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This study focuses on ratcheting and budget behavior in nonprofit museums. Specifically, the authors examine how performance compared with the budget affects future revenue budgets, and how this differs from the extant literature focused on for-profit organizations. The study focuses specifically on the relationship between museums and their sources of public funding and how this affects how museums prepare budgets.

Based on four years of data covering 97 state-subsidized Danish museums, the authors analyze budget ratcheting using least absolute deviation (LAD) estimations in the form of median regressions.

The authors find that when actual revenue from admission charges is below the budget, the decrease in the following year's budget is greater than the increase in the following year's budget when actual revenue from admission charges is above the budget (i.e. the authors find asymmetrical ratcheting).

The findings are based on a specific setting (Danish museums), and the results may not be generalizable to other settings.

This study provides insights into the museum sector and other sectors with similar characteristics and contributes to understanding the differences between museums and for-profit organizations when it comes to budgeting. As private-sector management practices are gaining ground in the museum sector, it is important to learn more about budgeting-related issues in this sector.

The asymmetrical ratcheting the authors find is the opposite of ratcheting typically found in for-profit organizations. The authors attribute the results to the incentive conflict between museums and their public funding sources. The authors point to the museums' dependence on public funding as an explanation for the results and, thereby, extend the knowledge on ratcheting to organizations with different characteristics than traditional, for-profit organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of mean stress and stress amplitude on the asymmetric cyclic deformation behavior of SA333 Gr-6 C-Mn steel. Such type of loading may arise during the service period because of the load fluctuations, thermal gradients and sudden loading like seismic events. Tests were also carried out at different temperatures to understand the effect of it on sensitiveness of the materials deformation behavior.

Cylindrical specimen of 8-mm gauge diameter and 15-mm gauge length was fabricated from the pipe section along its axis. Stress controlled ratcheting tests were carried out by using triangular waveform for cyclic loading. The strain accumulations were measured using 12.5-mm gauge length extensometer. Ratcheting tests were carried out at fixed stress amplitude of 400 MPa and mean stress varying from 0 to 75 MPa, whereas at the fixed mean stress of 100 MPa and stress amplitude varies from 300 to 400 MPa at 300°C. To study the effect of temperature on ratcheting behavior, tests were carried out at a load of 100 MPa mean stress and 350 MPa stress amplitude, with a varying temperature between room temperature and 350°C. The stress rate of 115 MPas-1 was kept constant for all the tests.

Increase in mean stress and stress amplitude, ratcheting strain and plastic strain amplitude increases, whereas ratcheting life decreases. With an increase in temperature, ratcheting life increases and strain accumulation decreases up to 300°C, whereas on further increase in temperature, strain accumulation increases with reduction in ratcheting life. Minimum ratcheting rate was observed at 250°C and 300°C. The dynamic strain aging (DSA) phenomena lead to the hardening of the material. The investigated steel shows DSA temperature regime lies between 250°C and 300°C. The failure modes at 250°C and 300°C temperature was transgranular, whereas at 350°C complete ductile.

The stress rate and loading condition may vary to study the ratcheting behavior.

From this study, the critical cyclic load may be determined. The DSA temperature regime of this material is determined at this stress rate. This could help to evaluate the cyclic deformation behavior of the material with temperature changes.

In this investigation, the DSA temperature regime has been determined where maximum ratcheting life, minimum strain accumulation and ratcheting rate were observed. The critical load where the minimum life of the material occurred at elevated temperature is 100 MPa mean stress and 400 MPa stress amplitude.

The purpose of this paper is to determine: how the thermal cycling aging affects the ratcheting behavior of anisotropic conductive adhesive film (ACF); how the loading conditions and loading history affect the ratcheting strain and strain rate of ACF with different thermal cycling aging histories.

The ACF of CP6920F was cured at 190°C in an electro-thermal vacuum drying apparatus for 30 s. The cured specimens were put into the thermal cycling chamber (−40-150°C) for aging to 25, 50, 100, 200 and 500 cycles. A series of uniaxial ratcheting tests of aged ACF after different thermal cycles was carried out under stress control at 80°C.

The ACF subjected to larger number of thermal aging cycles exhibits less ratcheting strain under the same loading conditions. The ACF with the same thermal cycling aging history shows more ratcheting strain and a higher ratcheting strain rate when loaded under a larger mean stress or stress amplitude or a lower loading rate. The ratcheting behavior of aged ACF is found to be more sensitive to the lower loading rate. The higher mean stress (or stress amplitude) enhances the deformation resistance and consequently restrains the ratcheting strain of subsequent cycling with a lower mean stress (or stress amplitude). The prior lower loading rate accelerates the plastic deformation more significantly than the higher one.

The influencing trends of thermal cycling aging, loading condition and loading history on ratcheting behavior of ACF are obtained, which is important for the design and safety assessment of ACF joints.

This chapter demonstrates (1) divergence between spending based upon a budget ratcheting model and a benchmark spending model, (2) that this divergence affects organizational performance, and (3) that internal benchmarking enables unit-to-unit performance comparisons, despite claims of organizational or unit uniqueness. We contrast two spending models to examine whether the divergence, or cost estimation gap, affects operating performance across inpatient (n=4,536) and outpatient departments (n=8,438) in 23 U.S. Army hospitals. Using a fixed-effects panel data methodology for fiscal years 2004–2006, we find that unit managers’ spending in this setting is more closely approximated by budget ratcheting. Using multiple performance metrics measured via a DuPont-like decomposition, we find that, within a specified range, operating performance generally improves as resources become constrained. Outside that range, however, we find nonlinear performance effects that approximate a quadratic loss function. Our benchmark model enables clinical department comparisons while controlling for facility, clinical specialty, and case mix severity. The resulting departmental comparability facilitates identification and communication of best practices across the entire Army hospital system. These results should be of interest to corporate executives, government officials, and agency managers who have responsibility for establishing funding mechanisms that include performance-based components.

This paper is devoted to the study of the role of identification data base on the prediction of the cyclic behavior of the 304 L stainless steel on ambient temperature. The identification is done using the Chaboche constitutive model. The investigations have been performed with reference to both unixial and biaxial experimental data, strain controlled tests, ratchet tests, ratchet tests after a strain controlled strain tests. Results were reported in graphs representing the effect of the optimized parameters on the prediction of the behavior of the material. The parameters of the Chaboche model have been calculated from the curve of a unixial strain controlled test. Then they were optimized using different data base on ZéBuLoN. The simulation obtained by optimized parameters gives a good representation of stabilised loop in the way it is done with the simulated test. Ratchet was also well predicted in the case of optimization done with all tests considered in the simulation. In this paper it has been demonstrated that the optimization using different data bases have a big impact on the cyclic results and ratchet results.

This study presents the improvements of the multicomponent Armstrong–Frederick model with multiplier (MAFM) performance through a numerical optimisation methodology available in a commercial software. Moreover, this study explores the application of a multiobjective optimisation technique for the determination of the parameters of the constitutive models using uniaxial experimental data gathered from aluminium alloy 7075-T6 specimens. This approach aims to improve the overall accuracy of stress–strain response, for not only symmetric strain-controlled loading but also asymmetrically strain- and stress-controlled loading.

Experimental data from stress- and strain-controlled symmetric and asymmetric cyclic loadings have been used for this purpose. The analysis of the influence of the parameters on simulation accuracy has led to an adjustment scheme that can be used for focused optimisation of the MAFM model performance. The method was successfully used to provide a better understanding of the influence of each model parameter on the overall simulation accuracy.

The optimisation identified an important issue associated with competing ratcheting and mean stress relaxation objectives, highlighting the issues with arriving at a parameter set that can simulate ratcheting and mean stress relaxation for load cases not reaching at complete relaxation.

The study uses a strain-life fatigue application to demonstrate the importance of incorporating a technique such as the presented multiobjective optimisation method to arrive at robust parameters capable of accurately simulating a variety of transient cyclic phenomena.

The proposed methodology improves the accuracy of cyclic plasticity phenomena and strain-life fatigue simulations for engineering applications. This study is considered a valuable contribution for the engineering community, as it can act as starting point for further exploration of the benefits that can be obtained through material parameter optimisation methodologies for models of the MAFM class.

It has become increasingly obvious from recent experience that two vital and interrelated factors affecting the eventual success of a management buy‐out (MBO) are respectively the purchase price and the consideration used for the tranfer of ownership. This article examines the types of finance which have become associated with MBOs together with the categories of financial institution involved in providing the finance.

Over the past two years, the use of rental inducements has increased in response to a softening leasing market for office space. The methods to employ for analysing the induced rentals have been uncertain. However, owing to a number of recently contested arbitrations, methodologies are now being applied which are gaining general acceptance. Despite this, not all of the issues have gained total unanimity and require further analysis. These include: (1) the treatment of tax; (2) the treatment of the benefit arising from an unratched lease; and (3) the quanitifying of indirect inducements. The resolution of these issues is essential to achieve a fully equitable rental assessment. These issues are discussed and methodologies suggested to address them. In future the need to deal with such issues may subside as a result of the growing trend towards lower stated rentals and away from the use of inducements.

This review paper aims to provide a better understanding of formulation and processing of anisotropic conductive adhesive film (ACF) material and to summarize the significant research and development work for the mechanical properties of ACF material and joints, which helps to the development and application of ACF joints with better reliability in microelectronic packaging systems.

The ACF material was cured at high temperature of 190°C, and the cured ACF was tested by conducting the tensile experiments with uniaxial and cyclic loads. The ACF joint was obtained with process of pre-bonding and final bonding. The impact tests and shear tests of ACF joints were completed with different aging conditions such as high temperature, thermal cycling and hygrothermal aging.

The cured ACF exhibited unique time-, temperature- and loading rate-dependent behaviors and a strong memory of loading history. Prior stress cycling with higher mean stress or stress amplitude restrained the ratcheting strain in subsequent cycling with lower mean stress or stress amplitude. The impact strength and adhesive strength of ACF joints increased with increase of bonding temperature, but they decreased with increase of environment temperature. The adhesive strength and life of ACF joints decreased with hygrothermal aging, whereas increased firstly and then decreased with thermal cycling.

This study is to review the recent investigations on the mechanical properties of ACF material and joints in microelectronic packaging applications.