Omaha softball: The early leagues, 1930-1950

Twenty-eight million Americans played organized softball in 1981. One out of every ten Americans belonged to some team, in some league, at some level; from California to New York, from Michigan to Florida. The Amateur Softball Association of America promotes softball as the most popularly played team sport in the United States. But softball\u27s popularity is not limited to this nation. Since World War II countries of every size and from every hemisphere have played softball for sport and recreation

Structural Change and Union Transformation

Analysis of the role of structural change in labor movement revitalization is presented as part of a multicountry comparative project. There are two interrelated causal chains that explain successful union restructuring. First, there must be sufficient environmental pressure to overcome institutional inertia. Second, unions J need a clearly articulated vision that provides a basis for strategic decision making. Three viable motivations for restructuring are identified: aggressive, defensive, and strategic. Aggressive restructuring strengthens union leadership; defensive restructuring attempts to stabilize the union to assure survival. If the restructuring is merely aggressive or merely defensive, however, it will not contribute to a net increase in membership or power. Strategic restructuring involves substantial organizational change and promises to augment union power and contribute to renewal. This conceptual framework is presented in the context of comparative analysis designed to assess whether restructuring is essential for union revitalization

How Does Restructuring Contribute to Union Revitalization?

[Excerpt] As we look cross-nationally at labour movement revitalization, we see a complex process of change that varies depending on the socio-political/economic context. Although we observe a diverse set of union strategies and outcomes, we find that structural adjustment is a common element of revitalization efforts. The mere presence of restructuring does not, of course, assure positive results. In this chapter we define various forms of restructuring, outline factors that shape and promote restructuring, and discuss the likelihood that restructuring leads to union revitalization by using examples from our cross-country comparison

Analysis of machine influence on process stability in sheet bulk metal forming

This contribution deals with the process-machine interaction while forming parts by sheet-bulk metal forming. The goal of this process is to form complex functional elements, such as gearing and carrier elements, by means of controlled thickening of the metal sheet. The high process forces in vertical as well as in horizontal direction to form these elements, cause displacements of the tool and press components, which lead to parts defects retroactively. This work demonstrates these challenges with regard to manufacturing of asymmetrical parts and introduces a suitable approach to represent the process-machine interaction by modelling.DFG/TCRC/7

Change detection analysis with spectral thermal imagery

Spectral imagery offers additional information about a scene that can enhance an analyst's ability to conduct change detection. Automation of change detection is required to sift through countless images to identify scenes that have significant intelligence value. Change detection in spectral thermal imagery enables exploitation at night by taking advantage of the emissive characteristics of materials. Data collected from the Spatially Enhanced Broadband Array Spectrograph System (SEBASS) were used to investigate the feasibility of spectral thermal change detection in the long wave infrared (LWIR) region. This study used analysis techniques of differencing, histograms, and principal components analysis to detect spectral changes and investigate the utility of spectral change detection. Many artifacts can influence the sensitivity of change detection methods. Temperature dependence and gross registration errors greatly affect an analysts ability to make use of spectral thermal data for change detection; however, with effort, spectral changes were still detected with these data and suggest that the techniques would be useful once the undesirable characteristics are minimizedhttp://www.archive.org/details/changedetectiona00behrLieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Energy-efficient Drive Concepts in Metal-forming Production

Nowadays, efficient drive solutions for the production industry are more important than ever. In view of this, new energy-efficient drive concepts for forming presses and sheet metal feeding systems are developed at the IFUM. The novel press drive is based on a power-split design, which allows a variable ram-kinematics with reduced total costs of ownership in comparison to conventional servo presses. The new feeding concept will be able to realize the contactless feed of electrically conductive sheet metals by means of electromagnetic forces. Since only the sheet metal has to be accelerated, the energy efficiency and feeding rate can be increased significantly.DFG/BE1691/119-1Federal Ministry of Economics and Technolog

Begleitsatze

60 music scores in pdf.Composed and performed by Richard H. Behrens.pm201

A Versatile IoT-Approach to Process Data Acquisition

The acquisition and evaluation of process data in production engineering holds great potential. This allows detecting faulty processes at an early stage and processes to be optimized even more efficiently. However, the use of technologies for data acquisition in the manufacturing industry is far less widespread than the mentioned potential implies. This paper presents an Internet of Things approach by means of which production environments can be retrofitted easily and cost-effectively

Numerical and experimental determination of cut-edge after blanking of thin steel sheet of DP1000 within use of stress based damage model

The proposed study focuses on blanking of thin steel sheets of Dogal1000DP +Z100MBO. Numerical and experimental investigations of the influence of clearance and punch speed on the cutting force and the geometry of the sheared edge were done. Tensile and stack compression test at elevated temperatures has been chosen to determine the flow and fracture behavior of Dogal1000DP +Z100MBO at different stress states. It is shown that the flow curve determined by stack compression test leads to better results in force - displacement prediction of a blanking process compared to determination of flow curve by tensile test. Stress based fracture criterion were chosen to describe damage behaviour. Moreover significant influence of fracture locus for negative stress triaxialities on the geometry of the numerically predicted sheared edge is shown