Space Station Furnace Facility. Volume 2: Requirements Definition and Conceptual Design Study. Appendix 3: Environment Analysis

A Preliminary Safety Analysis (PSA) is being accomplished as part of the Space Station Furnace Facility (SSFF) contract. This analysis is intended to support SSFF activities by analyzing concepts and designs as they mature to develop essential safety requirements for inclusion in the appropriate specifications, and designs, as early as possible. In addition, the analysis identifies significant safety concerns that may warrant specific trade studies or design definition, etc. The analysis activity to date concentrated on hazard and hazard cause identification and requirements development with the goal of developing a baseline set of detailed requirements to support trade study, specifications development, and preliminary design activities. The analysis activity will continue as the design and concepts mature. Section 2 defines what was analyzed, but it is likely that the SSFF definitions will undergo further changes. The safety analysis activity will reflect these changes as they occur. The analysis provides the foundation for later safety activities. The hazards identified will in most cases have Preliminary Design Review (PDR) applicability. The requirements and recommendations developed for each hazard will be tracked to ensure proper and early resolution of safety concerns

Space station MSFC-DPD-235/DR no. MA-05 phase C/D program development plan. Volume 2: Phase C/D, programmatic requirements

The design plan requirements define the design implementation and control requirements for Phase C/D of the Modular Space Station Project and specifically address the Initial Space Station phase of the Space Station Program (modular). It is based primarily on the specific objective of translating the requirements of the Space Station Program, Project, Interface, and Support Requirements and preliminary contract end x item specifications into detail design of the operational systems which comprise the initial space station. This document is designed to guide aerospace contractors in the planning and bidding for Phase C/D

The international contractor's decision to invest : a strategic risk management decision model for public private partnership projects in Saudi Arabia

One of the main sources of risks that influence potential project success is the project selection decision, especially for international contractor organisations looking for an opportunity to invest in public private partnership projects in foreign countries. Project selection decision, which involves the bid/no bid decision, is a critical investment decision needs to be made based on concrete project evaluation and risks identifications; where negative-risk is in place if there is an absence of a rational basis at the time of making such a decision. Thus, negative consequences of such a decision might occur. The bid/no bid decision necessitates an effective project evaluation and risk identification from various aspects with consideration of several internal and external factors in order to achieve project success. Bidding for PPP projects overseas without efficiently applying risk management tools and techniques to evaluate both the project and the organisation’s current situation and capability might result either in large losses or consumption of time and resources that could have been avoided. The prime aim of this research is to develop a strategic investment decision model from the perspective of risk management, in order to facilitate the decisions of international contractors who intend to invest in public private partnership projects in the Saudi Arabian construction industry. This aim requires establishing a link between the risk management process and the organisation's strategy and its current situation, and identifying risks involved in the bid/no bid decision, PPP projects, and international investment in order to provide an effective computer-based model that is capable of organising the bid/no bid decision in a rational, logical, flexible, and user-friendly manner. The pragmatic triangulation philosophy approach is adopted as the best research methodology that allows two types of research strategy to be combined in order to accomplish the research aim and objectives. Thus, the methods used are qualitative interviews and a quantitative questionnaire-based survey. The findings of this research identified critical success factors of international contractors’ bidding decisions for PPP projects in the Saudi Arabian construction industry. In particular, seventy-seven factors affecting the bid/no bid decision were used as a foundation for development of a Strategic Risk Management Decision Model (SRMDM), available at www.srmdm.com

Belle II Technical Design Report

The Belle detector at the KEKB electron-positron collider has collected almost 1 billion Y(4S) events in its decade of operation. Super-KEKB, an upgrade of KEKB is under construction, to increase the luminosity by two orders of magnitude during a three-year shutdown, with an ultimate goal of 8E35 /cm^2 /s luminosity. To exploit the increased luminosity, an upgrade of the Belle detector has been proposed. A new international collaboration Belle-II, is being formed. The Technical Design Report presents physics motivation, basic methods of the accelerator upgrade, as well as key improvements of the detector.Comment: Edited by: Z. Dole\v{z}al and S. Un

A Theoretical Foundation for the Development of Process Capability Indices and Process Parameters Optimization under Truncated and Censoring Schemes

Process capability indices (PCIs) provide a measure of the output of an in-control process that conforms to a set of specification limits. These measures, which assume that process output is approximately normally distributed, are intended for measuring process capability for manufacturing systems. After implementing inspections, however, non-conforming products are typically scrapped when units fail to meet the specification limits; hence, after inspections, the actual resulting distribution of shipped products that customers perceive is truncated. In this research, a set of customer-perceived PCIs is developed focused on the truncated normal distribution, as an extension of traditional manufacturer-based indices. Comparative studies and numerical examples reveal considerable differences among the traditional PCIs and the proposed PCIs. The comparison results suggest using the proposed PCIs for capability analyses when non-conforming products are scrapped prior to shipping to customers. The confidence interval approximations for the proposed PCIs are also developed. A simulation technique is implemented to compare the proposed PCIs with its traditional counterparts across multiple performance scenarios. The robust parameter design (RPD), as a systematic method for determining the optimum operating conditions that achieve the quality improvement goals, is also studied within the realm of censored data. Data censoring occurs in time-oriented observations when some data is unmeasurable outside a predetermined study period. The underlying conceptual basis of the current RPD studies is the random sampling from a normal distribution, assuming that all the data points are uncensored. However, censoring schemes are widely implemented in lifetime testing, survival analysis, and reliability studies. As such, this study develops the detailed guidelines for a new RPD method with the consideration of type I-right censoring concepts. The response functions are developed using nonparametric methods, including the Kaplan-Meier estimator, Greenwood\u27s formula, and the Cox proportional hazards regression method. Various response-surface-based robust parameter design optimization models are proposed and are demonstrated through a numerical example. Further, the process capability index for type I-right censored data using the nonparametric methods is also developed for assessing the performance of a product based on its lifetime

Cross-cultural interfaces: hybridization of HRM practices of MNCs in developing countries and emerging economies

The present study examines hybrid human resources management (HRM) practices of multinational companies (MNCs) operating in developing countries (DCEEs) and the outcomes of this hybridization in terms of local employees' perceptions of appropriate and effective HRM practices. With the increased investment of Western industrialized world to DCEEs, managing HR in MNCs becomes an issue of critical importance (Jackson, 2004a). However, to balance the incompatible demands of being locally responsive while preserving global integration is a challenging task for HRM managers in MNCs (Horwitz, (Camoche, & Chew, 2002) and this challenging task eventually leads to adoption of hybrid models. Not only the description of the process of the hybridization of HRM practices but also its outcomes are missing in the literature. According to Jackson (2004b), the effects of HRM hybridization must be examined with a specific focus on their effectiveness and appropriateness both at the organizational and individual levels. The objectives of this study are to a) contribute to the literature by examining perceived outcomes of so-called 'Western' cultural influences in the context of HRM in DCEEs, and b) contribute to practice by providing feedback to HRM practitioners, especially in MNCs, about how to implement HRM in particular cultural and institutional contexts to increase their appropriateness and effectiveness. In a concurrent mixed-method design with a pragmatic approach, both quantitative and qualitative data were triangulated. Quantitative data collected from snowball samples of employees working in MNCs in Turkey and Romania through a large scale survey revealed a significant relationship between socio-cultural values and preferred HRM practices. Values rather than institutional contextual variables revealed to be stronger predictors of understanding HRM in context. Results further revealed that as the discrepancy between preferred and actual HRM decreases, it was perceived more appropriate and effective, which, in turn, lead to higher organizational commitment (OC) and lower turnover intention through mediation of higher person-organization (PO) fit. Furthermore, not only did the structural equation modeling findings establish the validity of the constructs of HRM hybridity, appropriateness and effectiveness (i.e., measurement model), they also supported the link between hybridity and positive employee attitudes, mediated by HRM appropriateness and effectiveness (i.e., structural model). Qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews from employees in two case MNCs in Turkey and Romania also revealed the influence of various factors including cultural values and higher institutions on the implementation of HRM as well as its hybridization process. Findings complementing quantitative data as well as theoretical and practical contributions of the present research, its limitations, and future research avenues were also presented