Making electronics more accessible to people with learning disabilities

We extended 'littleBits' electronic components by attaching them to a larger base that was designed to help make them easier to pick up and handle, and easier to assemble into circuits for people with learning disabilities. A pilot study with a group of students with learning disabilities was very positive. There were fewer difficulties in assembling the components into circuits, and problems such as attempting to connect them the wrong way round or the wrong way up were eliminated completely.

The Corporate Gini Index (CGI) determinants and advantages: lessons from a multinational retail company case study

This article identifies and compares the determinants of CEO compensation to median employee earnings with those of the Corporate Gini Index (CGI). Using a multinational retail company, the article posits that the CGI is an advantageous corporate alternative pay inequality measure that concerns CEO pay multiples to median employee earnings, which regulators should consider using and disclosing in proxy statements. Although CGI and the official measure of multiples of CEO pay to median employee earnings share some of the challenges, the advantages of CGI as an alternative measure are greater. Our findings suggest that the CGI is a much better measure of corporate income inequality bringing clear benefits at both micro and macro levels of intervention.

Facts, scope, style: a guide to writing papers for IEEE transactions on consumer electronics

In a previous article, I wrote a brief piece on how to enhance papers that have been published at one of the IEEE Consumer Electronics (CE) Society conferences to create papers that can be considered for publishing in IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics (T-CE) [1]. Basically, it included some hints and tips to enhance a conference paper into what is required for a full archival journal paper and not fall foul of self-plagiarism. This article focuses on writing original papers specifically for T-CE. After three years as the journal’s editor-in-chief (EiC), a previous eight years on the editorial board, and having reviewed some 4,000 T-CE papers, I decided to write this article to archive and detail for prospective authors what I have learned over this time. Of course, there are numerous articles on writing good papers—some are really useful [2], but they do not address the specific issues of writing for a journal whose topic (scope) is not widely understood or, indeed, is often misunderstood.

littleBits go LARGE: making electronics more accessible to people with learning disabilities

The “littleBits go LARGE" project extends littleBits electronic modules, an existing product that is aimed at simplifying electronics for a wide range of audiences. In this project we augment the littleBits modules to make them more accessible to people with learning disabilities. We will demonstrate how we have made the modules easier to handle and manipulate physically, and how we are augmenting the design of the modules to make their functions more obvious and understandable.

The Mystery of Privity: Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada v Robinson (1915)

This article examines a little known decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada v Robinson (1915). The examination is historical and it provides a different insight into the understanding of privity of contract, a doctrine central to contract law. The examination reveals a process of trans-Atlantic legal migration in which English law was applied to resolve an Ontario case. The nature of the resolution is surprising because it appears to conflict with the better known decision of the House of Lords, Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company, Limited v Selfridge and Company, Limited, which a similarly constituted panel delivered in the same week. This article argues that there was a greater malleability in the resolution of cases concerned with privity than was thought to have existed. It is also argued that the power of Canadian railway capitalism is a significant factor in understanding the legal resolution of the case. Finally, it the article considers the use of English and American precedents relevant to the case. The application of English precedents to the case led to a resolution not entirely befitting Canadian conditions.

The impact of outward investments on parent company's employment and skill composition

This paper investigates the impact of outward foreign direct investment (FDI) by Italian multinationals on their total employment and skill composition. Specifically, by comparing data on 108 Italian manufacturing firms that became multinational (for the first time) in the period 1998–2004 with a counterfactual group of 2500 national firms that remained national in the same period, we provide descriptive and econometric evidence that the internationalisation of production activities did not reduce domestic employment in the parent companies neither for investments in developed or developing countries. As far as the skill composition is concerned, results reveal that only firms investing in Central and Eastern European countries experience some skill upgrading relative to firms that remained national.

Choosing international linkage strategies in the electronics industry: the role of multinational experience

This paper examines how different aspects of multinational experience affect the choice of international linkage strategy. Integrating transaction cost and dynamic efficiency considerations, we empirically test the determinants of the choice between acquisitions, joint ventures (JV), and strategic alliances (SA) for the world’s largest electronics corporations in 1993–1997. We show that “country specific experience” increases the probability of commitment intensive linkage modes (such as acquisitions and joint ventures), while a positive effect on strategic alliances is caused by “variety experience”, deriving from the heterogeneity of international contexts, and by “internationalisation experience” reflecting overall involvement in international markets.