Experiential knowledge as decision-making factor in international construction business

Abstract Operating on the foreign market poses a significant effort for construction firm that cannot be over sighted. During the preparation period, standard data collected prove to be insufficient leaving experiential reasoning to be a main factor for making a decision. Authors examine to question experiential knowledge according to institutional theory guidelines. Institutional theory is used as theoretical base which authors recognize as most comprehensive characterization of market context to date. On basis of a survey results authors bring conclusion that help uncover the nature of the experiential knowledge as a phenomeno

Supply chain strategy in post-earthquake Haiti

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. [41]-[42]).Introduction: Partners In Health (PIH) is an international, non-profit healthcare organization with operations in several countries on multiple continents. PIH focuses on providing healthcare treatment to people living in some of the poorest places in the world, and has been operating in Haiti since 1985. At that time, PIH established a small community clinic in the central Haiti village of Cange. Today that facility has grown to become an entire medical complex, featuring a 104-bed, full-service hospital with two operating rooms, adult and pediatric wards, and clinics treating a variety of diseases and issues, from women's health to infectious diseases. In addition, Zamni Lasante ("Partners In Health" in Haitian Creyeol) has also expanded its operations to 11 other sites across Haiti's Central Plateau and beyond (Figure 1). Today, ZL ranks as one of the largest nongovernmental health care providers in Haiti - serving a catchment area of 1.2 million across the Central Plateau and the Lower Artibonite. ZL employs over 4,000 people, almost all of them Haitians, including doctors, nurses and community health workers (Zamni Lasante/ Haiti). From its beginnings 25 years ago, PIH/ZL has grown tremendously, and recent years have been no exception. Since 2004, patient encounters have increased almost threefold, from 0.9 million to 2.6 million, and the number of clinical sites has almost doubled. This growth has corresponded to an increase in drugs and supplies. In 2006, approximately 1000 m3 of drugs and supplies were moved through the system. Only two years later, in 2008, that number had more than doubled to 2200 m3 . This significant increase has greatly strained the underlying supply chain.by Scott C. Alexander.M.Eng.in Logistic

Characteristics of ferroelectric-ferroelastic domains in N{\'e}el-type skyrmion host GaV4_4S8_8

GaV$_4$S$_8$ is a multiferroic semiconductor hosting N{\'e}el-type magnetic skyrmions dressed with electric polarization. At T$_s$ = 42K, the compound undergoes a structural phase transition of weakly first-order, from a non-centrosymmetric cubic phase at high temperatures to a polar rhombohedral structure at low temperatures. Below T$_s$, ferroelectric domains are formed with the electric polarization pointing along any of the four $\left< 111 \right>$ axes. Although in this material the size and the shape of the ferroelectric-ferroelastic domains may act as important limiting factors in the formation of the N{\'e}el-type skyrmion lattice emerging below T$_C$=13\:K, the characteristics of polar domains in GaV$_4$S$_8$ have not been studied yet. Here, we report on the inspection of the local-scale ferroelectric domain distribution in rhombohedral GaV$_4$S$_8$ using low-temperature piezoresponse force microscopy. We observed mechanically and electrically compatible lamellar domain patterns, where the lamellae are aligned parallel to the (100)-type planes with a typical spacing between 100 nm-1.2 $\mu$m. We expect that the control of ferroelectric domain size in polar skyrmion hosts can be exploited for the spatial confinement and manupulation of N{\'e}el-type skyrmions

Valley degeneracy in biaxially strained aluminum arsenide quantum wells

This paper details a complete formalism for calculating electron subband energy and degeneracy in strained multi-valley quantum wells grown along any orientation with explicit results for the AlAs quantum well case. A standardized rotation matrix is defined to transform from the conventional- cubic-cell basis to the quantum-well-transport basis whereby effective mass tensors, valley vectors, strain matrices, anisotropic strain ratios, and scattering vectors are all defined in their respective bases. The specific cases of (001)-, (110)-, and (111)-oriented aluminum arsenide (AlAs) quantum wells are examined, as is the unconventional (411) facet, which is of particular importance in AlAs literature. Calculations of electron confinement and strain in the (001), (110), and (411) facets determine the critical well width for crossover from double- to single-valley degeneracy in each system. The notation is generalized to include miscut angles, and can be adapted to other multi-valley systems. To help classify anisotropic inter-valley scattering events, a new primitive unit cell is defined in momentum space which allows one to distinguish purely in-plane inter-valley scattering events from those that requires an out-of-plane momentum scattering component.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

A Self-learning Nonlinear Variable Gain Proportional Derivative (PD) Controller in Robot Manipulators

This paper proposes a nonlinear variable gain Proportional-Derivative (PD) controller that exhibits self-constructing and self-learning capabilities. In this method, the conventional linear PD controller is augmented with a nonlinear variable PD gain control signal using a dynamic structural network. The dynamic structural network known as Growing Multi-Experts etwork grows in time by placing hidden nodes in regions of the state space visited by the system during operation. This results in a network that is "economic" in terms of network sileo The proposed approach enhances the adaptability of conventional PD controller while preserving its' linear structure. Based on the simulation study on variable load and friction compensation, the fast adaptation is shown to be able to compensate the non-linearity and the uncertainty in the robotic system

Using e-mail recruitment and an online questionnaire to establish effect size: A worked example

Background\ud Sample size calculations require effect size estimations. Sometimes, effect size estimations and standard deviation may not be readily available, particularly if efficacy is unknown because the intervention is new or developing, or the trial targets a new population. In such cases, one way to estimate the effect size is to gather expert opinion. This paper reports the use of a simple strategy to gather expert opinion to estimate a suitable effect size to use in a sample size calculation.\ud \ud Methods\ud Researchers involved in the design and analysis of clinical trials were identified at the University of Birmingham and via the MRC Hubs for Trials Methodology Research. An email invited them to participate.\ud \ud An online questionnaire was developed using the free online tool 'Survey Monkey©'. The questionnaire described an intervention, an electronic participant information sheet (e-PIS), which may increase recruitment rates to a trial. Respondents were asked how much they would need to see recruitment rates increased by, based on 90%. 70%, 50% and 30% baseline rates, (in a hypothetical study) before they would consider using an e-PIS in their research.\ud \ud Analyses comprised simple descriptive statistics.\ud \ud Results\ud The invitation to participate was sent to 122 people; 7 responded to say they were not involved in trial design and could not complete the questionnaire, 64 attempted it, 26 failed to complete it. Thirty-eight people completed the questionnaire and were included in the analysis (response rate 33%; 38/115). Of those who completed the questionnaire 44.7% (17/38) were at the academic grade of research fellow 26.3% (10/38) senior research fellow, and 28.9% (11/38) professor. Dependent upon the baseline recruitment rates presented in the questionnaire, participants wanted recruitment rate to increase from 6.9% to 28.9% before they would consider using the intervention.\ud \ud Conclusions\ud This paper has shown that in situations where effect size estimations cannot be collected from previous research, opinions from researchers and trialists can be quickly and easily collected by conducting a simple study using email recruitment and an online questionnaire. The results collected from the survey were successfully used in sample size calculations for a PhD research study protocol.\ud \u

Double quantum dot with tunable coupling in an enhancement-mode silicon metal-oxide semiconductor device with lateral geometry

We present transport measurements of a tunable silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor double quantum dot device with lateral geometry. Experimentally extracted gate-to-dot capacitances show that the device is largely symmetric under the gate voltages applied. Intriguingly, these gate voltages themselves are not symmetric. Comparison with numerical simulations indicates that the applied gate voltages serve to offset an intrinsic asymmetry in the physical device. We also show a transition from a large single dot to two well isolated coupled dots, where the central gate of the device is used to controllably tune the interdot coupling.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Applied Physics Letter