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Organizational transformations have been widely adopted by firms who wish to improve their competitive advantage to be better prepared to face external challenges. This research has chosen Communities of Practice (CoPs) as the subject of discussion for an assessment model to reform organizations that undertake CoPs for collective knowledge to enhance their core competencies. Given the interrelationships between criteria, this research uses the nonadditive fuzzy integral to develop a framework for the CoPs perforniance assessment. The purposes of this paper are to identify the key dimensions/criteria in the CoPs, to use fuzzy logic method to analyze the relative importance of each criterion, and to rank the criteria so that proper resources can be allocated while managing the CoPs. Through interviews with experts, four strategy alternatives and 16 criteria along four dimensions are generated. A survey of the CoPs practitioners is then conducted to compare the results of each criterion. The results will not only help organizations that intend to initiate changes via the CoPs activities to decide the ranking of their appraisal criteria, but it can also assist them in guiding the behavior of their staff while effectively monitoring and improving the performances of the CoPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution poses serious problems as global industrialization continues to thrive. Since air pollution has grave impacts on human health, industry experts are starting to fathom how to integrate particulate matter (PM) sensors into portable devices; however, traditional micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) gas sensors are too large. To overcome this challenge, experts from industry and academia have recently begun to investigate replacing the traditional etching techniques used on MEMS with semiconductor-based manufacturing processes and materials, such as gallium nitride (GaN), gallium arsenide (GaAs), and silicon. However, studies showing how to systematically evaluate and select suitable materials are rare in the literature. Therefore, this study aims to propose an analytic framework based on multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) to evaluate and select the most suitable materials for fabricating PM sensors. An empirical study based on recent research was conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of our analytic framework. The results provide an invaluable future reference for research institutes and providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]