3,314 research outputs found
Supply Chains and Porous Boundaries: The Disaggregation of Legal Services
The economic downturn has had significant effects on law firms, and is causing many of them to rethink some basic assumptions about how they operate. In important respects, however, the downturn has simply intensified the effects of some deeper trends that preceded it, which are likely to continue after any recovery that may occur.
This paper explores one of these trends, which is corporate client insistence that law firms “disaggregate” their services into discrete tasks that can be delegated to the least costly providers who can perform them. With advances in communications technology, there is increasing likelihood that some of these persons may be located outside the formal boundaries of the firm. This means that law firms may need increasingly to confront the make or buy decision that their corporate clients have regularly confronted for some time. The potential for vertical disintegration is a relatively recent development for legal services, but is well-established in other sectors of the global economy.
Empirical work in several disciplines has identified a number of issues that arise for organizations as the make or buy decision becomes a potentially more salient feature of their operations. Much of this work has focused in particular on the implications of relying on outsourcing as an integral part of the production process. This paper discusses research on: (1) the challenges of ensuring that work performed outside the firm is fully integrated into the production process; (2) coordinating projects for which networks of organizations are responsible; (3) managing the transfer of knowledge inside and outside of firms that are participants in a supply chain; and (4) addressing the impact of using contingent workers on an organization’s workforce, structure, and culture. A review of this research suggests considerations that law firms will need to assess if they begin significantly to extend the process of providing services beyond their formal boundaries. Discussing the research also is intended to introduce concepts that may become increasingly relevant to law firms, but which currently are not commonly used to analyze their operations. Considering how these concepts are applicable to law firms may prompt us to rethink how to conceptualize these firms and what they do.
This paper therefore is a preliminary attempt to explore: (1) the extent to which law firms may come to resemble the vertically disintegrated organizations that populate many other economic sectors and (2) the potential implications of this trend for the provision of legal services,the trajectory of legal careers, and lawyers’ sense of themselves as members of a distinct profession
Quasi-Local Formulation of Non-Abelian Finite-Element Gauge Theory
Recently it was shown how to formulate the finite-element equations of motion
of a non-Abelian gauge theory, by gauging the free lattice difference
equations, and simultaneously determining the form of the gauge
transformations. In particular, the gauge-covariant field strength was
explicitly constructed, locally, in terms of a path ordered product of
exponentials (link operators). On the other hand, the Dirac and Yang-Mills
equations were nonlocal, involving sums over the entire prior lattice. Earlier,
Matsuyama had proposed a local Dirac equation constructed from just the
above-mentioned link operators. Here, we show how his scheme, which is closely
related to our earlier one, can be implemented for a non-Abelian gauge theory.
Although both Dirac and Yang-Mills equations are now local, the field strength
is not. The technique is illustrated with a direct calculation of the current
anomalies in two and four space-time dimensions. Unfortunately, unlike the
original finite-element proposal, this scheme is in general nonunitary.Comment: 19 pages, REVTeX, no figure
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Occupational Asthma and Contact Dermatitis in a Spray Painter after Introduction of an Aziridine Cross-Linker.
A 23-year-old spray painter developed contact dermatitis and respiratory difficulty characterized by small airways obstruction shortly after the polyfunctional aziridine cross-linker CX-100 began to be used in his workplace as a paint activator. The symptoms resolved after he was removed from the workplace and was treated with inhaled and topical steroids. Painters may have an increased risk of asthma due to exposure to a variety of agents, such as isocyanates, alkyd resins, and chromates. This case illustrates the importance of using appropriate work practices and personal protective equipment to minimize exposure. Occupational asthma is diagnosed by a history of work-related symptoms and exposure to known causative agents. The diagnosis is confirmed by serial pulmonary function testing or inhalational challenge testing. The risk of asthma attributable to occupational exposures is probably underappreciated due to underreporting and to inappropriate use of narrow definitions of exposure in epidemiologic studies of attributable risk
Vector Casimir effect for a D-dimensional sphere
The Casimir energy or stress due to modes in a D-dimensional volume subject
to TM (mixed) boundary conditions on a bounding spherical surface is
calculated. Both interior and exterior modes are included. Together with
earlier results found for scalar modes (TE modes), this gives the Casimir
effect for fluctuating ``electromagnetic'' (vector) fields inside and outside a
spherical shell. Known results for three dimensions, first found by Boyer, are
reproduced. Qualitatively, the results for TM modes are similar to those for
scalar modes: Poles occur in the stress at positive even dimensions, and cusps
(logarithmic singularities) occur for integer dimensions . Particular
attention is given the interesting case of D=2.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure, REVTe
Casimir Energy of a Spherical Shell
The Casimir energy for a conducting spherical shell of radius is computed
using a direct mode summation approach. An essential ingredient is the
implementation of a recently proposed method based on Cauchy's theorem for an
evaluation of the eigenfrequencies of the system. It is shown, however, that
this earlier calculation uses an improper set of modes to describe the waves
exterior to the sphere. Upon making the necessary corrections and taking care
to ensure that no mathematically ill-defined expressions occur, the technique
is shown to leave numerical results unaltered while avoiding a longstanding
criticism raised against earlier calculations of the Casimir energy.Comment: LaTeX, 14 pages, 1 figur
Identity of the van der Waals Force and the Casimir Effect and the Irrelevance of these Phenomena to Sonoluminescence
We show that the Casimir, or zero-point, energy of a dilute dielectric ball,
or of a spherical bubble in a dielectric medium, coincides with the sum of the
van der Waals energies between the molecules that make up the medium. That
energy, which is finite and repulsive when self-energy and surface effects are
removed, may be unambiguously calculated by either dimensional continuation or
by zeta function regularization. This physical interpretation of the Casimir
energy seems unambiguous evidence that the bulk self-energy cannot be relevant
to sonoluminescence.Comment: 7 pages, no figures, REVTe
Effects of phase transitions in devices actuated by the electromagnetic vacuum force
We study the influence of the electromagnetic vacuum force on the behaviour
of a model device based on materials, like germanium tellurides, that undergo
fast and reversible metal-insulator transitions on passing from the crystalline
to the amorphous phase. The calculations are performed at finite temperature
and fully accounting for the behaviour of the material dielectric functions.
The results show that the transition can be exploited to extend the distance
and energy ranges under which the device can be operated without undergoing
stiction phenomena. We discuss the approximation involved in adopting the
Casimir expression in simulating nano- and micro- devices at finite
temperature
Evolution of perturbations in distinct classes of canonical scalar field models of dark energy
Dark energy must cluster in order to be consistent with the equivalence
principle. The background evolution can be effectively modelled by either a
scalar field or by a barotropic fluid.The fluid model can be used to emulate
perturbations in a scalar field model of dark energy, though this model breaks
down at large scales. In this paper we study evolution of dark energy
perturbations in canonical scalar field models: the classes of thawing and
freezing models.The dark energy equation of state evolves differently in these
classes.In freezing models, the equation of state deviates from that of a
cosmological constant at early times.For thawing models, the dark energy
equation of state remains near that of the cosmological constant at early times
and begins to deviate from it only at late times.Since the dark energy equation
of state evolves differently in these classes,the dark energy perturbations too
evolve differently. In freezing models, since the equation of state deviates
from that of a cosmological constant at early times, there is a significant
difference in evolution of matter perturbations from those in the cosmological
constant model.In comparison, matter perturbations in thawing models differ
from the cosmological constant only at late times. This difference provides an
additional handle to distinguish between these classes of models and this
difference should manifest itself in the ISW effect.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Scalar Field Dark Energy Perturbations and their Scale Dependence
We estimate the amplitude of perturbation in dark energy at different length
scales for a quintessence model with an exponential potential. It is shown that
on length scales much smaller than hubble radius, perturbation in dark energy
is negligible in comparison to that in in dark matter. However, on scales
comparable to the hubble radius () the
perturbation in dark energy in general cannot be neglected. As compared to the
CDM model, large scale matter power spectrum is suppressed in a
generic quintessence dark energy model. We show that on scales , this suppression is primarily due to different background
evolution compared to CDM model. However, on much larger scales
perturbation in dark energy can effect matter power spectrum significantly.
Hence this analysis can act as a discriminator between CDM model and
other generic dark energy models with .Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures, added new section, accepted for publication in
Phys. Rev.
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