Search results for " operations"
showing 10 items of 1066 documents
Defining and measuring the network flexibility of humanitarian supply chains: insights from the 2015 Nepal earthquake
2019
International audience; The efficient and effective response to disasters critically depends on humanitarian supply chains (HSCs). HSCs need to be flexible to adapt to uncertainties in needs, infrastructure conditions, and behavior of other organizations. The concept of ‘network flexibility’ is, however, not clearly defined. The lack of an unanimous definition has led to a lack of consistent understanding and comparisons. This paper makes a threefold contribution: first, it defines the concept of network flexibility for HSC in the context of sudden onset disasters. Second, it proposes a framework to measure network flexibility in HSCs. Third, we apply our framework to the 2015 Nepal earthqu…
The General Routing Problem polyhedron: Facets from the RPP and GTSP polyhedra
1998
[EN] In this paper we study the polyhedron associated with the General Routing Problem (GRP). This problem, first introduced by Orloff in 1974, is a generalization of both the Rural Postman Problem (RPP) and the Graphical Traveling Salesman Problem (GTSP) and, thus, is NP -hard. We describe a formulation of the problem such that from every non-trivial facet-inducing inequality for the RPP and GTSP polyhedra, we obtain facet-inducing inequalities for the GRP polyhedron, We describe a new family of facet-inducing inequalities for the GRP, the honeycomb constraints, which seem to be very useful for solving GRP and RPP instances. Finally, new classes of facets obtained by composition of facet-i…
Market entry decisions of US small and medium‐sized software firms
2008
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate market entry decisions of the US software SMEs by analyzing the impact of the most obvious factors (cultural distance, geographical distance, country risk, and three market size variables) in traditional internationalization theories to target country selection. By investigating the influence of these commonly cited macro‐level factors, this study proposes the best indicator for market entry decisions of the US small and medium‐sized software firms.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a quantitative research approach applied to a sample of 100 US small and medium‐sized software firms.FindingsEmpirical findings in this study indicate t…
An efficient algorithm for stopping on a sink in a directed graph
2013
Abstract Vertices of an unknown directed graph of order n are revealed one by one in some random permutation. At each point, we know the subgraph induced by the revealed vertices. Our goal is to stop on a sink, a vertex with no out-neighbors. We show that if a sink exists this can be achieved with probability Θ ( 1 / n ) , which is best possible.
Family business internationalization: an insight into opportunities and challenges.
2020
The theme of internationalization in family businesses is a highly topical issue that is increasingly attracting management scholars. This is because, in addition of being a particular type of business (Alcorn, 1982), they play a central role in most economies worldwide. Accounting for 65-80 percent of all the world’s firms, they generate around 70-90 percent of annual global GDP, and are the source of 50-80 percent of new jobs in most countries. Their essence lies in the close bond they have with their founders and above all, in the family’s involvement in the business ownership and management (Franco and Prata, 2019). This bond may prove to be a limit for fuelling internationalization pro…
Success factors of Polish family businesses
2017
This article presents the results of a study carried out among family businesses operating in Poland. It is intended to supplement previously generated knowledge in the area of the operation of family businesses in the specific socio-economic and legal conditions in Poland. The objective was to collate the opinions of entrepreneurs regarding the need for visibility of the family and the family business status in business relations and the marketing activities of enterprises. The data were collected using in-depth interviews with the Polish family business owners. This paper outlines the conclusion of the study with respect to success factors such as: the trust among the family members, flex…
A Survey on Proxy Mobile IPv6 Handover
2016
[EN] As wireless technologies have been improving in recent years, a mobility management mechanism is required to provide seamless and ubiquitous mobility for end users who are roaming among points of attachment in wireless networks. Thus, Mobile IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to support the mobility service. However, Mobile IPv6 is unable to fulfill the requirements of real-time applications, such as video streaming service and voice over IP service, due to its high handover (HO) latency. To address this problem, Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) has been introduced by the IETF. In PMIPv6, which is a network-based approach, the serving network controls mobility m…
Epistemic uncertainty in fault tree analysis approached by the evidence theory
2012
Abstract Process plants may be subjected to dangerous events. Different methodologies are nowadays employed to identify failure events, that can lead to severe accidents, and to assess the relative probability of occurrence. As for rare events reliability data are generally poor, leading to a partial or incomplete knowledge of the process, the classical probabilistic approach can not be successfully used. Such an uncertainty, called epistemic uncertainty, can be treated by means of different methodologies, alternative to the probabilistic one. In this work, the Evidence Theory or Dempster–Shafer theory (DST) is proposed to deal with this kind of uncertainty. In particular, the classical Fau…
Public transportation and fear of crime at BRT Systems: Approaching to the case of Barranquilla (Colombia) through integrated choice and latent varia…
2021
Abstract Security perception and Fear of Crime (FoC) in urban scenarios have the potential to affect travel behavior, changing people’s travel choices and patterns. In this sense, the feeling of being “safe” or “at-risk” in public transportation not only depends on observable factors like illumination, travel companionship or transport crowding, but also on unobservable individual-specific latent attributes, among which fear of crime constitutes a major issue to consider in transport security policy-making. This study aimed to describe the relationships among sociodemographic features, travel situations, system-design features, and the Fear of Crime at three different locations (buses, bus …
Financing successful small business projects
2014
Purpose – The current credit rationing strongly influences the viability of SMEs innovation projects. In this context, the practice of screening borrowers by project success probability has become a paramount consideration for both lenders and firms. The aim of this paper is to test the screening role of loan contracts that consider collateral-interest margins simultaneously. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents an empirical analysis that uses a unique data set composed of 323 bank loans granted by 28 banks to SMEs backed by a Spanish Mutual Guarantee Institution. Findings – The results show that appropriate combinations of collateral and interest rates can distinguish between…