Volume 3 Issue 3

Authors: I.Ibn El Farouk; A. Talbi; F. Jawab

Abstract: In this survey, we present the results of our research about how to select relevant indicators to better measure and manage performance medicines supply chain in Moroccan public hospitals. In order to enable the pharmacist to select indicators, we have adopted a synthetic method and built a tool based on process modelling approach and the SCOR model. The article is made up of two main parts. The first is reserved to present the methodology, and the second one is to introduce an application of our tool in Casablanca Moulay Youssef hospital (CMYH).

Keywords: SCOR Model; Hospital; Medicines; Process; Supply Chain

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Authors: Jun He

Abstract: Trust plays a vital role in e-commerce to encourage desired transaction attitudes and behaviors from consumers. Research on trust in e-commerce has employed many different theoretical frameworks and tested a variety of variables, resulting in fragmented findings. This study attempts to synthesize previous empirical findings regarding antecedents and consequents of trust in e-commerce. A meta-analysis is conducted. 70 empirical studies have been identified, and 262 effect sizes are collected and meta-analyzed. Implications for future research are also discussed.

Keywords: Meta-Analysis; Trust; E-commerce; E-vendors; Trust Antecedents; Trust Effects

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Authors: K. M. Sam; C. R. Chatwin

Abstract: An effective e-marketing strategy is an important ingredient for the success of any kind of business. E-marketing’s uniqueness is created using a series of specific and relational functions that are combined with the 4P’s to form the e-marketing mix elements, each of which contains associated e-marketing mix tools that are provided on business web sites to facilitate sales transactions. This research analyses the importance of each e-marketing tool related to its support of its e-marketing mix element by using an integrated approach which takes account of: i) the relevance of each e-marketing tool to its supporting e-marketing mix element and ii) comparisons of e-marketing tools within their e-marketing mix element. The results indicate the e-marketing tools which should be frequently addressed are very important for online stores developing their e-marketing strategy. This research concludes with a discussion of the accuracy and relative importance of the e-marketing tool weights.

Keywords: E-marketing Mix Element; E-marketing Mix Model; E-marketing Tools; Factor Analysis; Analytical Hierarchy Process; Integrated Relative Weight

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Authors: Rinaldo C. Michelini; Roberto P. Razzoli

Abstract: At the millennium turnover, the ecology globalisation shows the impeding threats of over-depletion/pollution: the sustainable growth requires supply-chain visibility, resource bookkeeping and renovation planning. The changeover is planned to be enabled enforcing the enterprise responsibility of the extended artefacts, having lifecycle liability, i.e., from ideation and manufacturing, to operation, disposal and recovery of the delivered products-services. In the lifecycle specification/analysis, the basic design (global plan, detailed design, assembly, etc.) is followed by manufacturing, assembly, testing, diagnostics and operation, advertising, maintenance, etc.; then, disassembly and disposal are scheduled, requiring reclamation and recovery, by re-cycling (material reprocessing) or re-using (part refurbishing). The present paper provides pilot clues for understanding the product-process agendas, using the TYPUS metrics and the KILT model, developed by the authors, in previous works.

Keywords: Lifecycle Management; Economy Globalisation; Ecology Globalisation; Sustainable Growth

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Authors: Rodrigo Mendes Leme; Marcelo Novaes de Rezende

Abstract: Due to properties such as interoperability and reuse, there is an increasing adoption of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) in organizations. The combined use of SOA and Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) allows automating business processes. Analyzing potential performance issues in a SOA can be a complex task, especially when there is a high number of business processes and services. In this context, an alternative is to prioritize: select the most relevant services for performance improvement. To facilitate this prioritization, it is proposed a definition of service relevance, based on a representation of the business processes of a SOA in the form of a multidigraph, along with performance metrics collected from the logs of the BPEL orchestrator. A tool that automatically calculates the relevance of each service was also developed, which was tested in an experimental SOA. The results of that experiment showed the prioritization done according to the index of service relevance allowed an improvement of the average performance of the SOA.

Keywords: SOA; BPEL; Prioritization of Services; Performance Improvement; Multidigraph

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Authors: Ludovico Boratto; Salvatore Carta; Matteo Manca; Paolo Pilloni; G. Michele Pinna; Eloisa Vargiu; Fabrizio Mulas

Abstract: Collaborative tagging is the process by which users classify shared content using keywords. Although its popularity keeps growing on the Web, content retrieval can be difficult since people tag differently. Moreover, there are some well-known linguistic phenomena. Recently, several attempts to avoid such limitations by recommending tags to users or by creating tag clusters have been presented. In this paper we propose an approach to cluster tags by monitoring the activity of the users in a tagging system. The created clusters can be used to recommend tags when a user uploads or searches a resource, in order to facilitate content retrieval. Experiments are performed by comparing with a classic tag clustering approach and results show the capability of the approach to cluster strongly related tags.

Keywords: Tag Clustering; Social Recommendation; Tagging System

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