Innovation in construction: a sociology of technology approach

An alternative approach to understanding innovation is made using two intersecting ideas. The first is that successful innovation requires consideration of the social and organizational contexts in which it is located. The complex context of construction work is characterized by inter-organizational collaboration, a project-based approach and power distributed amongst collaborating organizations. The second is that innovations can be divided into two modes: 'bounded', where the implications of innovation are restricted within a single, coherent sphere of influence, and 'unbounded', where the effects of implementation spill over beyond this. Bounded innovations are adequately explained within the construction literature. However, less discussed are unbounded innovations, where many firms' collaboration is required for successful implementation, even though many innovations can be considered unbounded within construction's inter-organizational context. It is argued that unbounded innovations require an approach to understand and facilitate the interactions both within a range of actors and between the actors and technological artefacts. The insights from a sociology of technology approach can be applied to the multiplicity of negotiations and alignments that constitute the implementation of unbounded innovation. The utility of concepts from the sociology of technology, including 'system building' and 'heterogeneous engineering', is demonstrated by applying them to an empirical study of an unbounded innovation on a major construction project (the new terminal at Heathrow Airport, London, UK). This study suggests that 'system building' contains outcomes that are not only transformations of practices, processes and systems, but also the potential transformation of technologies themselves.     

An Agent Interaction Based Method for Nonlinear Process Plan Scheduling

This article puts forward a scheduling method for nonlinear process plan shop floor.Task allocation and load bal- ance are realized by bidding mechanism.Though the agent interaction process,the execution of tasks is determined and the coherence of manufacturing decision is verified.The employment of heuristic index can help to optimize the system performance.     

A direct stiffness analysis of a composite beam with partial interaction

The use of the conventional semi-analytical stiffness method in finite element analysis, in which interpolation polynomials are used to develop the stiffness relationships, leads to problems of curvature locking when beam-type elements are developed for composite members with partial interaction between the materials of which it is comprised. The curvature locking phenomenon that occurs for composite steel–concrete members is quite well reported, and the general approach to minimizing the undesirable ramifications of curvature locking has been to use higher-order polynomials with increasing numbers of internal nodes. This paper presents an alternate formulation based on a direct stiffness approach rather than starting from pre-defined interpolation polynomials, and which does not possess the undesirable locking characteristics. The formulation is based on a more general approach for a bi-material composite flexural member, whose constituent materials are joined by elastic shear connection so as to provide partial interaction. The stiffness relationships are derived, and these are applied to a simply supported and a continuous steel–concrete composite beam to demonstrate the efficacy of the method, and in particular its ability to model accurately both very flexible and very stiff shear connection that causes difficulties when implemented in competitive semi-analytical algorithms. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

四种别藻蓝蛋白三聚体的时间分辨荧光光谱研究

研究了从Ａｎａｂａｎａｖａｒｉｂｉｌｉｓ中提取的４种别藻蓝蛋白ＡＰＣＩ，ＡＰＣＩＩ，ＡＰＣＩＩ及ＡＰＣＢ三聚体的稳态光谱和皮秒荧光光谱。采用Ｍｏｎｔｅ－Ｃａｒｌｏ方法对瞬态荧光光谱进行拟合，实验结果表明：ＡＰＣＩ荧光有两个带，其中第一个带位于６６２ｎｍ，有两个时间组分：３５．８ｐｓ和１．６７ｎｓ；第二个带位于６８０ｎｍ，有两个时间组分：３４．２ｐｓ和１．６４ｎｓ；ＡＰＣＩＩ瞬态荧光位于６６０ｎｍ，有两个时间组分：２０．４ｐｓ和１．６４ｎｓ；ＡＰＣＩＩ瞬态荧光位于６６０ｎｍ，有两个时间组分：２３．８ｐｓ和１．７６ｎｓ；ＡＰＣＢ瞬态荧光有两个带，其中第一个带位于６６２ｎｍ，有两个时间组分：３６．６ｐｓ和１．４５ｎｓ；第二个带位于６８０ｎｍ，有两个时间组分：２５．８ｐｓ和１．６２ｎｓ。实验结果一方面说明了藻胆体核内４种别藻蓝蛋白形成能量传递的两条途径；另一方面瞬态荧光解叠结果揭示了ＡＰＣＩ和ＡＰＣＢ三聚体内能量传递的超快过程。     

Failure analysis of a hot extrusion die used for Al-Li alloy processing

Al-Li alloys being developed as lighter, substitutes for conventional high strength Al alloys are to be processed by routine methods. During extrusion of a 8090 Al-Li alloy, the extrusion die container failed causing some alarm. This failed die container was analysed to examine if the failure was caused by interaction of Li diffusing out of Al-Li alloy with the carbides of die steel. The evidence, although not conclusive, is sufficient to exercise caution during such processing.     

Robot-assisted wayfinding for the visually impaired in structured indoor environments

We present a robot-assisted wayfinding system for the visually impaired in structured indoor environments. The system consists of a mobile robotic guide and small passive RFID sensors embedded in the environment. The system is intended for use in indoor environments, such as office buildings, supermarkets and airports. We describe how the system was deployed in two indoor environments and evaluated by visually impaired participants in a series of pilot experiments. We analyze the system’s successes and failures and outline our plans for future research and development.     

Secondary ion emission from Ti and Si targets induced by medium energy Ar ion bombardment - Experiment and computer simulation

The paper presents experimental results of secondary ion energy distributions obtained for Ti and Si targets bombarded by 20-30 keV monoisotope Ar⁺ ion beam. The influence of the extraction voltages between target and a slit of the electrostatic energy analyzer entrance on the energy distributions of secondary ions was investigated. After optimization of the secondary ion extraction system, the mass spectra of secondary ions were also measured. The investigations were done using recently built experimental system. Experimental data are compared with the computer simulation results obtained using TRQR and SATVAL codes.     

Detailed Measurements of Nuclear Spin Polarizations in a Single InAlAs Quantum Dot Through Overhauser Shift of Photoluminescence

We investigated optical pumping of nuclear spin polarizations in a single self-assembled In_0.75Al_0.25As/Al_0.3Ga_0.7As quantum dot. The nuclear spin polarization exhibits the abrupt jump and hysteresis in the excitation power dependence at a particular excitation polarization. Measurement of circular polarization rate of the photoluminescence reveals that the abrupt change of the nuclear spin polarization is created mainly by the spin flip-flop process between nuclei and an electron of a positive charged exciton in this single quantum dot. Model calculation explains well the experimentally observed bistable behavior in InAlAs quantum dot. By using this abrupt change, the sign and magnitude of electron and hole g-factors in z-direction are verified.      

Determination of polymer–polymer interaction parameters using inverse gas chromatography

A modified method is discussed that is based on Farooque and Deshpande's method to obtain polymer–polymer interaction parameters using inverse gas chromatography (IGC) data. In the Farooque and Deshpande method, the ratio of the difference of probe–polymer interaction parameters between two polymers and the probe volume [(χ₁₂ ? χ₁₃)/V₁] is used as the abscissa. In the modified method, the ratio [(?₂χ₁₂ + ?₃χ₁₃)/V₁] is used as the abscissa. Experimental data previously reported for a poly(?‐caprolactone)‐polyepichlorohydrin (PCL/PECH) blend and a poly(ethyl acrylate)‐poly(vinyl propionate) (PEA/PVPr) blend are analyzed. It is found that the slopes obtained by the new method had smaller deviations from the theoretical values than the Farooque and Deshpande method. The standard deviations of both slopes and intercepts obtained from the new method are also smaller. Using the new method, the polymer–polymer interaction parameters obtained from the intercept are negative numbers for the PCL/PECH system and very small positive numbers for PEA/PVPr. Explanations are given for the probe and concentration dependency of the polymer–polymer interaction parameters that are generally observed in IGC studies. A new method for selecting the best probe for calculating the interaction parameter is discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 90: 671–680, 2003