There are times when work submitted to the Journal is compelling enough to provide an issue with a specific focus. By presenting extended considerations of a particular line of research, we can point our readers to particular new advances in the field and allow them to consider how these advances are apt to have an impact on their own work.
In this issue we find such a cluster of two articles about Radial Basis Function [RBF] networks. The first, by M. Y. Mashor and H. A. Hamid of Malaysia, presents a method of determining the structure of hybrid RBF networks using the Orthogonal least squares (OLS) algorithm. The second, authored by Dr. Mashor independently, presents a new supervised hybrid training algorithm for such networks that promises significant improvements over earlier alternatives. We are certain that these articles will be very interesting for those directly involved in RBF networks and that they provide significant background for non-specialists.
We have an article by Gour Chandra Saha of Assumption University, Thailand and Nazrul Islam of Khulna University, Bangladesh. As doctoral students at the Asian Institute of Technology, they represent the coming generation of management scientists. As such, they are very attuned to technological advances and their article suggests ways that firms can take internal and external technologies into account in devising their overall business strategy. As is often implied by this journal, business and technology cannot be separated from each other in the present day, if it ever could, and the authors' work provides invaluable advice on the way companies can keep abreast of how technological advancement will have an impact on their operation and the realization of their goals.
Representing the Republic of China in this very trans-Asian issue are Amy H. I. Lee and Chiu-Chi Wei, who raise serious questions about the influence technology has upon productivity. Those of us in the IT field often just assume that when applied to actual business environments, technological advances make companies, and entire economies, more efficient. The authors suggest that the situation is more complex than it seems to many and that arguments can be put forward both for and against the contention that technology expands productivity.
As generally is the case, this issue of the journal contains articles of interest to those who are directly involved in working with computer technology and also those who more manage than work directly with the technology.
Prof. Dr. Srisakdi Charmonman
Editor-In-Chief
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