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Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

This paper aims to reflect on the sources of the technical inefficiency of health care foodservice operations, using a sample of Australian and American hospitals.

The paper applies the stochastic frontier model to reflect on the technical inefficiency and its sources. The advantage of the model is that it allows the simultaneous parameters estimation of technical efficiency as well as the factors that explain variations in technical efficiency. A set of hypotheses are tested to ensure the applicability and suitability of the suggested model. Then the model parameters are estimated, discussed and checked against the theoretical requirements and the literature.

Results show that all the variable coefficients are correctly signed and that the average technical efficiency is around 83 percent for Australia and 80 percent for the USA.

The technical efficiency results, according to the introduced model, suggest that health care foodservice operations in both countries are not operating at a full efficient level. The results also reveal that factors such as manager's education, manager's experience, and size have a direct impact on reducing the level of technical inefficiency of these operations.

This paper overcomes the limitations of the existing efficiency techniques in the area of health care foodservice and also provides policy implications by emphasizing on the sources of technical inefficiency of health care foodservice operations for Australia and USA.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to measure technical efficiency and examine its determinants while disentangling unobserved time-invariant heterogeneity from actual inefficiency using comprehensive household-level panel data.

This paper estimates technical efficiency based on the true random-effects stochastic production frontier estimator with a Mundlak adjustment. By utilising comprehensive panel data with 4,694 observations from 39 districts of four major maize-producing regions in Ethiopia, the author measures technical efficiency and examine its determinants while disentangling unobserved time-invariant heterogeneity from technical inefficiency. By using competing stochastic production frontier estimators, the author provides insights into the influence of farm heterogeneity on measuring farm efficiency and the subsequent impact on the ranking of farmers based on their efficiency scores.

The study results indicate that ignoring unobservable farmer heterogeneity leads to a downwards bias of technical efficiency estimates with a consequent effect on the ranking of farmers based on their efficiency scores. The mean technical efficiency score implied that about a 34% increase in maize productivity can be achieved with the current input use and technology in Ethiopia. The key determinants of the technical inefficiency of maize farmers are the age, gender and formal education level of the household head, household size, income, livestock ownership, and participation in off-farm activities.

While the findings of this study are critical for informing policy on improving agricultural production and productivity, a few important things are worth considering in terms of the generalisability of the findings. First, the study relied on secondary data, so only a snapshot of environmental factors was accounted for in the empirical estimations. Second, there could be other sources of unmeasured potential sources of heterogeneity caused by persistent technical inefficiency and endogeneity of inputs. Third, the study is limited to one country. Therefore, future research should extend the analysis to ensure the generalisability of the empirical findings regarding the extent to which unmeasured potential sources of heterogeneity caused by persistent technical inefficiency, endogeneity of inputs and other unobservable country-specific features – such as geographical differences.

This paper contributes to the literature on agricultural productivity and efficiency by providing new evidence on the influence of unobservable heterogeneity in a farm efficiency analysis. While agricultural production is characterised by heterogeneous production conditions, the influence of unobservable farm heterogeneity has generally been ignored in technical efficiency estimations, particularly in the context of smallholder farming. The value of this paper comes from disentailing producer-specific random heterogeneity from the actual inefficiency.

This paper aims to identify and appropriately respond to any socio-technical gaps within organisational information and cybersecurity practices. This culminates in the equal emphasis of both the social, technical and environmental factors affecting security practices.

The socio-technical systems theory was used to develop a conceptual process model for analysing organisational practices in terms of their social, technical and environmental influence. The conceptual process model was then applied to specifically analyse some selected information and cybersecurity frameworks. The outcome of this exercise culminated in the design of a socio-technical systems cybersecurity framework that can be applied to any new or existing information and cybersecurity solutions in the organisation. A framework parameter to help continuously monitor the mutual alignment of the social, technical and environmental dimensions of the socio-technical systems cybersecurity framework was also introduced.

The results indicate a positive application of the socio-technical systems theory to the information and cybersecurity domain. In particular, the application of the conceptual process model is able to successfully categorise the selected information and cybersecurity practices into either social, technical or environmental practices. However, the validation of the socio-technical systems cybersecurity framework requires time and continuous monitoring in a real-life environment.

This research is beneficial to chief security officers, risk managers, information technology managers, security professionals and academics. They will gain more knowledge and understanding about the need to highlight the equal importance of both the social, technical and environmental dimensions of information and cybersecurity. Further, the less emphasised dimension is posited to open an equal but mutual security vulnerability gap as the more emphasised dimension. Both dimensions must, therefore, equally and jointly be emphasised for optimal security performance in the organisation.

The application of socio-technical systems theory to the information and cybersecurity domain has not received much attention. In this regard, the research adds value to the information and cybersecurity studies where too much emphasis is placed on security software and hardware capabilities.

The purpose of this study is the analysis of innovation in technology‐intensive industries via the application of scenario analysis (SA) to master the development of market information and competitive environment. This study will employ the technical development of SONY video tape recorder (VTR) as a case study, and then provide more adequate decision information on the technology development strategy (TDS) planning process.

Scenario analysis strategy assessment model will be utilized to construct a future technical development model based on present status, and will diffuse and apply the forecasting model to the cycle period of future market technical innovation. Therefore, applying SA in this study can effectively connect historical information to the analysis of technology development.

This research used SONY VTR TDS as a case study that provides a strategy assessment model to technology‐intensive industry for technical development strategy planning as the basis of decision information for technical forecasting. Output of the R&D department is the core lifeline for the development of a company, and TDS is affected by the orientation of customer demand and has an impact on the development of TLC to form the cycle period of uncertainty.

This model applied the property of TDS assessment to grasp the development trend in the market, and it can enable the R&D department to integrate technical push and market demand pull. In turn, this results in a gain in the competitive edge for technical innovation through a combination with strategies and regulations.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the relevant enablers and barriers related to technical education. It seeks to critically analyze the relationship amongst them so that policy makers can focus on relevant parameters to improve the service quality of technical education.

The present study employs the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach to model the crucial parameters of technical education. The parameters discussed are categorized under “enablers” and “barriers”. The enablers would help policy makers to improve and develop the curriculum of the technical education and the identifying barriers would help the decision maker to improve upon those variables.

The major findings of this study are to prioritize the strategic parameters in reducing the risks associated with technical education. The model also proposes a hierarchical structure classifying the parameters as drivers and enablers.

The study proposes a scientific way to model the enablers and barriers to become a progressive institution in the emerging era of globalization and modernization. This would help to prioritize the issues as the enablers and barriers are hierarchically structured and categorized.

The paper maps out a course of action and the adoption of the proposed framework would provide a competitive edge for India over others. Also, the various stakeholders would be satisfied, which would be beneficial for the system as a whole.

The application of ISM to the decision making process is the unique feature in the field of technical education in India. The integrated framework of policy related parameters would contribute towards overall growth and development.

One of the foremost objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the European Union (EU) is to increase agricultural productivity through subsidization of farmers. However, little empirical research has been done to examine the effect of subsidies on farm performance and, in particular, the channels through which subsidies affect productivity. Using a Bayesian hierarchical model in which input productivity, efficiency change, and technical change depend on subsidies and other factors, including farm location, we analyze empirically how subsidies affect the performance of farms. We use an unbalanced panel from the EU's Farm Accountancy Data Network on Danish, Finnish, and Swedish dairy farms and partition the data into eight regions. The data set covers the period 1997–2003 and has a total of 6,609 observations. The results suggest that subsidies drive productivity through efficiency and input productivities and the magnitudes of these effects differ across regions. In contrast to existing studies, we find that subsidies have a positive impact on technical efficiency. The contribution of subsidies to output is largest for dairy farms in Denmark and Southern, Central, and Northern Sweden.