Innovative knowledge sharing,supply chain integration and firm performance of Australian manufacturing firms

A number of reports show that innovation in Australian manufacturing firms is declining. We propose that better knowledge sharing practices can assist these firms to become more innovative. In this paper, we examine this proposition by empirically testing the relationship between knowledge sharing practices within and between trading partners as a framework for integration, and testing for the effect of these practices on firm performance. Data were collected from 418 organisations in the manufacturing industry in Australia to assess the degree to which innovative knowledge sharing practices provide a competitive advantage to Australian firms. Structural equation modelling approach to data analysis was used. It was found that the three innovative knowledge sharing constructs (internal knowledge integration, knowledge integration with customers and knowledge integration with suppliers) were strongly inter-related, providing a case for knowledge-based integration of firms with their trading partners. Further, these three exogenous constructs collectively explained about a third of the variance in the endogenous construct (firm performance). The relationships identified provide support for the efficacy of knowledge-based collaboration as an innovation promoting higher firm performance levels. Managers of manufacturing firms in Australia specifically, and others more generally, can use this as a way to conceptualise how their firms can develop internal integration and collaborative relationships with their trading partners.     

Deformation Behavior of Extra Deep Drawing Steel in Single-Point Incremental Forming

This paper focuses on investigation of formability, thickness distribution, strain distribution, and microstructural changes of extra deep drawing (EDD) steel in the single-point incremental forming (SPIF) process. For this, pyramidal frustums with varying wall angle along the depth were formed till the fracture. The parts were designed by rotating circular, elliptic, parabolic, and exponential curve segments. The varying wall angle pyramidal frustums (VWAPF) can minimize the number of experiments required to find the maximum wall angle compared to conventional constant wall angle pyramidal frustums. The maximum wall angle corresponding to fracture depth and thickness distribution along the depth was measured for parts with different generatrices. The maximum formable wall angle was found to be 73 ± 2°. Experimental thickness distribution was compared with the thickness distribution obtained from numerical simulations using the LS-DYNA software. A good correlation was found between experimental and numerical results. Furthermore, the distribution of strains obtained from numerical simulations revealed that the faces of the pyramid were under plane strain conditions, while the corners were toward biaxial stretching. The microstructural study showed that there was a grain refinement after incremental forming of the sheet.     

PRODUCTION OF Cu-Cr ALLOYS BY IN SITU REDUCTION OF CHROMIUM OXIDE DURING ELECTRO SLAG CRUCIBLE MELTING (ESCM)

An electro slag crucible melting process for production of copper-chromium alloys is described. The process uses fine copper scrap as a raw material. After the copper scrap is melted, chromium is alloyed with copper by direct reduction of chromium oxide added to the slag. Carbon and aluminum can be used as reductants and the reduction is carried out in situ in the molten slag. Copper chromium ingots containing up to ∼1 wt % chromium were produced by this process. The process serves the dual purpose of recycling copper scrap and alloying remelted copper by chromium. This is the first time that direct reduction has been employed during an electro slag melting process. The in situ reduction technique described has the potential of being a production route for a variety of alloys. It is particularly suitable for production of difficult-to-melt alloys such as copper-chromium.     

Effect analysis in higher-order languages

When programs are intended for parallel execution it becomes critical to determine whether the evaluations of two expressions can be carried out independently. We provide a scheme for making such determinations in a typed language with higher-order constructs and imperative features. The heart of our scheme is a mechanism for estimating thesupport of an expression, i.e., the set of global variables involved in its evaluation. This computation requires knowledge of all the aliases of an expression. The inference schemes are presented in a compositional fashion reminiscent of abstract interpretation. We prove the soundness of our estimates with respect to the standard semantics of the language.Supported by National Science Foundation Grant DCR-8602072.     

非易失性可无限次配置的PLD

一、ispXPGA和ispXPLD产品系列iSPXPGA FPGA(Field Programmable Gate Array 现场可编程门阵列)和ispXPLD PLD(Programmable Logic Device 可编程逻辑器件)产品的种类丰富,并以其强大的功能性获得了广泛的应用。该类产品基于SRAM(Static Random Access Memory 静态随机读写存储器)系列产品,允许被重新配置无     

Effect of zirconium concentration on nodule formation during cyclic oxidation of Fe-15Cr-4Al alloy at 1300°C

The effect of small concentrations of zirconium on the cyclic oxidation behavior of Fe-15Cr-4Al was investigated at 1300°C. The zirconium concentrations studied were 0.2, 0.55, and 1 wt.%. Each cycle consisted of a 1-hr isothermal period followed by 30-min cooling of the sample in air. Nodule formation was observed in higher zirconium-containing alloys, 0.55% and 1% zirconium, and the base alloy. The nodules formed at the corners and edges of the specimen and grew with increasing number of cycles. EDAX and line scans of cross section of oxidized samples demonstrated that the nodules were composed of iron oxides. Suggestions are given regarding the mode of nodule formation. Results show that additions of 0.2% zirconium and 1% yttrium to the base alloy suppress the nodule formation and provide the best resistance to cyclic oxidation.     

Semantics of digital networks containing indeterminate modules

We discuss a formal model based upon dataflow, usable for high-level digital hardware design, among other things. One of our goals is to give a denotational semantics for this model, which includes indeterminate modules. While it is wellknown that denotational semantics for networks containing only determinate modules can be simply expressed as a composition of stream functions, this approach has previously been shown unacceptable for networks with indeterminate modules. Our approach is to devise composition rules based on modelling a network by the set of its possible behaviors, i.e. sequences of computational events, where each event is the appearance or consumption of a token on a data path. A sequence of such events is called ahistory and a set of such histories is called anarchive. We give composition rules that allow us to derive an archive for a network from the archive of its constituents. We show how causal and operational constraints on network behavior can be inferred from the specification of archives. We also present a construction which allows us to obtain the denotation of networks containing loops by a process of successive approximations. This construction is carried out using a construction resembling the category-theoretic notion oflimit, which differs from that of more traditional domain theory.Prakash Panangadenreceived his M.Sc. in Physics from IIT Kanpur in 1975. He earned a MS in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1978 and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1980. For the last 3 years he has worked in the area of distributed systems and semantics and has been an instructor at the University of Utah where he earned an MS in Computer Science in 1985. Since August 1985 he has been an assistant professor in the computer science department at Cornell University.Robert M. Kelleris a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Utah. He received the B.S. and M.S.E.E. from Washington University, and the Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1970–1976 he was an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University. He has held visiting appointments at Stanford University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. His research contributions are in the area of theory of concurrent processing, parallel program verification, parallel computer architecture, and implementation of functional languages. His current research interests deal with numerous topics relating to multiprocessor implementations of highlevel languages, particularly functional and logic languages, and the construction of reduction and data-flow computation models.     

Requirement of mismatch repair genes MSH2 and MSH3 in the RAD1-RAD10 pathway of mitotic recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Female wild Japanese monkeys (Macaca fuscata), as with all male cercopithecoids, use the mesiobuccal surfaces or the elongated crests of the mandibular third premolars (P3s), as cutting blocks that wear against edges of maxillary canines during threat manifestation or food-eating. In other words, the crests of their P3s are honed with the maxillary canines. The crests become sloped during growth and more heavily striated with the advance of age. The number, directions, lengths, and widths of these striations have been analyzed quantitatively using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Two samples showed two distinct types of parallel striations, one longer and thicker (171.5 microns long and 14.5 microns wide on average) than the other (114.8 microns long and 12.0 microns wide on average). These striations were caused by contact between the sharp edge of the upper canine and the P3 during honing (canine/premolar complex). The long and thick striations are asymmetrical with widened parts or pits on one end, and were easily distinguished from other thinner striations which may have been caused by fine particles. The third sample showed Hunter-Schreger bands with striae of Retzius on the sloping heavily worn mesiobuccal surface. The features of these thick parallel striations indicate that they result from closing movements of the jaw.