Thesis (Ph.D.)--Joint Program in Oceanography, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1999 [February 1999] / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Claudia R. Benitez-Nelson. / Ph.D.

Though International Joint Ventures (IJVs) are widespread, their high failure rate, attributed to the difficulty of managing them, has increased interest in their management. IJV research has seen knowledge sharing and learning between partners to be essential for success, and has noted that this is easier when the international partners are culturally aligned with one another. The process of integrating knowledge across national boundaries and between people from dissimilar cultures is a challenge, because it requires the firms to be embedded into the local market. IJVs need to ensure appropriate approaches for acquiring the knowledge and learning they require. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the knowledge sharing and learning processes that IJV managers undertake, focusing on the “micro-level” of IJV manager action and interaction. It explores how managers of the partners and of IJVs overcome barriers to knowledge sharing. This research combines internationalisation process, knowledge sharing and organisational learning research to develop an overarching theoretical framework for IJV learning that positions the IJV managers’ roles within the learning process within IJVs. It then examines theoretical ideas concerning the ‘microfoundations’ of learning to consider the structural arrangements, the individual capabilities and the organisational processes of the IJV that might help IJV managers to learn from their partners, to develop capacity within their IJV, and to help the internationalisation of their partners. This study explores knowledge sharing and learning within the highly successful Samsung-Tesco Homeplus retail IJV formed in 1999 in South Korea as part of Tesco’s internationalisation process. The retail context is appropriate to study the concepts of IJV learning, because retail businesses need to be highly embedded in their market through strong ties with their local customer base, which increases the need for internationalising retail firms to gain knowledge and learning from local IJV partners. The case partner firms, having complementary resource bases but facing barriers of dissimilarity (Korean electronics manufacturer and UK retail firm), yielded a rich context for examining how these were overcome to achieve learning. Data from semi-structured interviews with top and middle level managers and industry experts were triangulated with multiple sources of secondary data. A microanalysis approach for data analysis enabled analytical abstraction to theory. The study draws three broad findings regarding the overarching theoretical framework for IJV learning. First, IJV partners can themselves develop strategies that help knowledge sharing that will enhance the prospects for IJV success. The IJV partner’s prior capabilities are critical for building and sustaining their IJV relationship prior to and during the IJV. These capabilities facilitate cross-fertilization, integration, and combination of new knowledge and learning between the partner’s prior bodies of knowledge, helping knowledge application to be focused on the IJV’s needs. This, in turn, helps an absorptive capacity building process to be generated within the IJV itself.

Thesis (M.S.)--School of Dentistry. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2005. / "A thesis in oral biology." Advisor: Alan G. Glaros. Typescript. Vita. Title from "catalog record" of the print edition Description based on contents viewed March 12, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-114 ). Online version of the print edition.

Statistics of met-ocean conditions including wind, current and wave at the location between west and central Gulf of Mexico (GOM) are derived based on about three year of field measurements. Two-parameter Weibull distribution has been employed to fit wind speed at 10m over sea level and current speed in various depth. The joint probability contour was derived based on First-Order Reliability Method. In addition, the joint distribution of wind speed and direction was visualized by wind-rose diagram. The results provided in this study may provide essential information to the probability distribution of met-ocean condition in the particular location and can be used as a reference in the future designs.

The joint strength and fracture surface of Sn80¢HAu20¢H and Sn20¢HAu80¢H solders in laser diode package under thermal aging testing were studied experimentally. The AuSn thin film solders were coated on the substrate by electro-plating technique. The Sn80¢HAu20¢H solder was melting point at 210¢J,while the Sn20¢HAu80¢Hsolder was melting point at 280¢J. During the processes of bonding substrate and Al2O3 together, the N2 and H2 gases were used to achieve the bonding. Then the specimens were aged at 150¢J for one, four, nine, sixteen, twenty-five, thirty-six and forty-nine days. We investigated the bonding strength, voids, IMC thickness and microstructure of the Sn80¢HAu20¢H and Sn20¢HAu80¢H solders. In addition, we also studied the comparison with the process of flux and fluxless. Under the forty-nine days of aging, the bonding strength of Sn80¢HAu20¢Hand Sn20¢HAu80¢H solders decreased from 34.3¢V to 26.0¢V and from 54.96¢V to 47.06¢V,respectively. Moreover,the IMC thickness of Sn80¢HAu20¢H and Sn20¢HAu80¢H solders increased from1.07£gm to 2.85£gm and from 0.83 £gm to 1.08 £gm, respectively. The Sn20¢HAu80¢H solders showed a better joint strength performance than Sn80¢HAu20¢H due to the less grown of IMC and superior mechanical properties of Au. The fluxless process exhibited the better joint strength performance due to the less grown of voids. In the study, by using the lead-free and fluxless process, the reliability of laser module package may be improved.

The fatigue-induced solder joint failure of surface mounted electronic devices has become one of the most critical reliability issues in electronic packaging industry. Prediction of the shape of solder joints has drawn special attention to the related development and engineering applications. Numerous solder joint models, based on energy minimization principle and analytical methods, have been proposed and developed. The methods are extensively utilized to the shape design of solder joint. However, it is important to find a suitable method to real applications. Herein, a series of experiments with different geometric parameters of SAC405 solder joints were carried out and the results were compared with the prediction by Surface Evolver Program. The changes of geometric shape with respect to different parameters of solder joint were also discussed. The influence of the geometric parameters, such as volume of solder joint, package weight, solder surface tension, and gravity force to the shape of solder joint were investigated. Two experiments with SAC405 solder balls were carried out. One is to observe the different reflowed geometry shape of solder balls with various volumes, and another is to observe the different reflowed geometry shape of solder balls with various loadings on them. The results show that the models made by Surface Evolver program are very similar to the real shapes observed by experiments, and the differences are between -3% ~ 6.5%. Thus, the results show that the predicted shapes are satisfactorily suitable. Finally, the predicted models by Surface Evolver program were also put into the ANSYS program, and preceded the fatigue life prediction due to thermal cycling tests. The comparison of the effect on fatigue life with respect to different geometry shapes is illustrated. The results show the shape of solder ball due to high loadings is better than that in thermal cycling tests.

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Summary Hemophilia A and B are two X-linked recessive bleeding disorders caused by deficiency or absence of coagulation factor VIII and IX, respectively. There are more then 100 patients with this disorder in Lithuania. Affected individuals develop a variable degree of haemorrhage predominantly into joints and muscles. The severity of bleeding symptoms is correlating well with the residual activities of the corresponding clotting factors. Thus, patients with severe disease (F VIII / F IX < 1 %) usually experience recurrent spontaneous bleeding episodes while non-severely affected patients (F VIII / F IX > 1%) mainly bleed unop provocation. People who suffer from hemophilia are troubled by deformation of joints, alternation of limbs' length, arthrosis aches, and muscle contractures. The experience of latter summer camps showed that there was success to decrease those handicap phenomena significantly. That was reached by hemophilia patients' active physical activity at the seaside and kinesitherapy procedures. Evaluating the efficiency of kinesitherapy for the joint amplitude and muscle strength for those who suffer from hemophilia, it was depended on the dynamics of joints movements, measuring of arms and legs segments size, determination of muscle strength by Brooke's modified scale. Patients suffering from 19A and B forms of disease participated in the survey. They were divided into 2 groups according to the age - children up to 16 years of age and adults over 16 years of... [to full text]

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