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This study aims to fill a gap in the literature. The notion of giveaways/free has not been well addressed in management history literature and arguably is a valuable contribution in that it has a strategic dimension.

This paper is conceptual. It is a structured survey of ideas/opinions about the notion of “free” in commercial endeavor. The survey is organized largely from a historical perspective.

Several categories of “free” are delineated and placed into a historical and strategic context.

The work has strategic implications and lays out a new research agenda for management historians.

On the basis that the platform for user equipment for the 1990s is reasonably predictable, the creation of a new generation of user interface facilities can be started. The Esprit project TOOTSI (Telematic Object Oriented Tools for Services Interfaces) has as its objective the creation of a toolkit for building user interfaces to business information services using the GUI paradigm. The project brings together a unique combination of companies, active in the provision of actual services to the information community. This paper will describe the results of the initial two years of work on TOOTSI covering the decision making on the application platform and the design of the elements which will make up the toolkit. A prediction of the actual services to be developed is also included.

The purpose of this study is to present the importance of integrating common features between the Green Mark Scheme (GMS) and the Buildable Design Appraisal System (BDAS) requirements in building envelopes.

The study presents the common features that influence both the GM score of the building envelope and the buildability score of the wall system. A case study is developed to show the effects of varying the value of a representative common feature in the GM score and the buildability score.

The study finds that lengths of window and wall, and wall materials are the common features that can influence the GM score of the building envelope and the buildability score of the wall system. The case study suggested that the window‐to‐wall ratio (WWR), which is the representative common feature, shows negative relationship with the GM score of the building envelope and positive relationship with the buildability score of the wall system.

The results show that varying the WWR influences the GM score of the building envelope more strongly than the buildability score of the wall system. This seems to imply that building professionals when determining the WWR may have to concern themselves with the GM score of the building envelope more as compared to the buildability score of the wall system.

The study suggests that integrating the common features between GMS and BDAS requirements with other relevant factors such as cost, social and environmental impacts of design can help to save workload, time and budget, as well as facilitate the delivery of more reliable design, planning and management from a practical viewpoint.

Presents the findings of a study which examined the impact of automation on the job satisfaction among library staff of the Margaret Thatcher Library (MTL), Moi University, Kenya. With the exception of the university librarian, his deputy and the systems librarian who were interviewed face to face, questionnaires were distributed to all other library staff. An 80 percent response rate resulted and data were coded and analysed. It was established that there were myriad problems within the library regarding training and access to automated systems of interest. However, MTL staff members viewed automation as enrichment and a source of satisfaction to their jobs. For automation to boost the staff members’ job satisfaction, concrete plans for consistent structured in‐house training, free access to the available software, additional systems staff, and centralised databases, among others, must be implemented.

The purpose of this paper is to achieve the national strategic agenda’s criteria that aim for accomplishing sustainable buildings by estimating the effects of energy efficiency measures in order to reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emission.

A design approach has been developed based on simulation software and a modeled building. Therefore, a typical office building is considered for testing five efficiency measures in three climatic conditions in Algeria. This approach is conducted in two phases: first, the analysis of each measure’s effect is independently carried out in terms of cooling energy and heating energy intensities. Then, a combination of optimal measures for each climate zone is measured in terms of three sustainable indicators: final energy consumption, energy cost saving and CO₂ emission.

The results reveal that a combination of optimal measures has a substantial impact on building energy saving and CO₂ emission. This saving can rise to 41 and 31 percent in a hot and cold climate, respectively. Furthermore, it is concluded that obtaining higher building performance, different design alternatives should be adapted to the climate proprieties and the local construction materials must be applied.

This study is considered as an opportunity for achieving the national strategy, as it may contribute in improving office building performance and demonstrating a suitable tool to assist stakeholders in the decision making of most important parameters in the design stage for new or retrofit buildings.

Due to technological improvement and development of the vehicle-to-home (V2H) concept, electric vehicle (EV) can be considered as an active component of net-zero energy buildings (NZEBs). However, to achieve more dependable results, proper energy analysis is needed to take into consideration the stochastic behavior of renewable energy, energy consumption in the building and vehicle use pattern. This study aims to stochastically model a building integrating photovoltaic panels as a microgeneration technology and EVs to meet NZEB requirements.

First, a multiobjective nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) was developed to optimize the building energy performance considering panels installed on the façade. Next, a dynamic solution is implemented in MATLAB to stochastically model electricity generation using solar panels as well as building and EV energy consumption. Besides, the Monte Carlo simulation method is used for quantifying the uncertainty of NZEB performance. To investigate the impact of weather on both energy consumption and generation, the model is tested in five different climatic zones in Iran.

The results show that the stochastic simulation provides building designers with a variety of convenient options to select the best design based on level of confidence and desired budget. Furthermore, economic evaluation signifies that investing in all studied cities is profitable.

Considering the uncertainty in building energy demand and PV power generation as well as EV mobility and the charging–discharging power profile for evaluating building energy performance is the main contribution of this study.

The Japan Robot Association (JARA) has been conducting standardization activities (ORiN: Open Robot Interface for the Network) in which the main subject is the network interface in the robot controller. In the 1999 international robot exhibition, our activities and results were opened and demonstrated to the public. In this demonstration, industrial robots from 13 Japanese domestic robot manufacturers, that had different specifications and structures, were connected to each other with a communication network. Using ORiN API, applications for production system management and 3‐D robot motion monitoring were demonstrated. The purpose of this demonstration is to verify the openness of the networked robot and to certify the proposed de facto standard protocol and robot model. The background of those activities, the outline of the design guidelines, the demonstration for verification, a schedule and plan towards the de facto and/or ISO standard are all mentioned.

The purpose of this paper is to design an intelligent ECG classifier using programmable IC technologies to implement many functional blocks of signal acquisition and processing in one compact device. The main microprocessor also simulates the TSK neuro-fuzzy classifier in testing mode to recognize the ECG beats. The design brings various theoretical solutions into practical applications.

The ECG signals are acquired and pre-processed using the Field-Programmable Analog Array (FPAA) IC due to the ability of precise configuration of analog parameters. The R peak of the QRS complexes and a window of 300 ms of ECG signals around the R peak are detected. In this paper we have proposed a method to extract the signal features using the Hermite decomposition algorithm, which requires only a multiplication of two matrices. Based on the features vectors, the ECG beats are classified using a TSK neuro-fuzzy network, whose parameters are trained earlier on PC and downloaded into the device. The device performance was tested with the ECG signals from the MIT-BIH database to prove the correctness of the hardware implementations.

The FPAA and Programmable System on Chip (PSoC) technologies allow us to integrate many signal processing blocks in a compact device. In this paper the device has the same performance in ECG signal processing and classifying as achieved on PC simulators. This confirms the correctness of the implementation.

The device was fully tested with the signals from the MIT-BIH databases. For new patients, we have tested the device in collecting the ECG signals and QRS detections. We have not created a new database of ECG signals, in which the beats are examined by doctors and annotated the type of the rhythm (normal or abnormal, which type of arrhythmia, etc.) so we have not tested the classification mode of the device on real ECG signals.

The compact design of an intelligent ECG classifier offers a portable solution for patients with heart diseases, which can help them to detect the arrhythmia on time when the doctors are not nearby. This type of device not only may help to improve the patients’ safety but also contribute to the smart, inter-networked life style.

The device integrate a number of solutions including software, hardware and algorithms into a single, compact device. Thank to the advance of programmable ICs such as FPAA and PSoC, the designed device can acquire one channel of ECG signals, extract the features and classify the arrhythmia type (if detected) using the neuro-fuzzy TSK network in online mode.

The accountant's role today has been dramatically expanded, that is, from being the steward of assets and preparer of financial statements to a more challenging one, namely, one who is involved in various areas of management. Hence in response to the changing needs of the business environment, potential employers of accounting graduates now seek additional qualities from the graduates, besides them being technically competent. Some of these qualities include possessing qualitative skills such as being more effective communicators, possessing strong leadership skills and being able to think logically and critically. An attempt is made in this research to determine the current scenario of potential employers of Malaysian accounting graduates, notably with respect to their requirements of qualitative skills. This is determined from an analysis of a sample of 500 classified advertisements from a major local daily, spanning a period of 12 months, namely July 1995 till July 1996. From this research, it was evident that besides seeking academic qualification, computer literacy and relevant working experience, the majority of potential employers required the accounting graduates to possess additional qualities such as leadership, motivation, innovative skills, being independent and able to work under pressure.