Halfway technologies

An extraordinary gamut of medical and surgical therapies could be considered "halfway technologies," addressing mere symptoms or manifestations of disease, rather than the underlying pathogenesis. When a "halfway" technology is also lifesaving, its value cannot be underestimated by the individual patient. The example of organ transplantation explored in this column represents a halfway technology. It does not treat the underlying disease itself, but reflects the absolute failure of all efforts at medical and conservative therapy and is a last ditch, gerry-rigged lifesaving solution. And what about "quarter technologies"--the bridge to transplant devices--designed to get the patient halfway to the final halfway procedure?     

Not your father's health care

We in health care are living and working in a world that, for all its technical changes, differs little in its basic assumptions, structures, payment systems, beliefs, expectations, and job titles from the world of health care a generation back. How much change can we expect over the coming years? A lot more than we are prepared for. Look at the array of new technologies headed our way, from genomic sciences to customized vaccinations. Many of the breakthroughs promise incredible abilities to prevent disease, to profile our proclivities, and to manage our genetic predispositions over long periods of time, rather than merely wait until the disease manifests in an acute phase, then treat the symptoms. Digital technologies bring physicians executives enormous opportunities for new ways of gathering, storing, and mining information, for new types of communication between medical professionals, for new communications with customers, and new ways of steering large, complex enterprises. Unprecedented opportunities for change keep piling in through the door. Vast pressures for change keep building from every side. And the rewards for anyone who can lead the change keep compounding.     

On Determining Specifications and Selections of Alternative Technologies for Airport Checked-Baggage Security Screening

Federal law mandates that every checked bag at all commercial airports be screened by explosive detection systems (EDS), explosive trace detection systems (ETD), or alternative technologies. These technologies serve as critical components of airport security systems that strive to reduce security risks at both national and global levels. To improve the operational efficiency and airport security, emerging image-based technologies have been developed, such as dual-energy X-ray (DX), backscatter X-ray (BX), and multiview tomography (MVT). These technologies differ widely in purchasing cost, maintenance cost, operating cost, processing rate, and accuracy. Based on a mathematical framework that takes into account all these factors, this article investigates two critical issues for operating screening devices: setting specifications for continuous security responses by different technologies; and selecting technology or combination of technologies for efficient 100% baggage screening. For continuous security responses, specifications or thresholds are used for classifying threat items from nonthreat items. By investigating the setting of specifications on system security responses, this article assesses the risk and cost effectiveness of various technologies for both single-device and two-device systems. The findings provide the best selection of image-based technologies for both single-device and two-device systems. Our study suggests that two-device systems outperform single-device systems in terms of both cost effectiveness and accuracy. The model can be readily extended to evaluate risk and cost effectiveness of multiple-device systems for airport checked-baggage security screening.     

Web 2.0 support for individual,group and organizational learning

This article explores how Web 2.0 interactive technologies are valuable for generative, learner-driven, instructor-facilitated virtual learning processes integrated with work tasks for solving problems and coping with challenges. This is in contrast to the earlier generation of one-way technologies that is traditionally used for adaptive, instructor-driven online learning programs for skills and knowledge training, and communicating corporate policies and procedures. Learning professionals need to be open to encourage employees' experimentation with new software tools and techniques, value technology gatekeepers in their organization and promote informal learning.     

Modern health care depends on technology, Part 2

The first article in this series presented the principles and vocabulary of technology assessment and described the process used at St. Luke's, a tertiary care hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This second article will describe the resources needed to support a technology assessment program. Technology planning, acquisition, and management will also be discussed. Historically, the health care marketplace has welcomed new technologies. In a future in which providers will be accountable for the outcomes of the care they provide, the ability to evaluate new and existing technologies will be essential for success.     

Lottery Games and Risky Technologies: Communications About Low-Probability/High-Consequence Events

There are strong structural similarities between risks from technological hazards and big-purse state lottery games. Risks from technological hazards are often described as low-probability, high-consequence negative events. State lotteries could be equally well characterized as low-probability, high-consequence positive events. Typical communications about state lotteries provide a virtual strategic textbook for opponents of risky technologies. The same techniques can be used to sell lottery tickets or "sell" opposition to risky technologies. Eight basic principles are enumerated.     

The New Structural Challenge

ABSTRACT: There are intimate and lasting connections between technical innovation, economic development and social and institutional change. A good way to begin a study of the employment and social implications of these interrelationships is to consider which technical innovations and technologies are important by virtue of their economic and social consequences. This paper argues that some of the new technologies have had an impact on the production system - and therefore their measurable macro-economic impact can be significant — while others affect society directly without necessarily having a major impact on the economy. For different reasons, both types of technologies need to be considered. The paper develops a taxonomy of technical change which is used to rank the economic impacts of various emerging technologies. The focus is on the information technologies (IT), since they are found to be by far the most pervasive.     

GUIDELINES FOR IMPLEMENTING PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE*

Recent advances in predictive maintenance technologies have led many manufacturers to abandon traditional periodic maintenance policies and replace them with predictive maintenance policies. The models in this paper explicitly evaluate the decision to utilize both predictive and periodic maintenance when the objective is to minimize expected maintenance costs per unit time. Renewal theory is used to obtain optimal policies as unique solutions of integral equations that depend on the failure distribution and prediction capabilities. Based on this research, we recommend that practitioners do not abandon the traditional maintenance methods but follow our guidelines for utilizing periodic maintenance in conjunction with the new technologies.     

Tampering with Nature: A Systematic Review

Tampering with nature has been shown to be a strong, and sometimes even the strongest, predictor of the risk perception and acceptance of various technologies and behaviors, including environmental technologies, such as geoengineering. It is therefore helpful to understand what tampering with nature is as a construct, to which factors it relates, and when a technology or behavior is perceived as such. By means of a systematic review, we show that very little systematic research has been conducted on tampering with nature. Because tampering with nature has not yet been clearly defined, no systematic operationalization of tampering with nature has been used in the current literature. We show that tampering with nature is often used interchangeably with other constructs, such as naturalness. Based on the literature, we suggest that tampering with nature is related to and possibly influenced by three other constructs, which are naturalness, morality, and controllability. We discuss the influence of tampering with nature on the acceptance and risk perception of various technologies and behaviors and make suggestions for future research needs in order to better understand this construct.     

Additive manufacturing technology adoption: an empirical analysis of general and supply chain-related determinants

Despite experiencing immense growth in the past decade, additive manufacturing (AM) technologies—colloquially known as 3D-printing—are still rarely used in industrial fabrication. Being at the interface between technology, innovation, behavioral science and operations management research, this paper identifies multifaceted factors that determine the decision to adopt AM technologies for the production of industrial parts. A review of the relevant literature revealed eight potential factors. These can be classified into four interdisciplinary categories: technology-related factors, firm-related-factors, market structure-related factors, and supply chain-related factors. Special focus is placed on the impact of supply chain-related issues, because there are indicatives that these aspects have an influence on the decision to adopt AM technologies since AM may offer distinct opportunities for both, the supply- and demand-side of a firm’s operations. No work in the field of manufacturing technology adoption has examined the role of such inter-organizational factors before. The results of an empirical study among 195 firms indicate that demand-side benefits and compatibility are the main determinants of AM technology adoption. This suggests that not only intra- but also inter-organizational factors should be considered when investigating the adoption of technological innovations. Furthermore, it is carved out that the adoption of AM technologies has an interdisciplinary nature.     

多代新技术的最优投资策略和扩散研究——一种实物期权方法

本文通过将新技术的出现描述为泊松过程,在未来多代新技术和投资成本随新技术出现不断下降的情形下,通过新技术采纳的累积概率分布函数,研究企业最优的技术投资策略以及新技术的扩散过程。在分析未来两代新技术的情形时,对比净现值(NPV)法则下得到的企业最优投资策略,由于NPV法忽视了企业推迟投资的期权价值,企业在NPV方法下只能得到次优的决策。数字释例显示出企业的技术采纳行为如何受到创新速度、折现率、投资成本及其下降幅度的影响。进一步在无穷代新技术的情形下,得到了企业最迟投资时间的计算方法。本文模型可以用来预测现实中企业的投资策略,并为实证分析新技术的采纳和扩散过程提供了理论支持。     

Modeling the detection rates of fires in nuclear plants: development and application of a methodology for treating imprecise evidence

A model is developed for the detection time of fires in nuclear power plants, which differentiates between competing modes of detection and between different initial fire severities. Our state-of-knowledge uncertainties in the values of the model parameters are assessed from industry experience using Bayesian methods. Because the available data are sparse, we propose means to interpret imprecise forms of evidence to the develop quantitative information, which can be used in a statistical analysis; the intent is to maximize our use of all available information. Sensitivity analyses are performed to indicate the importance of structural and distributional assumptions made in the study. The methods used to treat imprecise evidence can be applied to a wide variety of problems. The specific equations developed in this analysis are useful in general situations, where the random quantity of interest is the minimum of a set of random variables (e.g., in "competing risks" models). The computational results indicate that the competing modes formulation can lead to distributions different from those obtained via analytically simpler models, which treat each mode independently of the others.     

Modeling Synergy and Learning under Multiple Advanced Manufacturing Technologies

The advent of the wide variety of new, highly integrated, advanced manufacturing technologies available for acquisition by a firm's managers has brought to light an accompanying set of unexpected issues. These issues include expectations for the benefits and costs of these technologies, determining the appropriate order of implementation and finding a way to justify acquisition when many of the benefits are a function of the technology's learning and synergistic effects on other operations and technologies. We present here a model that captures the interaction effects of these highly integrated technologies and discuss the data requirements for application of the construct. We then illustrate the model's workings with a number of multitechnology examples and show the danger of ignoring the synergistic and learning effects of these technologies when considering their acquisition.     

低碳技术组合应用下纵向合作减排的随机微分对策模型

在低碳电力调度准则下,基于考虑减排技术及其协同效应对低碳负荷需求的影响与电网公司购电的有限理性学习过程,建立了发电商采用3种低碳技术组合应用时的纵向合作减排的随机微分对策模型。运用汉密尔顿-雅可比-贝尔曼方程分别求得了Stackelberg博弈和合作博弈下均衡的减排技术投入、稳定的购电电量期望与方差以及Stackelberg博弈下最优的减排支付比例。考察了发电商减排技术的对称性及其应用数量对反馈均衡结果的影响,并对此两种博弈结构进行了比较分析。运用基于双向加权Rubinstein-Stahl讨价还价模型的利润共享契约使得决策系统达到协调,并将模型拓展到多种减排技术投入下的合作减排模型。研究发现:在一定条件和范围内,减排投入提高电网公司购电电量,同时发电商为此所带来的风险增大;合作博弈更适于优化电力市场电源结构,顺应低碳电力调度政策的导向;最优的减排技术应用、稳定的购电电量期望与方差以及系统均衡利润都与发电商选择的低碳技术投资效率、技术之间的协同作用以及数量正相关。     

Organizational Computing as a Facilitator of Operational and Managerial Decision Making: An Exploratory Study of Managers' Perceptions*

Much of the current knowledge pertaining to information technology (IT) and decision making is based on decades old technologies that revolved around a central computing function and application-specific systems. The purpose of this research is to examine the IT decision-making relationship within the emerging organizational computing (OC) environment permeated by spontaneous utilization of both application-and nonapplication-specific computing and communication technologies. Specifically, this study seeks to explore managers' perceptions of the emerging OC environment as a facilitator of their decision-making activities. To achieve a higher level of clarity than previous works, a two-dimensional research framework is developed with the IT dimension consisting of computing and communication, and the decision-making dimension differentiated between operational and managerial decisions. A survey instrument was constructed that measured the computing and communication dimensions of information technology use and their perceived effects upon operational and managerial decisions. The major findings of the study confirmed that managers recognize the value of general, nonapplication-specific information technologies in decision making, and that this recognition is highly associated with how intensively these information technologies are used. Additionally, it was found that the two dimensions of IT differ in their relationships to decision making, and that IT usage relates to managerial decisions differently than operational decisions. These study findings have significant implication for practice and research, especially in the context of information resource management in which the primary purpose of the IS function is the delivery of general information service to users rather than the development of specific IS applications.     

Competence-Based and Integrity-Based Trust as Predictors of Acceptance of Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS)

Public trust in organizations that are involved in the management and use of new technologies affects lay judgments about the risks and benefits associated with these technologies. In turn, judgments about risks and benefits influence lay attitudes toward these technologies. The validity of this (indirect) effect of trust on lay attitudes toward new technologies, which is referred to as the causal chain account of trust, has up till now only been examined in correlational research. The two studies reported in this article used an experimental approach to more specifically test the causal chain account of trust in the context of carbon dioxide capture and storage technology (CCS). Complementing existing literature, the current studies explicitly distinguished between two different types of trust in organizations: competence-based trust (Study 1) and integrity-based trust (Study 2). In line with predictions, results showed that the organizational position regarding CCS implementation (pro versus con) more strongly affected people's risk and benefit perceptions and their subsequent acceptance of CCS when competence-based trust was high rather than low. In contrast, the organizational position had a greater impact on people's level of CCS acceptance when integrity-based trust was low rather than high.     

Mexican and Swedish Managers' Perceptions of the Impact of EIS on Organizational Intelligence,Decision Making,and Structure*

Although information technologies in business organizations around the world may be very similar, the meanings conveyed through the technologies may be dependent on managerial values and national culture. Cultural differences need to be understood before information technology developed for organizations in one country can be effectively implemented in organizations in another country. Drawing on survey responses from managers using Executive Information Systems (EIS) across many organizations in Mexico, Sweden, and the United States, the current study examined whether cultural differences influence perceptions of the relationship between Executive Information Systems' use and various outcomes related to decision-making behaviors and processes. The study found significant differences, predicted by cultural factors, in the impact of EIS use on senior management decision making. The findings confirm the notion that IT is used by executives to reinforce the decision-making behaviors valued in their culture.     

The multicriteria selection of products in technological diversification strategies: an application to the Spanish automotive industry based on AHP

The economic recession, the dynamism and complexity of the markets and the generalised globalisation of the world economy have forced many companies to rethink and reorganise their industrial strategies. Through identifying and taking advantage of the key technologies of a company, this work presents a new and original methodology for dealing with a general technological diversification process. The methodology, which includes an innovative cognitive perspective and its corresponding decisional tool (decision support system) has been used to select the best product in a process of technological diversification that, along with the key technologies, identifies the sub-levels consonant to the sub-technologies and applications to sectors and products. The multicriteria selection tool employed in the proposed methodology, based on the analytic hierarchy process, allows the integration of multiple scenarios, actors and criteria, both tangible and intangible. The methodology has been applied to a case study in the Spanish automotive auxiliary sector.     

Fostering Innovation in Contaminated Sediments Management Through Multicriteria Technology Assessment and Public Participation

Management of contaminated sediments is problematic and costly. Several new technologies are under development that may in some cases reduce costs and environmental or ecological impacts. However, there are significant barriers to implementing new technologies, including the increased management complexity, the potential for introducing antagonistic or incommensurate objectives that are unfamiliar to stakeholders or regulators, and the difficulty of capturing private, commercial benefits from environmental improvements that may primarily benefit the public. This article identifies several innovative contaminated sediments technologies, discusses the difficulty of proving or quantifying the benefits of new technologies, and presents an agenda for research that would foster partnerships between scientific, government, and public communities of interest for the purpose of improving innovative technology assessment and environmental decision making.