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MCC has been developing the use of flashlamp pulsed Nd:YAG laser technology to bond TAB leadframes to bumped IC die. With basic equipment, the process has been proven in a laboratory scale environment. As a result, MCC recently licensed a vendor to manufacture the equipment so that it can be used in prototype and later in production environments. This project was initiated to develop a benign alternative for thermocompression gang bonding, particularly for applications where IC bond pads would be located over active circuitry. In addition, because the laser beam's positions are computer controlled, the process has shown to be very desirable for bonding conventional devices with peripheral pads, especially in high product mix applications. Bond rates of 40 bonds/second have been demonstrated at MCC. The first production prototype will bond at 60–80 bonds/s and it is anticipated that, with further development, the full production equipment will bond at 200 bonds/s. The process that is most mature at the time of writing is for bonding tin plated copper leads to gold bumps. This system allows formation of reliable bonds because the formed bonds consist primarily of copper and gold. The bonds are at least as strong and reliable as with other methods of TAB bonding. Bonds with this metallurgical system have been subjected to severe environmental testing without failure. This paper will present results of laser inner lead bonding, the equipment used to develop it and the expectations of the future equipment as well as the future of the technology itself.

Tape automated bonding (TAB) is one technology which is becoming widely adopted for interconnecting integrated circuits to a substrate or package. Both destructive and non‐destructive test methods for evaluation of TAB bonds are analysed and criticised. The key parameters and general guidelines of a destructive beampull test set‐up are identified and presented. The key features of four different non‐destructive test methods are described and discussed. It is found that no universal solution exists for non‐destructive evaluation of TAB bonds although some methods may be more useful than others under certain conditions and constraints. Data and experimental procedure are presented for correlation of scanning laser acoustic microscopy and beampull data.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence of the loading velocity on textile bonds and sewn seam strength.

Commercially produced polyamide and polyester knitted fabric, and polyester woven fabrics as well as three commercially available monolayer urethane thermoplastic films were used in this research. Two layers of each fabric were laminated at 160°C temperature at 5.6 kPa for 20 seconds. Sewn specimens were joined applying (301) and (514) stiches for woven and knitted fabrics, respectively. The bond and sewn seam strength was investigated at different delamination loading velocities (50, 100, 150, 200, 300 mm/min). These values of velocities lies in the velocity interval which covers the different standard requirements for testing of the quality of textiles and their seams or were applied in the research works of previous scientists. As the influence of loading velocity was more significant for bond strength, the bond strength results were analyzed together with the analysis of bond rupture character.

The determined influence of the loading velocity on textile bonds strength has proved that the loading velocity in bond strength test is of high importance for the prediction of the behavior of clothing being in exploitation under different conditions. The opposite tendency was determined for the sewn seams, the strength of which was independent on loading velocity.

The influence of the loading velocity on textile bond and sewn seam strength was not analyzed in the previous research works published by other scientists. It was known that the standard velocity is 50 mm/min for seams and 100 mm/min for textiles strength testing. It was shown there that the real exploitation of a garment as a whole complicated heterogenic dynamic system could be simulated with changing loading velocities during their seam strength testing. It was also determined that the loading velocity makes different influence on bonded and sewn seams of textiles.

Explains the fused deposition process and examines the rationale behind the cooling process model. Outlines the complexity of the problems and characteristics of fused deposition. Presents a general formulation for road cooling followed by results and their implications. Concludes with proposed directions for future work.

The purpose of this paper is to show that the duration‐based hedge ratio has many serious defects: first, the yield‐to‐maturity is not the market interest rate, and it cannot even serve as a proxy for the market interest rate. Second, it is difficult to choose an appropriate bond for hedging among available bonds and to calculate duration. Third, duration can only be applied to small changes of interest rate. If there is a large change in interest rate, a duration‐based hedge's performance may be worse than expected. The paper proposes an improving method to solve these problems.

The proposed design is a model‐driven enterprise system.

The proposed system integrates the complex risk management into the enterprise architecture. It can merge, import, and share resource related data across managements.

The paper shows how to manage the risk from both parallel and non‐parallel shifts of interest rates in the proposed system.

THE recently concluded Annual Meeting of the Library Association at Birmingham, brought into prominence the fact that a great change has come over the spirit in which all that concerns librarianship is approached. Matters of policy which were formerly tabooed, and methods of work which excited only coldness and distrust, are now discussed openly and without rancour, and everything points to a great advance in progressive ideas in the near future. For example, such a paper as that of Mr. Ballinger on the rate limitation would have received but scant attention a few years ago; but it is accepted now with unanimous approval, and the Association deliberately pledges itself to take immediate steps to approach Parliament on the question. The Association without hesitation abandoned its old attitude of unconcern towards this vital matter, and whether or not it succeeds at first in securing the necessary legislation, it has committed itself to a course which, if persevered in, will ultimately lead to the triumph of the municipalities over the antiquated restrictions of the Legislature. All the old arguments about the unwisdom of approaching Parliament, of meddling with local taxation, of interfering with local feeling, of creating a barrier to the future progress of libraries by frightening communities which have not yet adopted the Libraries Acts; all these, and other arguments of a similar sort, have been quietly dropped, and a thoroughly business‐like attitude adopted instead. This would have been impossible even five years ago, and the result obtained is certain evidence of a complete change of opinion in this direction. So in other equally important matters. It was only necessary to go about a little among the librarians at Birmingham to ascertain that the old‐time conservatism which once held the field is rapidly disappearing. While some of the older men cling in a half‐hearted way to their old gods, there is not lacking, even on their part, a disposition to discuss sanely and sympathetically some of the more recent methods which have been proposed for the development and improvement of libraries. With the younger men the ideal is even higher, and their aspirations after perfection stronger and more genuine. There is a general agreement among them that collections of books which are not made available to the public in the most thorough way, by means of analytical and descriptive cataloguing, classification, open access, and liberality of regulations, may as well as not be dispersed. They are agreed that improvement in the status and condition of Public Libraries can only be secured by convincing the people that they are managed on the most scientific and useful lines, and that they are being made a vital part of the national machinery for the general, technical, artistic, and scientific education of the whole of the people. Something of this spirit could be observed in the discussions on cataloguing, but it showed with even greater strength in the conversation of the great majority of the librarians who think, read, observe, and abstain from public talking. But even among some of the older men, who have in their time condemned both catalogue annotations and exact classification, there was noticeable a distinct change of feeling towards these outcomes of the progressive library spirit. The Morning Leader of September 23rd, in an article on “The Free Library,” signed by “Zenodotus,” seems to have completely overlooked this important change and all that it means for the future. It refers to a period in the history of the Library Association somewhat remote from Birmingham in 1902; and however much we agree with the writer as regards the feebleness of the Association in one or two respects in which it compares unfavourably with certain privately subsidised enterprises of the American Library Association, the fact remains that the average member is alert and anxious enough for all‐round improvement. The whole tone of the Birmingham meeting of 1902 was progressive, and there is no doubt that so much activity and interest will ripen into important developments before long. We have seldom seen meetings so fully attended or discussions followed so closely, and these are hopeful signs of an approaching period of advancement along modern progressive lines. There is no reason why the Library Association, once freed from certain reactionary elements which led to stagnation, should not keep abreast with modern developments in library practice in all departments, and be the means of leading its members to an appreciation of higher and more advanced work than has hitherto been possible.

As organizations become more team oriented, research on teams continues to increase especially involving how teams contribute to organizational performance and effectiveness. Although there has been existing research on Kaizen teams in the private sector, very little research has included Kaizen teams in the public sector. In this paper, we present a method to study Kaizen teams in a local Spanish government that have been using Kaizen teams for more than ten years.

Quantitative research was adopted for this study. Twenty teams participated in the study by filling out the Team Learning and Development Inventory (TLI) proposed by Lingham (2004). In addition, we interviewed members of the teams in order to clarify and assure our quantitative results.

Based on the findings, we propose that Kaizen teams should practice both Continuous (CI) and Process Improvements (PI) in their projects. We also propose that Kaizen teams should not be teams skilled only at developing better improvement processes (both CI and PI) for the organization but that such teams should also be skilled at engaging in team development using both CI and PI processes internally – a Kaizen within Kaizen teams approach.

Its based in one case study. However, it is working paper and the research project still is developing.

Serve as a guide to practitioners (Public managers) who desire to understand how their Kaizen teams involves both internal (conversational spaces) and external (methodology) perspectives that would contribute to both team and organizational effectiveness. In this paper, we focus on the Internal Processes (both CI and PI) using the TLI as an effective method for Kaizen teams to engage in the Kaizen process.

This study is one of the first to look at team’s performance using Team Learning and Development Inventory in Spain’s public sector. It is also the first to mention about the relationship of the team’s performance and the implementation of process improvement methodologies in Spain local government environment.

Lignite coal-fired power plants are the main electricity generators in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. Although burning lignite coal to generate power is economical, it produces significant greenhouse gases making it a big challenge to Canada’s international commitment on emission reduction. However, abundant agricultural crops and sawdust produced in Saskatchewan put the province in a good position to produce and use agri-pellets as an alternative fuel to generate electricity. This study aims to conduct an economic and environmental analysis of the replacement of lignite coal by agri-pellets as the fuel for Saskatchewan’s coal-fired power plants.

The study estimates the economic and environmental costs and benefits of two alternative fuels for power plants. The economic analysis is based on the pellet production and transportation costs from farms to production sites and from the production sites to power plants. In the production process, biomass precursors are densified with and without additives to produce fuel agri-pellets with appropriate mechanical durability and high heating value per volume unit. The environmental analysis involves estimation of greenhouse gas emissions and their social costs for lignite coal and different types of agri-pellets under different scenarios for pellet production and transportation.

The results show that although the total cost of electricity is lower for coal than agri-pellets, the gap shrinks when social costs and specifically a carbon price of $50/tonne are included in the model. The cost of electricity in lignite coal-fired power plants would also be on par with agri-pellets-fired power plants if the carbon price is between U$68 and $78 per tonne depending on the power plant locations. Therefore, a transition from coal to agri-pellet fuels is feasible if a high-enough price is assigned to carbon. The method and the results can be generalized to other places with similar conditions.

There are a few caveats in this study as follows. First, the fixed costs associated with the transformation of the existing coal-fired power plants to pellet-fired plants are not considered. Second, the technological progress in the transportation sector, which would favor the net benefits of using pellets versus coal, is not included in the analysis. Finally, the study does not address the possible political challenges facing the transition in the context of the Canadian federal system.

The study results indicate that the current carbon price of $50 per tonne is not sufficient to make the agri-pellets a feasible source of alternative energy in Saskatchewan. However, if carbon pricing continues to rise by $15 annually starting in 2022, as announced, a transition from coal to agri-pellets will be economically feasible.

Canada is committed to reduce its emission according to the Paris agreement, and therefore, needs to have a concrete policy to find alternative energy sources for its coal-fired power plants. This study examines the challenges and benefits of such transition using the existing agri-pellet resources in Saskatchewan, a province with abundant agricultural residues and coal-fired power plants. The findings indicate that a significant emission reduction can be achieved by using agri-pellets instead of coal to produce electricity. The study also implies that the transition to renewable energy is economical when social costs of carbon (carbon tax) is included in the analysis.

As far as the authors know, this is the first study providing a socio-economic analysis for a possible transition from the coal-fired power plants to a more clean and sustainable renewable energy source in one of the highest carbon dioxide (CO₂) producer provinces in Canada: Saskatchewan. The study builds upon the technical production of three agri-pellets (oat hull, canola hull and sawdust) and estimates the economic and environmental costs of alternative fuels under different scenarios.

The dividend payout behaviour of firms is a well‐studied subject in finance. In recent times, the influence of macro economic factors and understanding their implications far corporate financial decisions has assumed significant importance. The objective of this paper is to study the dividend payout behaviour of firms in India under monetary policy restrictions. Monetary policy restrictions are expected to affect the availability and cost of external fund relative to internal funds. The hypothesis is that during monetary policy restrictions the dividend payout policy changes and payouts reduce.

The Lintner framework is extended to examine the impact of these restrictions on the dividend payout. Balanced panel data of 571 firms for years are used, from 1989 to 1997 together with, the GMM estimator, which is the most suitable methodology in a dynamic setting.

The results show that Indian firms have lower target ratios and higher adjustment factors. The finding suggests that the restricted monetary policies have a significant influence on the dividend payout behaviour of Indian firms; they cause about a 5‐6 per cent reduction in the payout ratios.

The findings of this paper suggest that macro‐economic policies do have an impact on corporate financing decisions. The future research should examine the impact of various other macro‐economic policies and its components on the corporate financing decisions of firms.

The significance of the macro economic policy variables suggests that monetary policy restrictions do have an impact on the cost of raising funds, and the information asymmetry between lenders and borrowers increases, which forces companies to reduce their dividend payout.

To one's knowledge this is the first study providing evidence of the restricted monetary policy constraining the dividend payout policies of firms in India.

Although systems analysis for designing information systems shares much in common with business process mapping there are critical differences. Systems analysis methodology produces a logical model, which omits all extraneous detail (in a somewhat similar spirit to business process re‐engineering). The approach is based on two views: entity‐relationships for data modelling and data flow diagramming for representing functions (which is used in a similar context to process in BPR terminology). A third view using an event driven process network, which serves as a macro representation complementing the other two views, is advocated.