visualisation of molecular interactions at different relative conformations. The hand gestures are used to pick and place atoms on the screen allowing thereby the ease of carrying out molecular dynamics simulation in a more efficient way. The end result is that users with limited expertise in developing molecular structures can now do so easily and intuitively by the use of body gestures to interact with the simulator to study the system in question. The proposed system was tested by simulating the crystal anisotropy of crystalline silicon during nanoindentation. A long-range (Screened bond order) Tersoff potential energy function was used during the simulation which revealed the value of hardness and elastic modulus being similar to what has been found previously from the experiments. We anticipate that our proposed system will open up new horizons to the current methods on how an MD simulation is designed and executed.

Collaborative sense-and-respond ICT for demand-driven value network management

Consider the following scenario: “there are two products on sale, X and Y. Product X’s demand is high while there is no demand for product Y. Orders for product Y are cancelled and a new large order for product X is placed automatically. The manufacturer and suppliers immediately know about this and have adapted operations by reallocating common subassemblies from Y to X and reset production to ramp up for X”. In this scenario changes to the market needs have been sensed and the value network responded without relying on any forecasts or trends. This is on-demand business. New technologies can deliver the infrastructure for such new ways of work and deliver benefits, which previously would not be possible. Such technologies are relevant to businesses of all types and size, and can potentially offer significant advantages including the means and models to help companies reshape their value proposition and integrate their business with customers. A key area is that of collaborative, integrated planning and fulfillment using adaptive sense and respond capabilities across the value network. This chapter presents a commercial platform that integrates the demand chain with the supply chain and offers demand driven planning and fulfillment functionality across the value network.

A machine learning approach for predicting delays in construction logistics

Construction project management is vital for accomplishing pre-determined objectives. Despite using construction management, most of the projects do not meet original time schedule or has been delayed. Delay is one of the biggest problems faced by construction industry. This project is a study the critical delay factors for project management in construction focusing contractors in Qatar and to build a prediction model to avoid the same in future projects. The objectives of this research project are to investigate delay factors to help contractors to reach their goals on time during construction. This research will review the delay factors through literature review survey questionnaire targeting professionals at a construction company who are involved in many construction projects in Qatar. The correlation between them is examined to produce the best ways in preventing delays. This study was carried out based on comprehensive literature review, which was done to provide the background, history and delay factors of delays in construction. The information of literature review was then used to design and conduct a survey questionnaire to investigate delay factors in construction projects in Qatar and was distributed to the targeted respondents at the contractors company. Later the top delay factors achieved from the questionnaire were combined with secondary data collected from an ongoing mega project for the same company to build a prediction model using WEKA software.

Distributed Capacity Analysis for Proactive Planning in Semiconductor Virtual Enterprises

Abstract This paper describes the Capacity Analysis problem for proaetive Planning in Semiconductor Virtual Enterprises. A mathematical formulation is proposed that will enable world-wide capacitated loading of the Virtual Enterprise to be performed. The aim is to consider the overall manufacturing flow, the product structure for products, the current state, and concurrently all units in the Virtual Enterprise. The Capacity model that is proposed is detailed enough to sequence each workstation in a particular shopfloor or unit in the Virtual Enterprise network.