Départements de Messieurs les fermiers généraux pour le service des fermes générales, pendant la cinquième année du bail de Nicolas Salzard

[Acte. 1784-11-19. Paris]

The homing or carrier pigeon (Le pigeon voyageur); its history, general management, and method of training.

Mode of access: Internet.

The company drill of the infantry of the line, together with the skirmishing drill of the company and battalion, after the method of Gen. Le Louterel. Bayonet fencing ...

Mode of access: Internet.

Knowledge sharing leveraging new product development activities to derive enhanced business performance : mixed method study

Knowledge has been widely recognised as a determinant of business performance. Business capabilities require an effective share of resource and knowledge. Specifically, knowledge sharing (KS) between different companies and departments can improve manufacturing processes since intangible knowledge plays an enssential role in achieving competitive advantage. This paper presents a mixed method research study into the impact of KS on the effectiveness of new product development (NPD) in achieving desired business performance (BP). Firstly, an empirical study utilising moderated regression analysis was conducted to test whether and to what extent KS has leveraging power on the relationship between NPD and BP constructs and variables. Secondly, this empirically verified hypothesis was validated through explanatory case studies involving two Taiwanese manufacturing companies using a qualitative interaction term pattern matching technique. The study provides evidence that knowledge sharing and management activities are essential for deriving competitive advantage in the manufacturing industry.

Learning routines used by firms during construction of infrastructure projects using the alliance procurement method

Collaborative contracting has emerged over the past 15 years as an innovative project delivery framework that is particularly suited to infrastructure projects. Australia leads the world in the development of project and program alliance approaches to collaborative delivery. These approaches are considered to promise superior project results. However, very little is known about the learning routines that are most widely used in support of collaborative projects in general and alliance projects in particular. The literature on absorptive capacity and dynamic capabilities indicates that such learning enhances project performance. The learning routines employed at corporate level during the operation of collaborative infrastructure projects in Australia were examined through a large survey conducted in 2013. This paper presents a descriptive summary of the preliminary findings. The survey captured the experiences of 320 practitioners of collaborative construction projects, including public and private sector clients, contractors, consultants and suppliers (three per cent of projects were located in New Zealand, but for brevity’s sake the sample is referred to as Australian). The majority of projects identified used alliances (78.6%); whilst 9% used Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) contracts and 2.7% used Early Tender Involvement contracts, which are ‘slimmer’ types of collaborative contract. The remaining 9.7% of respondents used traditional contracts that employed some collaborative elements. The majority of projects were delivered for public sector clients (86.3%), and/or clients experienced with asset procurement (89.6%). All of the projects delivered infrastructure assets; one third in the road sector, one third in the water sector, one fifth in the rail sector, and the rest spread across energy, building and mining. Learning routines were explored within three interconnected phases: knowledge exploration, transformation and exploitation. The results show that explorative and exploitative learning routines were applied to a similar extent. Transformative routines were applied to a relatively low extent. It was also found that the most highly applied routine is ‘regularly applying new knowledge to collaborative projects’; and the least popular routine was ‘staff incentives to encourage information sharing about collaborative projects’. Future research planned by the authors will examine the impact of these routines on project performance.

A novel tuning method for advanced line drop compensator and its application to response coordination of distributed generation with voltage regulating devices

Nowadays, integration of small-scale electricity generators, known as Distributed Generation (DG), into distribution networks has become increasingly popular. This tendency together with the falling price of DG units has a great potential in giving the DG a better chance to participate in voltage regulation process, in parallel with other regulating devices already available in the distribution systems. The voltage control issue turns out to be a very challenging problem for distribution engineers, since existing control coordination schemes need to be reconsidered to take into account the DG operation. In this paper, a control coordination approach is proposed, which is able to utilize the ability of the DG as a voltage regulator, and at the same time minimize the interaction of DG with another DG or other active devices, such as On-load Tap Changing Transformer (OLTC). The proposed technique has been developed based on the concepts of protection principles (magnitude grading and time grading) for response coordination of DG and other regulating devices and uses Advanced Line Drop Compensators (ALDCs) for implementation. A distribution feeder with tap changing transformer and DG units has been extracted from a practical system to test the proposed control technique. The results show that the proposed method provides an effective solution for coordination of DG with another DG or voltage regulating devices and the integration of protection principles has considerably reduced the control interaction to achieve the desired voltage correction.

A new method for the in vivo identification of mechanical properties in arteries from cine MRI images: Theoretical framework and validation

Quantifying the stiffness properties of soft tissues is essential for the diagnosis of many cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. In these pathologies it is widely agreed that the arterial wall stiffness is an indicator of vulnerability. The present paper focuses on the carotid artery and proposes a new inversion methodology for deriving the stiffness properties of the wall from cine-MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) data. We address this problem by setting-up a cost function defined as the distance between the modeled pixel signals and the measured ones. Minimizing this cost function yields the unknown stiffness properties of both the arterial wall and the surrounding tissues. The sensitivity of the identified properties to various sources of uncertainty is studied. Validation of the method is performed on a rubber phantom. The elastic modulus identified using the developed methodology lies within a mean error of 9.6%. It is then applied to two young healthy subjects as a proof of practical feasibility, with identified values of 625 kPa and 587 kPa for one of the carotid of each subject.

Validation of a partial coherence interferometry method for estimating retinal shape

To validate a simple partial coherence interferometry (PCI) based retinal shape method, estimates of retinal shape were determined in 60 young adults using off-axis PCI, with three stages of modeling using variants of the Le Grand model eye, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Stage 1 and 2 involved a basic model eye without and with surface ray deviation, respectively and Stage 3 used model with individual ocular biometry and ray deviation at surfaces. Considering the theoretical uncertainty of MRI (12-14%), the results of the study indicate good agreement between MRI and all three stages of PCI modeling with <4% and <7% differences in retinal shapes along horizontal and vertical meridians, respectively. Stage 2 and Stage 3 gave slightly different retinal co-ordinates than Stage 1 and we recommend the intermediate Stage 2 as providing a simple and valid method of determining retinal shape from PCI data.

In situ surface topography measurement method of granite base in scanning wafer stage with laser interferometer

Topography of a granite surface has an effect on the vertical positioning of a wafer stage in a lithographic tool, when the wafer stage moves on the granite. The inaccurate measurement of the topography results in a bad leveling and focusing performance. In this paper, an in situ method to measure the topography of a granite surface with high accuracy is present. In this method, a high-order polynomial is set up to express the topography of the granite surface. Two double-frequency laser interferometers are used to measure the tilts of the wafer stage in the X- and Y-directions. From the sampling tilts information, the coefficients of the high-order polynomial can be obtained by a special algorithm. Experiment results shows that the measurement reproducibility of the method is better than 10 nm. (c) 2006 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

O impacto da internacionalização sobre o sistema de controle de gestão de empresas gaúchas: um estudo de caso múltiplo entre as empresas de capital aberto Fras-le S/A, Gerdau S/A e Forjas Taurus S/A

O presente estudo buscou analisar os principais impactos sofridos pelos sistemas de controle de gestão das empresas em decorrência de sua internacionalização e consequente aumento da complexidade de suas operações. A pesquisa buscou analisar também algum afastamento ou aproximação da literatura pesquisada, sobre a forma como este processo de internacionalização acontece. Assim sendo, foram feitas comparações entre as características de controle e de internacionalização encontradas na literatura e as situações encontradas nas empresas entrevistadas nesta pesquisa. Para possibilitar tais comparações, foi realizada uma revisão da literatura sobre as teorias acerca do controle de gestão nas empresas, sobre os processos de internacionalização e também sobre as teorias de internacionalização de empresas, descritas pelos principais autores destas áreas. Definido o plano de referência, foi adotado o método de estudo de caso aplicado em três das maiores empresas do estado do Rio Grande do Sul, a Gerdau S/A, a Fras-le S/A e a Forjas Taurus S/A, a fim de explorar mais aprofundadamente os reais procedimentos e controles encontrados nestas empresas, de tamanha relevância para a economia Gaúcha e Brasileira, observando suas características em relação ao plano de referência proposto. Com base nas entrevistas presenciais realizadas, foi possível verificar a real importância dos sistemas de controle de gestão nas companhias internacionalizadas e o grande desafio que as empresas atravessam para conseguir monitorar e planejar, de forma eficiente, as complexas atividades realizadas em diferentes locais do mundo. Os principais achados indicam que os sistemas de controle sofrem vários impactos para adaptação aos diferentes mercados, sendo identificadas relevantes mudanças estruturais, conceituais e de acompanhamento e controle nos casos analisados. Deve-se destacar a grande impotância dos investimentos em tecnologia, pesquisa e desenvolvimento e a atenção constante que as empresas devem dispensar ao capital intelectual para a obtenção de eficiência e qualidade nas operações. Quanto às características do processo de internacionalização, foram encontradas aproximações relevantes entre teoria e prática.