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Information systems frontiers
COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM January 2000/Vol. 43, No. 1 71 In this article, we focus on certain important and promising IS/IT frontiers identified from the perspectives of academia, industry, and federal research funding agencies. Our objective is to focus the collective awareness of the IS community and those in related disciplines on some of the frontier developments in IS/IT with a vision of the road ahead and point to challenges and opportunities [1]. We address the following emerging frontiers in IS/IT: the integrated circuits (IC) revolution, object technologies, knowledge and distributed intelligence, the evolving multiagent intelligent systems, satellite networks and mobile computing and the virtual corporation of the next millennium. These frontiers capture significant areas of research and development with the potential to fundamentally alter the field of IS/IT in the next millennium. Jagdish Chandra, Salvatore T. March,
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A dynamic learning model for on-line quality control using the TAGUCHI approach
Abstract An important philosophy of quality control due to Taguchi rests on the belief that, once quality is designed into the product and the process, very little inspection is necessary. Taguchi evaluates quality in terms of costs incurred, including inspection and adjustment costs apart from quality loss. Using these costs, he determines an optimal interval for periodic inspection of products. At each inspection, the first item on the process line is checked for defects. If no defects are found, the process is assumed to be under control. On the other hand, if the first item turns out to be defective, the process is immediately stopped and adjusted. The underlying assumption here is that, once a defect is observed, it is construed that the process has drifted and all subsequent items are defective. This article challenges the underlying assumption by recognizing that the observation of one defective item does not necessarily imply that the process is out of control. Noisy signals may occur as a result ...
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Intelligent computer integrated manufacturing (I-CIM): Research perspectives
Abstract Manufacturing automation has progressed through various stages from simple data transfer to the intelligence-intensive systems. The future of CIM relies heavily on intelligence-intensive systems because manufacturing is no longer confined to one local site and manufacturing systems have become complex because of their global nature. In this article, the authors study the future manufacturing environment as a collaborative effort. The essential characteristics-the requirements for integration from a process and communication perspective-are identified as are steps in the process requiring further study. Finally, Intelligent-Computer Integrated Manufacturing (I-CIM) scenarios are presented for specific problems.
62235624
An efficient approach to stochastic jobshop scheduling: algorithms and empirical investigations
Abstract Jobshop scheduling is one of the important classes of problems planning. The jobshop represents a common manufacturing environment, in which a set of machines is used to process a stream of jobs arriving randomly. The stochastic arrival pattern of the jobs, their processing sequences, and processing times render the scheduling of jobs a complex and difficult task. Furthermore, the scheduling task involves multiple conflicting objectives such as the minimization of the flow time, lateness and the number of late jobs among others. In this research,we develop a framework for the efficient scheduling of jobs considering these multiple objectives. The motivation for this research arises from the good performance of the interactive man-machine scheduling systems in achieving significant levels of attainment in the set of objectives, simultaneously. We develop scheduling strategies to the man-machine approach in this research. The algorithms developed in this research have been extensively tested and evaluated against the traditional scheduling methods using simulation studies. The results show that the proposed approach is efficient and viable for solving practical scheduling problems in the presence of multiple objectives.
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Thin Film Ferroelectric Materials and Devices
From the Publisher: 
Thin Film Ferroelectric Materials and Devices is a compilation of current research and development in two very important ferroelectric device technologies, namely ferroelectrics for Dynamic Random Access Memories (DRAM's) and Non-Volatile Ferroelectric Random Access Memories (NV-FRAM's). Given the rapid pace of development and the broad scope of the general topic of ferroelectric materials, readers will benefit from such a focused presentation. Thin Film Ferroelectric Materials and Devices will be of great value to materials and device scientists, device and process engineers, students, and postdoctoral associates. Furthermore, this compilation will serve as a concise introduction for new entrants to this exciting field.
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Blind DC Estimation in the Presence of Non-Gaussian Signal
A method of estimating DC offset based solely on the received signal, without using any training information, is presented. This method takes into account the non-Gaussian statistical distribution of the modulated desired signal in order to produce a DC estimate that is more accurate than the conventional sample average of the received signal. Specifically, two iterative algorithms are derived based on the generalized expectation-maximization algorithms for jointly estimating the DC offset, the noise variance, and the parameters that characterize the signal distribution. As an application, we consider the special case where the modulated signal has a constant-envelope characteristic. Using the GSM/EDGE air interface, we demonstrate that the proposed method yields significant reduction in the DC-offset estimation error, which translates into performance gains in receiver sensitivity when used in direct-conversion receivers.
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Theory of convex cones in multicriteria decision making
We develop the theory of convex polyhedral cones in the objective-function space of a multicriteria decision problem. The convex cones are obtained from the decision-maker's pairwise judgments of decision alternatives and are applicable to any quasiconcave utility function. Therefore, the cones can be used in any progressively articulated solution procedure that employs pairwise comparisons. The cones represent convex sets of solutions that are inferior to known solutions to a multicriteria problem. Therefore, these convex sets can be eliminated from consideration while solving the problem. We develop the underlying theory and a framework for representing knowledge about the decision-maker's preference structure using convex cones. This framework can be adopted in the interactive solution of any multicriteria problem after taking into account the characteristics of the problem and the solution procedure. Our computational experience with different multicriteria problems shows that this approach is both viable and efficient in solving practical problems of moderate size.