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Copyright of Ingénierie des Systèmes d'Information is the property of International Information & Engineering Technology Association (IIETA) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper addresses the problem of the frequency optimization of transit lines in a congested transit network. We consider the transit frequency optimization model proposed by Constantin and we modify it to consider vehicles capacity indirectly. The model is formulated as a two levels Min-Min optimization problem with the same objective function at both levels. This function represents the transportation time including a congestion penalty. The upper level corresponds to the transit operator's optimization problem and the lower level describes the users' behavior. A descent direction for the problem is obtained by using sensitivity analysis of the lower level problem. Computational results are presented for the Winnipeg (Canada) and the Stockholm (Sweden) transit networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the increasing importance of team based projects in both the engi-neering classroom and the workplace, there is a need to understand the na-ture of team work itself and to identify those factors that will foster a team's success. This paper will focus on what constitutes effective collaboration and a successful leadership style; specifically, it will compare the individual lead-ership styles of three students on three teams. While the findings discussed here are part of a larger qualitative study that looks at the inf1uence of gender on engineering student teams who are engaged in a collaborative project, this paper will present only the data that relate to team leadership styles. The paper concludes that, largely because of its leader's positive influence and its own collegial style, only one team produced a higher quality document at the same time as it exhibited the attributes identified by Allen et al. ( 1987) as critical to effective collaboration: balanced interactions combined with con-sensual decision-making and shared responsibility.

First-year students in higher education settings tend to face ongoing challenges with variations in discursive practices and genres within their discipline. Within this context, a Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment (DELNA) was administered to first-year engineering students to assess the strengths and needs of their ability to navigate academic language. The purpose of this paper is to report on our initiative to support student’s development of academic literacy, specifically their disciplinary language proficiency through the implementation of pedagogical support activities.

A sound model for the prediction of the deformed roll profile during flat rolling is vital for the precision control of the strip profile and strip shape. However, preliminary inves-tigations reveal that the applicability of existing models may be limited due to their inher-ent predictions errors. In this paper, a new model is proposed which is capable of precisely predicting the deformed roll profile in a multihigh mill. The model, which is developed on the basis of the predictions from finite element simulation, is applied to the analysis of roll deformation in a 20-high Sendzimir mill under some special conditions, such as rigid outer rolls and no roll shifting, etc. The prediction accuracy of the new model is demonstrated through comparison with the predictions from the finite element simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge systems in agriculture need to devise new forms of collaboration between farmers, development agents and researchers in the current socio-economic context in which the social functions of agriculture are being questioned. So far very few research studies have addressed the issue of the knowledge content to be produced in such situations. Our paper rests on the hypothesis that the synergy between the empirical knowledge of producers and scientific knowledge is able to generate new agronomic knowledge. We explored this new form of knowledge production by examining two situations: saffron cultivation in southwestern France and French truffle production, for which the technical management is a major hindrance to their development. We show that neither scientific nor empirical knowledge on their own are sufficient to improve it. On the basis of an "engineering of agronomic knowledge" approach that makes explicit and combines knowledges from different sources, we then propose four modes of synergy: (1) translating the objectives and practices of producers into action-oriented scientific questions; (2) scientifically grounding heuristic knowledge by referring it to explicative scientific knowledge; (3) linking the indicators used by the producers to scientifically measurable parameters; (4) selecting on a scientific basis appropriate equivalent plants for transposing knowledge from one to the other. These four modes are then discussed; it is underlined that this cognitive approach to the synergy between empirical and scientific knowledge could effectively be completed by analysing the socio-organisational settings in which this knowledge finds its meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulation in social sciences entrenches itself in research traditions whose disciplinary type and researcher style color its purpose. For some, the technology to be applied, for others the techniques that encourage debate - the possibilities are multifaceted. In this paper, we present an original way of mobilizing simulation, in a situation of collaborative research in the field of management sciences. After discussing the difference between dialogical investigation and the organizational design and dynamic of organizations approach, we show how organisational simulation can be used to articulate a company’s strategic reasoning, a new organizational design and deployment, and the activity of actors in the field. In so doing, we explore the possibility of operating improved integration between strategic decisions taken by high-level managers, the choices made by middle management concerning the deployment strategy, and how the activity is performed and experienced by the workers (intellectual in this case) who are responsible for it. At a time when we are reflecting upon its invisibility (Gomez, 2013), we thus discuss possible ways of bringing work back into the strategic decision-making and organizational design process in large companies.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the spoken discourse of a formal lecture to undergraduates in order to determine those features which distinguish spoken discourse when comp- pared to written discourse. The paper pays particular. attention to those featuare differences to normal written discourse which are employed in order to provide for effective communication in a speaker/ listener situation.

This paper analyzes those communication skills expected of engineers, as well as their current deficiencies. Subsequently, resources required to develop technical and professional communication maturity used in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses are specified. In particular, oral presentations and report writing, by means of role-play and simulations, are analyzed. Also considered are other aspects directly related to the improvement of communication skills, such as metacognition and interdisciplinary collaboration (communication). Finally, a practical case is presented: an ESP course for engineers at the Industrial Technical Engineering College from Bilbao (Spain). Several examples of tasks and activities to develop such skills are presented. Moreover, studies and data regarding their opinions about the importance of all these topics in their current learning process and in the long term are presented and analyzed. The main conclusions of the study could be summarized as follows: 1. Oral presentations and report writing are highly useful to improve engineering students’ communication skills; 2. The information provided to them can be successfully applied outside academia.

This paper proposes to examine the legacy of scientific traditions in Mexican engineering by analyzing fluxes between Mexico and the international centers of engineering education. We show that, like other disciplines, training in engineering is somehow increasingly endogenous in Mexico: the engineer researchers trained abroad decline from generation to generation. However, the historical ties between Western countries (USA, France, England) and Mexico remain, as do the close relations between Mexican and foreign training institutions. These relationships have traits of "knowledge chains", maintained through successive exchanges of students from different generations of Mexican engineers. Thus, mobility for studies in this field are more "institutionalized" or historicized to European countries than to the United States. Of course differences prevail from one sub-discipline of engineering to another. With the statistical data analysis, extracted from the database of the National System of Researchers (SNI), supported by in-depth interviews, we cannot speak of simple reproduction patterns of training trajectories, but of an increasing complexity of training circuits. The comparison of these two data sets lead us to comprehend how individual trajectories are "embedded" in social and political logics of mobility and training or the international division of scientific work. The analysis between generations shows that individual trajectories are increasingly associated with social and political mobility and training logics, or even more so, to the scientific international division of labor. These trajectories challenge, in certain areas of specialization, the tradition of scientific heritage following the paths of previous generations.