The role of computer-aided drafting, analysis, and design software in structural engineering practice

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 102-103).Perhaps the greatest innovation in engineering in the last fifty years, computer software has changed the way structural engineers conduct nearly every aspect of their daily business. Computer-aided drafting, analysis, and design software are invaluable tools for any structural engineering firm. Given the growth, extensive competition, and demands of the industry, a firm cannot survive if it does not take advantage of the powers and capabilities that modem computer software offer. Computers have drastically altered the way engineers communicate with co-workers, clients, architects, and construction managers, improving the efficiency of the design delivery system and facilitating the conveying of design changes, issues, and concerns between all entities involved in a project. This software has optimized the structural drafting, analysis, and design processes in ways engineers never could have imagined possible half a century ago. These innovations not only add up to major savings in construction costs and increased profits for all parties involved in a project, but also to more accurate designs, quicker design completions, improved organization and sharing of data, and higher productivity within the engineering office.(cont.) This thesis examines the applications of computer software in the structural engineering industry, its effects both positive and negative, the professional and legal responsibility of engineers to use software wisely, methods of checking the results of computer analysis and design programs, recent innovations and the future of structural engineering computer software, and the importance of educating future structural engineers on the use of computer software. An examination of the drafting, structural analysis, and design of two complex structures using three-dimensional modeling programs is included to illustrate the value and correct use of structural engineering computer software. It is the intention of this thesis to highlight the benefits and dangers associated with the use of computer software in the structural engineering industry and to inspire innovations in the technology and capabilities of such software.by Adrian de los Reyes.M.Eng

Innovation, skills and performance in the downturn: an analysis of the UK innovation survey 2011

The link between firms’ innovation performance and economic cycles, especially major downturns such as that of 2008-10, is a matter of great policy significance, but is relatively under-researched at least at the level of micro data on business behaviour. It is, for example, often argued that economies need to ‘innovate out of recessions’ since innovation is positively associated with improvements in productivity that then lead to growth and better employment (Nesta, 2009). The issues of how individual firms respond to downturns through their investment in innovation, and how this impacts on innovation outputs and ultimately business performance and growth during and after downturns, has been less studied because relevant data has not been readily available. The UK Innovation Survey (UKIS) 2011 now makes this possible. The UKIS 2011 with reference period 2008 to 2010 covers the downturn in economic activity generated by the global financial crash. The build-up of panels over the life of the UKIS also supports analysis of the longer-term interactions between innovation and the business cycle. This report analyses the last four waves of the surveys. Further, the latest survey includes questions on whether firms employ a specific set of skills, which adds materially to the ability to research the role of skills and human capital in innovation at the micro level

Knowledge source preferences as determinants of strategic entrepreneurial orientation

In the knowledge intensive context, firms’ capacity to integrate external and internal sources of knowledge becomes an important competitive advantage and may distinguish entrepreneurial from conservative firms. This paper explores the proposition that differences in strategic entrepreneurial orientation (EO) across firms may be significantly determined by differences in firms’ preferences regarding knowledge sources. Our research is based on 208 firms operating in knowledge intensive industries in six Central and East European countries (CEEC). We identified three types of firms in terms of patterns of sources of knowledge: external R&D knowledge based firms, in-house knowledge based firms and value chain dependent firms. By using different proxies or different dimensions of EO, we have found that the EO is strongest in firms based on external knowledge. Firms with inhouse based knowledge have an intermediate strength of the EO, and firms dependent on value chains are the least entrepreneurially oriented. We have also found moderate support for grouping different proxies of EO into three dimensions identified in literature – innovativeness, pro-activeness and risk-taking. Value chain firms are not pro-active, have the lowest innovativeness, and are the most risk averse. External knowledge based firms are the most active in all three dimensions of EO, while inhouse knowledge based firms are in an intermediate position. Our results point to strong systemic features of entrepreneurial activities; i.e., EO is inherently different in different sub-populations of firms depending on their patterns of sources of knowledge. It seems that these patterns operate as a moderating factor between performance and the EO, which explains mixed results from the literature

Innovation in services : overview of data sources and analytical structures

This paper has a twofold aim. Firstly, it presents an overview of sources of data on service innovation. We distinguish two levels of data, namely data at the macro-level and data at the micro level. Data at the macro-level are mainly obtained from primary and secondary statistical sources produced by national and international (statistical) agencies. Most macro-data do not measure the service innovation process itself, but mainly represent inputs in or output originating from the innovation process. Data at the micro-level are derived from specific innovation surveys of firms and enterprises, which have been carried out over the past decade, and cover - although to a limited extent - service sectors as well. Section 2 provides an overview of macro and micro indicators on service innovation, and it discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the various measures. The second aim of the paper is to provide analytical structures that can assist in analysing the data on service innovation. The main characteristic of the analytical structures vis-à-vis the raw data, is that analytical structures require constructs and assumptions on the relation between the various indicators in the database. At the macro-level we propose two structures, namely a productivity accounting system, which allows to analyse the contribution of the inputs in the production process, including skilled and unskilled labour, different vintages of physical equipment and technology inputs, to the output produced. Secondly, we discuss an input-output accounting framework to analyse backward linkages of intermediate input use in service industries. The input-output structure may also serve a more detailed analysis of innovation relations between industries, using R&D data. At the micro level we compare the statistical computer package, LISREL (Linear Structural Relations), as a means to analyse the data from micro-based innovation surveys with regular regression analysis, which is mostly used in analysing micro-based innovation data. Section 3 describes these analytical structures in more detail. This paper is part of the project on Structual Information Provision in Services (SIID) carried out by the University of Groningen and DIALOGIC (Utrecht) for the Minisity of Economic Affairs in The Hague (The Netherlands).; Together with an accompanying thematic paper on the conceptualisation of service innovation, it concludes the first phase of the SIID project.

"Stacking" or "Picking" Patents? The Inventors' Choice Between Quantity and Quality

This paper studies the determinants of the quantity and quality of inventors’ patents. It uses a sample of 793 inventors drawn from the PatVal-EU dataset and the information on EPO patents that they contributed to inventing during the period 1988-1998. It explores three aspects of the inventors’ productivity: 1) the number of EPO patents that they produce; 2) their average quality; 3) the quality of the most valuable patents. By jointly estimating the three equations we find that the inventors’ level of education, employment in a large firm and involvement in large-scale research projects positively affect quantity. Yet, apart from the size of the research project, none of these factors directly influences the expected quality of the innovations. They do, however, indirectly, as we find that the number of innovations explains the probability of producing a technological hit (the maximum value). Also, there are no decreasing returns in the innovation process at an individual level, as the number of innovations that an inventor produces is not correlated with their average quality.Productivity, Industrial inventors, Patent quality

Knowledge Reuse for Customization: Metamodels in an Open Design Community for 3d Printing

Theories of knowledge reuse posit two distinct processes: reuse for replication and reuse for innovation. We identify another distinct process, reuse for customization. Reuse for customization is a process in which designers manipulate the parameters of metamodels to produce models that fulfill their personal needs. We test hypotheses about reuse for customization in Thingiverse, a community of designers that shares files for three-dimensional printing. 3D metamodels are reused more often than the 3D models they generate. The reuse of metamodels is amplified when the metamodels are created by designers with greater community experience. Metamodels make the community's design knowledge available for reuse for customization-or further extension of the metamodels, a kind of reuse for innovation

Determinants of technology adoption in the retail trade industry - the case of SMEs in Spain

This paper analyzes the determinants of small and medium-sized enterprises’ technology adoption in the retail trade industry. From the theoretical perspective, two types of influential factors are differentiated in this respect: the personal characteristics of the manager/business owner and the business’s organizational characteristics. The empirical analysis is based on a survey of 268 small and medium-sized enterprises in the Spanish retail trade sector. A logistic regression specification is used as an econometric method. The results indicate that both the acquisition of new technical and electronic equipment and the obtaining of new software are affected by the two types of determinants previously pointed out. The manager/business owner’s entrepreneurial motivation and educational background have significant influences on technology adoption in this type of companies. Furthermore, being part of a business group, carrying out training activities for the employees and inter-firm cooperation also positively influence technology adoption in the retail trade industry

Gamification in higher education and stem : a systematic review of literature

In recent years, gamification, the use of game elements in non-game contexts, has drawn the attention of educators due to the possibility of making learning more motivating and engaging; this led to an increase of research in the field. Despite the availability of literature reviews about gamification and its effects, no work to this date has focused exclusively on Higher Education (HE). Next, worldwide there is an increasing demand for skilled Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) professionals that meet the challenges related to scientific and technological innovations of the 21st Century. This lead to the need of strengthening STEM Higher Education. This brings us to the purpose of this work: presenting a systematic literature review of empirical studies about gamification STEM related Higher Education. This review study started from a systematic mapping design of 'Web of Science' articles, with following inclusion criteria: empirical gamification studies set up in HE, published between 2000 and 2016; focusing on undergraduate or graduate students; in the STEM knowledge field, and set up in authentic settings. An initial search resulted in 562 potentially relevant articles. After applying all selection criteria, only 18 studies could be retained. 12 additional articles were included by analyzing references from earlier literature reviews, resulting in 30 studies to be included. Analysis results show how a combination of game elements (e.g. leaderboards, badges, points and other combinations) positively affects students' performance, attendance, goal orientation and attitude towards mostly computer science related subjects. The analysis results also point at a lack of studies in certain STEM areas, a lack of studies that identify the particular game element associated with the positive differential impact on student performance; a lack of validated psychometric measurements, and lack of focus on student variables that could/should be taken into account as mediating/moderating variables clarifying the impact of gamification in the HE focus on STEM learning and teaching