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The purpose of this paper is to develop a first-principles model for the simulation of pedestrian flows and crowd dynamics capable of computing the movement of a million pedestrians in real-time in order to assess the potential safety hazards and operational performance at events where many individuals are gathered. Examples of such situations are sport and music events, cinemas and theatres, museums, conference centres, places of pilgrimage and worship, street demonstrations, emergency evacuation during natural disasters.

The model is based on a series of forces, such as: will forces (the desire to reach a place at a certain time), pedestrian collision avoidance forces, obstacle/wall avoidance forces; pedestrian contact forces, and obstacle/wall contact forces. In order to allow for general geometries a so-called background triangulation is used to carry all geographic information. At any given time the location of any given pedestrian is updated on this mesh. The model has been validated qualitatively and quantitavely on repeated occasions. The code has been ported to shared and distributed memory parallel machines.

The results obtained show that the stated aim of computing the movement of a million pedestrians in real-time has been achieved. This is an important milestone, as it enables faster-than-real-time simulations of large crowds (stadiums, airports, train and bus stations, concerts) as well as evacuation simulations for whole cities.

All models are wrong, but some are useful. The same applies to any modelling of pedestrians. Pedestrians are not machines, so stochastic runs will be required in the future in order to obtain statistically relevant ensembles.

This opens the way to link real-time data gathering of crowds (i.e. via cameras) with predictive calculations done faster than real-time, so that security personnel can be alerted to potential future problems during large-scale events.

This will allow much better predictions for large-scale events, improving security and comfort.

This is the first time such speeds have been achieved for a micro-modelling code for pedestrians.

For the purpose of reducing the incidence of hazardous materials transport accident, eliminating the potential threats and ensuring their safety, aiming at the shortcomings in the process of current hazardous materials transportation management, this paper aims to construct the framework of hazardous materials transportation safety management system under the vehicle-infrastructure connected environment.

The system takes the intelligent connected vehicle as the main supporter, integrating GIS, GPS, eye location, GSM, networks and database technology.

By analyzing the transportation characteristics of hazardous materials, this system consists of five subsystems, which are vehicle and driver management subsystem, dangerous sources and hazardous materials management subsystem, route analysis and optimization subsystem, early warning and emergency rescue management subsystem, and basic information query subsystem.

Hazardous materials transportation safety management system includes omnibearing real-time monitoring, timely updating of system database, real-time generation and optimization of emergency rescue route. The system can reduce the transportation cost and improve the ability of accident prevention and emergency rescue of hazardous materials.

This study aims to examine whether and when real-time updated online search engine data such as the daily Baidu Index can be useful for improving the accuracy of tourism demand nowcasting once monthly official statistical data, including historical visitor arrival data and macroeconomic variables, become available.

This study is the first attempt to use the LASSO-MIDAS model proposed by Marsilli (2014) to field of the tourism demand forecasting to deal with the inconsistency in the frequency of data and the curse problem caused by the high dimensionality of search engine data.

The empirical results in the context of visitor arrivals in Hong Kong show that the application of a combination of daily Baidu Index data and monthly official statistical data produces more accurate nowcasting results when MIDAS-type models are used. The effectiveness of the LASSO-MIDAS model for tourism demand nowcasting indicates that such penalty-based MIDAS model is a useful option when using high-dimensional mixed-frequency data.

This study represents the first attempt to progressively compare whether there are any differences between using daily search engine data, monthly official statistical data and a combination of the aforementioned two types of data with different frequencies to nowcast tourism demand. This study also contributes to the tourism forecasting literature by presenting the first attempt to evaluate the applicability and effectiveness of the LASSO-MIDAS model in tourism demand nowcasting.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the current trends, implications and challenges of information systems (IS) related to omni-channel logistics.

An exploratory survey study is conducted with 23 Swedish retail companies transforming to omni-channel logistics. The study investigates the retailers’ current situations regarding logistics IS as well as their perceptions of the future development.

From the perspective of leading Swedish retailers, omni-channel requirements drive the implementation of new IS to support effective and efficient material handling across the network and in the respective nodes. The shifting roles and increase in the number of handlings nodes will require flexible IS platforms that can support multiple flows and integrated inventory. The major increase in the implementation of new, critical functionalities is related to real-time, multi-criteria decision making on order allocation to different handling nodes. More advanced IS functionality is also required in material-handling nodes to support the increased degree of automation and continuous improvements with the aim to shorten order-to-delivery lead times. A number of challenges are identified that must be addressed during the transformation to omni-channel logistics, especially related to the growing complexity and decentralization of networks, tougher lead-time requirements and larger product assortments.

To support further theory development, 11 propositions related to trends and a schematic framework conceptualizing implications and challenges are submitted for testing in future research.

The study highlights several aspects related to logistics IS that are important for practitioners to consider as they undergo the transition to omni-channels. It provides insights into IS functionalities that are likely to grow in use and criticality for supporting material handling and inventory management in increasingly complex and decentralized networks. In particular, the authors stress the need to implement functionality that works across previously separated handling nodes and decision areas. Managers can also use the propositions to reflect on what the near future holds and as input for their own scenario analyses.

Previous research has primarily focused on technology that supports the front-end customer experience. This study is original in that it explores the trends, implications and challenges for logistics IS in omni-channels – an area that has not been explored in detail previously. It also studies both perceived and expected changes over time related to the transformation toward omni-channel logistics.

This study aims to demonstrate how marketing analytics can be used to identify the challenges a B2B company faced in the conversion from a hard-copy print catalog to a digital ordering system. Specifically, an empirical research approach identified the potential issues the company was likely to face in the digitalization of the company’s catalog.

Using the Qualtrics survey platform, a questionnaire was used to obtain a final sample of 332 customers (a 14.02% response rate) on a variety of issues related to the transition from the company’s current printed catalog to a digital catalog ordering system. A variety of data analysis procedures were used to gain insight and highlight potential issues in the move to a digital format.

A variety of potential stumbling blocks were identified that suggest the company should move forward with caution. The data analysis was used to suggest areas that needed to be emphasized in the rollout of the new digital ordering system.

Like all marketing research, this application is limited by the methods used and the data generated by this study. Its implications suggest the potential use of marketing research before an important change in a B2B company’s marketing approach.

This paper provides an approach that can be used by firms considering a change to digitize key components of their marketing assets.

The research contributes to the B2B marketing literature by demonstrating how data-driven marketing analytics can be used to identify potential issues prior to the development of a new digital marketing approach used by B2B firms.

Current knowledge management (KM) systems cannot be used effectively for decision-making because of the lack of real-time data. This study aims to discuss how KM can benefit by embedding Internet of Things (IoT).

The paper discusses how IoT can help KM to capture data and convert data into knowledge to improve the parking service in transportation using a case study.

This case study related to intelligent parking service supported by IoT devices of vehicles shows that KM can play a role in turning the incoming big data collected from IoT devices into useful knowledge more quickly and effectively.

The literature review shows that there are few papers discussing how KM can benefit by embedding IoT and processing incoming big data collected from IoT devices. The case study developed in this study provides evidence to explain how IoT can help KM to capture big data and convert big data into knowledge to improve the parking service in transportation.

This paper aims to effectively explore the application effect of big data techniques based on an α-support vector machine-stochastic gradient descent (SVMSGD) algorithm in third-party logistics, obtain the valuable information hidden in the logistics big data and promote the logistics enterprises to make more reasonable planning schemes.

In this paper, the forgetting factor is introduced without changing the algorithm's complexity and proposed an algorithm based on the forgetting factor called the α-SVMSGD algorithm. The algorithm selectively deletes or retains the historical data, which improves the adaptability of the classifier to the real-time new logistics data. The simulation results verify the application effect of the algorithm.

With the increase of training times, the test error percentages of gradient descent (GD) algorithm, gradient descent support (SGD) algorithm and the α-SVMSGD algorithm decrease gradually; in the process of logistics big data processing, the α-SVMSGD algorithm has the efficiency of SGD algorithm while ensuring that the GD direction approaches the optimal solution direction and can use a small amount of data to obtain more accurate results and enhance the convergence accuracy.

The threshold setting of the forgetting factor still needs to be improved. Setting thresholds for different data types in self-learning has become a research direction. The number of forgotten data can be effectively controlled through big data processing technology to improve data support for the normal operation of third-party logistics.

It can effectively reduce the time-consuming of data mining, realize the rapid and accurate convergence of sample data without increasing the complexity of samples, improve the efficiency of logistics big data mining, reduce the redundancy of historical data, and has a certain reference value in promoting the development of logistics industry.

The classification algorithm proposed in this paper has feasibility and high convergence in third-party logistics big data mining. The α-SVMSGD algorithm proposed in this paper has a certain application value in real-time logistics data mining, but the design of the forgetting factor threshold needs to be improved. In the future, the authors will continue to study how to set different data type thresholds in self-learning.

Serials control is thought to be the most difficult of library housekeeping processes to automate. No automated serials control system has yet been demonstrated to be cost‐effective. Reference is made to systems developed for large mainframes, e.g. OCLC, DOBIS, RLIN and UTLAS. Mini‐computer based systems show promise of more efficient operation. Studies at Oxford have shown the feasibility of automated serials check‐in being achieved faster than is possible manually. Further studies have demonstrated the constraints imposed for a comprehensive system to be cost‐effective. Prediction of the arrival date for irregular serials is a major problem. The difficulties (and expense) of updating files in real‐time represents another problem for which a tentative solution is proposed. The need to improve the user interface is emphasised and this is one of the most important matters for further study.

The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review that aims to provide insight into the characteristics and effectiveness of supply chain visibility (SCV), as well as to identify metrics that capture these aspects in business processes.

A systematic review of the supply chain literature is conducted to identify the characteristics and the effectiveness of SCV. The synthesis of SCV effectiveness and its metrics are based on the process-oriented approach which relates the effectiveness of SCV to improved business performance.

This study reveals that the characteristics of SCV can be captured in terms of the accessibility, quality, and usefulness of information. The benefits of SCV are found to extend beyond improvements to operational efficiency of business processes or to the strategic competencies of an organization.

This study underlines that clear agreements between all players involved in the SC can help to solve problems caused by information completeness (type and amount of information), and unlock the full potential of SCV projects.

By using a process-oriented approach, this review provides a comprehensive explanation of the functions of SCV, as well as its first-order effects, in terms of automational, informational, and transformational characteristics.