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.     

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.     

Implementation of high-resolution time-to-digital converter in 8-bit microcontrollers

This paper will demonstrate how a time-to-digital converter (TDC) with sub-nanosecond resolution can be implemented into an 8-bit microcontroller using so called "direct" methods. This means that a TDC is created using only five bidirectional digital input-output-pins of a microcontroller and a few passive components (two resistors, a capacitor, and a diode). We will demonstrate how a TDC for the range 1-10 μs is implemented with 0.17 ns resolution. This work will also show how to linearize the output by combining look-up tables and interpolation.     

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).