Search results

Product development becomes more complex when co-development involves multiple parties crossing boundaries of functions, companies, countries and even competitors. An interdisciplinary framework is needed to understand the challenges of structuring collaborative work within global product teams – especially in the research arenas of strategic partnerships, product development teams, collaboration, distributed work, organizational learning and new metaphors. The multi-party partnership of the Joint Strike Fighter Program at Lockheed Martin, the largest aerospace program in history, provides an illustration of the complex information-sharing and problem-solving challenges in aligning a large, distributed, global integrated product team in an environment where even connectivity is a challenge. It sets the stage for the innovative management approaches needed to build collaborative climates as well as research directions for the future.

This article is based upon a paper presented by Major Oliver Stewart to a meeting of The Historical Group of the Royal Aeronautical Society on March 19, 1962, just a few days after the last issue of Major Stewart's own monthly aeronautical journal ‘Aeronautics’ was published. Although some fifteen months have now elapsed since the original paper was presented, it has continuing relevance at this time as the British aeronautical press undergoes further changes. To mention but three examples, the journal ‘Airport and Airline Management’ ceased publication with its May I June 1962 issue, the English language edition of the French ‘Aviation and Space Magazine’ ceased publication with its April 1963 issue, and ‘Aircraft Production’ became a general production engineering journal as from the April 1963 issue. There can be few people better qualified to describe the changing scene of aeronautical journalism, for apart from his experience as a ferry pilot and single‐seat fighter pilot during the First World War and subsequently as an experimental and test pilot at Orfordness and Marilesham Heath, Major Stewart has been aeronautical correspondent of ‘The Morning Post’ (1926–37), ‘The Times’ (1939), ‘The Evening Standard’ (1940) and ‘The Manchester Guardian’ (1941–58). In addition, he was, of course, Editor of ‘Aeronautics’ from the time of its birth in 1939 until its demise last year.

Film provides an alternative medium for assessing our interpretations of cultural icons. This selective list looks at the film and video sources for information on and interpretations of the life of Woody Guthrie.

Here is a cautionary tale of the penalties for ignoring local customs and the success attending a more careful approach.

This paper makes a comparison between the electrical properties of cement grout with and without monofilament polypropylene fibre additions. The findings show a small, but significant difference between the electrolytic transport properties of cement grout with monofilament polypropylene fibre additions when compared to grout without fibre additions. The grout with fibre additions suggests a reduced probability of water and ion transmission, due to higher measured resistivity, which will result in enhanced durability and lower life cycle costs. Durability of reinforced concrete structures, is known to be closely linked to the water permeability of the concrete matrix. This potential trend for enhanced durability can be added to the other benefits of using monofilament polypropylene fibre in concrete, such as low absorption, freeze/thaw resistance, fire resistance and micro reinforcement.

The purpose of this paper is to establish whether the inclusion of physical activity (PA) in a community programme setting is more beneficial than the benefit obtained from social participation for older adults.

A cross-sectional study conducted with a sample of 105 adults age 65+ and older that take part in community activities organised by the Bristol based charity LinkAge. Participants took part in either solely social groups or social groups with a PA component. A self-report questionnaire was composed of measures assessing functional health and well-being, health-related quality of life, functional ability, outcome expectation for exercise, and social support.

A significantly different and higher score on physical health measures was reported by the physically active group for role physical, physical function, bodily pain, and the physical capacity score. No significant difference was found for health measures that include a mental component. The physically active group reported higher outcome expectations for exercise.

Social activity in community programmes may provide a method to maintain a healthy mental state in older adults, but participation in PA in the same environment is associated with better scores for physical health measures.

Providing greater support for older people to engage in physical and social activities may enable them to maintain a higher quality of life.

Concrete structures have a good fire resistance. After the fire, depending on the amount of damage, they may be repaired and reused. However, knowledge is needed to do this in a systematic and scientific way. This paper describes the parameters influencing the residual compressive strength of heated concrete. Since this strength decreases with temperature, the temperatures inside the concrete need to be known to assess the remaining load bearing capacity of concrete members. Two assessment techniques are discussed in this paper. Firstly, the colour alterations of the concrete surface and of the aggregates are measured, from which colour paths are derived. The shape of these paths allows to distinguish different temperature zones. Secondly, due to thermal decomposition of the cement matrix and thermal cracking at the interfacial transition zone, an increase of the porosity is found. This internal damage can be measured by the weight increase found after immersing concrete cores under water.

High performance computing (HPC) is used to solve complex calculations that personal computing devices are unable to handle. HPC offers the potential for small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) to engage in product innovation, service improvement and the optimization of resource allocation (Borstnar and Ilijas, 2019). However, the expensive infrastructure, maintenance costs and resource knowledge gaps that accompany the use of HPC can make it inaccessible to SMEs. By moving HPC to the cloud, SMEs can gain access to the infrastructure without the requirement of owning or maintaining it, but they will need to accept the terms and conditions of the cloud contract. This paper aims to improve how SMEs access HPC through the cloud by providing insights into the terms and conditions of HPC cloud contracts.

This paper adopts a systematic literature review by implementing a four-step approach. A comprehensive search was undertaken and results synthesized to enable this paper’s objectives to be met.

This paper proposes that SMEs could gain competitive advantage(s) by understanding their own needs and improving their contract negotiation abilities, service management skills and risk management abilities before accepting the terms and conditions of the cloud contract. Furthermore, a checklist, service-level agreement, easily ignored elements and risk areas are presented as guidance for SMEs when reviewing their HPC cloud contract(s).

While HPC cloud contracts are a niche research topic, it is one of the key factors influencing the ability of SMEs to access HPC through the cloud. It is, however, by no means a level playfield with SMEs at a distinct disadvantage because of not influencing the writing up of the HPC cloud contract. The added value of the paper is that it contributes to our overall understanding of the terms and conditions of HPC cloud contracts.