1,720,978 research outputs found
Methodology for evaluating the appropriateness of a business process for robotic process automation
No full textRobotic process automation (RPA) is often used by organisations to automate standard and repetitive business processes with the aim of improving firm performance. In some firms, processes such as invoice processing, onboarding and payment reminder notification are no longer required to be performed by humans. A successful implementation of RPA results in benefits such as FTE savings and increased employee satisfaction. However, when the wrong processes are chosen to be automated, the RPA implementation process becomes tedious and non-rewarding. Organisations often tend to select processes that are too complex or that require tasks necessitating human interventions. A miss-assessment in selection of a business process for automation leads to overly long development time and maintenance-intensive digital robots. Currently used process selection methods - such as interviews and process mining - might help with the identification of suitable processes, but are time consuming, complex, unsystematic and dependent on the individual. This book chapter discusses the different process selection methods covered in literature and suggests a workshop design that can be utilised to select business processes suitable for RPA implementation. The proposed workshop-based process selection method takes into consideration the recommendations of multiple stakeholders of a business process, evaluating the complexity of a business process to RPA fit and providing insights on expected benefits of RPA implementation.</p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Comparison of Manual and Automated Decision-Making with a Logistics Serious Game
Get PDFThis paper presents a logistics serious game that describes an anticipatory planning problem for the dispatching of trucks, barges, and trains, considering uncertainty in future container arrivals. The problem setting is conceptually easy to grasp, yet difficult to solve optimally. For this problem, we deploy a variety of benchmark algorithms, including two heuristics and two reinforcement learning implementations. We use the serious game to compare the manual performance of human decision makers with those algorithms. Furthermore, the game allows humans to create their own automated planning rules, which can also be compared with the implemented algorithms and manual game play. To illustrate the potential use of the game, we report the results of three gaming sessions: with students, with job seekers, and with logistics professionals. The experimental results show that reinforcement learning typically outperforms the human decision makers, but that the top tier of humans come very close to this algorithmic performance.</p
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Consolidation and coordination in urban freight transport
Get PDFDue to growing urbanization, fragmentation of freight flows, and increasingly strict delivery conditions, cities around the world have to deal with a vastly increasing number of freight transport flows. Carriers are unable to efficiently bundle these flows, resulting in inefficient urban transport. This inefficiency contributes to negative environmental effects such as hazardous emissions, traffic jams, and noise hindrance, which reduce the quality of life in urban areas. A natural solution to improve the efficiency of urban distribution is to consolidate freight flows, such that truck capacity may be better utilized and less trucks are needed. However, this solution requires far-reaching cooperation and coordination between independent and often competing stakeholders such as carriers, receivers, and the municipality. In practice, many initiatives fail in providing proper incentives to the involved stakeholders.This thesis contributes to the problems in urban logistics by exploring coordination and consolidation concepts. The presented research develops and applies mathematical techniques from the field of Operations Research to address planning problems of coordinating actors and to quantify the effects of urban logistics policies.We present planning tools that support Logistics Service Providers and urban consolidation centers in making dispatching and routing decisions under uncertainty. Simulation experiments show that preserving flexibility in logistics planning and anticipating future order arrivals significantly improve transport efficiency. Furthermore, we present an agent-based simulation framework that can be used to evaluate the impact of interventions in urban logistics on individual stakeholders. The numerical results show that sustainable solutions are achieved by combining company-driven consolidation initiatives and governmental policies such as vehicle access restrictions and subsidies.<br/
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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