The impact of a call centre on communication in a programme and its projects

Call centres are increasingly being utilised in public sector programmes to facilitate and manage communication between numerous stakeholders. Yet, the impact of call centres on projects has not been investigated. This paper reports on a survey with 92 respondents that assessed the impact of a call centre for a repair and maintenance programme. An empirically verified model is presented to illustrate the relationship between call centre communication and project performance. A balance of frequent informal and formal communication is shown to reduce mistrust and conflict of interest resulting from each party trying to maximise his respective economic position in the principal–agency relationship. The data provides evidence that a call centre improves the communication, collaboration and trust in project principal–agency relationships which, in turn, is perceived to contribute to project performance.     

Evaluation of energy and dietary intake estimates from a food frequency questionnaire using independent energy expenditure measurement and weighed food records

Background  

We have developed a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for the assessment of habitual diet, with special focus on the intake of fruit, vegetables and other antioxidant-rich foods and beverages. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the relative validity of the intakes of energy, food and nutrients from the FFQ.     

Space-multiplexed multifocal nonlinear microscopy

Standard forms of nonlinear microscopy rely on single beam scanning, but the usually weaker signal and the need to image in real-time call for parallelization of the image formation. Since the nonlinear susceptibilities necessitate a comparatively large illumination power, with current laser systems the brightness or field of view of any parallelized nonlinear microscope is limited by the brightness of the laser. For example, by producing an array of high aperture foci, multifocal multiphoton microscopy (MMM) provides real-time, light-efficient three-dimensional fluorescence imaging at high-resolution. The available power limits the degree of parallelization and hence codetermines the field of view. As the utilization of all the laser power is imperative, the focal intensity can be adjusted only through altering the number of foci. This compromises to some extent the flexibility to adjust the focal intensity to benign and effective levels. Here we introduce space-multiplexing (SMX) as a novel option in parallelized nonlinear microscopy, which enables an improved exploitation of the total laser power and facilitates changing the intensity levels in selected regions, without attenuating the total laser power. The basic idea of SMX is to overlap arrays of slightly offset coherent focal fields whose interference modulates the intensity across the sample. For a given degree of parallelization and power, SMX increases the two- and three-photon excited signal of parallelized nonlinear microscopy by a factor of up to 1.5 and 2.5, respectively. To some extent, sensitive regions may be spared out, whereas in regions with weaker nonlinear susceptibilities the intensity is increased. SMX is relevant to all modes of nonlinear microscopy, including parallelized second- and third-harmonic imaging, coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering, and widefield multiphoton excitation.     

Urban infrastructure: four perspectives on Swedish development

From an international perspective, Sweden enjoys a leading position concerning urban infrastructure as the industrialized world is struggling with similar problems. In many countries, the situation is critical. By taking advantage of the short channels of communication between the central and the local governmental bodies, researchers and industry in Sweden can develop knowledge of interest to the entire international community. This feature article combines four essays by leading Swedish experts in the field of infrastructure development.     

Fundamental modeling of environmental cracking for improved design and lifetime evaluation in BWRs

An approach for improved design and lifetime evaluation of environmental cracking is presented based on fundamental modeling of the underlying processes operative in crack advance. In outlining this approach and its application in energy industries, the requirements for a life prediction methodology will be highlighted and the shortcomings of the existing design and lifetime evaluation codes will be discussed. Examples will be given of its use in a variety of cracking systems, such as stainless steels and nickel alloys in hot water, and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking.     

Synthetic aperture focusing for a single-element transducer undergoing helical motion

This paper describes the application of 3-D synthetic aperture focusing (SAF) to a single-element trans-rectal ultrasound transducer. The transducer samples a 3-D volume by simultaneous rotation and translation, giving a helical motion. Two different 3-D SAF methods are investigated, a direct and a two-step approach. Both methods perform almost identically for simulated scatterers and give a significant improvement in azimuth resolution and a constant resolution in elevation. Side lobes below -60 dB are achievable for both methods. Validation of the method is achieved by scanning a simple wire phantom and a complex phantom containing wires in azimuth and elevation. The simple wire phantom shows the same results as that found through simulation. The complex phantom shows simultaneous focusing in azimuth and elevation for the wire scatterers. Consideration of the processing requirements for both 3-D SAF methods shows that the two-step approach can give equivalent performance using an order of magnitude fewer calculations. This reduction requires a temporary storage of 9.1 GB of data for the investigated setup.     

The stress-corrosion-cracking model for high-level radioactive-waste packages

A stress-corrosion cracking (SCC) model has been adapted for performance prediction of high-level radioactive-waste packages to be placed in the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. For these waste packages, the outer barrier material is the highly corrosion-resistant alloy UNS-N06022 (alloy 22). The tensile stress is principally from weld-induced residual stress. To account for crack propagation, the slip dissolution/film rupture (SDFR) model is adopted to provide mathematical formulae for prediction of the crack growth rate. Once the crack growth rate at an initiated SCC is determined, it can be used to determine the time to through-wall penetration for the waste package. This paper presents the development of the SDFR crack growth rate model. A seismic-damage-related SCC crack opening area density model is also briefly described. For more information, contact P.L. Andresen, GE Global Research, One Research Circle Schenectady, NY 12309; e-mail: andresen@crd.ge.com.     

Die numerische Behandlung eines Schrankenverfahrens mit Anwendung auf axialsymmetrisches Stauchen

Zusammenfassung Das Stauchen einfacher axialsymmetrischer Proben wird mit Hilfe des Verfahrens von der oberen Schranke untersucht. Die angegebene numerische Methode, ein iteratives Ritz-Verfahren für mehrparametrige Ansatzfunktionen, liefert bessere Schranken für die Stauchkraft als vergleichbare Verfahren in der Literatur. Zudem erhält man eine gute Approximation des momentanen Geschwindigkeitsfeldes und kann damit den Verlauf der Umformung schrittweise verfolgen. Das angegebene Verfahren läßt sich durch Wahl geeigneter Ansatzfunktionen sinnvoll auf andere Umformprozesse anwenden.

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Numerical Evaluation of an Upper Bound Theorem with Application to Axisymmetric Compression

Summary The compression of simple axisymmetric specimen is treated by means of the upper bound theorem. An iterative Ritz-method, proposed in this paper, yields better upper bound loads than comparable methods known in literature. Moreover, a good approximation of the instantaneous velocity field is derived. Using this field the non-stationary deformation is examined step by step. By choosing a proper system of functions for the velocity field the given method well applies to other forming processes.

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Mit 7 Abbildungen     

Berechnung des Kegeldruckversuches mit einer Finite-Element-Methode

Anwendung eines verallgemeinerten Schrankenverfahrens für starrplastische Umformung mit der Methode der finiten Elemente auf das Kegelstauchen. Bestimmung des Stauchdruckes in Abhängigkeit von der Geometrie und von der Werkstoffeigenschaft und Vergleich mit Versuchsergebnissen.