What Policies and Practices Can HR Utilize to Promote an Innovation Based Culture and Help Drive Business Outcomes Through It?

[Excerpt] Innovation has evolved from a mainly scientific activity of research and development to a complex system of interactions among various participants both inside and outside of a firm. In an economy where the innovation cycle is shrinking, characterized by disruptive innovations and changing customer needs, it is crucial for companies to keep up with emerging trends and stay on top of factors that enhance their capacity for innovation. Innovation should not be limited to new products, it can lead to new processes as well. An idea may not work for one department, project, or product, but may be a good solution for another. Innovative firms effectively work across organizational boundaries and connect great ideas with the right people. Despite the importance of innovation, managing and promoting it in a company is not easy, especially when the payoff is often multiple years away. Human Resources, through various policies and practices, can play a vital role in promoting an innovation based culture

Investigation of lateral gated quantum devices in Si/SiGe heterostructures

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 73-75).Quantum dots in Si/SiGe have long spin decoherence times, due to the low density of nuclear spins and weak coupling between nuclear and electronic spins. Because of this, they are excellent candidates for use as solid state qubits. The initial approach towards creating controllable Si/SiGe quantum dots was to fabricate them in delta doped heterostructures. We provide evidence that the delta doping layer in these heterostructures provides a parallel conduction path, which prevents one from creating controllable quantum dots. Instead, it may be more favorable to supply electrons in the 2DEG through capactive gating, instead of a delta doping layer. We therefore discuss efforts to fabricate Si/SiGe quantum dots from undoped heterostructures and the difficulties encountered. A new method for fabricating ohmics in undoped heterostructures is discussed. We also discuss parallel conduction which occurs in the Si cap layer of these undoped heterostructures, which appears to be a major obstacle towards achieving workable devices in undoped Si/SiGe heterostructures.by Andrew P. Lai.S.M

Population Aging and Intergenerational Transfers: Introducing Age into National Accounts

In all societies intergenerational transfers are large and have an important influence on inequality and growth. The development of each generation of youth depends on the resources that it receives from productive members of society for health, education, and sustenance. The well-being of the elderly depends on familial support and a variety of social programs. The National Transfer Accounts (NTA) system provides a comprehensive approach to measuring all reallocations of income across age and time at the aggregate level. It encompasses reallocations achieved through capital accumulation and transfers, distinguishing those mediated by public institutions from those relying on private institutions. This paper introduces the methodology and presents preliminary results emphasizing economic support systems in Taiwan and the United States. As the two economies differ in their demographic configuration, their level of development, and their old-age support systems, comparing them will shed light on the economic implications of population aging under alternative institutional arrangements.

Detection of vehicle occlusion using a generalized deformable model

This paper presents a vehicle occlusion detection algorithm based on a generalized deformable model. A 3D solid cuboid model with up to six vertices is employed to fit any vehicle images, by varying the vertices for a best fit. The advantage of using such a model is that the number of parameterized vertices is small which can be easily deformed. Occlusion is detected by recording the changes in the Area Ratio and the dimensions of the generalized deformable model. Our tests show that the new modeling algorithm is effective in detecting vehicle occlusion.published_or_final_versio

Overlapping-gate architecture for silicon Hall bar MOSFET devices in the low electron density regime

We report the fabrication and study of Hall bar MOSFET devices in which an overlapping-gate architecture allows four-terminal measurements of low-density 2D electron systems, while maintaining a high density at the ohmic contacts. Comparison with devices made using a standard single gate show that measurements can be performed at much lower densities and higher channel resistances, despite a reduced peak mobility. We also observe a voltage threshold shift which we attribute to negative oxide charge, injected during electron-beam lithography processing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted for Applied Physics Letter

Combining tower mixing ratio and community model data to estimate regional-scale net ecosystem carbon exchange by boundary layer inversion over 4 flux towers in the U.S.A.

We evaluated an idealized boundary layer (BL) model with simple parameterizations using vertical transport information from community model outputs (NCAR/NCEP Reanalysis and ECMWF Interim Analysis) to estimate regional-scale net CO2 fluxes from 2002 to 2007 at three forest and one grassland flux sites in the United States. The BL modeling approach builds on a mixed-layer model to infer monthly average net CO2 fluxes using high-precision mixing ratio measurements taken on flux towers. We compared BL model net ecosystem exchange (NEE) with estimates from two independent approaches. First, we compared modeled NEE with tower eddy covariance measurements. The second approach (EC-MOD) was a data-driven method that upscaled EC fluxes from towers to regions using MODIS data streams. Comparisons between modeled CO2 and tower NEE fluxes showed that modeled regional CO2 fluxes displayed interannual and intra-annual variations similar to the tower NEE fluxes at the Rannells Prairie and Wind River Forest sites, but model predictions were frequently different from NEE observations at the Harvard Forest and Howland Forest sites. At the Howland Forest site, modeled CO2 fluxes showed a lag in the onset of growing season uptake by 2 months behind that of tower measurements. At the Harvard Forest site, modeled CO2 fluxes agreed with the timing of growing season uptake but underestimated the magnitude of observed NEE seasonal fluctuation. This modeling inconsistency among sites can be partially attributed to the likely misrepresentation of atmospheric transport and/or CO2gradients between ABL and the free troposphere in the idealized BL model. EC-MOD fluxes showed that spatial heterogeneity in land use and cover very likely explained the majority of the data-model inconsistency. We show a site-dependent atmospheric rectifier effect that appears to have had the largest impact on ABL CO2 inversion in the North American Great Plains. We conclude that a systematic BL modeling approach provided new insights when employed in multiyear, cross-site synthesis studies. These results can be used to develop diagnostic upscaling tools, improving our understanding of the seasonal and interannual variability of surface CO2 fluxes