Digital Commons Network^™

The Oil Drilling Model And Iterative Deepening Genetic Annealing Algorithm For The Traveling Salesman Problem, Hoong Chuin Lau, Fei Xiao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this work, we liken the solving of combinatorial optimization problems under a prescribed computational budget as hunting for oil in an unexplored ground. Using this generic model, we instantiate an iterative deepening genetic annealing (IDGA) algorithm, which is a variant of memetic algorithms. Computational results on the traveling salesman problem show that IDGA is more effective than standard genetic algorithms or simulated annealing algorithms or a straightforward hybrid of them. Our model is readily applicable to solve other combinatorial optimization problems.

When You Have To Dump It, M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

It makes sense to cut further losses and such containment efforts are routine events in most establishments.

St Engineering: A Globalisation Success Story, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Tan Pheng Hock is president and CEO of Singapore Technologies Engineering (ST Engineering), one of the largest companies listed on the Singapore stock exchange.The global integrated engineering group has 18,000 employees with operations in 20 countries, and 100 subsidiaries serving customers in more than 70 countries. Tan was the featured speaker at the Singapore Management University's Wee Kim Wee Centre CEO Talks series recently. He spoke to Knowledge@SMU about ST Engineering’s globalisation strategy and key learnings.

Tennis, Anyone? Lessons On Innovation In A Mature Industry, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Tennis qualifies as the oldest racquet sport in the world. Since 1874, little had changed until the 1970s when the wooden racquet was phased out, followed by a succession of cutting edge designs. How did the classic tennis racquet lend itself to being so thoroughly reinvented? Wharton management professor J.M. Pennings, together with Hann E Kim, professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management in Korea, set out to find some answers.

Creating Alternate In-Basket Forms Through Cloning: Some Preliminary Results, Filip Lievens, Frederik Anseel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research on constructing alternate forms of assessment center exercises is very scarce. This study examines the effectiveness of a cloning procedure (incident isomorphic approach) for developing alternate forms of a computerized in-basket. In this approach, original and alternate items are essentially similar (they are based on the same critical incident), while being superficially different (they are situated in a different context). Results showed there was no significant difference between the overall in-basket score across the alternate forms. In addition, these overall scores correlated .66, with projected estimates for the full in-basket approaching .80. Implications and limitations of the use of …

The Effects Of Entrepreneurial Growth Orientation On Organizational Change And Firm Growth, Wee Liang Tan, Thomas Menkhoff, Yue Wah Chay

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Managing growth in an enterprise as it grows beyond the startup phase is a challenge for many entrepreneurs. One key element that can help or hinder growth is the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial growth has been linked to micro variables (motivations and psychological attributes of the entrepreneur) and macro variables. However, few studies have examined the role of the growth aspirations of the entrepreneur on the necessary elements of organization change related to growth.

This paper reports a study employing a typology of entrepreneurs based on their growth aspirations using an established dichotomous scale devised by Smith to differentiate between what he …

Building Swift Clan Control In Complex It Projects, Cecil Eng Huang Chua, Wee-Kiat Lim, Christina Soh, Siew Kien Sia

CCX Research

Clan control is often essential in complex multi-stakeholder projects for project success. Furthermore, clan control is especially important during requirements analysis which occurs at project inception. How can controllers quickly institute clan control in complex IT projects? Through the case analysis of a large IT project, we observed that clan control can be accelerated by the purposeful application of formal controls to build social capital. Our findings corroborate the notion that, properly structured, clan control can emerge quickly in a multi-stakeholder project to improve the likelihood of IT implementation success.

Self-Organizing Neural Architectures And Cooperative Learning In A Multiagent Environment, Dan Xiao, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Temporal-Difference–Fusion Architecture for Learning, Cognition, and Navigation (TD-FALCON) is a generalization of adaptive resonance theory (a class of self-organizing neural networks) that incorporates TD methods for real-time reinforcement learning. In this paper, we investigate how a team of TD-FALCON networks may cooperate to learn and function in a dynamic multiagent environment based on minefield navigation and a predator/prey pursuit tasks. Experiments on the navigation task demonstrate that TD-FALCON agent teams are able to adapt and function well in a multiagent environment without an explicit mechanism of collaboration. In comparison, traditional Q-learning agents using gradient-descent-based feedforward neural networks, trained with the …

Understanding Highly Competent Information System Users, Brenda Eschenbrenner, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Individuals differ in their abilities to use information systems (IS) effectively, with some achieving exceptional performance in IS use. Using the Repertory Grid Technique, this research identifies attributes of highly competent IS users that distinguish them from less competent users. Using the Grounded Theory approach, we identified categories and sub-categories of these attributes and used them to develop a conceptual framework to explain IS User Competency. The findings indicate that highly competent users differ from less competent users in their Personality Traits and Disposition Factors, General Cognitive Abilities, Social Skills and Tendencies, Experiential Learning Factors, Domain Knowledge of and Skills …

Competition In Modular Clusters, Carliss Y. Baldwin, C. Jason Woodard

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The last twenty years have witnessed the rise of disaggregated “clusters,” “networks,” or “ecosystems” of firms. In these clusters the activities of R&D, product design, production, distribution, and system integration may be split up among hundreds or even thousands of firms. Different firms will design and produce the different components of a complex artifact (like the processor, peripherals, and software of a computer system), and different firms will specialize in different stages of a complex production process. This paper considers the pricing behavior and profitability of these so-called modular clusters. In particular, we investigate a possibility hinted at in prior …

A Unified Interdisciplinary Theory Of Open Source Culture And Entertainment, Jerald Hughes, Karl Reiner Lang, Eric K. Clemons, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Digital technologies are profoundly transforming the production and consumption of culture and entertainment products. The emerging digital re-mix culture is an open source approach where content products in the arts and entertainment industries are increasingly rearranged, manipulated, and extended in the process of creating new works. This article offers a unified description of the tools and techniques that led to the development of the open source culture and that enable the processes which promote re-use of previously recorded materials. It then lays out the incentives and forces that either promote or inhibit the development, distribution, and consumption of modified cultural …

I’M A Virus Harming The Earth, M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We humans plunder the raw material from our host planet with such an abandon that is only seen in viruses.

The Challenge Of Developing Across Borders: Singapore’S Gambit In Bangalore, India, Choong Tze Chua, Wilfred Pow Ngee How, Caroline Yeoh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

Singapore's Exchange Rate Policy: Some Implementation Issues, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

Reflecting the small open nature of its economy, Singapore has adopted an exchange rate-centered monetary policy framework since 1981. The exchange rate regime in Singapore is an intermediate regime that follows the basket-band-crawl system. With this managed float system, the MAS has successfully deterred speculators from attacking the domestic currency for most of the past three decades. At the same time, the flexibility accorded by the managed float system aided Singapore in escaping from the 1997–1998 Asian crisis relatively unscathed. In order to advance our understanding of the hitherto successful operation of Singapore's exchange rate policy, we examine the following …

Preventing Location-Based Identity Inference In Anonymous Spatial Queries, Panos Kalnis, Gabriel Ghinita, Kyriakos Mouratidis, Dimitris Papadias

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The increasing trend of embedding positioning capabilities (for example, GPS) in mobile devices facilitates the widespread use of location-based services. For such applications to succeed, privacy and confidentiality are essential. Existing privacy-enhancing techniques rely on encryption to safeguard communication channels, and on pseudonyms to protect user identities. Nevertheless, the query contents may disclose the physical location of the user. In this paper, we present a framework for preventing location-based identity inference of users who issue spatial queries to location-based services. We propose transformations based on the well-established K-anonymity concept to compute exact answers for range and nearest neighbor search, without …

Tuning Tabu Search Strategies Via Visual Diagnosis, Steven Halim, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While designing working metaheuristics can be straightforward, tuning them to solve the underlying combinatorial optimization problem well can be tricky. Several tuning methods have been proposed but they do not address the new aspect of our proposed classification of the metaheuristic tuning problem: tuning search strategies. We propose a tuning methodology based on Visual Diagnosis and a generic tool called Visualizer for Metaheuristics Development Framework(V-MDF) to address specifically the problem of tuning search (particularly Tabu Search) strategies. Under V-MDF, we propose the use of a Distance Radar visualizer where the human and computer can collaborate to diagnose the occurrence of …

Competitive Equilibrium In E-Commerce: Pricing And Outsourcing, Parijat Dube, Zhen Liu, Laura Wynter, Cathy Xia

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The success of firms engaged in e-commerce depends on their ability to understand and exploit the dynamics of the market. One component of this is the ability to extract maximum profit and minimize costs in the face of the harsh competition that the internet provides. We present a general framework for modeling the competitive equilibrium across two firms, or across a firm and the market as a whole. Within this framework, we study pricing choices and analyze the decision to outsource IT capability. Our framework is novel in that it allows for any number of distributions on usage levels, price–QoS …

Study Of The Minimum Spanning Hyper-Tree Routing Algorithm In Wireless Sensor Networks, Ting Yang, Yugeng Sun, Zhaoxia Wang, Juwei Zhang, Yingqiang Ding

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Designing energy-efficient routing protocols to effectively increase the networks' lifetime and provide the robust network service is one of the important problems in the research of wireless sensor networks. Using the hyper-graph theory, the paper represents large-scale wireless sensor networks into a hyper-graph model, which can effectively decrease the control messages in routing process. Based on this mathematic model, the paper presents the minimum spanning hyper-tree routing algorithm in synchronous wireless sensor networks (MSHT-SN), which builds a minimum energy consumption tree for data collection from multi-nodes to Sink node. The validity of the algorithm is proved by the theatrical analysis. …

Multi-Order Neurons For Evolutionary Higher Order Clustering And Growth, Kiruthika Ramanathan, Sheng Uei Guan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This letter proposes to use multiorder neurons for clustering irregularly shaped data arrangements. Multiorder neurons are an evolutionary extension of the use of higher-order neurons in clustering. Higher-order neurons parametrically model complex neuron shapes by replacing the classic synaptic weight by higher-order tensors. The multiorder neuron goes one step further and eliminates two problems associated with higher-order neurons. First, it uses evolutionary algorithms to select the best neuron order for a given problem. Second, it obtains more information about the underlying data distribution by identifying the correct order for a given cluster of patterns. Empirically we observed that when the …

Location Update Versus Paging Trade-Off In Cellular Networks: An Approach Based On Vector Quantization, Abhishek Roy, Archan Misra, Sajal K. Das

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper we propose two information-theoretic techniques for efficiently trading off the location update and paging costs associated with mobility management in wireless cellular networks. Previous approaches attempt to always accurately convey a mobile's movement sequence and hence, cannot reduce the signaling cost below the entropy bound. Our proposed techniques, however, exploit rate-distortion theory to arbitrarily reduce the update cost, at the expense of an increase in the corresponding paging overhead. To this end, we describe two location tracking algorithms, based on spatial quantization and temporal quantization, which first quantize the movement sequence into a smaller set of codewords, …

Global Sourcing Model Helps Companies Optimise Benefits From Free Trade Agreements, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

As FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) proliferate, companies increasingly face difficult decisions about where to source for components and set up manufacturing bases so as to benefit from FTAs. Brian Rodrigues, professor of operations management at the Singapore Management University, and management sciences professors Li Yanzhi and Andrew Lim at the City University of Hong Kong, have developed an easy to use algorithm which helps companies do just that.

Do Software Development Projects Dispersed Across The Globe Deliver The Goods?, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Higher demands on computer systems and networks compel technology companies to assign software development duties across many dispersed centres in the US, India, China and elsewhere. In actual practice, does this distributed development model work well? Singapore Management University information systems professors Narayan Ramasubbu and Rajesh Krishna Balan examined this question in an award-winning paper, “Globally Distributed Software Development Project Performance: An Empirical Analysis,” presented recently at a joint meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT symposium.

State-Led Transborder Industrialization In Asia: A Note On Singapore's Manufacturing Enclaves In Vietnam And China, Caroline Yeoh, Wilfred Pow Ngee How

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

State-led, market-driven interventions have been the hallmark of the Singapore `success storyÆ. This paper revisits SingaporeÆs state-enterprise strategy and takes a closer look at the portability of this strategy, in the framework of Regionalization21, a series of transborder industrialization experiments in Indonesia, Vietnam and China. These state-engineered projects, orchestrated to encapsulate economic space for Singapore-based firms to expand into the region, remain controversial. This strategic initiative is promulgated on the exportability of SingaporeÆs state credibility, systemic and operational efficiencies as well as technological competencies, to locations where these attributes are less distinct. We present evidence culled from surveys and interviews …

The Dynamics Of Implementing And Managing Modularity Of Organizational Routines During Capability Development: Insights From A Process Model, Shan Ling Pan, Gary Shan Chi Pan, Adela Chen, Ming Huei Hsieh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Past research using the resource-based view of a firm suggests that it is important to consider how firms develop, manage, and deploy resources and capabilities to influence the overall process of strategy formation and implementation. Relatively little research has been conducted in conceptualizing how firms implement and manage modularity of organizational routines during capability development. Yet, most companies would benefit from implementing modularity in organizational routines when competing in dynamic market conditions. Such implementations may require fundamental organizational reorientation that incurs significant coordination costs, and in some cases, such modularization attempts may fail, costing organizations significant amounts of valuable resources. …

S-Made: Interactive Storytelling Architecture Through Goal Execution And Decomposition, Yundong Cai, Zhiqi Shen, Chunyan Miao, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Interactive storytelling, emerging with virtual reality technology, has attracted a lot of research interests in recent years. In order to bridge the gap between story generation and story presentation, some hybrid narrative models are raised. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid interactive storytelling architecture S-MADE. It combines the story plot generation and character performance through goal execution and decomposition mechanism. Fuzzy Cognitive Goal Net (FCGN) is a goal modeling tool for modeling the story scenario and character behaviors. The goal decomposition algorithm enables for director agent to dispatch acts to characters easily. With this system, dynamic storylines as …

Designing The Market Game For A Commodity Trading Simulation, Shih-Fen Cheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we propose to design a market game that (a) can be used in modeling and studying commodity trading scenarios, and (b) can be used in capturing human traders' behaviors. Specifically, we demonstrate the usefulness of this commodity trading game in a single-commodity futures trading scenario. A pilot experiment was run with a mixture of human traders and an autonomous agent that emulates the aggregatedmarket condition, with the assumption that this autonomous agent would hint each of its action through a public announcement. We show that the information collected from this simulation can be used to extract the …

The Price Of Stability In Selfish Scheduling Games, Lucas Agussurja, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Game theory has gained popularity as an approach to analysing and understanding distributed systems with selfinterested agents. Central to game theory is the concept of Nash equilibrium as a stable state (solution) of the system, which comes with a price - the loss in efficiency. The quantification of the efficiency loss is one of the main research concerns. In this paper, we study the quality and computational characteristic of the best Nash equilibrium in two selfish scheduling models: the congestion model and the sequencing model. In particular, we present the following results: (1) In the congestion model: first, the best …

Detecting And Segmenting Un-Occluded Items By Actively Casting Shadows, Tze K Koh, Amit Agrawal, Ramesh Raskar, Steve Morgan, Nicholas Miles, Barrie Hayes-Gill

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

We present a simple and practical approach for segmenting un-occluded items in a scene by actively casting shadows. By ‘items’, we refer to objects (or part of objects) enclosed by depth edges. Our approach utilizes the fact that under varying illumination, un-occluded items will cast shadows on occluded items or background, but will not be shadowed themselves.We employ an active illumination approach by taking multiple images under different illumination directions, with illumination source close to the camera. Our approach ignores the texture edges in the scene and uses only the shadow and silhouette information to determine the occlusions. We show …

Model Checking In The Absence Of Code, Model And Properties, David Lo, Siau-Cheng Khoo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Model checking is a major approach in ensuring software correctness. It verifies a model converted from code against some formal properties. However, difficulties and programmers ’ reluctance to formalize formal properties have been some hurdles to its widespread industrial adoption. Also, with the advent of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components provided by third party vendors, model checking is further challenged as often only a binary version of the code is provided by vendors. Interestingly, latest instrumentation tools like PIN and Valgrind have enable execution traces to be collected dynamically from a running program. In this preliminary study, we investigate what can …

Measuring Article Quality In Wikipedia: Models And Evaluation, Meiqun Hu, Ee Peng Lim, Aixin Sun, Hady W. Lauw, Ba-Quy Vuong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Wikipedia has grown to be the world largest and busiest free encyclopedia, in which articles are collaboratively written and maintained by volunteers online. Despite its success as a means of knowledge sharing and collaboration, the public has never stopped criticizing the quality of Wikipedia articles edited by non-experts and inexperienced contributors. In this paper, we investigate the problem of assessing the quality of articles in collaborative authoring of Wikipedia. We propose three article quality measurement models that make use of the interaction data between articles and their contributors derived from the article edit history. Our Basic model is designed based …