Ontology supported comparison in vague domains

It is problematic to use standard ontology tools when describing vague domains. Standard ontologies are designed to formally define one view of a domain, and although it is possible to define disagreeing statements, it is not advisable, as the resulting inferences could be incorrect. Two different solutions to the above problem in two different vague domains have been developed and are presented. The first domain is the knowledge base of conversational agents (chatbots). An ontological scripting language has been designed to access ontology data from within chatbot code. The solution developed is based on reifications of user statements. It enables a new layer of logics based on the different views of the users, enabling the body of knowledge to grow automatically. The second domain is competencies and competency frameworks. An ontological framework has been developed to model different competencies using the emergent standards. It enables comparison of competencies using a mix of linguistic logics and descriptive logics. The comparison results are non-binary, therefore not simple yes and no answers, highlighting the vague nature of the comparisons. The solution has been developed with small ontologies which can be added to and modified in order for the competency user to build a total picture that fits the user’s purpose. Finally these two approaches are viewed in the light of how they could aid future work in vague domains, further work in both domains is described and also in other domains such as the semantic web. This demonstrates two different approaches to achieve inferences using standard ontology tools in vague domains.

Towards a holistic modelling framework for embodied carbon and waste in the building lifecycle

As the building industry proceeds in the direction of low impact buildings, research attention is being drawn towards the reduction of carbon dioxide emission and waste. Starting from design and construction to operation and demolition, various building materials are used throughout the whole building lifecycle involving significant energy consumption and waste generation. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is emerging as a tool that can support holistic design-decision making for reducing embodied carbon and waste production in the building lifecycle. This study aims to establish a framework for assessing embodied carbon and waste underpinned by BIM technology. On the basis of current research review, the framework is considered to include functional modules for embodied carbon computation. There are a module for waste estimation, a knowledge-base of construction and demolition methods, a repository of building components information, and an inventory of construction materials’ energy and carbon. Through both static 3D model visualisation and dynamic modelling supported by the framework, embodied energy (carbon), waste and associated costs can be analysed in the boundary of cradle-to-gate, construction, operation, and demolition. The proposed holistic modelling framework provides a possibility to analyse embodied carbon and waste from different building lifecycle perspectives including associated costs. It brings together existing segmented embodied carbon and waste estimation into a unified model, so that interactions between various parameters through the different building lifecycle phases can be better understood. Thus, it can improve design-decision support for optimal low impact building development. The applicability of this framework is anticipated being developed and tested on industrial projects in the near future.

Technologies for biological containment of GM and Non-GM crops

International Perspective The development of GM technology continues to expand into increasing numbers of crops and conferred traits. Inevitably, the focus remains on the major field crops of soybean, maize, cotton, oilseed rape and potato with introduced genes conferring herbicide tolerance and/or pest resistance. Although there are comparatively few GM crops that have been commercialised to date, GM versions of 172 plant species have been grown in field trials in 31 countries. European Crops with Containment Issues Of the 20 main crops in the EU there are four for which GM varieties are commercially available (cotton, maize for animal feed and forage, and oilseed rape). Fourteen have GM varieties in field trials (bread wheat, barley, durum wheat, sunflower, oats, potatoes, sugar beet, grapes, alfalfa, olives, field peas, clover, apples, rice) and two have GM varieties still in development (rye, triticale). Many of these crops have hybridisation potential with wild and weedy relatives in the European flora (bread wheat, barley, oilseed rape, durum wheat, oats, sugar beet and grapes), with escapes (sunflower); and all have potential to cross-pollinate fields non-GM crops. Several fodder crops, forestry trees, grasses and ornamentals have varieties in field trials and these too may hybridise with wild relatives in the European flora (alfalfa, clover, lupin, silver birch, sweet chestnut, Norway spruce, Scots pine, poplar, elm, Agrostis canina, A. stolonifera, Festuca arundinacea, Lolium perenne, L. multiflorum, statice and rose). All these crops will require containment strategies to be in place if it is deemed necessary to prevent transgene movement to wild relatives and non-GM crops. Current Containment Strategies A wide variety of GM containment strategies are currently under development, with a particular focus on crops expressing pharmaceutical products. Physical containment in greenhouses and growth rooms is suitable for some crops (tomatoes, lettuce) and for research purposes. Aquatic bioreactors of some non-crop species (algae, moss, and duckweed) expressing pharmaceutical products have been adopted by some biotechnology companies. There are obvious limitations of the scale of physical containment strategies, addressed in part by the development of large underground facilities in the US and Canada. The additional resources required to grow plants underground incurs high costs that in the long term may negate any advantage of GM for commercial productioNatural genetic containment has been adopted by some companies through the selection of either non-food/feed crops (algae, moss, duckweed) as bio-pharming platforms or organisms with no wild relatives present in the local flora (safflower in the Americas). The expression of pharmaceutical products in leafy crops (tobacco, alfalfa, lettuce, spinach) enables growth and harvesting prior to and in the absence of flowering. Transgenically controlled containment strategies range in their approach and degree of development. Plastid transformation is relatively well developed but is not suited to all traits or crops and does not offer complete containment. Male sterility is well developed across a range of plants but has limitations in its application for fruit/seed bearing crops. It has been adopted in some commercial lines of oilseed rape despite not preventing escape via seed. Conditional lethality can be used to prevent flowering or seed development following the application of a chemical inducer, but requires 100% induction of the trait and sufficient application of the inducer to all plants. Equally, inducible expression of the GM trait requires equally stringent application conditions. Such a method will contain the trait but will allow the escape of a non-functioning transgene. Seed lethality (‘terminator’ technology) is the only strategy at present that prevents transgene movement via seed, but due to public opinion against the concept it has never been trialled in the field and is no longer under commercial development. Methods to control flowering and fruit development such as apomixis and cleistogamy will prevent crop-to-wild and wild-to-crop pollination, but in nature both of these strategies are complex and leaky. None of the genes controlling these traits have as yet been identified or characterised and therefore have not been transgenically introduced into crop species. Neither of these strategies will prevent transgene escape via seed and any feral apomicts that form are arguably more likely to become invasives. Transgene mitigation reduces the fitness of initial hybrids and so prevents stable introgression of transgenes into wild populations. However, it does not prevent initial formation of hybrids or spread to non-GM crops. Such strategies could be detrimental to wild populations and have not yet been demonstrated in the field. Similarly, auxotrophy prevents persistence of escapes and hybrids containing the transgene in an uncontrolled environment, but does not prevent transgene movement from the crop. Recoverable block of function, intein trans-splicing and transgene excision all use recombinases to modify the transgene in planta either to induce expression or to prevent it. All require optimal conditions and 100% accuracy to function and none have been tested under field conditions as yet. All will contain the GM trait but all will allow some non-native DNA to escape to wild populations or to non-GM crops. There are particular issues with GM trees and grasses as both are largely undomesticated, wind pollinated and perennial, thus providing many opportunities for hybridisation. Some species of both trees and grass are also capable of vegetative propagation without sexual reproduction. There are additional concerns regarding the weedy nature of many grass species and the long-term stability of GM traits across the life span of trees. Transgene stability and conferred sterility are difficult to trial in trees as most field trials are only conducted during the juvenile phase of tree growth. Bio-pharming of pharmaceutical and industrial compounds in plants Bio-pharming of pharmaceutical and industrial compounds in plants offers an attractive alternative to mammalian-based pharmaceutical and vaccine production. Several plantbased products are already on the market (Prodigene’s avidin, β-glucuronidase, trypsin generated in GM maize; Ventria’s lactoferrin generated in GM rice). Numerous products are in clinical trials (collagen, antibodies against tooth decay and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma from tobacco; human gastric lipase, therapeutic enzymes, dietary supplements from maize; Hepatitis B and Norwalk virus vaccines from potato; rabies vaccines from spinach; dietary supplements from Arabidopsis). The initial production platforms for plant-based pharmaceuticals were selected from conventional crops, largely because an established knowledge base already existed. Tobacco and other leafy crops such as alfalfa, lettuce and spinach are widely used as leaves can be harvested and no flowering is required. Many of these crops can be grown in contained greenhouses. Potato is also widely used and can also be grown in contained conditions. The introduction of morphological markers may aid in the recognition and traceability of crops expressing pharmaceutical products. Plant cells or plant parts may be transformed and maintained in culture to produce recombinant products in a contained environment. Plant cells in suspension or in vitro, roots, root cells and guttation fluid from leaves may be engineered to secrete proteins that may be harvested in a continuous, non-destructive manner. Most strategies in this category remain developmental and have not been commercially adopted at present. Transient expression produces GM compounds from non-GM plants via the utilisation of bacterial or viral vectors. These vectors introduce the trait into specific tissues of whole plants or plant parts, but do not insert them into the heritable genome. There are some limitations of scale and the field release of such crops will require the regulation of the vector. However, several companies have several transiently expressed products in clinical and pre-clinical trials from crops raised in physical containment.

Interactions between the physical soil environment and a horizontal ground coupled heat pump, for a domestic site in the UK

There is currently an increased interest of Government and Industry in the UK, as well as at the European Community level and International Agencies (i.e. Department of Energy, American International Energy Agency), to improve the performance and uptake of Ground Coupled Heat Pumps (GCHP), in order to meet the 2020 renewable energy target. A sound knowledge base is required to help inform the Government Agencies and advisory bodies; detailed site studies providing reliable data for model verification have an important role to play in this. In this study we summarise the effect of heat extraction by a horizontal ground heat exchanger (installed at 1 m depth) on the soil physical environment (between 0 and 1 m depth) for a site in the south of the UK. Our results show that the slinky influences the surrounding soil by significantly decreasing soil temperatures. Furthermore, soil moisture contents were lower for the GCHP soil profile, most likely due to temperature-gradient related soil moisture migration effects and a decreased hydraulic conductivity, the latter as a result of increased viscosity (caused by the lower temperatures for the GCHP soil profile). The effects also caused considerable differences in soil thermal properties. This is the first detailed mechanistic study conducted in the UK with the aim to understand the interactions between the soil, horizontal heat exchangers and the aboveground environment. An increased understanding of these interactions will help to achieve an optimum and sustainable use of the soil heat resources in the future. The results of this study will help to calibrate and verify a simulation model that will provide UK-wide recommendations to improve future GCHP uptake and performance, while safeguarding the soil physical resources.

The MaPS project: mapping teacher conceptions of musical development

The chapter starts from the premise that an historically- and institutionally-formed orientation to music education at primary level in European countries privileges a nineteenth century Western European music aesthetic, with its focus on formal characteristics such as melody and rhythm. While there is a move towards a multi-faceted understanding of musical ability, a discrete intelligence and willingness to accept musical styles or 'open-earedness', there remains a paucity of documented evidence of this in research at primary school level. To date there has been no study undertaken which has the potential to provide policy makers and practitioners with insights into the degree of homogeneity or universality in conceptions of musical ability within this educational sector. Against this background, a study was set up to explore the following research questions: 1. What conceptions of musical ability do primary teachers hold a) of themselves and; b) of their pupils? 2. To what extent are these conceptions informed by Western classical practices? A mixed methods approach was used which included survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview. Questionnaires have been sent to all classroom teachers in a random sample of primary schools in the South East of England. This was followed up with a series of semi-structured interviews with a sub-sample of respondents. The main ideas are concerned with the attitudes, beliefs and working theories held by teachers in contemporary primary school settings. By mapping the extent to which a knowledge base for teaching can be resistant to change in schools, we can problematise primary schools as sites for diversity and migration of cultural ideas. Alongside this, we can use the findings from the study undertaken in an English context as a starting point for further investigation into conceptions of music, musical ability and assessment held by practitioners in a variety of primary school contexts elsewhere in Europe; our emphasis here will be on the development of shared understanding in terms of policies and practices in music education. Within this broader framework, our study can have a significant impact internationally, with potential to inform future policy making, curriculum planning and practice.

A novel approach to national technological accumulation and absorptive capacity: aggregating Cohen and Levinthal

The paper develops a more precise specification and understanding of the process of national-level knowledge accumulation and absorptive capabilities by applying the reasoning and evidence from the firm-level analysis pioneered by Cohen and Levinthal (1989, 1990). In doing so, we acknowledge that significant cross-border effects due to the role of both inward and outward FDI exist and that assimilation of foreign knowledge is not only confined to catching-up economies but is also carried out by countries at the frontier-sharing phase. We postulate a non-linear relationship between national absorptive capacity and the technological gap, due to the effects of the cumulative nature of the learning process and the increase in complexity of external knowledge as the country approaches the technological frontier. We argue that national absorptive capacity and the accumulation of knowledge stock are simultaneously determined. This implies that different phases of technological development require different strategies. During the catching-up phase, knowledge accumulation occurs predominately through the absorption of trade and/or inward FDI-related R&D spillovers. At the pre-frontier-sharing phase onwards, increases in the knowledge base occur largely through independent knowledge creation and actively accessing foreign-located technological spillovers, inter alia through outward FDI-related R&D, joint ventures and strategic alliances.

Information communication technologies and distance education in Sri Lanka: a case study of two universities

Sri Lanka's participation rates in higher education are low and have risen only slightly in the last few decades; the number of places for higher education in the state university system only caters for around 3% of the university entrant age cohort. The literature reveals that the highly competitive global knowledge economy increasingly favours workers with high levels of education who are also lifelong learners. This lack of access to higher education for a sizable proportion of the labour force is identified as a severe impediment to Sri Lanka‟s competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. The literature also suggests that Information and Communication Technologies are increasingly relied upon in many contexts in order to deliver flexible learning, to cater especially for the needs of lifelong learners in today‟s higher educational landscape. The government of Sri Lanka invested heavily in ICTs for distance education during the period 2003-2009 in a bid to increase access to higher education; but there has been little research into the impact of this. To address this lack, this study investigated the impact of ICTs on distance education in Sri Lanka with respect to increasing access to higher education. In order to achieve this aim, the research focused on Sri Lanka‟s effort from three perspectives: policy perspective, implementation perspective and user perspective. A multiple case study research using an ethnographic approach was conducted to observe Orange Valley University‟s and Yellow Fields University‟s (pseudonymous) implementation of distance education programmes using questionnaires, qualitative interviewing and document analysis. In total, data for the analysis was collected from 129 questionnaires, 33 individual interviews and 2 group interviews. The research revealed that ICTs have indeed increased opportunities for higher education; but mainly for people of affluent families from the Western Province. Issues identified were categorized under the themes: quality assurance, location, language, digital literacies and access to resources. Recommendations were offered to tackle the identified issues in accordance with the study findings. The study also revealed the strong presence of a multifaceted digital divide in the country. In conclusion, this research has shown that iii although ICT-enabled distance education has the potential to increase access to higher education the present implementation of the system in Sri Lanka has been less than successful.

Evaluation of modelled regional water balance using lake status data: a comparison of 6ka simulations with the NCAR CCM

Variations in lake area and depth reflect climatically induced changes in the water balance of overflowing as well as closed lakes. A new global data base of lake status has been assembled, and is used to compare two simulations for 6 ka (6000 yr ago) made with successive R15 versions of the NCAR Community Climate Model (CCM). Simulated water balance was expressed as anomalies of annual precipitation minus evaporation (P-E); observed water balance as anomalies of lake status. Comparisons were made visually, by comparing regional averages, and by a statistic that compares the signs of simulated P-E anomalies (smoothly interpolated to the lake sites) with the status anomalies. Both CCM0 and CCM1 showed enhanced Northern-Hemisphere monsoons at 6 ka. Both underestimated the effect, but CCM1 fitted the spatial patterns better. In the northern mid- and high-latitudes the two versions differed more, and fitted the data less satisfactorily. CCM1 performed better than CCM0 in North America and central Eurasia, but not in Europe. Both models (especially CCM0) simulated excessive aridity in interior Eurasia. The models were systematically wrong in the southern mid-latitudes. Problems may have been caused by inadequate treatment of changes in sea-surface conditions in both models. Palaeolake status data will continue to provide a benchmark for the evaluation of modelling improvements.

Developing government policies for distance education: lessons learnt from two Sri Lankan case studies

Education, especially higher education, is considered vital for maintaining national and individual competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. Following the introduction of its “Free Education Policy” as early as 1947, Sri Lanka is now the best performer in basic education in the South Asian region, with a remarkable record in terms of high literacy rates and the achievement of universal primary education. However, access to tertiary education is a bottleneck, due to an acute shortage of university places. In an attempt to address this problem, the government of Sri Lanka has invested heavily in information and communications technologies (ICTs) for distance education. Although this has resulted in some improvement, the authors of this article identify several barriers which are still impeding successful participation for the majority of Sri Lankans wanting to study at tertiary level. These impediments include the lack of infrastructure/resources, low English language proficiency, weak digital literacy, poor quality of materials and insufficient provision of student support. In the hope that future implementations of ICT-enabled education programmes can avoid repeating the mistakes identified by their research in this Sri Lankan case, the authors conclude their paper with a list of suggested policy options.

Making the tacit explicit: children's strategies for classroom writing

A key highlight of this study is generating evidence of children ‘making aware the unaware’, making tacit knowledge explicit. The research explores the levels of awareness in thinking used by eight 7–8 year-old children when engaged in school-based genre writing tasks. The focus is on analysing children’s awareness of their thought processes, using a framework originally devised by Swartz and Perkins (1989), in order to investigate ways in which children can transform their tacit knowledge to explicit within the writing process. Classroom ‘think aloud’ protocols are used to help children ‘manage their knowledge transfer’, to speak the unspoken. In their framework Swartz and Perkins distinguish between four levels of thought that they view as hierarchical and ‘increasingly metacognitive.’ However, there is little evidence in this study to show that levels of awareness in thinking are increasingly progressive and observations made during the study suggest that young writers move in and out of the suggested levels of thinking during different elements of a writing task. The reasons for this may depend on a number of factors which are noted in this paper. Evidence does suggest children in this age group are consciously aware of their own and others’ thought processes both with and without adult prompting. By using collaborative talk, their awareness of these thought processes is highlighted enabling the co-construction and integration of new ideas into their existing knowledge base.

Grid job scheduling using Route with Genetic Algorithm support

In 2006 the Route load balancing algorithm was proposed and compared to other techniques aiming at optimizing the process allocation in grid environments. This algorithm schedules tasks of parallel applications considering computer neighborhoods (where the distance is defined by the network latency). Route presents good results for large environments, although there are cases where neighbors do not have an enough computational capacity nor communication system capable of serving the application. In those situations the Route migrates tasks until they stabilize in a grid area with enough resources. This migration may take long time what reduces the overall performance. In order to improve such stabilization time, this paper proposes RouteGA (Route with Genetic Algorithm support) which considers historical information on parallel application behavior and also the computer capacities and load to optimize the scheduling. This information is extracted by using monitors and summarized in a knowledge base used to quantify the occupation of tasks. Afterwards, such information is used to parameterize a genetic algorithm responsible for optimizing the task allocation. Results confirm that RouteGA outperforms the load balancing carried out by the original Route, which had previously outperformed others scheduling algorithms from literature.

Lokal utveckling och företagssamverkan i träbranschen : Dokumentation och preliminär analys av ett 30-tal fall

Networks and cooperatives have become very common in the woodworking industry during the1990’s. As part of a research project on small enterprise development in the woodworking industry within the Target 6 area (in Sweden) of the European Community, this study follows the development of a dozen cooperative projects during the period 1997-2000. In order to broaden the knowledge base of the study, in 1998 we carried out a survey of cooperative ventures in the woodworking industry in the rest of the country, and collected information about their history, present situation and future strategy. Together with our own material we achieved a body of material consisting of some 30 cases which were subjected to exploratory analysis. We identified the following categories of projects and cooperative ventures; ”Local development projects”, ”Development networks”, ”Producer networks” and ”Development supporting networks”. Most of the producer networks were horizontally integrated but some of them were vertically integrated, along the processing chain from the forest to the customer. Nearly all the local development projects and the networks had been initiated within the last four years. It is, therefore, too early to make any conclusions about their success. Our main finding, so far, is that local development and the establishment of networks requires ”driving forces” in the form of committed individuals, time, money and project organisation. Most of the projects and networks were supported by public funds.

Understanding the "black box" of a health-promotion program : keys to enable health among older persons aging in the context of migration

Although the need to make health services more accessible to persons who have migrated has been identified, knowledge about health-promotion programs (HPPs) from the perspective of older persons born abroad is lacking. This study explores the design experiences and content implemented in an adapted version of a group-based HPP developed in a researcher-community partnership. Fourteen persons aged 70-83 years or older who had migrated to Sweden from Finland or the Balkan Peninsula were included. A grounded theory approach guided the data collection and analysis. The findings showed how participants and personnel jointly helped raise awareness. The participants experienced three key processes that could open doors to awareness: enabling community, providing opportunities to understand and be understood, and confirming human values and abilities. Depending on how the HPP content and design are being shaped by the group, the key processes could both inhibit or encourage opening doors to awareness. Therefore, this study provides key insights into how to enable health by deepening the understanding of how the exchange of health-promoting messages is experienced to be facilitated or hindered. This study adds to the scientific knowledge base of how the design and content of HPP may support and recognize the capabilities of persons aging in the context of migration.

Fusões, aquisições estratégicas, e capacidades tecnológicas inovadoras: evidências da indústria de telecomunicações multinacional

This dissertation studies the innovative technological capabilities available in the merger and acquisitions processes and the relationship between these processes with the technological capabilities accumulation to get convergence of technology and services. This study was examined in fourteen companies of the telecommunications industry during 2002 to 2007. Starting on 1990 there were from one end a profusion of studies on the technological capabilities as source of competitive advantages; from another end there are studies on merger and acquisitions with the objective to evaluate the motivations derived from technological factors and stimulation to the competition and the opening of the market. However few of the empirical studies of long stated period that examine the correlation of these events in the industry of telecommunications under the optics of the technological qualification in the level of the companies and for the strategic perspective of enterprise based on the dynamics abilities. An analytical framework already available in the literature was used to describe the contribution of the merger and acquisitions processes for the accumulation of innovative technological capabilities in the studied companies. However the framework was adapted specifically for the industry of Telecommunications. This dissertation also studies the importance of the strategic merger and acquisitions as organizational form in the complementation of technological capability for external sources. Such empirical evidences had been collected from information and data bases published for the own companies who had been examined in this dissertation. Regarding the results, it was found that: 1. In terms of participation with ingress technological capabilities in strategic merger and acquisitions the equipment manufacturers had entered with 71% to 55 of the technological capabilities and the service operator company had entered with 61% to 71 technological capabilities. 2. In terms of implications of the merger and acquisitions for the configuration of resultant technologic capabilities, it was found that the equipment manufacturers had increased 31% the ratio of convergence of technology and the operators of services had increased 4% the ratio for the change in the organizational structure. 3. Regarding the accumulation technological capability to obtain convergence of technology and services was verified the increase these technological capabilities after the merger and acquisitions process in the companies studied. Considering the limitation of this study, the evidences found in this dissertation suggest that the companies use the processes of strategic merger and acquisitions to search for external complementation of their knowledge base to compete in the globalization market. The result demonstrates that this movement has implied in an alteration and accumulation of capability from organization on innovative technological activities regarding the convergence of technology and services.

As duas faces das técnicas de gestão: aprendizagem e inovação evidências de empresa do setor siderúrgico no Brasil

Ao longo dos últimos 20 anos tem havido uma profusão de estudos que examinam, no âmbito de empresas, a contribuição dos mecanismos de aprendizagem e da adoção de técnicas de gestão para o processo de acumulação tecnológica. No entanto, ainda são escassos os estudos que examinem, de maneira conjunta e sob uma perspectiva dinâmica, o relacionamento entre a adoção de técnicas de gestão, mecanismos de aprendizagem e trajetórias de acumulação de capacidades tecnológicas. Mais que isto, faltam estudos que examinem o duplo papel das técnicas de gestão, ora como parte do estoque de capacidades tecnológicas, ora como um processo de aprendizagem tecnológica em si. Esta dissertação objetiva oferecer uma contribuição para preencher esta lacuna neste campo de estudo. O enfoque desta dissertação deriva de observações empíricas, realizadas em empresas, e inspira-se no clássico estudo Innovation and Learning: the two faces of R&D, de Cohen e Levinthal (1989). Assim a dissertação baseia-se em um estudo de caso individual, realizado em uma empresa do setor siderúrgico no Brasil, no período de 1984 a 2008, examinando estas questões à luz de modelos analíticos disponíveis na literatura internacional. Neste sentido, adotou-se o entendimento de capacidade tecnológica como o conjunto de recursos necessários para gerar e gerir mudanças tecnológicas, sendo construída e acumulada de forma gradual, a partir do engajamento em processos de aprendizagem e da coordenação de bases de conhecimentos acumulados em diferentes dimensões, simbioticamente relacionadas. As métricas utilizadas identificam tipos e níveis de capacidade tecnológica para diferentes funções e identifica quatro tipos de processos de aprendizagem tecnológica e os avalia em termos de suas características-chave. Tomando-se por base evidências empíricas qualitativas e quantitativas, colhidas em primeira mão, a base de trabalho de campo, este estudo verificou que: 1. A empresa acumulou níveis inovativos de capacidades tecnológicas em todas as funções examinadas, sendo o nível Inovativo Intermediário (Nível 5) nas funções Engenharia de Projetos (de forma incompleta) e Equipamentos e o nível Intermediário Avançado (Nível 6) nas funções Processos e Organização da Produção e Produtos. 2. Os mecanismos de aprendizagem subjacentes à acumulação destes níveis de capacidade tecnológica apresentaram resultados relevantes em termos de suas características-chave, principalmente no que diz respeito à variedade e intensidade: de 24 mecanismos em 1984 para um total de 59 em 2008, com uma variação de 145,8%, e com 56 dos 59 mecanismos (94,92%) utilizados atualmente de forma sistemática. 3. O período compreendido entre os anos de 1990 e 2004, no qual foram implementadas as técnicas de gestão estudadas, exceto o Plano de Sugestões, se caracteriza por apresentar a maior taxa de acumulação de capacidades tecnológicas e por dar início à utilização da quase totalidade dos 35 novos mecanismos de aprendizagem incorporados pela empresa após o início de suas operações (1984). E que as técnicas de gestão estudadas: 1. Colaboraram para o processo de aprendizagem tecnológica da AMBJF, principalmente pela necessidade de se: (i) incorporar novos mecanismos de aprendizagem que lhe permitissem acumular, antecipadamente, a base de conhecimentos necessária à implementação das técnicas de gestão estudadas; (ii) coordenar um número maior de mecanismos que dessem o adequado suporte ao aumento da complexidade de seu Sistema de Gestão Integrada (SOl). 2. Ampliaram, por si, o estoque de capacidades tecnológicas da empresa, maIS especificamente em sua dimensão organizacional, a partir da acumulação de conhecimento em procedimentos, instruções de trabalho, manuais, processos e fluxos de gestão e de produção, dentre outros. Desta forma, os resultados aqui encontrados confirmam que a adoção e a implementação das técnicas de gestão estudadas contribuíram com e influenciaram o processo de aprendizagem tecnológica e a trajetória de acumulação tecnológica da empresa, ao mesmo tempo, exercendo, portanto, um duplo papel na organização. Esta conclusão nos leva a um melhor entendimento do tema e pode contribuir para a compreensão de ações políticas e gerenciais que possam acelerar a acumulação de capacidades tecnológicas, entendendo a relevância das técnicas de gestão menos em termos de sua "mera" adoção e mais do seu processo de implementação.