The Fabricare system: a multi-agent-based scheduling prototype

Several trends in society in general, and manufacturing in particular, have changed the way business was made in the last decades of the 20th century, setting new requirements for companies and individuals. The research question being addressed in this paper is concerned with the ability to build computer-supported manufacturing systems able to cope with current and future requirements. For this matter, a hypothesis based on the holonic and multi-agent paradigms is proposed. The paper describes a holonic architecture for manufacturing enterprises and a prototype system (named Fabricare) for manufacturing orders scheduling based on that architecture. A negotiation mechanism called ‘contract net with constraint propagation protocol’ was developed for regulating the interaction between holons in the system. This protocol also implements a negotiation-driven scheduling procedure.     

Risk Analysis for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Operations in Extreme Environments

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are used increasingly to explore hazardous marine environments. Risk assessment for such complex systems is based on subjective judgment and expert knowledge as much as on hard statistics. Here, we describe the use of a risk management process tailored to AUV operations, the implementation of which requires the elicitation of expert judgment. We conducted a formal judgment elicitation process where eight world experts in AUV design and operation were asked to assign a probability of AUV loss given the emergence of each fault or incident from the vehicle's life history of 63 faults and incidents. After discussing methods of aggregation and analysis, we show how the aggregated risk estimates obtained from the expert judgments were used to create a risk model. To estimate AUV survival with mission distance, we adopted a statistical survival function based on the nonparametric Kaplan‐Meier estimator. We present theoretical formulations for the estimator, its variance, and confidence limits. We also present a numerical example where the approach is applied to estimate the probability that the Autosub3 AUV would survive a set of missions under Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica in January–March 2009.     

Emotional intelligence and leadership emergence in small groups

We report the findings from two studies that examine the association between emotional intelligence and leadership emergence in small groups. In both studies, members of groups completed measures of emotional intelligence and other individual differences prior to working on a group project. Their peers rated their leadership emergence at the conclusion of the project. Overall emotional intelligence and a number of its dimensions were associated with leadership emergence over and above cognitive intelligence, personality traits, and gender. These findings were observed when emotional intelligence was measured with an ability test but not when it was measured with a self-report scale. Among the dimensions of emotional intelligence, the ability to understand emotions was most consistently associated with leadership emergence.     

Bodies of Knowledge for Research in Behavioral Operations

Whenever intrepid researchers venture into new terrain, they find that they require knowledge outside of their formal training. This paper reviews bodies of knowledge for operations management (OM) researchers interested in the new area of Behavioral Operations. We highlight theoretical constructs and empirical phenomena from cognitive psychology, social psychology, group dynamics, and system dynamics. We also provide a guide for where to go to learn more about each body of knowledge. Our overall goal is to lower the startup costs for new researchers in Behavioral Operations.     

A sequential approach to testing seasonal unit roots in high frequency data

In this paper we introduce a sequential seasonal unit root testing approach which explicitly addresses its application to high frequency data. The main idea is to see which unit roots at higher frequency data can also be found in temporally aggregated data. We illustrate our procedure to the analysis of monthly data, and we find, upon analysing the aggregated quarterly data, that a smaller amount of test statistics can sometimes be considered. Monte Carlo simulation and empirical illustrations emphasize the practical relevance of our method.     

From distance sampling to spatial capture–recapture

Distance sampling and capture–recapture are the two most widely used wildlife abundance estimation methods. capture–recapture methods have only recently incorporated models for spatial distribution and there is an increasing tendency for distance sampling methods to incorporated spatial models rather than to rely on partly design-based spatial inference. In this overview we show how spatial models are central to modern distance sampling and that spatial capture–recapture models arise as an extension of distance sampling methods. Depending on the type of data recorded, they can be viewed as particular kinds of hierarchical binary regression, Poisson regression, survival or time-to-event models, with individuals’ locations as latent variables and a spatial model as the latent variable distribution. Incorporation of spatial models in these two methods provides new opportunities for drawing explicitly spatial inferences. Areas of likely future development include more sophisticated spatial and spatio-temporal modelling of individuals’ locations and movements, new methods for integrating spatial capture–recapture and other kinds of ecological survey data, and methods for dealing with the recapture uncertainty that often arise when “capture” consists of detection by a remote device like a camera trap or microphone.     

Population Growth and the Local Provision of Services: The Role of Primary Schools in Portugal

Population Research and Policy Review - The shrinking population in many European regions has led to a debate on the relation between the local provision of services of general interest and the...     

Public relations in Portugal. An analysis of the profession through the undergraduate curriculum

Higher education in public relations in Portugal has been expanding in recent years. The purpose of this research is to analyse undergraduate public relations programmes in Portugal within the Bologna Treaty reform. After having compared public relations curricula and defined the main features, an empirical research was applied in order to determine the opinion of public relations educators and practitioners about the ideal undergraduate plan of studies in public relations.