The motivation of information technology consultants: The struggle with social dimensions and identity

Increasingly, customer companies hire external information technology (IT) consultants, often on a special project basis. These consultants are employees of professional service firms, although they receive their assignments from the hiring companies, report to them, and are supervised by them. Using semistructured interviews with 12 IT consultants in Sweden, we examine the factors that influence their work motivation, including the effect of this dual allegiance—to the service firm and to the customer company. The data indicate that the primary motivators are the variety in tasks and the opportunity to influence and/or manage an entire project. Neither monetary incentives nor the consultancy firm norms are strong motivators. A factor that affects work behavior and motivation is the subordinate identity that IT consultants must assume with their powerful clients. The article concludes with practical suggestions for managers who seek to understand what motivates employees who work at a distance, under external control. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Improving convergence of Iterative Feedback Tuning

Iterative Feedback Tuning constitutes an attractive control loop tuning method for processes in the absence of an accurate process model. It is a purely data driven approach aiming at optimizing the closed loop performance. The standard formulation ensures an unbiased estimate of the loop performance cost function gradient with respect to the control parameters. This gradient is important in a search algorithm. The extension presented in this paper further ensures informative data to improve the convergence properties of the method and hence reduce the total number of required plant experiments especially when tuning for disturbance rejection. Informative data is achieved through application of an external probing signal in the tuning algorithm. The probing signal is designed based on a constrained optimization which utilizes an approximate black box model of the process. This model estimate is further used to guarantee nominal stability and to improve the parameter update using a line search algorithm for determining the iteration step size. The proposed algorithm is compared to the classical formulation in a simulation study of a disturbance rejection problem. This type of problem is notoriously difficult for Iterative Feedback Tuning due to the lack of excitation from the reference.     

Computer and Smartphone Continuance Intention: A Motivational Model

This paper develops and tests a motivational model to explain the overall continuance intention to use computers and smartphones. Based on survey data from 192 undergraduate students, structural equation modeling analysis is used to report: (1) the independent effect of intrinsic motivation on the continuance intention to use computers and smartphones; (2) the independent effect of extrinsic motivation on the continuance intention to use computers but not smartphones; (3) intrinsic motivation mediating the effect of extrinsic motivation on the continuance intention to use computers; (4) the independent effect of technology cognizance on the continuance intention to use computers but not smartphones; (5) intrinsic motivation positively influencing extrinsic motivation and technology cognizance, with respect to both devices. This research contributes to an improved understanding of the independent and interrelated effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to use technological devices. The findings have important implications for theory and practice regarding the overall use of technology.     

Recent developments in large‐area photomasks for display applications

One of the most critical areas in the manufacturing process for FPD panels or shadow masks for CRTs is lithography. Most existing lithography technologies require high‐quality large‐area photomasks. The requirements on these photomasks include positioning accuracy (registration) and repeatability (overlay), systematic image quality errors (“mura” or display quality), and resolution (minimum feature size). The general trend toward higher resolution and improved performance, e.g., for TFT desktop monitors, has put a strong focus on the specifications for large‐area‐display photomasks. This article intends to give an overview of the dominant issues for large‐area‐display photomasks, and illustrates differences compared with other applications. The article will also present state‐of‐the‐art methods and trends. In particular, the aspects of positioning accuracy over large areas and systematic image‐quality errors will be described. New qualitative and objective methods have been developed as means to capture systematic image‐quality errors. Results indicating that errors below 25 nm can be found early in the manufacturing process is presented, thus allowing inspection for visual effects before the actual display is completed. Positioning accuracy below 400 nm (3 sigma) over 720 × 560 mm have been achieved. These results will in the future be extended up toward 1 × 1 m for generation 4 in TFT‐LCD production.     

Model selection for convolutive ICA with an application to spatiotemporal analysis of EEG

We present a new algorithm for maximum likelihood convolutive independent component analysis (ICA) in which components are unmixed using stable autoregressive filters determined implicitly by estimating a convolutive model of the mixing process. By introducing a convolutive mixing model for the components, we show how the order of the filters in the model can be correctly detected using Bayesian model selection. We demonstrate a framework for deconvolving a subspace of independent components in electroencephalography (EEG). Initial results suggest that in some cases, convolutive mixing may be a more realistic model for EEG signals than the instantaneous ICA model.     

External Memory Planar Point Location with Logarithmic Updates

Point location is an extremely well-studied problem both in internal memory models and recently also in the external memory model. In this paper, we present an I/O-efficient dynamic data structure for point location in general planar subdivisions. Our structure uses linear space to store a subdivision with N segments. Insertions and deletions of segments can be performed in amortized O(log? _B N) I/Os and queries can be answered in $O(\log_{B}^{2} N)$ I/Os in the worst-case. The previous best known linear space dynamic structure also answers queries in $O(\log_{B}^{2} N)$ I/Os, but only supports insertions in amortized $O(\log_{B}^{2} N)$ I/Os. Our structure is also considerably simpler than previous structures.     

Eliminating the effect of freezing frames on user perceptive by using a time interleaving technique

Streaming video over a wireless network faces several challenges such as high packet error rates, bandwidth variations, and delays, which could have negative effects on the video streaming and the viewer will perceive a frozen picture for certain durations due to loss of frames. In this study, we propose a Time Interleaving Robust Streaming (TIRS) technique to significantly reduce the frozen video problem and provide a satisfactory quality for the mobile viewer. This is done by reordering the streaming video frames as groups of even and odd frames. The objective of streaming the video in this way is to avoid the losses of a sequence of neighbouring frames in case of a long sequence interruption. We evaluate our approach by using a user panel and mean opinion score (MOS) measurements; where the users observe three levels of frame losses. The results show that our technique significantly improves the smoothness of the video on the mobile device in the presence of frame losses, while the transmitted data are only increased by almost 9% (due to reduced time locality).     

Stability, Growth, and Decline in Adult Life Span Development of Declarative Memory: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Data From a Population-Based Study.

Five-year changes in episodic and semantic memory were examined in a sample of 829 participants (35-80 years). A cohort-matched sample (N=967) was assessed to control for practice effects. For episodic memory, cross-sectional analyses indicated gradual age-related decrements, whereas the longitudinal data revealed no decrements before age 60, even when practice effects were adjusted for. Longitudinally, semantic memory showed minor increments until age 55, with smaller decrements in old age as compared with episodic memory. Cohort differences in educational attainment appear to account for the discrepancies between cross-sectional and longitudinal data. Collectively, the results show that age trajectories for episodic and semantic memory differ and underscore the need to control for cohort and retest effects in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, respectively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Non-point source critical area analysis in the Gisselö watershed using GIS

In the southeast in Norrköping, Sweden, is a small fjord-like bay called Slätbaken. The water quality in Slätbaken—with its narrow outlet to the Baltic Sea—depends highly on the water quality of the streams that flow in it. While point pollution sources can be identified easily in general, the non-point sources are harder to find. The most important sources for non-point pollution are agricultural areas, and the pollutants are mostly nutrients like phosphorus, which come from the fertilisation of the fields. One important catchment area for Slätbaken is the 57.7 km² Gisselö river basin (part of the topographic map 8GNO), which contains large agricultural areas.The transport of water pollutants is based on the same hydrological processes as erosion and sediment transport. The implementation of such a model in a GIS allows the analysis of a large area with a high resolution. When choosing the model, special attention was paid to the possibility of using a verified model that is easy to implement in a commercial GIS without the need of too much expert knowledge. This may allow its widespread use in many administrative applications that need non-point source information. A feasibility test for an enhanced GIS USLE model was done in the Gisselö drainage basin before it was implemented for all river basins in the whole administrative area of Norrköpings kommun.It is possible to use the suggested simplified USLE model to estimate the load of both pollutants and sediments, and it is able to show the areas that are critical for the water quality at the outlet of the water basin. The model has been evaluated in three studies [Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Syst. 2 (4) (1988) 365; A GIS to target critical areas for non point source management, in: Proceedings of the International Non Point Source Management Symposium, Austin, TX, November 7, 1989; Vatten 48 (1992) 117]. Then, implemented in a very simple GIS that allowed only rough estimates of terrain models and distances, the model was able to estimate the total suspended solids (TSS) and total phosphorus (TP) loads in the Svartå river basin of 1539 km² in the same region as Gisselö and the Bornsjö river basin outside Stockholm. Besides an estimated R² of 0.91–0.98 (verified by a more than one year measurement from manual and automated sampling stations in the whole river basin), the benefit with the GIS implemented USLE was the possibility to identify the risk areas with high spatial accuracy. During the last decade, both available databases and software have changed the possibilities to identify areas at risk of nutrient leakage. Schein [GIS Methods for Monitoring Sustainable Development by Analysis of Land-use and Land Cover Changes in the Surroundings of Linköping (Sweden), Institut für Photogrammetrie und Fernerkundung, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany] and Schein and Sivertun [Method and models for sustainable development monitoring and analyses in GIS, in: Proceedings of the International Workshop on Geo-Spatial Knowledge Processing for Natural Resource Management, University of Insubria, Varese, Italy, June 28–29, 2001] show that the enhanced land use data available through the European Union agricultural support program can be used together with remote sensing data to fine tune the modified GIS USLE model. The problems with the new 50×50 m digital elevation data now available are also pointed out here. Obvious errors in the data and possibilities to enhance the model by introducing a better terrain model were two important suggestions in these works. In this article, two modifications to the original model are suggested. One is enhancement of the digital terrain model by using height curves from the digital 1:50 000 scale topographic map, and the other is a smooth distance function that better reflects the impact of nutrients on water bodies.Because of its easy implementation on standard low cost systems, the GIS USLE model is suitable for analysing huge areas for critical places. The results can lead to more detailed studies in the risk areas thus identified or to investigations on the effect of land use changes, or can be used simply for taking care in the use of fertilisers and other chemicals in the critical agricultural areas.