Thesis (Nav.Arch and S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Ocean Engineering, 1975. / Includes bibliographical references. / Nav.Arch and S.M.

The Admiralty Interview Board (AIB) is the Royal Navy‘s assessment centre whose role is to select young people for officer training. The two aims of the study were (1) to investigate the relative value of psychometric versus other assessment centre selection measures and (2) the value of these and other approaches for selecting naval commanding officers for practitioners. The AIB selection data was used to investigate the long-term prediction of some of the selection measures, particularly the psychometric tests, in predicting the outcome for students attending the Submarine Command Course. Few pieces of research have looked at the long-term prediction of a real command situation. This research examines the prediction of a practical naval command situation where the student has to make rapid decisions under pressure and where failure to make the correct decision could be costly. A literature review showed that whilst cognitive tests, personality inventories and other assessment measures can predict job performance and training successes, the meta-analytical techniques used to pool research studies have produced inconsistent findings that could confuse practitioners. The students attended the command course, on average, thirteen years after the initial AIB selection process. Selection scores were available for 93 students, 57 of whom also completed a 'Big-Five' personality inventory and an Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI) at the start of the 24-week course. The average age of the students starting the course was 32. The students were assessed throughout the course and were graded as pass or fail. They were also given an A to F Course Grade. In addition, 88 students were graded on twenty aspects of performance covering eight tactical grades, three administrative grades and nine personality grades. The results showed that the means of the pass and fail groups on the AIB Non-verbal test were statistically significantly different with a moderate effect size. The correlation for this relationship (with the A to F Course Grade) was 0.20. The Non-verbal test score also correlated with the course instructor‘s grades on tactical performance at 0.30 and the Verbal test correlated 0.23 with the administration grades. None of the other AIB selection measures showed significant results. While this is a disappointing result, the students were a very homogeneous group and to obtain these findings for the Non-verbal and Verbal test after thirteen years shows the predictive power of these tests. Although the findings may be of theoretical interest the low correlations mean that not much variance in performance is explained. The tests would not be a useful screening device to reduce the failure rate on the course because there would be too much misclassification. None of the Big Five personality scales predicted success on the course or the other course grades but statistically significant differences were found for the means of two the OSI scales: these were for 'Ambition' and a Type A Behaviour measure. Ambition was the only scale which correlated significantly with the A to F Course Grade at 0.43. Ambition was also found to correlate with the total score for the twenty performance grades, the tactical grades and the personality grades and several individual performance grades including Practical Ability, Leadership and Command Presence with correlations approaching 0.4. Further research on this aspect of behaviour may be worthwhile. However, there are lessons to be learned. The literature review shows that practitioners need to scrutinize journal articles and book chapters on the validity of selection measures extremely carefully. It may be that measures which have been shown to predict the performance of junior staff are inappropriate for the selection of more senior staff with similar job experience.

This work is an attempt to explore early British steamship innovation during the 19th century from the point of view of innovation studies. The proposed analytical framework draws on neo-Schumpeterian and evolutionary economics for understanding the patterns and factors behind the phenomenon of technical change in the capital good under analysis. The thesis aims at filling a gap in the maritime economic and technological history literature, namely the issues connected to the process through which modern (mechanically-propelled, iron-hulled, screw-driven) ocean transportation emerged. Two inter-related research questions are addressed: how and why did steamships evolve in the course of the 19th century? In other words, the present research focuses on describing the dynamics of technological evolution and on identifying the key drivers of those developments. While the thesis includes a review of the relevant literature (Part I), the main work consists of original empirical research (Parts II and III). The bulk of this work primarily rests on the compilation of two new main bodies of quantitative and qualitative evidence. First, a previously unpublished dataset on the population and characteristics of steamers is used to measure the rate and direction of technical change in steamers. Second, previously unpublished archival material is used to reconstruct the innovation processes of marine engineers and naval architects and the civil society arrangements around them. The results suggest a number of stylised facts and institutional variables that have been subject to little discussion in the extant literature. On one hand, time-series and other statistical analyses suggest a technological “take-off” of steamship performance by the mid-19th century. This turning point, which was the outcome of a complex but rapid process of structural reconfiguration (the transition from wood-paddle to iron-screw as the new “dominant design”), occurred between the late 1830s and the late 1840s particularly among cargo traders and unsubsidised packets. On the other hand, documentary evidence shows that such technological breakthroughs were preceded and supported by a specific set of institutional innovations. These included the emergence of voluntary engineering associations, technical mass media and a not-for-profit ship classification society within the British national system of innovation. The thesis argues that the process of revolutionary technological innovation leading to the economically efficient long-haul merchant steamer cannot be separated from the rise of a vibrant interactive environment promoting learning, knowledge integration and technological accumulation, which may be called a “technological public sphere”.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T17:39:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo547_1.pdf: 1445418 bytes, checksum: 853a73a57d8936b9417f539d40c1aaaf (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar a possibilidade de inserção de empresas do setor metalmecanico de Pernambuco na cadeia de suprimentos do Estaleiro Atlântico Sul - EAS. Partiu-se de um diagnóstico do setor em estudo nos cenários mundial, nacional e em Pernambuco. Fez-se em seguida um breve estudo da cadeia de suprimentos naval nos âmbitos mundial, brasileiro e no EAS. Neste estudo, o autor participou de dois workshops com empresários do setor, representantes do EAS e algumas instituições ligadas a indústria, como SEBRAE, IEL, etc. O objetivo desse encontros foi justamente aproximar empresas e estaleiro para promover novos negócios e parcerias. Fez-se uma visita a obra do estaleiro em SUAPE para conhecer o andamento e a dimensão do empreendimento. Foram feitas também pesquisas bibliográficas. Concluiu-se que as empresas do setor metalmecanico pernambucano não tem capacidade para atender diretamente à demanda do EAS no curto prazo, contudo, os empresários do setor, têm grande interesse em se prepararem para suprir futuramente esse novo mercado, inclusive em parceria com empresas experientes, do Sudeste principalmente. O setor estudado precisa melhorar sua competitividade através da modernização do parque industrial, implementação de programas de qualidade e gestão empresarial, melhoria de logística, maior articulação com demais fornecedores, financiamentos de longo prazo, capacitação da mão de obra, etc. Este estudo, contudo, limitou-se a uma pequena amostra de empresas sendo necessários novos trabalhos que ampliem o entendimento sobre o assunto

David DuBois has chronicled the opening days of World War II in the Pacific and the demise of the U.S. Navy's Asiatic Fleet, relying extensively on primary sources such as combat narratives, after action reports, ship's logs, and testimony from congressional hearings. His extensive analysis and historically-substantiated revision of the standard narrative surrounding the initial weeks and months of the Pacific war is a must-read for every World War II historian or enthusiast. - Dr. Stephen G. Fritz, Professor of History, East Tennessee State University / https://dc.etsu.edu/alumni_books/1027/thumbnail.jpg

Arqueólogo / Los pecios o sitios arqueológicos de naufragio representan la categoría de yacimiento más recurrente estudiada por la arqueología marítima como subdisciplina arqueológica (Gibbins 1990: 376; Gibbins y Adams 2001: 279). Con frecuencia, la alta integridad y nivel de resolución que caracteriza a los sitios arqueológicos de naufragio incide en que su interpretación arqueológica sea realizada exclusivamente a partir de un proceso de deducción lógico, tomando en consideración exclusivamente la distribución observable de las evidencias. Esta aproximación intuitiva, ha generado que sitios aparentemente menos preservados hayan sido ignorados basados en un razonamiento de “sentido común”. La presente investigación incorpora como caso de estudio el sitio S3 PV, los restos arqueológicos de la barca transporte Infatigable, un velero perteneciente a la Armada de Chile, que naufragó accidentalmente el 03 de agosto de 1855 como consecuencia de una explosión y posterior incendio en el surgidero naval del puerto de Valparaíso

Maritime conflict in the next decade or three, when it happens, will not be the full-blown war that our carriers and strategic submarines are designed for. Instead, it will be economic warfare through the interdiction of maritime trade, harassment of naval vessels as rising nations attempt to expand their sphere of influence, and development of cheap (or uncounterable) technologies that keep potential adversaries or rivals at bay. All of this will take place in blue-water environments as access to the littorals is effectively denied by these new technologies. As it stands, the United States is inadequately prepared to face this possibility. This paper will examine how and why this strategy will arise, identify the most likely locations and actors, and explore how these scenario are likely to play out. Additionally, this paper will examine potential remedies that the United States (or other interested powers) could undertake to reduce the impact of these strategies, perhaps even avoiding their occurrence altogether.

Commentary on skilled trades occupations in Canada has been framed by two main paradigms: The dominant policy discourse has applied human capital theory to the dynamics of the skilled labour supply, often concentrating on intractable “problems” such as low apprenticeship participation and completion rates and an extreme gender imbalance in the trades. Sociological research has portrayed trades occupations as positions of structurally reproduced social disadvantage. This study adopts an alternate, neo-Weberian framework centred on the theory of economic social action. Social structure is treated in strictly nominalistic terms, and social action is rooted in the interest-oriented behaviour of socially embedded individuals. The study, undertaken in a large public-sector shipyard, involved both a pen-and-paper survey (N=509) of skilled trades workers and ten focus group interviews with 49 respondents from labour and management. The research questions addressed indicators of structural (dis)advantage and reproduction, as well as the specific mechanisms of social action operating within the study environment. The population shows a very distinct profile in terms of gender, ethnicity, and educational investment. Data on earnings, job security, and working conditions dispel any suspicion of economic disadvantage. Although a high proportion of incumbents have family connections to the skilled trades, an analysis of their siblings’ occupations refutes the supposition of structural determinism through the family. Instead, it is argued that both the social profile of the workforce and the high density of family and network connections reflect the use of “bridging” and “bonding” social capital strategies by study population members. The operative mechanisms include formal elements of the organization’s hiring practices, as well as institutionalized group norms and workplace culture. Through a “separatist” discourse that invokes notions of both “trade stigma” and “trade pride,” incumbents ascribe a particular set of cognitive and moral attributes to trades workers, which also contribute to defining the formal and informal membership requirements for their occupations. By approaching occupations as sites of economic social action, this research concludes that some of the intractable “problems” in Canada’s apprenticeable trades reflect individual behaviours that are enabled and incited by institutional features integral to the present skilled trades system.

We refer to Barcelona as a maritime city, but we ignore almost everything about the cultural foundations of this view. Ignorance is much greater as we approach the last two centuries. The main objective of this thesis is to review some of the events of recent maritime history to provide food for thought. In my opinion there is nothing worse than a culture based on false myths. Misconceptions that are often provoked by ignorance. Contemporary maritime history of Barcelona is a wasteland. The only exception is the study of economic history undertaken by Pierre Vilar. Should also clarify that the term "maritime history" encompasses many aspects, no systematic to date, which could be grouped into three areas: scientific, technical and human. Few studies have attempted to establish connections between them. Talk in global terms about "maritime" was one of the objectives of my thesis. But I will not hide that, whenever I could, I tried to prioritize the human aspect. The method I tried to follow consisted in establish a central element and supporting other aspects about it that I thought were important and affordable. The core of the thesis is a biography of José Ricart (paragraph 4), a key figure in recent maritime history. Other aspects are: science illustration (section 1), a review of various aspects of maritime life in Barcelona (paragraph 2), a reflection on the implementation of industrial technology in ships (paragraph 3) and a detailed analisys of the events that took place during the thirties of last century (Section 5). A significant element of this work is the story of the Nautical School which doesn¿t hace an specific section, but takes part in all of them. Conclusions refer to four aspects. First, we discuss the "maritime dimension" of Barcelona. The capital of the region more like a ¿riverside¿ city. I have also worked to highlight the hard work at sea and to highlight the many myth-making that have been made. In this regard, much work remains to be done. The Nautical School of Barcelona is presented as the midship section of the local and national maritime culture. Finally, it discusses the historical importance of José Ricart and denounce attempts to fall again in the myth. The chronicle of Franco's repression on merchant marine¿s republicans from Barcelona seems fair to me, because of the silence that has prevailed on this issue so far. This, and the fate of those who chose to join the Republican Naval Reserve, are lines of work I would like to continue in the future. In general, it should be noted that the idea raises many questions and points out the need to open new lines of research. Refering to the sources, I believe that, except in the first paragraph which have more secondary sources, the thesis is based on primary sources. In the case of Jose Ricart, monitoring of their work has been very time consuming because of the predominance of articles and short essays, as well as the diversity of platforms on which them were published. I have separated his referentes to the rest in the bibliography.

Different from terrestrial equipments (tanks and wheeled vehicles) and airborne crafts (planes or helicopters), the R & M (repair and maintenance) issues about naval vessels are profoundly related to their gigantic size, numerous operators, and thousands of various spare parts which individually have small quantity demand for logistic support. That is why the R & M of naval vessels is much more complicated. According to the Defense White Paper of 2009, the whole military force is going to be downsized. Meanwhile, the rescuing and relieving tasks for natural disasters have also been officially assigned to them. Therefore, the attendance rate of ships is increasing, which causes lower reliability and higher failure rate and consequently the rising R & M load. The dynamical complexity existing among the variables associated with R & M of naval vessels, which are non-linear, interconnecting and time-delaying, makes the system dynamics a very suitable theory for analyzing this kind of issue systematically. During the study, a model was built based on system dynamics. After reviewing related literatures and discussing with professionals in this field, the associated variables were defined and their casual diagrams were also established. We developed the stock-flow diagrams of three subsystems-- R & M process, man power, and material supply. Afterward these three subsystems were integrated into an R & M dynamical system model. Policy influence simulation and scenario design was carried out after basic tests confirming its validity. The results indicated that a higher R & M capacity could obviously reduce the number of ships stalled in shipyard and effectively increasing the discharge rate. Therefore we recommended the associated authority to boost R & M capacity by aggressive actions such as increasing the ratio of recruitment, building R & M knowledge management system and strengthening the education and training. For the follow-up research, we suggest more interviews with industrial personnel and experts, collecting R & M data for each type of naval vessel, deliberating the factors influencing the R & M from different aspects and appropriately defining system boundary in order to establish a model which is more similar to the real world. Therefore its simulated results can approach to the reality further, and the scenario analysis with conclusions induced from policy influence simulation can be more specific for the authorities. Keywords: repair and maintenance of naval vessels, system dynamics, strategy