This paper examines the relationship between strategy and Total Quality Management (TQM) implementation, as well as the impact of the adaptation of both to organizational performance. We have used the emphasis on cost leadership, differentiation on marketing and differentiation on innovation as strategic dimensions to develop four great strategic configurations. The degrees of implementation of...

Software performance prediction methods are typically validated by taking an appropriate software system, performing both performance predictions and performance measurements for that system, and comparing the results. The validation includes manual actions, which makes it feasible only for a small number of systems. To significantly increase the number of systems on which software performance ...

A new class of statistical deformable models is introduced to study high-dimensional curves or images. In addition to the standard measurement error term, these deformable models include an extra error term modeling the individual variations in intensity around a mean pattern. It is shown that an appropriate tool for statistical inference in such models is the notion of sample Fréchet means, wh...

Traditional credit-risk evaluation methods focus mainly on static credit evaluation and rarely consider incentive factors. This paper proposes a comprehensive method of credit-risk evaluation based on dynamic incentives. First, an “explicit incentive” model is constructed based on the firm's current financial standing, and an “implicit incentive” model is subsequently developed focusing on the ...

Due to rapid development of technology and strict competition in the context of global and concurrent economy, the requirements of customers such as quality, reliability, sustainability and cost of products are more and more high and tight. Thus, satisfaction of those is an important key of product designers. However, the product designers work mainly on the nominal model of the product within ...

This paper discusses data analysis approaches for effective reliability prediction using prognostics and health management methodology, which integrates sensory data with models based on either healthy training data or physics-of-failure knowledge. This approach enables in-situ assessment of a product’s performance degradation or deviation from an expected normal operating condition (i.e., the ...

We find that the performance distribution of the individual stocks inside a mutual fund can toss out additional information about the fund manager’s stock picking ability. When a mutual fund contains mostly mediocre-performing stocks but one super-performer, it is likely that the overall fund performance, albeit good, would be due to luck. On the other hand, a fund that has a larger number of a...

This paper is aimed at evaluating the performances of different measures which have been proposed in literature for robust matching. In particular, classical matching metrics typically employed for this task are considered together with specific approaches aiming at achieving robustness. The main aspects assessed by the proposed evaluation are robustness with respect to photometric distortions,...

The global development of the world has an adverse affect on the natural environment, such as global warming, is continuing to mount. Green manufacturing systems that focus on minimizing environmental impact of manufacturing processes and products are ever more important to sustain our future. Green manufacturing systems are slow to gain acceptance as manufacturers are focusing more on implemen...

Some general arguments in the light of the application of the inorganic crystal scintillators in the search for rare processes are addressed. The continuous innovation provided by physics, chemistry and technology in their development allows the improvement of their performances. Also the possibility of detectors exploiting new materials is open and the further application to this field of rese...