Search results

1 – 10 of over 14000
Article
Publication date: 7 September 2015

Yao 'Henry' Jin, Brent D. Williams, Matthew A. Waller and Adriana Rossiter Hofer

The accurate measurement of demand variability amplification across different nodes in the supply chain, or “bullwhip effect,” is critical for firms to achieve more efficient…

1559

Abstract

Purpose

The accurate measurement of demand variability amplification across different nodes in the supply chain, or “bullwhip effect,” is critical for firms to achieve more efficient inventory, production, and ordering planning processes. Building on recent analytical research that suggests that data aggregation tends to mask the bullwhip effect in the retail industry, the purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate whether different patterns of data aggregation influence its measurement.

Design/methodology/approach

Utilizing weekly, product-level order and sales data from three product categories of a consumer packaged goods manufacturer, the study uses hierarchical linear modeling to empirically test the effects of data aggregation on different measures of bullwhip.

Findings

The authors findings lend strong support to the masking effect of aggregating sales and order data along product-location and temporal dimensions, as well as the dampening effect of seasonality on the measurement of the bullwhip effect.

Research limitations/implications

These findings indicate that inconsistencies found in the literature may be due to measurement aggregation and statistical techniques, both of which should be applied with care by academics and practitioners in order to preserve the fidelity of their analyses.

Originality/value

Using product-weekly level data that cover both seasonal and non-seasonal demand, this study is the first, to the author’s knowledge, to systematically aggregate data up to category and monthly levels to empirically examine the impact of data aggregation and seasonality on bullwhip measurement.

Details

International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, vol. 45 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0960-0035

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 November 2012

Sami J. Habib and Paulvanna N. Marimuthu

Energy constraint is always a serious issue in wireless sensor networks, as the energy possessed by the sensors is limited and non‐renewable. Data aggregation at intermediate base…

Abstract

Purpose

Energy constraint is always a serious issue in wireless sensor networks, as the energy possessed by the sensors is limited and non‐renewable. Data aggregation at intermediate base stations increases the lifespan of the sensors, whereby the sensors' data are aggregated before being communicated to the central server. This paper proposes a query‐based aggregation within Monte Carlo simulator to explore the best and worst possible query orders to aggregate the sensors' data at the base stations. The proposed query‐based aggregation model can help the network administrator to envisage the best query orders in improving the performance of the base stations under uncertain query ordering. Furthermore, it aims to examine the feasibility of the proposed model to engage simultaneous transmissions at the base station and also to derive a best‐fit mathematical model to study the behavior of data aggregation with uncertain querying order.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper considers small and medium‐sized wireless sensor networks comprised of randomly deployed sensors in a square arena. It formulates the query‐based data aggregation problem as an uncertain ordering problem within Monte Carlo simulator, generating several thousands of uncertain orders to schedule the responses of M sensors at the base station within the specified time interval. For each selected time interval, the model finds the best possible querying order to aggregate the data with reduced idle time and with improved throughput. Furthermore, it extends the model to include multiple sensing parameters and multiple aggregating channels, thereby enabling the administrator to plan the capacity of its WSN according to specific time intervals known in advance.

Findings

The experimental results within Monte Carlo simulator demonstrate that the query‐based aggregation scheme show a better trade‐off in maximizing the aggregating efficiency and also reducing the average idle‐time experienced by the individual sensor. The query‐based aggregation model was tested for a WSN containing 25 sensors with single sensing parameter, transmitting data to a base station; moreover, the simulation results show continuous improvement in best‐case performances from 56 percent to 96 percent in the time interval of 80 to 200 time units. Moreover, the query aggregation is extended to analyze the behavior of WSN with 50 sensors, sensing two environmental parameters and base station equipped with multiple channels, whereby it demonstrates a shorter aggregation time interval against single channel. The analysis of average waiting time of individual sensors in the generated uncertain querying order shows that the best‐case scenario within a specified time interval showed a gain of 10 percent to 20 percent over the worst‐case scenario, which reduces the total transmission time by around 50 percent.

Practical implications

The proposed query‐based data aggregation model can be utilized to predict the non‐deterministic real‐time behavior of the wireless sensor network in response to the flooded queries by the base station.

Originality/value

This paper employs a novel framework to analyze all possible ordering of sensor responses to be aggregated at the base station within the stipulated aggregating time interval.

Details

International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, vol. 8 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1742-7371

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 10 May 2021

Zachary Hornberger, Bruce Cox and Raymond R. Hill

Large/stochastic spatiotemporal demand data sets can prove intractable for location optimization problems, motivating the need for aggregation. However, demand aggregation induces…

Abstract

Purpose

Large/stochastic spatiotemporal demand data sets can prove intractable for location optimization problems, motivating the need for aggregation. However, demand aggregation induces errors. Significant theoretical research has been performed related to the modifiable areal unit problem and the zone definition problem. Minimal research has been accomplished related to the specific issues inherent to spatiotemporal demand data, such as search and rescue (SAR) data. This study provides a quantitative comparison of various aggregation methodologies and their relation to distance and volume based aggregation errors.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper introduces and applies a framework for comparing both deterministic and stochastic aggregation methods using distance- and volume-based aggregation error metrics. This paper additionally applies weighted versions of these metrics to account for the reality that demand events are nonhomogeneous. These metrics are applied to a large, highly variable, spatiotemporal demand data set of SAR events in the Pacific Ocean. Comparisons using these metrics are conducted between six quadrat aggregations of varying scales and two zonal distribution models using hierarchical clustering.

Findings

As quadrat fidelity increases the distance-based aggregation error decreases, while the two deliberate zonal approaches further reduce this error while using fewer zones. However, the higher fidelity aggregations detrimentally affect volume error. Additionally, by splitting the SAR data set into training and test sets this paper shows the stochastic zonal distribution aggregation method is effective at simulating actual future demands.

Originality/value

This study indicates no singular best aggregation method exists, by quantifying trade-offs in aggregation-induced errors practitioners can utilize the method that minimizes errors most relevant to their study. Study also quantifies the ability of a stochastic zonal distribution method to effectively simulate future demand data.

Details

Journal of Defense Analytics and Logistics, vol. 5 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2399-6439

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 February 2018

Sathya D. and Ganesh Kumar P.

This study aims to provide a secured data aggregation with reduced energy consumption in WSN. Data aggregation is the process of reducing communication overhead in wireless sensor…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to provide a secured data aggregation with reduced energy consumption in WSN. Data aggregation is the process of reducing communication overhead in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Presently, securing data aggregation is an important research issue in WSNs due to two facts: sensor nodes deployed in the sensitive and open environment are easily targeted by adversaries, and the leakage of aggregated data causes damage in the networks, and these data cannot be retrieved in a short span of time. Most of the traditional cryptographic algorithms provide security for data aggregation, but they do not reduce energy consumption.

Design/methodology/approach

Nowadays, the homomorphic cryptosystem is used widely to provide security with low energy consumption, as the aggregation is performed on the ciphertext without decryption at the cluster head. In the present paper, the Paillier additive homomorphic cryptosystem and Boneh et al.’s aggregate signature method are used to encrypt and to verify aggregate data at the base station.

Findings

The combination of the two algorithms reduces computation time and energy consumption when compared with the state-of-the-art techniques.

Practical implications

The secured data aggregation is useful in health-related applications, military applications, etc.

Originality/value

The new combination of encryption and signature methods provides confidentiality and integrity. In addition, it consumes less computation time and energy consumption than existing methods.

Article
Publication date: 7 November 2016

Devis Bianchini, Valeria De Antonellis and Michele Melchiori

Modern Enterprise Web Application development can exploit third-party software components, both internal and external to the enterprise, that provide access to huge and valuable…

Abstract

Purpose

Modern Enterprise Web Application development can exploit third-party software components, both internal and external to the enterprise, that provide access to huge and valuable data sets, tested by millions of users and often available as Web application programming interfaces (APIs). In this context, the developers have to select the right data services and might rely, to this purpose, on advanced techniques, based on functional and non-functional data service descriptive features. This paper focuses on this selection task where data service selection may be difficult because the developer has no control on services, and source reputation could be only partially known.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed framework and methodology are apt to provide advanced search and ranking techniques by considering: lightweight data service descriptions, in terms of (semantic) tags and technical aspects; previously developed aggregations of data services, to use in the selection process of a service the past experiences with the services when used in similar applications; social relationships between developers (social network) and their credibility evaluations. This paper also discusses some experimental results regarding the plan to expand other experiments to check how developers feel using the approach.

Findings

In this paper, a data service selection framework that extends and specializes an existing one for Web APIs selection is presented. The revised multi-layered model for data services is discussed and proper metrics relying on it, meant for supporting the selection of data services in a context of Web application design, are introduced. Model and metrics take into account the network of social relationships between developers, to exploit them for estimating the importance that a developer assigns to other developers’ experience.

Originality/value

This research, with respect to the state of the art, focuses attention on developers’ social networks in an enterprise context, integrating the developers’ credibility assessment and implementing the social network-based data service selection on top of a rich framework based on a multi-perspective model for data services.

Details

International Journal of Web Information Systems, vol. 12 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1744-0084

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Functional Structure and Approximation in Econometrics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-44450-861-4

Article
Publication date: 1 September 2006

Clément Arsenault

Aims to measure syllable aggregation consistency of Romanized Chinese data in the title fields of bibliographic records. Also aims to verify if the term frequency distributions…

Abstract

Purpose

Aims to measure syllable aggregation consistency of Romanized Chinese data in the title fields of bibliographic records. Also aims to verify if the term frequency distributions satisfy conventional bibliometric laws.

Design/methodology/approach

Uses Cooper's interindexer formula to evaluate aggregation consistency within and between two sets of Chinese bibliographic data. Compares the term frequency distributions of polysyllabic words and monosyllabic characters (for vernacular and Romanized data) with the Lotka and the generalised Zipf theoretical distributions. The fits are tested with the Kolmogorov‐Smirnov test.

Findings

Finds high internal aggregation consistency within each data set but some aggregation discrepancy between sets. Shows that word (polysyllabic) distributions satisfy Lotka's law but that character (monosyllabic) distributions do not abide by the law.

Research limitations/implications

The findings are limited to only two sets of bibliographic data (for aggregation consistency analysis) and to one set of data for the frequency distribution analysis. Only two bibliometric distributions are tested. Internal consistency within each database remains fairly high. Therefore the main argument against syllable aggregation does not appear to hold true. The analysis revealed that Chinese words and characters behave differently in terms of frequency distribution but that there is no noticeable difference between vernacular and Romanized data. The distribution of Romanized characters exhibits the worst case in terms of fit to either Lotka's or Zipf's laws, which indicates that Romanized data in aggregated form appear to be a preferable option.

Originality/value

Provides empirical data on consistency and distribution of Romanized Chinese titles in bibliographic records.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 62 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 April 2011

Turkka Näppilä, Katja Moilanen and Timo Niemi

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an expressive query language, called relational XML query language (RXQL), capable of dealing with heterogeneous Extensible Markup…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an expressive query language, called relational XML query language (RXQL), capable of dealing with heterogeneous Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents in data‐centric applications. In RXQL, data harmonization (i.e. the removal of heterogeneous factors from XML data) is integrated with typical data‐centric features (e.g. grouping, ordering, and aggregation).

Design/methodology/approach

RXQL is based on the XML relation representation, developed in the authors' previous work. This is a novel approach to unambiguously represent semistructured data relationally, which makes it possible in RXQL to manipulate XML data in a tuple‐oriented way, while XML data are typically manipulated in a path‐oriented way.

Findings

The user is able to describe the result of an RXQL query straightforwardly based on non‐XML syntax. The analysis of this description, through the mechanism developed in this paper, affords the automatic construction of the query result. This feature increases significantly the declarativeness of RXQL compared to the path‐oriented XML languages where the user needs to control the construction of the result extensively.

Practical implications

The authors' formal specification of the construction of the query result can be considered as an abstract implementation of RXQL.

Originality/value

RXQL is a declarative query language capable of integrating data harmonization seamlessly with other data‐centric features in the manipulation of heterogeneous XML data. So far, these kinds of XML query languages have been missing. Obviously, the expressive power of RXQL can be achieved by computationally complete XML languages, such as XQuery. However, these are not actual query languages, and the query formulation in them usually presupposes programming skills that are beyond the ordinary end‐user.

Details

International Journal of Web Information Systems, vol. 7 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1744-0084

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 September 2007

Ruey‐Kei Chiu, S.C. Lenny Koh and Chi‐Ming Chang

The purpose of this paper is to provide a data framework to support the incremental aggregation of, and an effective data refresh model to maintain the data consistency in, an…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide a data framework to support the incremental aggregation of, and an effective data refresh model to maintain the data consistency in, an aggregated centralized database.

Design/methodology/approach

It is based on a case study of enterprise distributed databases aggregation for Taiwan's National Immunization Information System (NIIS). Selective data replication aggregated the distributed databases to the central database. The data refresh model assumed heterogeneous aggregation activity within the distributed database systems. The algorithm of the data refresh model followed a lazy replication scheme but update transactions were only allowed on the distributed databases.

Findings

It was found that the approach to implement the data refreshment for the aggregation of heterogeneous distributed databases can be more effectively achieved through the design of a refresh algorithm and standardization of message exchange between distributed and central databases.

Research limitations/implications

The transaction records are stored and transferred in standardized XML format. It is more time‐consuming in record transformation and interpretation but it does have higher transportability and compatibility over different platforms in data refreshment with equal performance. The distributed database designer should manage these issues as well assure the quality.

Originality/value

The data system model presented in this paper may be applied to other similar implementations because its approach is not restricted to a specific database management system and it uses standardized XML message for transaction exchange.

Details

Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, vol. 18 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-038X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 June 2010

Guillermo Navarro‐Arribas and Vicenç Torra

The purpose of this paper is to anonymize web server log files used in e‐commerce web mining processes.

1483

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to anonymize web server log files used in e‐commerce web mining processes.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper has applied statistical disclosure control (SDC) techniques to achieve its goal. More precisely, it has introduced the micro‐aggregation of web access logs.

Findings

The experiments show that the proposed technique provides good results in general, but it is especially outstanding when dealing with relatively small websites.

Research limitations/implications

As in all SDC techniques there is always a trade‐off between privacy and utility or, in other words, between disclosure risk and information loss. In this proposal, it has borne this issue in mind, providing k‐anonymity, while preserving acceptable information accuracy.

Practical implications

Web server logs are valuable information used nowadays for user profiling and general data‐mining analysis of a website in e‐commerce and e‐services. This proposal allows anonymizing such logs, so they can be safely outsourced to other companies for marketing purposes, stored for further analysis, or made publicly available, without risking customer privacy.

Originality/value

Current solutions to the problem presented here are very poor and scarce. They are normally reduced to the elimination of sensitive information from query strings of URLs in general. Moreover, to its knowledge, the use of SDC techniques has never been applied to the anonymization of web logs.

Details

Internet Research, vol. 20 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1066-2243

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 14000