Abstract

Abstract
This article carries out an integrative analysis of internationalisation theories. The most important contributions to the literature on internationalisation theories are used to create a schematic table giving a framework overview. This approach shows the high-level interaction of the literature, covering all internationalisation theories, their focus and basic assumptions, while at the same time showing their historical timeline. We identify the main schools of thought - ranging from economics based to integrative models - using an analysis that begins in the 18th century and ends in the 21st century with the most recent trends in internationalisation theories. This schematic and integrative analysis aims to support the academic community in their research on business internationalisation. Copyright © 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Abstract
ARCHERY is an architectural description language for modelling and reasoning about distributed, heterogeneous and dynamically reconfigurable systems in terms of architectural patterns. The language supports the specification of architectures and their reconfiguration. This paper introduces a language extension for precisely describing the structural design decisions that pattern instances must respect in their (re)configurations. The extension is a propositional modal logic with recursion and nominals referencing components, i.e., a hybrid mu-calculus. Its expressiveness allows specifying safety and liveness constraints, as well as paths and cycles over structures. Refinements of classic architectural patterns are specified.

Abstract
Further improvements in demand response programs implementation are needed in order to take full advantage of this resource, namely for the participation in energy and reserve market products, requiring adequate aggregation and remuneration of small size resources. The present paper focuses on SPIDER, a demand response simulation that has been improved in order to simulate demand response, including realistic power system simulation. For illustration of the simulator's capabilities, the present paper is proposes a methodology focusing on the aggregation of consumers and generators, providing adequate tolls for the demand response program's adoption by evolved players. The methodology proposed in the present paper focuses on a Virtual Power Player that manages and aggregates the available demand response and distributed generation resources in order to satisfy the required electrical energy demand and reserve. The aggregation of resources is addressed by the use of clustering algorithms, and operation costs for the VPP are minimized. The presented case study is based on a set of 32 consumers and 66 distributed generation units, running on 180 distinct operation scenarios.

Abstract
In the fiercely competitive era induced by expansion of open business archetypes, the managerial aspects of Extended Manufacturing Environments (EMEs) are experiencing growing concerns. There is no scope of leaving a possible operational improvement unexplored. For enhanced operational efficiency and capacity utilization the balancing and scheduling problems of EMEs are, therefore, rightfully considered and an integer programme is proposed in this paper. The model is designed in a spread sheet and solved through What'sBest optimizer. The model capabilities is assessed through a test problem. The results have demonstrated that the model is capable of defining optimized production schedules for EMEs. © 2015 AISTI.

Abstract
In this paper, a multi-period integrated approach is developed for Generation Expansion Planning (GEP), Transmission Expansion Planning (TEP) and Natural Gas Grid Expansion Planning (NGGEP) problems for large scale systems. New nodal generation requirements, new transmission lines and Natural Gas (NG) pipelines are simultaneously obtained in a multi-period planning horizon. In order to solve the large scale mixed integer nonlinear problem, an approach is developed based on genetic algorithms. The proposed approach performance is investigated by applying it to a typical electric-NG combined grid. Moreover, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for real-world systems, it has been applied to the Iranian power and NG system. The results indicate that the proposed approach is applicable for large scale systems.