The incompatibility of knowledge regimes: consequences of the material world for cross-domain work

In this paper, we argue that successful integration of knowledge across work domains in the short-term can mask the generation of long-term consequences. We explore a setting, the introduction of environmental considerations into semiconductor manufacturing, where the eventual adoption of common measurement artifacts and associated practices enabled knowledge integration, but failed to address significant underlying consequences. Drawing from observational, interview, and archival data we develop an understanding of the work practices of the Tech and EnviroTech groups as structured by the material world and broader collective conventions. We introduce the concept of knowledge regime to outline the differences in knowledge across these work domains. More specifically, we find that differences in the causal specificity and developmental time horizon of knowledge and the measurement artifacts that result contribute to the relative power of one knowledge regime over another. Understanding these sources of incompatibility provides insight into the design requirements of information systems as boundary objects for knowledge integration, but also specifies the potential limits to any design effort.     

Perceived risk and trust associated with purchasing at electronic marketplaces

Understanding consumer behaviour is of vital importance to consumer-oriented e-business models today. In this paper, we study the relationships between consumer perceptions of risk and trust and the attitude towards purchasing at a consumer-to-consumer electronic marketplace (EM). Typical for EM settings is that consumer behaviour is subject to perceptions of the selling party as well as of the institutional structures of the intermediary that is operating the EM. Building upon the well-established literature of trust, we consider the concepts of intermediary trust and seller trust. We extend this categorisation by introducing the concepts of intermediary risk and seller risk. We developed measurement instruments for intermediary risk and seller risk. All measurement scales have acceptable alphas and are unidimensional. An empirical study is conducted to explore the relationships between the risk and trust types and consumer purchase attitude. The results reveal significant, direct effects of seller trust and seller risk. Second-order effects of intermediary trust and intermediary risk are investigated and reported. The paper concludes with general observations and recommendations for research and practice.     

Lamp configuration design for rapid thermal processing systems

We have studied lamp configuration design for rapid thermal processing (RTP) systems. We considered a configuration consisting of four concentric circular lamp zones, three of them above the wafer and one circumventing the wafer. We propose a method to determine the geometric parameters, the width, height and radius, of the lamp zones so that the configuration designed has the capacity to achieve a uniform temperature on the wafer. The method is based on a necessary and sufficient condition for uniform temperature tracking and analytic expressions of the view factors. A design example is given in which a least square open-loop control law yields good temperature uniformity