Protection through property: from private to river-held rights

ABSTRACT

This article explores how private owners can protect bodies of water through private property rights. It compares the use of conventional property rights in the Netherlands and New Zealand with a novel approach whereby a New Zealand river owns itself.     

Entrepreneurial migration and regional opportunities in developing countries

This paper aims to investigate the entrepreneurial migrants' preferences for a location for business activities in developing countries. In the modelling framework six socio-economic and six socio-cultural variables are used in this study to investigate the migrants' propensity to stay at a particular region. The empirical research was carried out in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. It appears that the presence of a supporting informal network is the most critical factor that attracts and keeps the entrepreneurial migrants in a particular region. Socio-cultural variables like experience and education play a less significant role in the migrants' decision to stay in a given region. RID="*" ID="*" Kees Gorter passed away in October 2001.     

Polymer‐based transistors used as pixel switches in active‐matrix displays

A 2‐in. active‐matrix display was demonstrated, containing 4096 solution‐processed polymer‐based transistors. By using the polymer‐dispersed liquid‐crystal display (LCD) effect, this results in a reflective, low‐power display with paper‐like contrast. The influence of the transistor parameters on the display performance is analyzed by use of a model for charging and discharging of the pixel capacitors. Good agreement was obtained between the model and the experimental data. Scaling behavior allows estimation of the performance required for transistors in a quarter‐VGA display. These requirements are met by solution‐processed pentacene transistors.     

Configurations of NPD – Production Interfaces and Interface Integration Mechanisms

This paper describes and illustrates different configurations of the interface between new product development and production processes, including both intra–firm and inter–firm interfaces. These configurations are partly based on a process view of product innovation and partly on a structural view of product innovation. In addition to this typology of interfaces some integration mechanisms are described. The typology will serve as a basis for further research aimed at identifying consistent configurations of the different types of integration mechanisms that are available for industry to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of product innovation processes.     

Emission, fate and effects of soluble silicates (waterglass) in the aquatic environment

Soluble silicates, commercially known as waterglass, are among the largest volume synthetic chemicals in the world. Silicon from waterglass is rapidly transformed to the biologically active orthosilicic acid (referred to as dissolved silicate). This paper aims to assess the impact of waterglass on the aquatic environment in Western Europe. The emission to surface waters from the four most relevant application areas, household detergents, pulp and paper production, water and wastewater treatment, and soil stabilization, is estimated to be ca. 88-121 kton of SiO2 per year. This is a small fraction (<2%) of the estimated total amount of dissolved silicate transported by rivers to the oceans. Locally, increases in dissolved silicate concentration will decrease the ratios of N:Si and P:Si, which could influence phytoplankton species composition and favor the growth of diatoms over other groups of algae. Significant adverse effects in aquatic ecosystems are not expected.     

Move to get moved: a search for methods,tools and knowledge to design for expressive and rich movement-based interaction

The world is inherently meaningful for us, i.e. we perceive the world in terms of what we can do with it, and by physically interacting with it we access this meaning and express the meaning. We believe that this is the core reason and foundation for turning to movement-based interaction. ‘Interaction creates meaning’ does not only hold for users during interaction but also for designers when generating ideas and developing concepts. Therefore, we postulate that if one truly likes to design for movement-based interaction, one has to be or become an expert in movement, not just theoretically, by imagination or on paper, but by doing and experiencing while designing. In order to do so, we believe that designers need design tools, techniques, knowledge, awareness and skills that support their search for expressive, rich behaviour. Our search for this support resulted in several methods, tools and knowledge that help designers exploring, visualising and reflecting on interactions. Our developed methods and tools such as the Design Movement approach with its choreography of interaction, gestural design tools, interactive installations and interactive tangible sketching, have not only supported and inspired designers to design for movement-based interaction, but also resulted in surprising, fresh designs in comparison with the limited scope of rather uniform and traditional electronic consumer products. This paper discusses the possibilities and limitations of our approach.     

The Common Operational Picture as Collective Sensemaking

The common operational picture is used to overcome coordination and information management problems during emergency response. Increasingly, this approach is incorporated in more advanced information systems. This is rooted in an ‘information warehouse’ perspective, which implies information can be collected, sorted and exchanged in an accessible and univocal form. In practice, however, professionals interpret similar information differently. Therefore, we focus on how emergency responders develop collective sensemaking from information. We employ a ‘trading zone’ perspective, in which information is negotiated, to study information management in an ethnographic study of disaster exercises in the Netherlands. Our analysis shows how professionals attribute different meanings to information that distorts the coordination process. We end by stressing the importance of actionable knowledge and reflexivity.     

Positioning of goods in a cross-docking environment

Cross docking is one of the options to reduce lead times and inventories and to improve customer response time in supply chains. Cross-docking centres are dynamic environments where products arrive, are regrouped, and leave the same day. In this paper we focus on the process of short-term storage of unit-loads in a cross-docking environment. The goal is to determine temporary storage locations for incoming unit loads such that the travel distances of the forklift trucks with these unit loads are minimised. We model this problem as a novel application of the minimum cost flow problem and show the applicability of the model for different types of layouts and priorities. We demonstrate both the efficiency and effectiveness of the method in the operational and design phase at cross-docking environments by applying it to practice-oriented examples. Furthermore, we show that the approach is superior to a commonly used heuristic method.