Capabilities and Governance the Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization

We argue that since Coase’s seminal 1937 paper on “The Nature of the Firm,” there has been an odd and unjustified separation between price theory and the economics of organization. For example, matters of production has been the domain of the former exclusively. However, a new approach to economic organization, here called “the capabilities approach,” that places production center-stage in the explanation of economic organization, is now emerging. We discuss the sources of this approach and its relation to the mainstream economics of organization.Capability, Theory of the Firm, Price Theory

Innovation processes and industrial districts

In this survey, we examine the operations of innovation processes within industrial districts by exploring the ways in which differentiation, specialization, and integration affect the generation, diffusion, and use of new knowledge in such districts. We begin with an analysis of the importance of the division of labour and then investigate the effects of social embeddedness on innovation. We also consider the effect of forms of organization within industrial districts at various stages of product and process life, and we examine the negative aspects of embeddedness for innovation. We conclude with a discussion of the possible consequences of new information and communications technologies on innovation in industrial districts

The Vanishing Hand: the Changing Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism

In a series of classic works, most notably The Visible Hand (1977) and Scale and Scope (1990), Alfred Chandler focused the spotlight on the large, vertically integrated modern corporation. Put simply, Chandler’s argument is this. In the late nineteenth century, the large vertically integrated corporation emerged in the United States to replace what had been a fragmented and localized structure of production and distribution. The driving force behind this transformation was increased population and higher per-capita income, combined with lowered transportation and communications costs made possible by the spread of the railroad and telegraph. Adam Smith had predicted an increasingly fine division of labor as the response to a growing extent of the market; and, although he was actually quite vague on the organizational consequences of the division of labor, Smith was clear in his insistence on the power of the invisible hand of markets to coordinate economic activity. Chandler’s account challenges this prediction: internal or managerial coordination became necessary to coordinate the “new economy” of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the visible hand of managerial coordination replaced the invisible hand of the market. Many would argue that the late twentieth (and now early twenty-first) centuries are witnessing a revolution at least as important as the one Chandler described. Population and income are again a driving force, but the railroad and telegraph have been replaced by the computer, telecommunications technology, and the Internet. In this epoch, Smithian forces may be outpacing Chandlerian ones. Management retains important functions, of course, including some of the same ones Chandler described. But as the central mechanism for coordinating high-throughput production, the visible hand — many would argue — is fading into a ghostly translucence. This paper is a preliminary attempt to explain why this is so — to provide some theoretical insight into the organizational structure of the new economy. The basic argument — the vanishing-hand hypothesis — is as follows. Driven by increases in population and income and by the reduction of technological and legal barriers to trade, the Smithian process of the division of labor always tends to lead to finer specialization of function and increased coordination through markets. But the components of that process —technology, organization, and institutions — change at different rates. The managerial revolution Chandler chronicles was the result of such an imbalance, in this case between the coordination needs of high-throughput technologies and the abilities of contemporary markets and contemporary technologies of coordination to meet those needs. With further growth in the extent of the market and improvements in the technology of coordination, the central management of vertically integrated production stages is increasingly succumbing to the forces of specialization.Managerial Revolution New Economy Vertical Integration Outsourcing Subcontracting Corporation buffering

Knowledge and Meliorism in the Evolutionary Theory of F. A. Hayek

No abstract available

Etude du délaminage en mode II des composites stratifiés

Bases de la mécanique des matériaux composites -- Rappels sur la mécanique des matériaux composites -- Rigidité dans le plan d'un stratifié -- Rigidité en flexion d'un stratifié -- Coefficient de couplage des composites non-symétriques -- Notions de mécanique de la rupture -- Mécanique de la rupture appliquée aux matériaux isotrope -- Mécanique de la rupture appliquée aux matériaux composites -- Modes mixtes -- Développement des termes énergétiques -- Énergie de déformation en flexion Wf d'une poutre non-fissurée -- Énergie de déformation en cisaillement Ws d'une poutre non-fissurée -- Énergie de déformation totale d'un échantillon fissuré -- Calcul de la compliance d'une poutre fissurée à un niveau quelconque -- Taux de restitution d'énergie de déformation -- Simplification du modèle pour une composite Quasi-Homogène -- Procédures expérimentales -- Dimension des échantillons utilisés -- Influence de la préfissuration sur G -- Stabilité de la propagation -- Calculs de compliance et de G. -- Facteurs qui influencent le taux de restitution d'énergie de déformation -- Analyse par la méthode numérique des éléments finis

Design of a CMOS active electrode IC for wearable electrical impedance tomography systems

This paper describes the design of an active electrode integrated circuit (IC) for a wearable electrical impedance tomography (EIT) system required for real time monitoring of neonatal lung function. The IC comprises a wideband high power current driver (up to 6 mAp-p output current), a low noise voltage amplifier and two shape sensor buffers. The IC has been designed in a 0.35-μm CMOS technology. It operates from ±9 V power supplies and occupies a total die area of 5 mm2. Post-layout simulations are presented

On the application of frequency selective common mode feedback for multifrequency EIT

Common mode voltages are frequently a problem in electrical impedance tomography (EIT) and other bioimpedance applications. To reduce their amplitude common mode feedback is employed. Formalised analyses of both current and voltage feedback is presented in this paper for current drives. Common mode effects due to imbalances caused by the current drives, the electrode connections to the body load and the introduction of the body impedance to ground are considered. Frequency selective narrowband common mode feedback previously proposed to provide feedback stability is examined. As a step towards multifrequency applications the use of narrowband feedback is experimentally demonstrated for two simultaneous current drives. Measured results using standard available components show a reduction of 62dB for current feedback and 31dB for voltage feedback. Frequencies ranged from 50 kHz to 1 MHz

Strong gravitational lensing by braneworld black holes

In this paper, we use the strong field limit approach to investigate the gravitational lensing properties of braneworld black holes. Applying this method to the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, the lensing observables for some candidate braneworld black hole metrics are compared with those for the standard Schwarzschild case. It is found that braneworld black holes could have significantly different observational signatures to the Schwarzschild black hole.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, RevTeX4; v2 reference added; v3 minor technical correctio