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This paper aims to propose preliminary design models of actuator housing that enable various geometries to be compared without requiring detailed knowledge of the actuator components. Aerospace actuation systems are currently tending to become more electrical and fluid free. Methodologies and models already exist for designing the mechanical and electrical components, but the actuator housing design is still sketchy.

The approach is dedicated to linear actuators, the most common in aerospace. With special attention paid to mechanical resistance to the vibratory environment, simplified geometries are proposed to facilitate the generation of an equivalent formal development. The vibratory environment imposes the sizing of the actuator housing. Depending on the expected level of details and to vibration boundary conditions, three levels of modeling have been realized.

This paper shows that the vibrations induced by aircraft environment are not design drivers for conventional hydraulic actuators but can be an issue for new electromechanical actuators. The weight of the latter can be optimized through a judicious choice of the diameter of the housing.

This approach is applied to a comparison of six standard designs of linear actuator geometries after validation of the consistency of the different models. Early conclusions can be drawn and may lead to design perspectives for the definition of actuator architecture and the optimization of the design.

This paper has demonstrated the importance of the vibratory environment in the design of linear actuator housing, especially for electro-mechanical actuators with important strokes. Developed analytical models can be used for the overall design and optimization of these new aerospace actuators.

The purpose of this paper is to explore ISO 10001:2007 in planning, designing and developing a customer satisfaction promise (CSP) intended for inpatients care.

Through meetings and interviews with research participants, who included a program manager, unit managers and registered nurses, information about potential promises and their implementation was obtained and analyzed. A number of promises were drafted and one was finally selected to be developed as a CSP.

Applying the standard required adaptation and novel interpretation. Additionally, ISO 10002:2004 (Clause 7) was used to design the feedback handling activities. A promise initially chosen for development turned out to be difficult to implement, experience that helped in selecting and developing the final promise. Research participants found the ISO 10001-based method useful and comprehensible.

This paper presents a specific health care example of how to adapt a standard’s guideline in establishing customer promises. The authors show how a promise can be used in alleviating an existing issue (i.e. communication between carers and patients). The learning can be beneficial in various health care settings.

To the knowledge, this paper shows the first example of applying ISO 10001:2007 in a health care case. A few activities suggested by the standard are further detailed, and a new activity is introduced. The integrated use of ISO 10001:2007 and 10002:2004 is presented and how one can be “augmented” by the other is demonstrated.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of the main dimensions of a retailer’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities (philanthropic activities, respect for the environment, respect for the consumers and respect for the workers) (e.g. Maignan, 2001; Brunk, 2010a; Öberseder et al., 2014) on consumers’ loyalty towards this retailer. Mediation (through consumers’ trust in this retailer and/or retailer’s perceived brand equity) and moderation effects (depending on the groups of consumers considered) are also studied.

This research was conducted on 547 consumers, representative of the Quebec population. These consumers were asked to select a retailer of their choice that they were familiar with (notably with its CSR activities) and to complete a questionnaire with regard to that retailer.

This research highlights that: the impact of a retailer’s CSR activities on consumers’ loyalty differs according to the dimensions considered (philanthropic activities, respect for the environment, the consumers and the workers), is fully or partially mediates by consumers’ trust in this retailer and/or retailer’s perceived brand equity and depends on the groups of consumers considered (the very responsible consumers, the local sceptical recyclers and the least responsible consumers).

This research indicates that when CSR is considered not as an aggregate construct, but in terms of its dimensions, their impacts on consumers’ loyalty towards the retailer may differ or appear under certain conditions. Moreover, this research points out that consumers’ trust in the retailer is a partial mediator (for the philanthropic activities dimension of a retailer’s CSR activities for the very responsible consumers and the local sceptical recyclers) of the relationship between the dimension of a retailer’s CSR activities considered and consumers’ loyalty towards this retailer. Consumers’ trust in the retailer is also a full mediator (for the respect for environment dimension of a retailer’s CSR activities for the very responsible consumers) of the relationship between the dimension of a retailer’s CSR activities considered and consumers’ loyalty towards this retailer. Lastly, retailer’s perceived brand equity is a full mediator (for the respect for environment dimension of a retailer’s CSR activities for the three groups of consumers considered) of the relationship between the dimension of a retailer’s CSR activities considered and consumers’ loyalty towards this retailer.

This paper indicates to retailers that the dimensions respect for the consumers and the workers of their CSR activities do not have an impact on consumers’ loyalty. By contrast, for a retailer to be perceived by consumers as engaged in philanthropic activities or being environmentally friendly has a positive impact on consumers’ loyalty.

In this research, CSR is conceptualised as a multidimensional construct and the impacts of its main dimensions (philanthropic activities, respect for the environment, respect for consumers and respect for workers) on an important and strategic variables for retailers, loyalty, are highlighted. Moreover, this research also indicates that the impacts of a retailer’s CRS dimensions on consumers’ loyalty depend on individuals and may follow different paths (through consumers’ trust in the retailer and/or retailer’s perceived brand equity).

The purpose of this study is both to explore how people with “hidden” auditory disorders experience exclusion in servicescapes and to unfold the coping strategies they set up to deal with it.

Findings from 15 semi-structured interviews and participant observations with individuals suffering from auditory disorders are presented through the paper.

The findings indicate that individuals with auditory disorders deploy three types of coping strategies when exposed to sensory overload in servicescapes: choosing between physical servicescapes, opting for electronic devices and e-servicescapes and delegating shopping to relatives.

The study underlines how, through temporary or permanent modifications of servicescape cues, service providers give consumers opportunities to bypass situations involving sensory overload. Implications for e-servicescapes and public policy are also raised.

The findings reveal how the coping strategies used by individuals with auditory disorders contribute to their exclusion from the marketplace on the basis of both individual characteristics and types of servicescapes.

This paper explains relationship marketing (RM) and discusses the benefits to customers and firms applying RM. Nine dimensions central to making RM successful are assessed. These are: trust, commitment, social bonding, empathy, experiences, fulfilment of promise, customer satisfaction, internal relationship marketing, and communication. The researcher then describes three personal experiences of eating out in three different restaurants and discusses good RM techniques applied deliberately or otherwise by these establishments.

The trajectory of François Perroux across the Vichy regime poses about all possible range of methodological issues to the historian of ideas: individual versus collective biography, ideational versus ideological reading, internal versus external analysis, etc. The chapter outlines key elements about Perroux’s trajectory showing the entanglements and boundaries of science and politics in the transition from democratic to authoritarian rule and vice versa. A particular emphasis on uncertainties and adjustments shows, against the tendency to a teleological explanation induced by a linear interpretation of his career, that different paths were considered by Perroux, but that his choices were nevertheless constrained by the forces of both the scientific and political fields.

Family violence is a universal problem which is beginning to grow to a significant scale in Syria. Although it has existed for a long time, the actual characteristics of this scourge in our country are not known. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the family violence in Syrian society.

This work consisted of an epidemiological approach to domestic violence in Syria during the year 2010. A questionnaire had been developed which is used for the study of the socio-demographic profile of families and the study of violence in the family. This study has been conducted on a survey of 365 women.

The analysis of the results reveals the following characteristics: 16% of the women in the sample were victims of physical violence. The youth is a risk factor for these women, the age range most affected by violence (45%) is that of women aged between 20 and 40 years. Violence affects all social, economic, and cultural classes; anger is an aggravating factor of domestic violence; in fact, 27.3% of spouses who assaulted their wives were in an angry state.

The violence in the family is a very sensitive issue and very common, but the exact prevalence of violence in the family is not known. Therefore, the violence in the family is underdiagnosed. An urgent response plan is needed to reduce the spread of this scourge and its consequences.

This paper highlights how technical devices last in organizations. Instead of focusing on the usual implementation or short-term post-implementation phases, this study aims to explore what happens to established technical devices.

The authors build on a 10-year in-depth longitudinal case study examining a CRM package, a type of Enterprise Resource Planning system specialized in customer relationship management, in a door-drop advertising company. This case is based mainly on 35 interviews and four weeks of non-participant observation, made over three different periods.

Drawing on the literature on drift and maintenance, this study investigates two tensions foregrounding lasting: one regarding the degree of human intervention on the technical device (object being maintained vs object maintaining itself) and one regarding the relationship to the initial expectations towards the technical device (relinquishment of certain hopes vs regeneration of interests). This case combines these tensions and allows to highlight four alterations in the CRM system to show how apparently stable devices keep on changing.

In a time of resource exhaustion, it is important to reflect upon our relationships to information technology and their modalities of lasting. By stressing that uses emerge from relinquishment and reduction, the authors wish to help organizations move towards more sustainable engagement with their technical devices in the long run.

Lasting is not just a matter of being maintained in a context of threat but also builds upon the capacities of a technical device to maintain itself. The self-alteration dynamics that the authors come up with, shedding and ramification, offer a dedramatized interpretation of maintenance that complements studies on institutional maintenance. The results also contribute to studies on technological drift. The authors stress that drifts are triggered by ties that run out, in particular, discontinuation of maintenance in the system. The durability of technical devices in organizations thus does not consist in always more uses or functionalities, but is also made of reductions and relinquishment.