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Users' Needs (user + need)
Selected AbstractsApplication of LQ modelling and optimization in urban traffic controlOPTIMAL CONTROL APPLICATIONS AND METHODS, Issue 6 2003Majura F. Selekwa Abstract The increasing congestion on urban streets demands traffic control signal timing to be well co-ordinated and optimized even during the transition between timing patterns used in different periods of time-of-day (TOD). The TOD timing plans, defined by fixed-time co-ordination parameters, need to change from one TOD period to another. The current methods used in transitioning are aimed at achieving quick transition rather than optimizing traffic flow during the transition period. As a result, they generally cause increased vehicle delays during the transition period particularly for vehicles on the minor street, which face lengthened red times. This paper proposes a quadratic optimization method that can be used to reduce disutility measures to motorists during the transition period. The transition is modeled as a linear dynamic process, and the disutility measures are modeled as the sum of squares of the deviations of the co-ordination parameters,that is, cycle length, phase split, and offset,from the optimal values during the transition. A linear quadratic (LQ) optimization technique of optimal control is used to determine the step size and the number of steps necessary to complete the transition with minimum disutility. The proposed transition period optimization method has the advantage that the user need not specify minimum and maximum cycle length to achieve optimization, as is the case with current methods. Simulation results for three co-ordinated intersections showed that the proposed method reduces total vehicle delay when compared to the ,immediate' transition method embedded in CORSIM traffic simulation software. This is due to the fact that vehicles on the minor street approaches get proportional green time without significantly affecting green times on the major street approach green phase. However, the method showed a slight increase in total delay for vehicles on the major street. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Handling linguistic web information based on a multi-agent systemINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, Issue 5 2007Zheng Pei Much information over the Internet is expressed by natural languages. The management of linguistic information involves an operation of comparison and aggregation. Based on the Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) operator and modifying indexes of linguistic terms (their indexes are fuzzy numbers on [0,T] , R+), new linguistic aggregating methods are presented and their properties are discussed. Also, based on a multi-agent system and new linguistic aggregating methods, gathering linguistic information over the Internet is discussed. Moreover, by fixing the threshold ,, "soft filtering information" is proposed and better Web pages (or documents) that the user needs are obtained. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 22: 435,453, 2007. [source] Design, Meanings, and Radical Innovation: A Metamodel and a Research Agenda,THE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 5 2008Roberto Verganti Recent studies on design management have helped us to better comprehend how companies can apply design to get closer to users and to better understand their needs; this is an approach usually referred to as user-centered design. Yet analysis of design-intensive manufacturers such as Alessi, Artemide, and other leading Italian firms shows that their innovation process hardly starts from a close observation of user needs and requirements. Rather, they follow a different strategy called design-driven innovation in this paper. This strategy aims at radically change the emotional and symbolic content of products (i.e., their meanings and languages) through a deep understanding of broader changes in society, culture, and technology. Rather than being pulled by user requirements, design-driven innovation is pushed by a firm's vision about possible new product meanings and languages that could diffuse in society. Design-driven innovation, which plays such a crucial role in the innovation strategy of design intensive firms, has still remained largely unexplored. This paper aims at providing a possible direction to fill this empty spot in innovation management literature. In particular, first it proposes a metamodel for investigating design-driven innovation in which a manufacturer's ability to understand, anticipate, and influence emergence of new product meanings is built by relying on external interpreters (e.g., designers, firms in other industries, suppliers, schools, artists, the media) that share its same problem: to understand the evolution of sociocultural models and to propose new visions and meanings. Managing design-driven innovation therefore implies managing the interaction with these interpreters to access, share, and internalize knowledge on product languages and to influence shifts in sociocultural models. Second, the paper proposes a possible direction to scientifically investigate the management of this networked and collective research process. In particular, it shows that the process of creating breakthrough innovations of meanings partially mirrors the process of creating breakthrough technological innovations. Studies of design-driven innovation may therefore benefit significantly from the existing body of theories in the field of technology management. The analysis of the analogies between these two types of radical innovations (i.e., meanings and technologies) allows a research agenda to be set for exploration of design-driven innovation, a relevant as well as underinvestigated phenomenon. [source] User toolkits for innovationTHE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2001Eric von Hippel Manufacturers must accurately understand user needs in order to develop successful products-but the task is becoming steadily more difficult as user needs change more rapidly, and as firms increasingly seek to serve "markets of one." User toolkits for innovation allow manufacturers to actually abandon their attempts to understand user needs in detail in favor of transferring need-related aspects of product and service development to users along with an appropriate toolkit. User toolkits for innovation are specific to given product or service type and to a specified production system. Within those general constraints, they give users real freedom to innovate, allowing them to develop their custom product via iterative trial-and-error. That is, users can create a preliminary design, simulate or prototype it, evaluate its functioning in their own use environment, and then iteratively improve it until satisfied. As the concept is evolving, toolkits guide the user to insure that the completed design can be produced on the intended production system without change. Pioneering applications in areas ranging from the development of custom integrated circuits to the development of custom foods show that user toolkits for innovation can be much more effective than traditional, manufacturer-based development methods. [source] Learning from leading-edge customers at The Sims: opening up the innovation process using toolkitsR & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2006Reinhard Prügl Recently, toolkits for user innovation and design have been proposed as a promising means of opening up the innovation process to customers. Using these tools, customers can take on problem-solving tasks and design products to fit their individual needs. To date, arguments in favor of this new concept have been limited to the idea of satisfying each user's needs in a highly efficient and valuable way. The aim of this empirical study is to extend our knowledge of how users deal with ,the invitation to innovate' and how attractive individual user designs might be to other users. In studying the users of toolkits for the immensely popular computer game The Sims, we found that (1) users are not ,one-time shoppers', in fact, their innovative engagement is rather long-lasting, continuous, evolving, and intense. We also found that (2) leading-edge users do not merely content themselves with the official toolkits provided by the manufacturer. They employ user-created tools to push design possibilities even further. (3) Moreover, individual user designs are not only attractive to the creators themselves; instead, certain innovative solutions are in high demand among other users. Based on our findings, we discuss how toolkits and their users might add to the process of innovation in general. We argue that toolkits could serve as a promising market research tool for guiding a firm's new product development efforts. Furthermore, toolkits may serve as a crèche for interested but inexperienced users who could evolve into leading-edge users over time. These innovative users might then be integrated into more radical product development efforts. [source] The Costly Business of TrustDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2004Mark Cosson This article provides a framework for analysing trust-based projects which can be used as a diagnostic tool to design more effective policy interventions, particularly addressing the problem of meeting users' needs for which many microfinance schemes have come under criticism. Two microfinance projects in Mexico are used to illustrate how a system of trust is built, the role of trust-brokers, and the policy of subsidising trust-building projects. The aim is to provide a tool capable of identifying crucial actors in trust systems and the nature of the linkages between them, so that trust can be effectively operationalised to improve projects' effectiveness and suitability to local conditions. [source] Inquiry into the ideal function of the pharmacy in home care,GERIATRICS & GERONTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2004Mitsuko Onda Background: The aim of this study is to analyze why home-care services provided by pharmacists have not been effectively utilized. Method: Questionnaires were submitted to home-care service users, physicians, visiting nurses and home-helpers and pharmacy directors. We studied whether gaps existed between users' needs, physicians' expectations of pharmacy services and pharmacists' awareness of the importance of pharmacy services. We also investigated whether a failure to recognize the importance of cooperation with pharmacists in home-care provision existed among physicians and nurses/home-helpers. Results: Users and physicians expect pharmacists to be more involved in counseling about home care and welfare services than home-visiting services. Pharmacists recognize home visiting services as being of greater importance than counseling about home care and welfare services. The results indicated that gaps existed between users' needs, the physicians' expectations and pharmacists' awareness of the importance of pharmacy services. In terms of cooperation with pharmacists, study results implied that: (i) nurses/home-helpers' awareness of pharmacists' home-visiting service is lower than that of physicians; (ii) physicians' expectations regarding pharmacists' participation in home care services is lower than that of nurses/home-helpers; (iii) over 70% of both groups recognize the necessity of pharmacists' home-visiting service. Conclusions: Pharmacists need to get more involved in counseling users about home care and welfare. Also, there should be a special focus on heightening nurses/home-helpers' awareness of pharmacists' home-visiting service and on raising physicians' expectations for pharmacists' participation in home care services to develop home-care related pharmacy services in Japan. [source] Operational performance of current synthetic aperture radar sensors in mapping soil surface characteristics in agricultural environments: application to hydrological and erosion modellingHYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES, Issue 1 2008Nicolas Baghdadi Abstract Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors are often used to characterize the surface of bare soils in agricultural environments. They enable the soil moisture and roughness to be estimated with constraints linked to the configurations of the sensors (polarization, incidence angle and radar wavelength). These key soil characteristics are necessary for different applications, such as hydrology and risk prediction. This article reviews the potential of currently operational SAR sensors and those planned for the near future to characterize soil surface as a function of users' needs. It details what it is possible to achieve in terms of mapping soil moisture and roughness by specifying optimal radar configurations and the precision associated with the estimation of soil surface characteristics. The summary carried out for the present article shows that mapping soil moisture is optimal with SAR sensors at low incidence angles (<35 ). This configuration, which enables an estimated moisture accuracy greater than 6% is possible several times a month taking into account all the current and future sensors. Concerning soil roughness, it is best mapped using three classes (smooth, moderately rough, and rough). Such mapping requires high-incidence data, which is possible with certain current sensors (RADARSAT-1 and ASAR both in band C). When L-band sensors (ALOS) become available, this mapping accuracy should improve because the sensitivity of the radar signal to Soil Surface Characteristics (SSC) increases with wavelength. Finally, the polarimetric mode of certain imminent sensors (ALOS, RADARSAT-2, TerraSAR-X, etc.), and the possibility of acquiring data at very high spatial resolution (metre scale), offer great potential in terms of improving the quality of SSC mapping. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] End-to-end QoS and global mobility management in an integrated satellite/terrestrial networkINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKING, Issue 1 2004P. Conforto Abstract For decades, the development of the Internet was driven by the purpose of providing applications to non-mobile users. No specific Quality of Service (QoS) requirement is necessary, other than ensuring reliability in the end-to-end data transfers. As such, best effort service model was deemed more than appropriate to satisfy the users' needs. Nevertheless, the scenario has changed in the last few years. A new population of nomadic users, who requires access to Internet services regardless of their location and mode of transportation is growing, while new typologies of Internet applications are being continuously developed, in which best effort service level may no longer be adequate. The SUITED project has been devised to address the emerging issues generated by this new and challenging scenario. SUITED aims at contributing towards the design and deployment of the Global Mobile Broadband System (GMBS), a unique satellite/terrestrial infrastructure, which will ensure that nomadic users have access to Internet services with a negotiated QoS. An overview of the main results achieved in the SUITED project is provided in this article. Some of the most innovative solutions developed by the SUITED team for the joint management of global mobility and end-to-end QoS support are presented. The SUITED demonstrator platform, which was developed to validate the system specifications, is also described. Finally, the results of the experimental measurement campaigns carried out with this platform are reported. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Enhancing Information for InvestorsJOURNAL OF CORPORATE ACCOUNTING & FINANCE, Issue 3 2010Cathy J. Cole Many publicly held companies provide financial information to investors in a variety of forms and formats. But not all companies provide the same level of information, or devote the same amount of resources to tailor information to users' needs. How can they provide a more user-focused view of the company's financial condition? © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Data cleansing for Web information retrieval using query independent featuresJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 12 2007Yiqun Liu Understanding what kinds of Web pages are the most useful for Web search engine users is a critical task in Web information retrieval (IR). Most previous works used hyperlink analysis algorithms to solve this problem. However, little research has been focused on query-independent Web data cleansing for Web IR. In this paper, we first provide analysis of the differences between retrieval target pages and ordinary ones based on more than 30 million Web pages obtained from both the Text Retrieval Conference (TREC) and a widely used Chinese search engine, SOGOU (www.sogou.com). We further propose a learning-based data cleansing algorithm for reducing Web pages that are unlikely to be useful for user requests. We found that there exists a large proportion of low-quality Web pages in both the English and the Chinese Web page corpus, and retrieval target pages can be identified using query-independent features and cleansing algorithms. The experimental results showed that our algorithm is effective in reducing a large portion of Web pages with a small loss in retrieval target pages. It makes it possible for Web IR tools to meet a large fraction of users' needs with only a small part of pages on the Web. These results may help Web search engines make better use of their limited storage and computation resources to improve search performance. [source] The Extent and Determinants of the Utilization of University Research in Government AgenciesPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 2 2003Réjean Landry This article addresses three questions: To what extent is university research used in government agencies? Are there differences between the policy domains in regard to the extent of use? What determines the use of university research in government agencies? The data analysis is based on a survey of 833 government officials from Canadian government agencies. Comparisons of the magnitude of uptake of university research show large and significant differences across policy domains. The results of the multivariate regression analyses show that the characteristics of research and the focus on the advancement of scholarly knowledge or on users' needs do not explain the uptake of research. Users' adaptation of research, users' acquisition efforts, links between researchers and users, and users' organizational contexts are good predictors of the uptake of research by government officials. [source] Auctions Versus Beauty Contests: The Allocation of UMTS Licences in EuropeANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2003L. Cartelier The deployment of the so-called UMTS 3rd generation mobile networks is a step of vital importance for the promotion of competition in the telecommunications sector. The provision of high-traffic services presupposes that operators have access to the hertzian spectrum. The hertzian spectrum is a natural resource whose scarcity derives from the fact that only part of it is usable, for both technical and economic reasons. While the resource was sufficient to meet users' needs, the hertzian spectrum was allocated for little or no charge, on the principle of ,first come, first served'. However, with the explosion of technical progress in transmission technologies, new applications and new forms of use appeared, leading to a drastic increase in potential demand. It is in this context that the idea of charging for use of the spectrum arose, so as to discourage uneconomical use of the resource (e.g. stockpiling, wastage), to ensure a fair allocation between competing users and to forestall congestion. The purpose of this paper is first to examine the procedures for the allocation of hertzian spectrum operating licences, from the points of view of efficiency, transparency and sharing of the surplus. We shall then compare the results from the two approaches that were actually used in Europe: the open ascending auction and the beauty contest, before turning our attention to new forms of public action that result from the process of liberalization. [source] | ||||||||||||||||