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The purpose of this paper is to present an efficient method for the numerical treatment of robust optimization problems with absolute reliability constraints.

Optimization with anti-optimization based on response surface techniques; polynomial chaos for approximation of the stochastic objective function.

The number of function calls is comparable to that of the corresponding deterministic problem. Thus, the method is well suited for complex technical systems. The performance of the method is demonstrated on an optimal design problem for turbochargers.

The highlights of this paper are: algorithms for robust and deterministic problems show comparable complexity; no derivatives required; good convergence properties because of special set up of optimization problem; application in complex industrial examples.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce parametered modeling technology for the civil aircraft engine fan blade, to design the fan blade rapidly and accurately.

The entire fan blade consists of three crucial parts: blade airfoil, tenon and airfoil root. Blade airfoil with a free surface feature is formed through the blade profiles from the hub to tip in the radial direction. The non‐uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) is utilized to describe the blade profile. The geometry model of fan blade tenon is generated by extruding the sketch of the tenon. And the fillet section is designed to achieve the smooth transition of the up surface and the bottom surface of the blade root. Furthermore, the fan blade of a typical commercial engine is redesigned by the above method.

The stress analysis of the fan blade shows that the fan blade model designed in this work is reasonable.

The parametered fan blade model is presented on the basics of feature‐based modeling technology.

This paper proposes a novel approach to impose the Neumann boundary condition for isogeometric analysis (IGA) of Euler–Bernoulli beam with 1-D formulation. The proposed method is for only IGA in which it is difficult to handle the Neumann boundary conditions. The control points of B-spline are equivalent to nodes in finite element method. With 1-D formulation, it is not possible to accommodate multiple degrees of freedom in IGA. This case arises in the analysis of beams. The paper aims to propose a way to work around this issue in a simple way.

Neumann boundary conditions, which are even-order derivatives (example: double derivative) of the primary variable, are inherently satisfied in the weak form. Boundary conditions with an odd number of derivatives (example: slope) are imposed with the introduction of a new penalty matrix.

The proposed method can impose a slope boundary condition for IGA of a beam using 1-D formulation.

From the literature, it can be observed that the beam is formulated in 1-D by considering it as either a rotation-free element or a 2-D formulation by considering shear strain along with the normal strain. The work represents 1-D formulation of a beam while considering the slope boundary condition, which is easy and effective to formulate, compared with the slope boundary conditions reported in previous works.

Evidence of audit committee activity in the formative years of the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad indicates that control and reporting activity developed long before the existence of regulatory mandate or the external auditing function. This is the earliest example of such an organized and continuing activity in American business history. With no previous business experience to model this enterprise, the organizers of the corporation put in place an audit committee of directors as a control device to safeguard assets and ensure proper handling of cash receipts and disbursements. Research into primary materials establishes that the committee not only performed regular routine audits of the “treasurer’s report,” but also identified and addressed critical problems of control and payment weaknesses. The discovery of the function of value‐for‐money (VFM) auditing by a committee of directors establishes historical context for today’s audit process and audit committee. Because the B&O was such an important entity, it influenced other railroads; and the railroad industry, in turn, greatly influenced the development of modern American businesses during the Industrial Revolution.

As trade unions have continued to decline in membership and influence across the developed economies, so academic attention has turned to the prospects for renewal and a search for the conditions under which it might plausibly occur (Fairbrother, 2000; Martin & Ross, 1999; Turner, 1999). One leg of this search has been directed towards the changing context which unions face and has resulted in the prescription that unions must change their policies, structures and culture to accommodate a “new workforce” (Cobble, 1994; Heckscher, 1988; Wever, 1998). A second leg has been directed within unions themselves and has been concerned more with the internal processes through which renewal can take place (Fiorito et al., 1995; Hurd, 1998; Pocock, 1998). In the U.K., two distinctive theories of change in trade unions have emerged along this second line of inquiry, one of which, the “rank and file” model, holds that significant change occurs from the bottom-up and requires the mobilisation of members against a conservative leadership (Fairbrother, 1996). The other, the “managerial” model, claims the opposite is true and that renewal is conditional on effective systems of union management and occurs from the top–down (Willman et al., 1993). Both theories are venerable and in Britain their roots can be traced on the one hand to the Webbs and their conviction that effective unions required professional leadership and on the other to the apostles of industrial syndicalism (Fox, 1985, pp. 66, 256–260). They continue to structure debate, however, and the purpose of this article is to provide an empirical examination of each with regard to an issue, which seemingly is critical to the internal renewal of unions, the development of organising activity.

With the end of the cold war two major developments in the world have taken place. First, regional trade pacts and alliances have taken on added value as a mechanism for economic growth and prosperity (e.g., North America Free Trade Agreement, European Unity, etc.). Second, the patterns of competition on a worldwide basis are changing more rapidly than ever. Along with these developments, a new understanding of global leadership has emerged. Global leadership is no longer measured solely by military strength. Indeed, commitment to the military and defense industry may be a burden inconsistent with maintaining a nation's competitive position in the global marketplace. This study is designed to address the economic competitiveness of the U.S., Germany, and Japan and their leadership position in world markets.

For over three decades, Afghanistan has been a battleground in which many of the states of the wider neighbourhood have been involved. The importance of fostering a concerted effort for Afghan peace and stability is widely agreed upon, yet such a process remains difficult to bring about. Some analysts emphasize states and their security relationships, seeing Afghanistan as an ‘insulator’ caught between different regional state systems, each with a strong dynamic of its own. Other analysts emphasize various transnational networks and see Afghanistan as the ‘core’ of a larger conflict formation. This chapter takes as its starting point the former perspective, which has been codified by Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver (2003) as the regional security complex (RSC) approach. The chapter examines the security dynamics of each of the regions surrounding Afghanistan – South Asia, the Persian Gulf and South Asia – adopting a comparative and historical perspective, with an emphasis on the period since the late 1970s. It concludes that each of Afghanistan's three surrounding regions is characterized by deep security concerns of its own. These concerns nonetheless inform the engagement of neighbouring countries in Afghanistan, which then comes to reflect conflicts and cleavages specific to the respective regions. One central implication is that a more promising strategy for Afghanistan might be to seek a unilateral non-offensive or neutral status, rather than full security integration with its neighbours. Although such a strategy would necessitate the creation of a forum for Afghanistan's neighbours to foster understanding for the Afghan position, it represents a dramatic departure from mainstream policy proposals with their emphasis on an integrated regional approach.

Migration has a strong political significance and a crucial constitutive role for identity. The liminal status and exclusion of migrants delimits the inside/outside of political communities and allows for the constitution and coherence of identity. Migration is also a challenge: while it is often presented as a managerial issue related to states’ economic and labour considerations, it essentially challenges and undermines their national and cultural self-image. Migration management also reflects the values and qualities communities identify in themselves; thus immigration policies put communities and states to the test for the way such values are upheld. This contribution explores migration’s constitutive role for European identity and the challenges it presents it with. Explaining the securitisation of migration management in Europe and its racial and dehumanising characteristics, it argues that the two-tier human rights system created in the European space affecting migrants undermines European identity value claims and threatens to undo them. It claims that the time has come to acknowledge European identity’s historical constitution in colonialism, and to envisage it as a fluid, open-ended project accommodating in earnest racial and cultural diversity, pluralism and difference.

This study develops an integrated theory about how Total Quality Management (TQM) based capabilities can be leveraged for Environmentally Responsible Manufacturing (ERM). It suggests that efforts should be coordinated to take advantage of the potential synergies between TQM and ERM. The means for capturing these synergies might be accomplished by using the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) framework. The MBNQA framework was adapted to address environmental issues and it was shown that the framework can be used as a basis for an integrative definition of ERM. This adaptation of the MBNQA framework suggests that there is an environmental version of the MBNQA framework and that quality principles can be seamlessly integrated into the practice of managing environmental issues. However, an empirical examination of the linkage between TQM and ERM remains untested. The findings of this study provide an important foundation for accomplishing this goal.