Beyond and beneath the hierarchical market economy: global production and working-class conflict in Argentina's automobile industry

This paper argues that the hierarchical market economy (HME) category does not provide an adequate starting point for addressing capitalist diversity in Latin America. Building from a critical perspective on the global commodity chain (GCC) and global production network (GPN) approaches, it instead considers the impact of firms’ transnational relations and the often neglected role of working-class struggles. It will argue that capitalist diversity can only be understood at the nexus of these ostensibly global and local phenomena; and by specifying the strategic decisions taken by firms in Argentina’s automobile industry, it will account for the failure of that sector. Finally, it examines the role of working-class struggles in the industry in Córdoba, Argentina, arguing that these were vital in shaping the specific and unstable form of capitalist diversity in Argentina, as well as potential alternatives to it

Selected aspects of lunar mare geology from Apollo orbital photography

Crater size-frequency distributions were studied (100-500 m) and are shown to provide significant integrated information concerning mare surface ages, subsurface stratigraphy, and surficial geology. Equilibrium cratering is discussed gradually reducing the relative numbers of craters smaller than 300-400 m in diameter as surfaces age and regolith thickens. Results for surface ages are in good agreement with other published crater ages. The existing correlations of large ring structures among various circular mare basins are shown to be based on criteria that are inconsistent and nonstandardized. A means of comparing equivalent ring structures in the different maria is proposed which takes into account the important characteristics of young unflooded basins (Orientale) as well as the progressive development of tectonic and volcanic features within the older flooded maria. Specific geologic aspects of several of the lunar maria are discussed and especially Mare Smythii, because of its great age and significantly different surface morphology. Lunar photographs and maps are shown

The IMP contribution to understanding business with China.

A cursory inspection of the output from IMP research will quickly show that issues to do with business in China are a reasonably common topic. Our purposes are to pull together all of the IMP papers concerning business in China in order to evaluate whether or not key themes can be identified in this research, and to evaluate the overall contribution to knowledge made by this work to the field of business-to-business relationships and networks in business with China. A systematic search of the online IMP database, augmented by a manual search of the proceedings of the IMP Asia conferences, generated a total of 58 relevant papers. Of these, 20 were directly concerned with Chinese cultural values, 27 were more broadly concerned with doing business in China, and 11 were more peripherally concerned with China, perhaps including China as a component of a wider Asian study. The 58 papers were analysed using three methods: conventional literature review, quantitative content analysis, and text mining. The key findings are that IMP research addressing business with China has largely adopted IMP conceptual frameworks, and only secondarily frameworks based on Chinese cultural values. Explicit consideration of Chinese cultural values is found in comparatively few IMP papers addressing business in China. Furthermore, there are few instances where IMP researchers adopt an integrative theoretical approach, using both core IMP concepts and key Chinese cultural business concepts. Although considerable attention has been paid to the concept of guanxi by IMP researchers, other key Chinese cultural business concepts are used comparatively infrequently

Using case studies in management education: the student perspective.

Case studies are widely used in management education. Most of the literature discussing the case study method has reflected the perspective of the teacher, implying a teacher-centred view of the case study as a learning strategy. Little is known about the student perspective on case studies. If we are to use the case study method as a component of a student-centred learning experience, then we must know how students perceive case studies, and understand the differences in attitude towards case studies that are found between different groups within the student body. This paper reports on a study of 288 final-year undergraduate students at two UK higher education institutions and is designed to uncover their views about the case study method. All of the respondents were currently enrolled on a strategic marketing or strategic management module on which case studies were used as a key component of the teaching and learning strategy. In general, students believed case studies to be useful as a method of acquiring skills and knowledge. The inherent ambiguity of the complex case study, grounded in business realities, can cause anxiety among some students. There is evidence of marked differences in attitude towards case studies between students with different entry qualifications and with different ethnic backgrounds. Older students are found to have more favourable attitudes to case studies than younger students. These findings have practical implications for the effective use of the case study method. Lecturers using this approach need to be aware of the likely differences of attitude towards case studies of students in their class, and consider these when designing appropriate teaching and learning strategies

Impact Absorbent Rapid Manufactured Structures (IARMS)

Rapid Manufacturing (RM) is increasingly becoming a viable manufacturing process due to dramatic advantages that it facilitates in the area of design complexity. Through the exploration of the design freedom afforded by RM, this paper introduces the concept and initial research surrounding Impact Absorbent Rapid Manufactured Structures (IARMS), with an application in sports personal protective equipment (PPE). Designs are based on the cellular structure of foams; the inherent advantages of the cellular structure are used as a basis to create IARMS that have the potential to be optimised for a specific impact absorbent response. The paper provides some initial results from compression testingMechanical Engineerin

Structural Analysis and Matrix Interpetive System /SAMIS/ program report Technical memorandum, Feb. 1963 - Dec. 1965

High speed digital computer program and data handling instructions for problem solving with structural analysis and interpretive syste

Cooldown time for simple cryogenic pipelines

Cooldown time for simple cryogenic pipeline

Developing a taxonomy for strategising in industrial networks

The purposes of the project described here were (1) to develop a taxonomy of terms relating to strategy used in industrial networks research studies, and (2) to compare manual qualitative content analysis with a computer-assisted text mining approach to taxonomy creation in a social science context. The unit of analysis was abstracts from the IMP research database (publicly available at www.impgroup.org). The main sample used in the analysis comprised 107 abstracts that contained 'strategy' as a keyword. There were marked similarities between the lists of key terms generated by the manual content analysis and by the text mining approach. Where there were differences between the lists of key terms, it was not possible to say whether these were because of unconscious biases in the manual analysis (analysts finding what they expected to find), or because of inadequacies in the text mining approach (which can only identify terms that exist within the data and cannot 'understand' meanings that are implied, but not explicitly stated, by authors)

Flexible conformable hydrophobized surfaces for turbulent flow drag reduction

In recent years extensive work has been focused onto using superhydrophobic surfaces for drag reduction applications. Superhydrophobic surfaces retain a gas layer, called a plastron, when submerged underwater in the Cassie-Baxter state with water in contact with the tops of surface roughness features. In this state the plastron allows slip to occur across the surface which results in a drag reduction. In this work we report flexible and relatively large area superhydrophobic surfaces produced using two different methods: Large roughness features were created by electrodeposition on copper meshes; Small roughness features were created by embedding carbon nanoparticles (soot) into Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Both samples were made into cylinders with a diameter under 12 mm. To characterize the samples, scanning electron microscope (SEM) images and confocal microscope images were taken. The confocal microscope images were taken with each sample submerged in water to show the extent of the plastron. The hydrophobized electrodeposited copper mesh cylinders showed drag reductions of up to 32% when comparing the superhydrophobic state with a wetted out state. The soot covered cylinders achieved a 30% drag reduction when comparing the superhydrophobic state to a plain cylinder. These results were obtained for turbulent flows with Reynolds numbers 10,000 to 32,500

Breadboard linear array scan imager using LSI solid-state technology

The performance of large scale integration photodiode arrays in a linear array scan (pushbroom) breadboard was evaluated for application to multispectral remote sensing of the earth's resources. The technical approach, implementation, and test results of the program are described. Several self scanned linear array visible photodetector focal plane arrays were fabricated and evaluated in an optical bench configuration. A 1728-detector array operating in four bands (0.5 - 1.1 micrometer) was evaluated for noise, spectral response, dynamic range, crosstalk, MTF, noise equivalent irradiance, linearity, and image quality. Other results include image artifact data, temporal characteristics, radiometric accuracy, calibration experience, chip alignment, and array fabrication experience. Special studies and experimentation were included in long array fabrication and real-time image processing for low-cost ground stations, including the use of computer image processing. High quality images were produced and all objectives of the program were attained