Moderating effects of management control systems and innovation on performance. Simple methods for correcting the effects of measurement error for interaction effects in small samples

In the accounting literature, interaction or moderating effects are usually assessed by means of OLS regression and summated rating scales are constructed to reduce measurement error bias. Structural equation models and two-stage least squares regression could be used to completely eliminate this bias, but large samples are needed. Partial Least Squares are appropriate for small samples but do not correct measurement error bias. In this article, disattenuated regression is discussed as a small sample alternative and is illustrated on data of Bisbe and Otley (in press) that examine the interaction effect of innovation and style of use of budgets on performance. Sizeable differences emerge between OLS and disattenuated regression

Remote Control of Mobile Devices in Android Platform

Remote control systems are a very useful element to control and monitor devices quickly and easily. This paper proposes a new architecture for remote control of Android mobile devices, analyzing the different alternatives and seeking the optimal solution in each case. Although the area of remote control, in case of mobile devices, has been little explored, it may provide important advantages for testing software and hardware developments in several real devices. It can also allow an efficient management of various devices of different types, perform forensic security tasks, etc ... The main idea behind the proposed architecture was the design of a system to be used as a platform which provides the services needed to perform remote control of mobile devices. As a result of this research, a proof of concept was implemented. An Android application running a group of server programs on the device, connected to the network or USB interface, depending on availability. This servers can be controlled through a small client written in Java and runnable both on desktop and web systems.

Cultural control of herbicide-resistant Lolium rigidum Gaud. populations in winter cereal in Northeastern Spain

Lolium rigidum Gaud. is one of the most common weed species in winter cereals in Northeastern Spain. Herbicide resistance has been growing since the mid 90's and exclusive herbicide use is not enough in many cases, so that it is necessary to combine as many control tools as possible. Six field trials have been conducted during the cropping seasons 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04 on winter cereal infested with herbicide resistant L. rigidum in Northeastern Spain testing different cultural control strategies. Sowing delay was conducted at five fields, mouldboard ploughing at four fields, the combination of sowing delay and ploughing at two fields, increasing the cereal sowing density and combined with sowing delay at one field. Sowing delay was confirmed to have an irregular efficacy depending on the L. rigidum emergence during the delay period. In the trials, weed emergence was reduced up to 88% in the best case but there was no effect in two cases. Ploughing had a more constant efficacy and reduced weed emergence between 50 and 80% although stoniness impeded in one occasion a correct soil inversion causing a very low efficacy. Increasing the cereal sowing rate did not reduce the weed population. The combination of the different methods did not increase significantly the individual efficacy, and one method was clearly more effective than the other, depending on the trial. In fields with high L. rigidum density, these methods are not effective enough and need to be combined with other methods, which are discussed in the text.

Can You Home Again? Desertion and Control of Hometowns in Civil Wars

What allows an armed group in a civil war to prevent desertion? This paper addresses this question with a focus on control in the rearguard. Most past studies focus on motivations for desertion. They explain desertion in terms of where soldiers stand in relation to the macro themes of the war, or in terms of an inability to provide positive incentives to overcome the collective action problem. However, since individuals decide whether and how to participate in civil wars for multiple reasons, responding to a variety of local conditions in an environment of threat and violence, a focus only on macro-level motivations is incomplete. The opportunities side of the ledger deserves more attention. I therefore turn my attention to how control by an armed group eliminates soldiers’ opportunities to desert. In particular, I consider the control that an armed group maintains over soldiers’ hometowns, treating geographic terrain as an important exogenous indicator of the ease of control. Rough terrain at home affords soldiers and their families and friends advantages in ease of hiding, the difficulty of using force, and local knowledge. Based on an original dataset of soldiers from Santander Province in the Spanish Civil War, gathered from archival sources, I find statistical evidence that the rougher the terrain in a soldier’s home municipality, the more likely he is to desert. I find complementary qualitative evidence indicating that soldiers from rough-terrain communities took active advantage of their greater opportunities for evasion. This finding has important implications for the way observers interpret different soldiers’ decisions to desert or remain fighting, for the prospect that structural factors may shape the cohesion of armed groups, and for the possibility that local knowledge may be a double-edged sword, making soldiers simultaneously good at fighting and good at deserting.

Control of optical fields and single photon emitters by advanced nanoantenna structures

The control of optical fields on the nanometre scale is becoming an increasingly important tool in many fields, ranging from channelling light delivery in photovoltaics and light emitting diodes to increasing the sensitivity of chemical sensors to single molecule levels. The ability to design and manipulate light fields with specific frequency and space characteristics is explored in this project. We present an alternative realisation of Extraordinary Optical Transmission (EOT) that requires only a single aperture and a coupled waveguide. We show how this waveguide-resonant EOT improves the transmissivity of single apertures. An important technique in imaging is Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscopy (NSOM); we show how waveguide-resonant EOT and the novel probe design assist in improving the efficiency of NSOM probes by two orders of magnitude, and allow the imaging of single molecules with an optical resolution of as good as 50 nm. We show how optical antennas are fabricated into the apex of sharp tips and can be used in a near-field configuration.

Identification and Semiactive Control of Smart Structures Equipped with Magnetorheological Actuators

This paper deals with the problem of identification and semiactive control of smart structures subject to unknown external disturbances such as earthquake, wind, etc. The experimental setup used is a 6-story test structure equipped with shear-mode semiactive magnetorheological actuators being installed in WUSCEEL. The experimental results obtained have verified the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithms

Decentralized model reference control of flexible cable-stayed beam structures

A decentralized model reference controller is designed to reduce the magnitude of the transversal vibration of a flexible cable-stayed beam structure induced by a seismic excitation. The controller design is made based on the principle of sliding mode such that a priori knowledge

Predictive motion control of a mirosot mobile robot

This paper discusses predictive motion control of a MiRoSoT robot. The dynamic model of the robot is deduced by taking into account the whole process - robot, vision, control and transmission systems. Based on the obtained dynamic model, an integrated predictive control algorithm is proposed to position precisely with either stationary or moving obstacle avoidance. This objective is achieved automatically by introducing distant constraints into the open-loop optimization of control inputs. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of such control strategy for the deduced dynamic model

Modelling scenarios of diffusion and control of pandemic influenza, italy

En aquest article es resumeixen els resultats publicats en un informe de l' ISS (Istituto Superiore di Sanità) del desembre de 2006, sobre un model matemàtic desenvolupat per un grup de treball que inclou a investigadors de les Universitats de Trento, Pisa i Roma, i els Instituts Nacionals de Salut (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, ISS), per avaluar i mesurar l'impacte de la transmissió i el control de la pandèmia de grip

Robust control of structures subject to uncertain disturbances and actuator dynamics

The objective the present research is try to find some control design strategies, which must be effective and closed to the real operation conditions. As a novel contribution to structural control strategies, the theories of Interval Modal Arithmetic, Backstepping Control and QFT (Qualitative Feedback Theory) will be studied. The steps to follow are to develop first new controllers based on the above theories and then to implement the proposed control strategies to different kind of structures. The report is organized as follows. The Chapter 2 presents the state-of-the-art on structural control systems. The chapter 3 presents the most important open problems found in field of structural control. The exploratory work made by the author, research proposal and working plan are given in the Chapter 4

The implementation of liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry for the official control of lipophilic toxins in seafood: Single-laboratory validation under four chromatographic conditions

We performed a comprehensive study to assess the fit for purpose of four chromatographic conditions for the determination of six groups of marine lipophilic toxins (okadaic acid and dinophysistoxins, pectenotoxins, azaspiracids, yessotoxins, gymnodimine and spirolides) by LC-MS/MS to select the most suitable conditions as stated by the European Union Reference Laboratory for Marine Biotoxins (EURLMB). For every case, the elution gradient has been optimized to achieve a total run-time cycle of 12 min. We performed a single-laboratory validation for the analysis of three relevant matrices for the seafood aquaculture industry (mussels, pacific oysters and clams), and for sea urchins for which no data about lipophilic toxins have been reported before. Moreover, we have compared the method performance under alkaline conditions using two quantification strategies: the external standard calibration (EXS) and the matrix-matched standard calibration (MMS). Alkaline conditions were the only scenario that allowed detection windows with polarity switching in a 3200 QTrap mass spectrometer, thus the analysis of all toxins can be accomplished in a single run, increasing sample throughput. The limits of quantification under alkaline conditions met the validation requirements established by the EURLMB for all toxins and matrices, while the remaining conditions failed in some cases. The accuracy of the method and the matrix effects where generally dependent on the mobile phases and the seafood species. The MMS had a moderate positive impact on method accuracy for crude extracts, but it showed poor trueness for seafood species other than mussels when analyzing hydrolyzed extracts. Alkaline conditions with EXS and recovery correction for OA were selected as the most proper conditions in the context of our laboratory. This comparative study can help other laboratories to choose the best conditions for the implementation of LC-MS/MS according to their own necessities.

The quest for a message: budding yeast, a model organism to study the control of pre-mRNA splicing

Removal of introns during pre-mRNA splicing is a critical process in gene expression, and understanding its control at both single-gene and genomic levels is one of the great challenges in Biology. Splicing takes place in a dynamic, large ribonucleoprotein complex known as the spliceosome. Combining Genetics and Biochemistry, Saccharomyces cerevisiae provides insights into its mechanisms, including its regulation by RNA-protein interactions. Recent genome-wide analyses indicate that regulated splicing is broad and biologically relevant even in organisms with a relatively simple intronic structure, such as yeast. Furthermore, the possibility of coordination in splicing regulation at genomic level is becoming clear in this model organism. This should provide a valuable system to approach the complex problem of the role of regulated splicing in genomic expression.

The achievable region approach to the optimal control of stochastic systems

The achievable region approach seeks solutions to stochastic optimisation problems by: (i) characterising the space of all possible performances(the achievable region) of the system of interest, and (ii) optimisingthe overall system-wide performance objective over this space. This isradically different from conventional formulations based on dynamicprogramming. The approach is explained with reference to a simpletwo-class queueing system. Powerful new methodologies due to the authorsand co-workers are deployed to analyse a general multiclass queueingsystem with parallel servers and then to develop an approach to optimalload distribution across a network of interconnected stations. Finally,the approach is used for the first time to analyse a class of intensitycontrol problems.

Geological and Geomorphological Cartography at Scale 1: 10.000: a Tool of Management for Towns

Geological and geomorphological mapping at scale 1:10.000 besides from being an important source of scientific information it is also a necessary tool for municipal organs in order to make proper decisions when dealing with geo-environmental problems concerning integral territorial development. In this work, detailed information is given on the contents of such maps, their social and economical application, and a balance of the investment and gains that derives from them