Search results

To meet the rising global needs, the humanitarian community has signed off on making a strategic change toward more localisation, which commonly refers to the empowerment of national and local actors in humanitarian assistance. However, to this date, actual initiatives for localisation are rare. To enhance understanding of the phenomenon, the authors explore localisation of logistics preparedness capacities and obstacles to its implementation. The authors particularly take the perspective of the international humanitarian organisation (IHO) community as they are expected to implement the localisation strategy.

A phenomenon-driven, exploratory and qualitative study was conducted. Data collection included in-depth interviews with 28 experienced humanitarian professionals.

The findings showed the ambiguity inherent in the localisation strategy with largely different views on four important dimensions. Particularly, the interviewees differ about strengthening external actors or internal national/local offices. The resulting framework visualises the gap between strategy formulation and implementation, which forms major obstacles to the localisation aims.

Further research is required to support the advancement of localisation of logistics preparedness capacities. Important aspects for future research include triangulation of results, other stakeholder perspectives and the influence of context.

The authors add to the important debate surrounding localisation by offering remedies to overcoming obstacles to strategy implementation. Further, the authors’ proposed framework offers a language to precisely describe the ways in which IHOs (should) view localisation of logistics preparedness capacities and its operationalisation.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first academic article on localisation within the humanitarian logistics context.

Precise vehicle localization is a basic and critical technique for various intelligent transportation system (ITS) applications. It also needs to adapt to the complex road environments in real-time. The global positioning system and the strap-down inertial navigation system are two common techniques in the field of vehicle localization. However, the localization accuracy, reliability and real-time performance of these two techniques can not satisfy the requirement of some critical ITS applications such as collision avoiding, vision enhancement and automatic parking. Aiming at the problems above, this paper aims to propose a precise vehicle ego-localization method based on image matching.

This study included three steps, Step 1, extraction of feature points. After getting the image, the local features in the pavement images were extracted using an improved speeded up robust features algorithm. Step 2, eliminate mismatch points. Using a random sample consensus algorithm to eliminate mismatched points of road image and make match point pairs more robust. Step 3, matching of feature points and trajectory generation.

Through the matching and validation of the extracted local feature points, the relative translation and rotation offsets between two consecutive pavement images were calculated, eventually, the trajectory of the vehicle was generated.

The experimental results show that the studied algorithm has an accuracy at decimeter-level and it fully meets the demand of the lane-level positioning in some critical ITS applications.

This chapter examines the translation of generic global goals into local action. It first discusses the translation of global goals into national agendas and the challenges of localizing the goals. Localizing the goals is essential for ensuring that the SDGs reflect local needs, norms, and values, thus ensuring that local actors find them relevant and meaningful. The chapter argues that cocreation is a key vehicle for the localization of the SDGs and identifies the key benefits that arise from using cocreation as a localization strategy. Cocreation can foster the will and capacity for local governments and communities to advance the cause of sustainability. Cocreation can help communities integrate the sustainable development goals, identify hidden resources, build support networks, create social accountability, etc.

This study aims to investigate the synergies between the economic environment and the smart living dimension embedded in the current smart city initiatives, focusing on the localization of female entrepreneurship in contemporary cities. This interaction is under-investigated and controversial as it includes cities' practices enabling users and citizens to develop their potential and build their own lives, affecting entrepreneurial and economic outcomes. Building upon the perspective of the innovation ecosystems, this study focuses on the impact of smart living dimensions and R&D investments on the localization of female entrepreneurial activities.

The study uses a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and a panel dataset that considers 30 Italian smart city projects for 12 years to demonstrate the relationship between smart living practices in cities and the localization of female entrepreneurship. The complementary effect of public R&D investment is also included as a driver in the “smart” city transition.

The study found that the advancement of smart living practices in cities drives the localization of female entrepreneurship. The study highlights the empirical results, the interaction over the years and a current overview through choropleth maps. The public R&D investment also affects this relationship.

This study advances the theoretical discussion on (1) female entrepreneurial intentions, (2) smart city advancement (as a context) and (3) smart living dimension (as a driver) and offers valuable insight for governance and policymakers.

This study offers empirical contributions to the preliminary academic debate on enterprise development and smart city trajectories at the intersection between human-based practices and female entrepreneurship.

This study offers empirical contributions to the preliminary academic debate on enterprise development and smart city trajectories at the intersection between human-based practices and female entrepreneurship. The findings provide valuable insights into the localization of female entrepreneurship in the context of smart cities.

The purpose of this paper is to facilitate the spread of accessible e-books, especially ones of STEM much more in developing countries, an efficient/systematic scheme to localize tools for producing/reading them should be established. Furthermore, even in many advanced countries, Print-disabled people still do not have a good tool to write a content including technical notations such as mathematical formulas in their own local language. This work is aimed at giving a practical solution for those problems.

Here, multilingual support in a tool to produce accessible STEM contents and its new localization scheme are discussed.

It is shown that the accessible STEM-document editor can be customized easily for print-disabled people so that they can read and author a material including complicated technical notations in their own local language. The localization for Vietnamese and other various languages actually has been worked on.

The Vietnamese version was completed, and some prototype versions for the other languages were also given. It is expected that the software can contribute to improve STEM accessibility much more in many countries.

Level 3 automated driving, which has been defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers, may cause driver drowsiness or lack of situation awareness, which can make it difficult for the driver to recognize where he/she is. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to conduct an experimental study with a driving simulator to investigate whether automated driving affects the driver’s own localization compared to manual driving.

Seventeen drivers were divided into the automated operation group and manual operation group. Drivers in each group were instructed to travel along the expressway and proceed to the specified destinations. The automated operation group was forced to select a course after receiving a Request to Intervene (RtI) from an automated driving system.

A driver who used the automated operation system tended to not take over the driving operation correctly when a lane change is immediately required after the RtI.

This is a fundamental research that examined how the automated driving operation affects the driver's own localization. The experimental results suggest that it is not enough to simply issue an RtI, and it is necessary to tell the driver what kind of circumstances he/she is in and what they should do next through the HMI. This conclusion can be taken into consideration for engineers who design automatic driving vehicles.

Vision, audition, olfactory, tactile and taste are five important senses that human uses to interact with the real world. As facing more and more complex environments, a sensing system is essential for intelligent robots with various types of sensors. To mimic human-like abilities, sensors similar to human perception capabilities are indispensable. However, most research only concentrated on analyzing literature on single-modal sensors and their robotics application.

This study presents a systematic review of five bioinspired senses, especially considering a brief introduction of multimodal sensing applications and predicting current trends and future directions of this field, which may have continuous enlightenments.

This review shows that bioinspired sensors can enable robots to better understand the environment, and multiple sensor combinations can support the robot’s ability to behave intelligently.

The review starts with a brief survey of the biological sensing mechanisms of the five senses, which are followed by their bioinspired electronic counterparts. Their applications in the robots are then reviewed as another emphasis, covering the main application scopes of localization and navigation, objection identification, dexterous manipulation, compliant interaction and so on. Finally, the trends, difficulties and challenges of this research were discussed to help guide future research on intelligent robot sensors.

At the inception of the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management (JHLSCM), logistics coordination was identified as important, both in practice and research, but few studies on the topic had been published. Ten years later, many, if not most, papers in the journal mention the topic. So the picture has changed, but to what extent? This paper discusses how coordination research has followed humanitarian logistics practice and vice versa.

The point of departure in the present article is the most salient topic from the study’s original papers (Jahre et al., 2009; Jahre and Jensen, 2010). The authors discuss how these topics have developed in research and practice. A recent literature review (Grange et al., 2020) enables us to pick relevant papers from JHLSCM and supplement them with more recent ones. The authors complement this approach with updated data on the cluster system, particularly the logistics cluster, to add insights from the empirical domain.

In practice, the cluster concept has developed from coordination within clusters in response to the inclusion of inter-cluster coordination in preparedness, and more recently a focus on localized preparedness. However, JHLSCM research does not appear to have kept pace, with a few notable exceptions. The majority of its papers still focus on response. To the extent that preparedness is covered, it is primarily done so at the global level.

The authors use a framework to discuss humanitarian logistics coordination research and identify important gaps. Based on developments in practice, the study’s key contribution is a revised model with suggestions for further research.

Chinese consumers’ cross-border internet shopping, so called “haitao” is an emerging popular trend in China. Haitao can be understood as service innovation process because it creates new market spaces and provides differentiated values for Chinese customers.

This study aims to explore the service innovation strategies and success factors of haitao business in the Chinese market. The authors selected two successful haitao sites of Amazon.cn and Gmarket.co.kr, as representatives of a global player and a niche player, and conducted a comparative case study to analyze their service innovation strategies and key success factors.

This comparative case analysis based on value chain framework revealed some common success factors such as trust, advanced system and alliances as well as their service innovation efforts. Amazon has advantages such as efficient logistics system and global sourcing, whereas Gmarket has advantages such as product category, sales promotions, and payment system.

This study provides some implications for managers with localization, alliances and platform strategies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruptions and revealed the fragilities in supply chains. This crisis has re-opened the debate on supply chain resilience and sustainability. This paper aims to investigate distinct impacts of COVID-19 on supply chains. It identifies both short- and medium-to-long-term measures taken to mitigate the different effects of the pandemic and highlights potential transformations and their impacts on supply chain sustainability and resilience.

To address the purpose of the study, a qualitative research approach based on case studies and semi-structured interviews with 15 practitioners from various supply chain types and sectors was conducted. Studied organizations included necessary and non-necessary supply chain sectors, which are differently impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study reveals five main challenges facing supply chains during COVID-19, including uncertain demand and supply, suppliers' concentration in specific regions, globalized supply chains, reduced visibility in the supply network, and limited supplier capacity. To help mitigate these challenges and develop both sustainability and resilience, this paper identifies some mitigating actions focusing on the promotion of the health and wellbeing of employees and supply chain stabilization. Further, in the post-COVID era, sustainable and resilient supply chains should consider regionalization of the supply chain, diversification of the supply network, agility, collaboration, visibility, and transparency; and should accelerate the use of smart technologies and circular economy practices as dynamic capabilities to improve supply chain resilience and sustainability.

This study contributes to exploring the sustainability- and resilience-related challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its findings can be used by researchers and supply chains decision-makers to limit disruptions and improve responsiveness, resilience, sustainability, and restoration of supply chains. The results support benchmarking through sharing of the best practices and organizations can also integrate the different capabilities discussed in this study into the processes of selection and auditing of their suppliers.