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The aim of this paper is to conduct an empirical study to explore the influence of size category on innovation incorporation in Irish SMEs. Changes in markets and in large organisation strategies have resulted in the need for SMEs to re-examine and modify their competitive strategies to increase innovation. Although there is some literature on innovation incorporation in SMEs, there is a lack of direct studies on this issue, with a reliance on related but indirect studies such as Reengineering and New product development in SMEs. Furthermore, there is a paucity of studies and data on the innovation incorporation in different organisational size categories within SMEs.

This study uses a grounded SME innovation model developed from earlier studies as the basis of a questionnaire survey of 2086 SMEs in Northern Ireland. The results indicate that SME organisational size categories has a significant effect on innovation incorporation in relation to leadership, people and culture, TQM/CI, product and process and Knowledge and information management.

The current valid version of ISO 9001 from 2015 provides a few changes, including change planning, identifying all stakeholders, the term high level structure (HLS) and risk management based on Risk-based Thinking (RBT). Even if there are already many papers which describe the concept of the last version, there are still questions about following some of the “new” requirements from the standard. Especially today, when Industry 4.0 as a concept introduces a new perception about Safety and Security, it is necessary to understand the purpose of the standard requirements linked directly with the risks and their perception. Nowadays, at a time of system integration, it is not possible to elevate the system’s requirements over standard elements of the current Industrial Revolution referred to as Industry 4.0. RBT in management system integration does not have a strictly defined structure. Each organisation applies its own procedures and tools to evaluate and manage business risks, which present some limitations resulting from the overall culture and aims of the organisation. In an effort to integrate management systems, a production system applying Industry 4.0 requirements can involve many new limitations resulting from past ideas about integration and also the opportunities associated with knowledge management.

The paper is based on a survey made in different manufacturing organisations with the aim to analyse the level of Industry 4.0 implementation. Detailed research was focused on analysing current trends of RBT implementation in industrial enterprises (engineering, metallurgy, and automotive industry), comparing new requirements of ISO 9001 with the level of application in their processes. At the same time, the utilisation of Industry 4.0 in the management of these processes and its impact on Safety and Security were evaluated.

Technology-enabled feedback encompasses many significant features including AI. It also allows students greater flexibility in providing feedback, and the university/institute enables them to make data-driven decisions as the collected data are free from bias and data analyses are accurate. There are different technology-centric feedback collections such as Open edX Insight, speech-to-text, Kahoot, Dialogflow, and so on. These technology-centric feedback collections mean collecting more realistic data from the students. Both qualitative and quantitative data could be analyzed by applying technology-centric data analyses tools. AMOS, LABLEAU, SAS, SPSS, Stata, Statista, XLSTAT, and ROOT are a few of the quantitative data analyses software, and Atlas, Airtable, Coda, Condens, MaxQDA, Notion, and NVivo are a few of the qualitative data analyses software. To make the students’ feedback and survey more successful we recommend sharing survey methods/survey questions with other educational institutions, conducting broader surveys, broad topics to ask questions on, technology-based analysis of qualitative feedback comments, and including skills development-focused questions.

There has been a lot of interest in time series forecasting in recent years. Deep neural networks have shown their effectiveness and accuracy in various industries. It is currently one of the most extensively used machine-learning algorithms for dealing with massive volumes of data due to the reasons stated above. Statistical modeling includes forecasting, which is used for decision-making in various fields. Time-varying variables may be forecasted based on their past values, which is the goal of forecasting. Developing models and techniques for trustworthy forecasting is an important part of the forecasting process. As part of this study, a systematic mapping investigation and a literature review are used. Time series researchers have relied on ARIMA approaches for decades, notably the autoregressive integrated moving average model, but the need for it to be stationary makes this method somewhat rigid. Forecasting methods have improved and expanded with the introduction of computers, ranging from stochastic models to soft computers. Conventional approaches may not be as accurate as soft computing. In addition, the volume of data that can be analyzed and the efficiency of the process are two of the many benefits of using soft computing.

This paper presents the design of an eLearning Index (eLI) to determine the adaptability of a corporation or education institution for eLearning. Firstly, it describes the framework of eLearning. Secondly, it describes the methodology and the evaluation of eLearning Index. Thirdly, it reports the research results of two surveys. Finally, it concludes its findings on how to assess an organization's adaptability to eLearning. The principal aim of this paper is to design an eLI which is used to determine the adaptability of a corporation or education institution to eLearning before full implementation of an eLearning strategy. In the determination of eLI, staff of a corporation or education institution are required to answer twenty key questions. The average score of the eLI of the staff is used to determine the adaptability to eLearning. The higher the average score of the eLI is, the better the adaptability of the corporation or education institution to eLearning is.

When to apply a new technology in an organization is a critical decision for every software development organization. Earlier work defines a set of methods that the research community uses when a new technology is developed. This chapter presents a discussion of the set of methods that industrial organizations use before adopting a new technology. First there is a brief definition of the earlier research methods and then a definition of the set of industrial methods. A survey taken by experts from both the research and industrial communities provides insights into how these communities differ in their approach toward technology innovation and technology transfer.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) and wireless sensor networks (WSN) are two important wireless technologies that have a wide variety of applications and provide limitless future potentials. RFID facilitates detection and identification of objects that are not easily detectable or distinguishable by using current sensor technologies. However, it does not provide information about the condition of the objects it detects. Sensors, on the other hand, provide information about the condition of the objects as well as the environment. Hence, integration of these technologies will expand their overall functionality and capacity. This chapter first presents a brief introduction on RFID and then investigates recent research works, new patents, academic products and applications that integrate RFID with sensor networks. Four types of integration are discussed: (1) integrating tags with sensors; (2) integrating tags with wireless sensor nodes and wireless devices; (3) integrating readers with wireless sensor nodes and wireless devices; and (4) mix of RFID and wireless sensor networks. New challenges and future works are discussed at the end.

The literature on international trade and firm performance grows exponentially. This chapter attempts to summarize what we learn from this literature to guide future empirical and theoretical work in this area. The focus is on the empirical part of the literature that consists of recently published papers using data for firms from manufacturing or services industries to study the links between international trade (exports and imports) and dimensions of firm performance (productivity, wages, profitability and survival).

An effective Facility Management (FM) is essential to maintain old buildings so ensure that they remain sturcturally sound, and able to support the funcationality to the inhabitants using them. However, to date, there is comprehensive study on the subject, this paper aims to review the previous papers on facility management performance evaluation and construct evaluation framework as a first step of strategic management by identifying critical success factors (CSF) and key performance indicators (KPI). The evaluation framework could be employed for cornerstone of strategic management on FM. Moreover, the identified CSF and KPI are surveyed in order to offer an empirical approach for strategic management in FM domain. The survey results indicate that reliability of service, timely responsiveness to emergency, tenants’ safety, customer satisfaction and work execution control are the most critical in successful FM performance. In addition, training is essentential to strengthen the monitoring; training for emergency situation, education and training for service mindset, regular meeting with tenants and safe inspection and patrol are the most important factors in enhancing the level of performance in the office building FM practice. Finally, the survey results on CSF and KPI on Korean office buildings are addressed in strategic perspective in FM, thus suggesting future research.

Orienteering Problem (OP) can be modeled in many applications such as logistic scheduling system, tourist guide service, athlete recruiting. OP and its variants have attracted increasing attention of scholars. In this paper, a literature review is conducted on the recent development of OP and its new variant including Time-Dependent Orienteering Problem (TDOP), Stochastic Orienteering Problem (SOP) and Multi-Objective Orienteering Problem (MOOP). The definition and formulation of OP and its variants are formally described. The exact and heuristic algorithms used to solve the OP and its variants are summarized and compared.

This paper presents partial results of a research developed during the year 2002 to 2006. Population analyzed was Science and Technology teachers of Spanish universities. The investigation has worked with sample academic users, distributed among 19 Spanish universities. The main contribution of this study is to present a BIQUAL tool. It is useful for the evaluation of the quality services in university libraries and especially of Science and Technology. This tool is created using the user's point of view. Results identify behaviour of these users and the aspects that concern the quality of the service in this environment. We also discuss about some problems and difficult experimented in this research. We analyzed the use of quantitative methods, in special, survey as well as it effectiveness to library quality management.

Public Libraries can surely play a significant social, cultural and economic role. Improvements on quality however are a necessary prerequisite. On the other hand, quality is a complex and subjective concept, which should incorporate at any given time the true (expressed and implied) needs of all interested parties. This paper investigates and empirically assesses the current perceptions for quality in Greek public libraries in order to suggest a way forward for quality management implementation. For that purpose a survey based on semi-structured interviews with the directors of Greek public libraries has been constructed and the results are presented.

In order to more fully understand the cultural shifts in technology within and between generations, a sample survey of several public libraries in a rural university community will be analyzed. The following subjects will be addressed and compared on a generational level within this poster presentation: programming, technology—types and usage, and frequency and purpose of visits. A thorough analysis of the data in this case study will provide insight into the changing role of technology use among two distinct generations of library patrons.

The paper reports a project conducted within the framework of the National Library of Sweden's Expert Group on Library Statistics. The project is financed by the National Library of Sweden, and it aims to capture how library managements make use of the current library statistics (based on the ISO-standard) in the decision-making process. Questions are also asked about the quality and usefulness of the existing statistical data, whether data covers all relevant aspects of library activity, and what additional data is required in order to enhance the validity of collected statistics.

The primary method used is semi-structured group interviews (focus groups). Four such interviews were held with the participation of 15 library directors from academic and other research or special libraries from different parts of Sweden. The results show that there is considerable ambivalence among the informants concerning the usefulness of current statistics. On the one hand there is severe criticism of what today is reported on a national level (too much and too little), on the other hand statistical data is used locally to underpin arguments supporting library activities.

Stakeholders representing university or institutional management were not available for group interviews. With the support of the interviewed library directors a group of 12 vice-chancellors or other senior managers were identified and approached with a mail survey. Questions were asked about what kind of documentation of library activities they use or prefer, be they quantitative, qualitative or of other kind.

Concept map has been advocated as an effective tool for teaching, learning, and assessment of conceptual understanding in science education. Although the term “concept map” might not be new to many Chinese mathematics teachers, few of them are familiar with its uses and fewer apply it in educational environments. How Chinese mathematics teachers feel about concept map and how they would use and incorporate it in teaching are issues of interest. This study investigated Chinese mathematics teachers' perceptions of concept map, and their incorporation of concept map in mathematics teaching through lesson plans and practical teaching. With brief introduction, both the prospective and in-service teachers were positive with the use of concept map and indicated a willingness to try it in their classroom teaching. But to actually apply concept map in practice, the teachers, especially the in-service teachers, were to a degree hesitant due to some practical reasons, such as curriculum schedule and pressure from exam. They needed more operational training on concept map to guide their trial and solid evidences to convince them the effectiveness of concept map. Successful initial experience seemed to be a key for teachers' willingness to use concept map in future teaching.