Search results for "flexibility"
showing 10 items of 466 documents
To lead or to wait? An application to internationalization strategies under demand uncertainty
2019
We examine the exports versus foreign direct investment (FDI) decision under demand uncertainty for an asymmetric cost duopoly. One of the firms can lead entry before demand realization or retain flexibility enjoying an informational advantage. When the time value of information is small and for sufficiently low investment costs, follow‐the‐leader behavior in FDI arises. Relatively high investment (fixed) costs result in follow‐the‐leader exporting behavior. When the time value of information becomes significant, the potential leader will opt for a wait‐and‐see strategy. For intermediate values of investment costs, the efficient firm invests, while the rival chooses to export.
Economic Aspects of the Conjunctive Use of Ground and Surface Water
1989
Abstract The different structure of the costs of ground and surface water and the different and complementary characteristics of both kinds of resources make it possible to solve the specific needs of water quantity and quality more adequately and economically if both resources are used conjunctively. Higher discount rates favour the inclusion of elements involving lower initial investment and generally with higher groundwater components. Lower discount rates favour a higher participation of surface water. The external factors produced by groundwater pumping must be taken into consideration in any economic analysis. Examples of external factors are water level descents, surface water flow r…
Manufacturing Strategy: Production Problem Analysis for Assessing Focused Flexibility
2008
The objective of this chapter is to define an operationalization pattern which supports decision makers and managers in determining the level of manufacturing flexibility competences, given the business strategy and the manufacturing structure of the firm. This should drive the production system design and configuration activity. Specifically, this chapter presents an innovative approach to develop a manufacturing strategy, which is based on the idea that information on potential production problems that the manufacturing system could face throughout a given long-term planning horizon should be used as a starting point to determine the level of flexibility that the system should possess.
Controlling Molecular Self-Assembly on an Insulating Surface by Rationally Designing an Efficient Anchor Functionality That Maintains Structural Flex…
2013
Molecular self-assembly on surfaces is dictated by the delicate balance between intermolecular and molecule-surface interactions. For many insulating surfaces, however, the molecule-surface interactions are weak and rather unspecific. Enhancing these interactions, on the other hand, often puts a severe limit on the achievable structural variety. To grasp the full potential of molecular self-assembly on these application-relevant substrates, therefore, requires strategies for anchoring the molecular building blocks toward the surface in a way that maintains flexibility in terms of intermolecular interaction and relative molecule orientation. Here, we report the design of a site-specific anch…
Selecting between CNC turning centers using a combined AHP and fuzzy approach
2019
Abstract CNC turning centers (CNCTC) are designed to perform simple turning operations, for parts having a symmetry axis. However, the flexibility of these machine-tools is increasing rapidly. Supplementary modules, such as Y-axis and driven tools, which allow the user to perform milling operations, are fitted on CNCTC. Selecting the proper CNCTC, out of a great number of commercially available solution has become a very difficult task. A combined approach using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and fuzzy logic is proposed, to assist the decision-making process of choosing between three variants of CNCTC.
A Review of Key Performance Indicators for Building Flexibility Quantification to Support the Clean Energy Transition
2021
The transition to a sustainable society and a carbon-neutral economy by 2050 requires extensive deployment of renewable energy sources that, due to the aleatority and non-programmability of most of them, may seriously affect the stability of existing power grids. In this context, buildings are increasingly being seen as a potential source of energy flexibility for the power grid. In literature, key performance indicators, allowing different aspects of the load management, are used to investigate buildings’ energy flexibility. The paper reviews existing indicators developed in the context of theoretical, experimental and numerical studies on flexible buildings, outlining the current status a…
CADWAN – A Control Architecture for Dense Wi-Fi Access Networks
2018
The growing demands of ubiquitous computing are leading towards the densification of wireless access networks. The challenges of high density deployments can be addressed by network- wide centralized control. To this end we propose CADWAN – a Control Architecture for efficient management of Dense Wi-Fi Access Networks. Its main advantages are: flexibility (it supports software- defined wireless networking), scalability (it uses a three-tier optimization framework), and extendibility (it exploits a unified control interface with support for heterogeneous devices). Furthermore, CADWAN is complementary to ongoing developments in IEEE 802.11, especially 802.11ax.
Automatic ontology-based user profile learning from heterogeneous web resources in a big data context
2013
The Web has developed to the biggest source of information and entertainment in the world. By its size, its adaptability and flexibility, it challenged our current paradigms on information sharing in several areas. By offering everybody the opportunity to release own contents in a fast and cheap way, the Web already led to a revolution of the traditional publishing world and just now, it commences to change the perspective on advertisements. With the possibility to adapt the contents displayed on a page dynamically based on the viewer's context, campaigns launched to target rough customer groups will become an element of the past. However, this new ecosystem, that relates advertisements wit…
Assessing Spillover Effects of Spatial Policies with Semiparametric Zero-Inflated Models and Random Forests
2021
The aim of this work is to estimate the variation over time of the spatial spillover effects of a public policy that was devoted to boost rural development in France over the period 1993–2002. At a micro data level, it is often observed that the dependent variable, such as local employment in a municipality, does not vary along time, so that we face a kind of zero inflated phenomenon that cannot be dealt with a classical continuous response model or propensity score approaches. We consider two recent non parametric techniques that are able to deal with that estimation issue. The first approach consists in fitting two generalized additive models to estimate both the probability of no variati…
A review of emerging trends in membrane science and technology for sustainable water treatment
2020
Abstract Access to clean or potable water will continue to be a global challenge in as much as sustainable solutions are far-fetched. It has become imperative to improve the efficiency of conventional membrane science and technologies for water treatment in order to reduce their deleterious impact on the environment. Some sustainability solutions have been proposed and studied in recent years. Therefore, a critical and comprehensive review of emerging trends in sustainable membrane-based desalination and wastewater treatment is presented in this paper. Some of the emerging trends in membrane science and technology for sustainable water treatment include the reuse of membranes, reuse of wast…