Electronic interaction (EI) depends on technological capabilities that have only become available during the last quarter-century. The Bled eConference has straddled this period. A review of the conference’s successive themes, and of the corpus of over 1,000 papers presented at the 25 events to date, reveals three major Eras, referred to in this paper as the EDI, eCommerce and eInteraction Eras. A trace of the developments in the diverse array of EI technologies and EI-technologies-in-use shows that researchers have focussed very heavily on economic concerns, and until recent years did so almost to the exclusion of social concerns. The paper proposes that EI research needs to seek better balances between organisational and human needs. In addition, because of the instability of bleeding-edge phenomena, empirical research is being published too late to deliver much value to practitioners. The prevailing expectations of journals that rigour be pursued at all costs means that the relevance of research to the real world has become a quite secondary concern to many academics. The EI literature is accordingly at risk of following the IS literature more generally into a closed enclave, in which academics talk to one another and no-one else. Key precepts for an alternative research philosophy are proposed.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7239955
In this paper a system dynamics model for organic farming development to support government decision making is presented. The system incorporates relevant variables which affect organic farming development. The user seeks answers to strategic questions related to the level of organic farming development achievable in a long term dynamic horizon. The model’s basic structure is fully described and results are presented which show that the conversion process relies mainly on subsidies and self-organization resources. User can simulate different policy scenarios for organic farming and for assessing their impact on the economic and environmental parameters of organic production at aggregate level. After performing several simulation scenarios we discovered that conversion to organic farming relies on subsidies which provide the main motivation for conversion from conventional farming to organic farming. However, the subsidies are not the only driving force in the system, even more important are activities that promote organic farming, since sufficiently large subsidies could not be provided in order to complete the conversion from conventional to organic farming to the extent desired. Another important feature is food demand, determined by population size, which negatively influences the conversion to organic farming due to the increased demand leading to increased food prices.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3526188
Simulation modelling of traffic in the Kotor cruise port is used for performance evaluation and optimization of the operational policy. During the summer, the traffic intensity of the cruise shipsŽ arrivals is higher than in other periods of the year. The increased traffic intensity causes congestion at anchorages, which can lead to significant dissatisfaction of the cruise ship operators and passengers. The simulation model, based on the port callingfrequency statistics and port tariff charges, is developed. First, the simulation model is validated against the real data. Second, several simulations are performed, where the scenarios of an extended main berth and of increased traffic intensity are evaluated in order to minimize congestion and to maximize revenue. Simulation results indicate significant queue reductions and a higher revenue, thus justifying the intention in the main berth extension.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7203091