The rise, development and internationalization of Japan's motor industry : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Geography at Massey University

The rise of Japan's motor industry to world prominence has been one of the most spectacular developments of modern times and has come to epitomize Japan's 'economic miracle' in the postwar era. The industry's phenomenal growth was the result of various factors. During its infant and developing phases these included: a legacy in terms of industrial expertise from before the War; a much improved labour relations climate; and the favourable economic conditions that prevailed both at home and abroad that provided the framework for an era of high-speed growth. The most significant factor though, was the support given by the government which considered the industry as economically 'strategic' and 'nurtured' it to growth — along with many of its supporting industries — with a wide range of industrial policies. Notwithstanding the contribution of these factors, however, the industry showed a remarkable resourcefulness and creativity of its own. Borrowing engineering and management techniques from abroad such as Quality Control, and experimenting with new indigenous concepts such as Just-in-Time, the industry was able to dramatically raise the quality of its products and its levels of productivity. Based on these strengths the Japanese automakers became, during the 1970s, major exporters of motor vehicles and were able to capture ever larger shares of foreign markets. In recent years, however, confronted with increased international trade friction, the erection of trade barriers in its major foreign markets, and the rising value of the yen, the industry has inceasingly sought to move operations abroad. These moves to overseas locations are on such an unprecedented scale that they are contributing to create a new international geography of motor vehicle production

Confrontation du standard Maison Passive à la notion d'architecture soutenable

Le Standard Maison Passive a été défini il y a 20 ans et s'est rapidement répandu en Europe suite au projet Cepheus. L'article pointe le caractère essentiellement performantiel du standard Maison Passive, et pose la question de la cohérence de ce standard avec une définition plus large de l'architecture soutenable, englobant de multiples dimensions environnementales, sociales et culturelles. Citation de l'article A venir Bibliographie A veni

Vernacular housing practices in Burkina Faso: Representative models of construction in Ouagadougou and walls hygrothermal efficiency

peer reviewedIn Burkina Faso, particularly in Ouagadougou, the walls of the houses are made of several local materials. The choice of a material implies a suitable constructive technique and an appropriate architecture. The walls are either earth-based, i.e. Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs) or Adobe, or based on cement-based materials such as hollow concrete blocks. This paper proposes a description of the vernacular construction practices according to the material used for the walls and tries to explore the hygrothermal behaviour of various wall compositions. A hygrothermal simulation of a hollow concrete blocks wall and a CEBs wall using the WUFI®Pro software is carried out in order to compare the humidity flux passing through interior surface of each wall and to analyze the influence of integrated moisture in the calculation of heat flow. It is shown that, for CEBs wall, both thermal and hygrothermal simulation of heat flow give similar results. © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd

Les vivants ne peuvent rien apprendre aux morts ; les morts, au contraire, instruisent les vivants

Plaidoyer pour la prise une prise en compte des questions de précarité énergétique en architecture

A validation process for CFD use in building physics.

peer reviewedDue to growing interests in environmental and building energy performance concerns, building physics simulations - and especially Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) – are more and more used. Unfortunately, until now, there is no clearly defined method to validate the use of these models by building engineers. This paper describes a validation process of CFD tools dealing with physical phenomena occurring in building physics. The comparison between experimental data and numerical results proves the validity of CFD use and its specific contribution to building physics modelling in comparison with thermal multizonal models. Thanks to this validation process, building engineers can improve their CFD simulations performance and their comprehension of building physics.SImulation Multiphysique du BAtiment (SIMBA