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Companies often conduct general Employee Opinion Surveys (EOSs) to measure some features or outcomes of an organization. Converting data to results is routine and governed by the design of the EOS and the use of standard statistical methods. However, as one moves away from results to their meanings or conclusions, and from conclusions to recommendations, other factors and variables come into play. These factors and variables are governed more by the context, the presence of constraints, the intuition of the decision makers, and the actions by engaged agents. Essentially EOSs produce ambiguous conclusions and recommendations because they are “knobless,” or lacking underlying processes which are controllable by management. The theory of the organizational hologram has evolved operationally into a family of Organizational Diagnostic Survey (ODS) forms which generate sets of results representing managerially controllable processes or combinations of processes. That is, the ODS provides a set of x‐axis variables that can be employed to explain variability in EOS results, which are viewed as dependent variables plotted on the y‐axis. Every item in an ODS form is “knobby.” The relationships among the questions and higher order results are causal and structured with known interdependencies. Combining ODS and EOS allows knobby analyses of knobless survey items.

A fully parallel algorithm for the solution of a finite element system using a MIMD (multiple‐instruction multiple‐data architecture) parallel computer is presented. The formulation includes a simple domain decomposer that automatically divides a finite element mesh into a list of subdomains to guarantee the load balancing. Furthermore, each subdomain is assigned to a processor of a parallel computer and treated as a sub‐finite element system with information exchanged through the interface between two adjacent subdomains. With this new algorithm, these sub‐finite element systems are solved fully parallelly as independent finite element systems, not only the computations of the interior nodes but also the computations of the interface nodes can be executed parallelly. Also, the inherently sequential Gauss‐Seidel and SOR schemes are altered into fully parallel iterative schemes. An implementation of this new scheme on an iPSC/2 D5 Hypercube Concurrent Computer reached an efficiency of more than 100% when compared with the sequential SOR scheme.

Thick film superconductors with the nominal composition Bi2Pb0.5Sr2Ca2.5Cu3.5Ox were fired on stainless steel substrates and on alumina substrates covered with silver or gold thick film conductors. Films on stainless steel substrates were semiconducting due to reaction between the superconducting film and oxidised chromium and iron from the steel. Tc(R=0) of films on silver was between 80 K and 90 K while Tc (R=0) on gold was below 60 K. The low Tc (R=0) of films on gold is attributed to the interaction between the gold layer and copper from the superconductor.

A quadrilateral linear element for plane stress/plane strain analysis, formulated using a system of bars located at the Gauss integration points, is presented. A special bar element is formulated and the finite element is thereafter considered as an assembly of bars. The formulation presented is used in an attempt to explain the numerical problems arising when considering incompressible materials and reduced integration.

A study has been carried out on the relationship between the composition, poling condition and piezoelectric properties of thick film layers. Pastes based on lead‐titanate‐zirconate (PZT) powders, with either PbO or a lead‐alumina‐silicate glass frit as binder, were prepared. Microstructure, electrical and mechanical properties were analysed. Processing and poling conditions modify these properties; then a wide latitude of opportunities is offered in the choice of ferroelectric/piezoelectric characteristics of the layers used as sensing elements for sensors. A pressure sensor was realised where a circular diaphragm of alumina supports two piezoelectric layers obtained by screen printing and firing a PZT/PbO‐based ferroelectric paste. The design and the performance characteristics are described.

This paper studies the formation and management of an international entity for promoting the provision of global public goods in a setup of international treaties on concessions and reservations. Based on the so-called Vienna Convention by which there can be a discrepancy between the original treaty obligation and the ratified one in the multi-lateral treaty implementation, we construct two-stage mechanisms for international treaties on global public goods; the concession stage and the ratification stage with reservations. We explicitly analyze the optimal reservation levels from the optimal mechanism when the countries face asymmetric information on the preference parameters to global public goods. Specifically, we characterize the environments where the optimal mechanism with dominant-strategy incentive-compatibility and ex-post participation- constraint in the literature of mechanism design exists. The result shows that the sophisticatedly calculated transfers in the principal of quid pro quo control the international concessions and reservations.

The Korea-China-Japan Investment Promotion, Facilitation and Protection Agreement is the first treaty in the economic field that binds the three Northeast Asian countries together under a single legal instrument. The existence of effective dispute-settlement procedures under the treaty will contribute to the creation of a favourable investment climate in the host country. Nevertheless, there have been fears about frivolous or vexatious claims that could inhibit legitimate regulatory actions by governments. How to compose an investment chapter of the Korea-China-Japan FTA that is being negotiated is a pressing demand for all in the region. Any pertinent answers to such a quest require a thorough comparison of the benefits and drawbacks of any development of relevant rules and governance. In the end, a quest for better international investment governance in Northeast Asia in the future requires sound evaluation of lessons from the past and present.

Addresses problems in mechanics and physics involving two or more coupled variables of different nature, or a number of distinct domains which interact. For these kinds of problems, considers numerical solution by the coupling of operators appertaining to the individual participating phenomena, or defined in the domains. Reviews the co‐operation of distinct discretized operators in connection with the integration of temporal evolution processes, and the iterative treatment of stationary equations of state. The specification of subtasks complies with the demand for an independent treatment on different processing units arising in parallel computation. Physical subtasks refer to problems of different field variables interacting on the continuum level; their number is usually small. Fine granularity may be achieved by separating the problem region into subdomains which communicate via the boundaries. In multiphysics simulations operators are preferably combined such that subdomains are processed in parallel on different units, while physical phenomena are processed sequentially in the subdomain.

The reliability of 0.4 mm pitch, 28 mm body size, 256‐pin plastic quad flat pack (QFP) no‐clean and water‐clean solder joints has been studied by temperature cycling and analytical analysis. The temperature cycling test was run non‐stop for more than 6 months, and the results have been presented as a Weibull distribution. A unique temperature cycling profile has been developed based on the calculated lead stiffness, elastic and creep strains in the solder joint, and solder data. Also, the thermal fatigue life of the solder joints has been estimated and correlated with experimental results. Furthermore, a failure analysis of the solder joints has been performed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Finally, a quantitative comparison between the no‐clean and water‐clean QFP solder joints has been presented.