Search

Research indicates that resource redeployment and asset divestiture occurring in horizontal integration can make a significant contribution to acquisition performance. Studies were based on 253 horizontal acquisitions and mergers between 1988 and 1992 in the US and European manufacturing industries.

Vanishing point detection algorithms based on a Gaussian sphere representation have been employed in a variety of computer vision systems, for extracting 3D line orientations as a first step towards object detection. Typically, these algorithms have been applied to imagery with strong perspective effects and with little noise or texture, resulting in good solutions for line orientations. However, these algorithms can fail if perspective effects are weak, or if texture edges are predominant; they also fail to take advantage of knowledge about the objects to be detected. In this paper, two new techniques for robust vanishing point detection on the Gaussian sphere are presented; primitive-based vanishing point analysis and interpretation plane error modeling. The performance of these methods, along with two other existing methods from the literature, are quantitatively evaluated and compared for the task of building detection in complex aerial imagery. Index Terms - Object recognition, shape representation, vanishing points, photogrammetry, building detection, cartographic feature extraction, performance evaluation.

The evaluation of information systems is often conducted using performance measures developed by the system designers. Still, other categories of measures exist, including those that match the system to the desires of the user, the climate of the organization, and the decision quality. This study looks at the importance to the user of different evaluation categories for three system types. Findings indicate that users value decision quality characteristics for systems intended to support the decision process, but otherwise lean toward using performance measures. These results argue in favor of user evaluation for certain system types.

'Contractors,' sometimes called 'job shoppers,' are temporary workers from an agency 'A' who perform professional work at client site 'B' under the direction of the client's employees. The authors surveyed 96 managers in six high-technology settings about their overall perceptions of contractor performance, finding that respondents perceived it to rival that of comparable employees. Such perceptions of contractor performance were unaffected by the amount of time the contractor spent in the client workgroup. Also, perceived overall contractor performance was unaffected both by aggregated client measures against coemploymeat risk and by existence of a forced-departure rule. Index Terms - Contingent labor, contingent worker, contractor, flexible firm, flexible staffing, independent contractor, job shopper, temporary help.

Relationships between pretraining skills, ease of learning, and later posttest performance were assessed in both spatial (i.e., block design) and verbal (i.e., similarities) task domains. Eighty-four preschool children (M = 4 years 11 months, range = 4 years 0 months to 5 years 6 months) were given pretests, training, and posttests on block design and similarities tasks. Two measurement models and four structural models were tested to determine (a) if pretest, learning and posttest performances were domain specific, and (b) if paths from both pretests and learning assessments were needed to predict posttest performance. The measurement model that fit the data maintained separate verbal and spatial domains. The structural model that best fit the data included paths from both pretest and learning assessments to posttest performances within each domain. Thus, L. S. Vygotsky's (1978) claim that pretest and learning assessments together are better indicators of an individual's ability than either measure alone was supported.

Continuous improvements in insulating materials, manufacturing consistencies in sealed windings, and extensive laboratory testing of various systems show that synchronous machines with NEMA II construction can replace totally enclosed machines. Tests on windings in corrosive atmosphere show that sealed insulation systems are impervious to the environment. Standard maintenance ensures that incendive arcing will not be generated in potentially hazardous environments. When compared to totally enclosed machines, the NEMA II-type construction is lighter, more efficient, has lower short-circuit current and associated torques, and is easier to maintain. Index Terms - Corrosive and harsh environments, electrical tracking, enclosures, formette, sealed windings.

In this paper we review the cyclic scheduling paradigm for repetitive manufacturing environments. System performance is measured by system throughput and job flow time. For a given cyclic job sequence and operation precedence structure, we are interested in the steady-state behavior of these measures when processing times are stochastic. We present an iterative approximation scheme based on Clark's method to estimate the two-moment behavior of these performance measures. Computational tests demonstrate that the approach is a useful alternative to simulation., 1. Introduction This paper focuses on performance evaluation in repetitive manufacturing environments with uncertainty in processing times. Such production systems can be controlled using the cyclic scheduling paradigm (see [1,2]) [...]

Based on social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986) and the model of performance expectations, anxiety, and performance developed by Krane, Williams, and Feltz (1992), this study further explored the relationships among anxiety, performance expectations, and athletic performance. Male and female collegiate volleyball players completed the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 immediately prior to and after each of three matches during a competitive tournament. This design allowed for the use of path analytical techniques to investigate the impact of precompetitive affect on performance as well as the impact of performance on postcompetitive and succeeding affect. Cognitive anxiety in females and males was the best predictor of state confidence (one measure of performance expectations), yet state confidence did not directly predict performance. Performance in immediately preceding matches indirectly influenced confidence, with cognitive anxiety as the mediating variable for females and males. Further, previous performance and perceived likelihood of team success predicted state cognitive and somatic anxiety for males and females. Previous performance was the most consistent predictor of subsequent male performance while there was no consistent pattern predicting female performance., Previous studies have investigated the relationships among performance expectations, anxiety and athletic performance with varied results (e.g., Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump, & Smith, 1990; Gould, Petlichkoff, & Weinberg, 1984; Krane [...]

The memory-reconfiguration problem, encountered while repairing clustered faults of arrays with a programmable assignment of spare rows and columns to faulty ones, has been evaluated under a probabilistic quadrat-based fault model. The quadrat reconfiguration clustered fault algorithm (QRCF) repairs large fault clusters without holes exactly in polynomial time. It also scores over the approximation and optimal algorithms in execution-time and performance. The comparative performances of the various algorithms based on detailed simulation results are presented.