How do employees shape HR implementation? Intra-team acceptance of espoused HR practices, frontline managers’ implementation behavior, and team performance

This study investigates the critical role of employees in shaping frontline managers’ (FLMs) HR implementation. It goes beyond previous research, which recurrently attributes FLMs’ implementation behavior to the facilitating conditions and FLMs’ personal capabilities, overlooking or downplaying the potential impact of employees during the implementation process. In doing so, we characterize the construct of intra-team acceptance of espoused HR practices as a key force influencing FLMs’ HR enactment. Hence, we hypothesize how intra-team acceptance of espoused HR practices is linked to FLMs’ implementation behavior through FLMs’ performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence. In this narrative, we position team-level HPWS as a direct outcome of FLMs’ implementation behavior. Therefore, we establish that team-level HPWS mediates the relationship between FLMs’ implementation behavior and team performance, underscoring the importance of employees in the HRM variability debate. Conducting a time-lagged study and analyzing data collected from 23 South Korean firms, we found support for our theoretical claims. Our findings recognize employees as significant contributors to the implementation process and challenge the conventional wisdom in which employees are viewed as passive recipients of HR practices. We discuss theoretical and managerial implications and offer directions for future endeavors

QCD effective action with a most general homogeneous field background

We consider one-loop effective action of SU(3) QCD with a most general constant chromomagnetic (chromoelectric) background which has two independent Abelian field components. The effective potential with a pure magnetic background has a local minimum only when two Abelian components H_{\mu\nu}^3 and H_{\mu\nu}^8 of color magnetic field are orthogonal to each other. The non-trivial structure of the effective action has important implication in estimating quark-gluon production rate and p_T-distribution in quark-gluon plasma. In general the production rate depends on three independent Casimir invariants, in particular, it depends on the relative orientation between chromoelectric fields.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures (9 pages in published version

Poly silicon Contacted Emitter Bipolar Transistors: Fabrication Development

Traditionally bipolar transistors have monocrystalline emitters that are contacted by metal, usually aluminum. However, the current gain of conventional BJTs does not reach the highest values predicted by theory. This is due to the high doping effects which limit the emitter injection efficiency and/or high minority carrier recombination in the emitter Silicon bipolar technology has reached a state of advancement that the device characteristics and circuit performance are not only determined by the doping profiles but also by the emitter contact technology. In the last few years polycrystalline silicon has been used increasingly as the emitter contacting material. Polysilicon contacted devices have made it possible to achieve much greater emitter injection efficiencies, and possess the ability to greatly increase the current gain a t a given base impurity doping concentration. The performance of bipolar transistors has been considerably enhanced by the use of polysilicon as both a diffusion source and a contact for shallow emitter; devices. Improvements in packing density and switching speed have resulted from the self-aligned structure [2], which has reduced device parasitics, and the lower base current as compared to metal contacted shallow emitter devices. With a lower base current, the base doping level can be increased to reduce the intrinsic base resistance without sacrificing the current gain of the original device [3]. Several researchers have investigated enhanced gains in polysilicon emitter devices, suggested various models to explain their operations, fabricated devices, and obtained good results. However, none of them reported reproducible devices or data from the devices they made in terms of beta variability. The objective of this thesis lies not only in demonstrating that polysilicon emitter transistors have higher current gains than the conventional shallow emitter aluminum contacted devices but also in showing that the polysilicon emitter devices can be manufactured in a consistently reproducible manner. In fabricating n+pn transistors, either arsenic or phosphorus can be used as the dopant for the emitter region in monocrystalline silicon and for the polysilicon contact. Arsenic was chosen for our process due to the superior shallow doping profile that could be obtained. The shallow emitter was formed in the monocrystalline substrate before the polysilicon was deposited on that region to make a polysilicon contact, which is also doped with arsenic. The emitter is then composed of both a monocrystalline and polycrystalline region. The base currents of these shallow emitter devices are controlled by the material, which is polysilicon contacting the emitter, and the interface between the contacting material and the emitter region under the contact. There are three major different theories proposed to explain the improvement in emitter injection efficiency and hence beta of polysilicon contacted transistors. These theories and a model of the conduction mechanisms in polysilicon are discussed in chapter II. Polysilicon emitter contacted bipolar transistors were fabricated by the introduction of two extra masking steps into an existing four mask conventional shallow emitter bipolar process excluding isolation. The basic process and process development are discussed in chapter III. Before devices could be fabricated it was necessary to predict the device performance from the proposed fabrication sequence. The process simulators SUPREM II and SUPREM III have been useful in the design and optimization of integrated circuit technologies. SUPREM II, however, does not model structures that utilize polysilicon. SUPREM III, on the other hand, is an improved process simulator that can model up to five material layers, including polysilicon, and was available in the Engineering Computer Network at Purdue University. Using SUPREM III, the proposed bipolar junction transistor (BJT) structure was modeled and optimized with the existing implants, oxidations, and design rules. The program has predicted that an acceptable profile can be obtained by varying those parameters. This is also included in chapter III. Other processes that were performed for the purpose of developing the polysilicon emitter contacted devices are described. Their characteristics are explained and compared with the test results. Basic electrical measurements were made on both conventional devices and polysilicon emitter contacted devices that were fabricated in the same wafer and conditions except for the polysilicon contact part. Mainly enhanced current gain in the polysilicon emitter contacted devices, the deviation in the current gain values, and resistance values for the contacts over numerous devices are used as the evaluating criteria. The measurement method and results of measurements are discussed in chapter IV. Conclusions and recommendations are made in chapter V

Universal Robotic Gripper based on the Jamming of Granular Material

Gripping and holding of objects are key tasks for robotic manipulators. The development of universal grippers able to pick up unfamiliar objects of widely varying shape and surface properties remains, however, challenging. Most current designs are based on the multi-fingered hand, but this approach introduces hardware and software complexities. These include large numbers of controllable joints, the need for force sensing if objects are to be handled securely without crushing them, and the computational overhead to decide how much stress each finger should apply and where. Here we demonstrate a completely different approach to a universal gripper. Individual fingers are replaced by a single mass of granular material that, when pressed onto a target object, flows around it and conforms to its shape. Upon application of a vacuum the granular material contracts and hardens quickly to pinch and hold the object without requiring sensory feedback. We find that volume changes of less than 0.5% suffice to grip objects reliably and hold them with forces exceeding many times their weight. We show that the operating principle is the ability of granular materials to transition between an unjammed, deformable state and a jammed state with solid-like rigidity. We delineate three separate mechanisms, friction, suction and interlocking, that contribute to the gripping force. Using a simple model we relate each of them to the mechanical strength of the jammed state. This opens up new possibilities for the design of simple, yet highly adaptive systems that excel at fast gripping of complex objects.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Probing the isospin dependent mean field and nucleon nucleon cross section in the medium by the nucleon emissions

We study the isospin effects of the mean field and two-body collision on the nucleon emissions at the intermediate energy heavy ion collisions by using an isospin dependent transport theory. The calculated results show that the nucleon emission number $N_{n}$ depends sensitively the isospin effect of nucleon nucleon cross section and weakly on the isospin dependent mean field for neutron-poor system in higher beam energy region . In particular, the correlation between the medium correction of two-body collision and the momentum dependent interaction enhances the dependence of nucleon emission number $N_{n}$ on the isospin effect of nucleon nucleon cross section. On the contrary, the ratio of the neutron proton ratio of the gas phase to the neutron proton ratio of the liquid phase, i.e., the degree of isospin fractionation $_{b}/_{b}$ depends sensitively on the isospin dependent mean field and weakly on the isospin effect of two-body collision for neutron-rich system in the lower beam energy region. In this case, $N_{n}$ and $_{b}/_{b}$ are the probes for extracting the information about the isospin dependent nucleon nucleon cross section in the medium and the isospin dependent mean field,respectively.Comment: 4 pages,4 figure

Azimuthal anisotropy: transition from hydrodynamic flow to jet suppression

Measured 2nd and 4th azimuthal anisotropy coefficients v_{2,4}(N_{part}), p_T) are scaled with the initial eccentricity \varepsilon_{2,4}(N_{part}) of the collision zone and studied as a function of the number of participants N_{part} and the transverse momenta p_T. Scaling violations are observed for p_T \alt 3 GeV/c, consistent with a $p_T^2$ dependence of viscous corrections and a linear increase of the relaxation time with $p_T$. These empirical viscous corrections to flow and the thermal distribution function at freeze-out constrain estimates of the specific viscosity and the freeze-out temperature for two different models for the initial collision geometry. The apparent viscous corrections exhibit a sharp maximum for p_T \agt 3 GeV/c, suggesting a breakdown of the hydrodynamic ansatz and the onset of a change from flow-driven to suppression-driven anisotropy.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figs; submitted for publicatio

Hydrodynamic Description of Granular Convection

We present a hydrodynamic model that captures the essence of granular dynamics in a vibrating bed. We carry out the linear stability analysis and uncover the instability mechanism that leads to the appearance of the convective rolls via a supercritical bifurcation of a bouncing solution. We also explicitly determine the onset of convection as a function of control parameters and confirm our picture by numerical simulations of the continuum equations.Comment: 14 pages, RevTex 11pages + 3 pages figures (Type csh

Electromagnetic corrections in the anomaly sector

Chiral perturbation theory in the anomaly sector for $N_f=2$ is extended to include dynamical photons, thereby allowing a complete treatment of isospin breaking. A minimal set of independent chiral lagrangian terms is determined and the divergence structure is worked out. There are contributions from irreducible and also from reducible one-loop graphs, a feature of ChPT at order larger than four. The generating functional is non-anomalous at order $e^2p^4$, but not necessarily at higher order in $e^2$. Practical applications to $\gamma\pi\to\pi\pi$ and to the $\pi^0\to2\gamma$ amplitudes are considered. In the latter case, a complete discussion of the corrections beyond current algebra is presented including quark mass as well as electromagnetic effects.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figure

Onset of fluidization in vertically shaken granular material

When granular material is shaken vertically one observes convection, surface fluidization, spontaneous heap formation and other effects. There is a controversial discussion in literature whether there exists a threshold for the Froude number $\Gamma=A_0\omega_0^2/g$ below which these effects cannot be observed anymore. By means of theoretical analysis and computer simulation we find that there is no such single threshold. Instead we propose a modified criterion which coincides with critical Froude number $\Gamma_c=1$ for small driving frequency $\omega_0$.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure