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Technical Features (technical + feature)
Selected AbstractsOptimizing Service Attributes: The Seller's Utility Problem,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 2 2001Fred F. Easton Abstract Service designers predict market share and sales for their new designs by estimating consumer utilities. The service's technical features (for example, overnight parcel delivery), its price, and the nature of consumer interactions with the service delivery system influence those utilities. Price and the service's technical features are usually quite objective and readily ascertained by the consumer. However, consumer perceptions about their interactions with the service delivery system are usually far more subjective. Furthermore, service designers can only hope to influence those perceptions indirectly through their decisions about nonlinear processes such as employee recruiting, training, and scheduling policies. Like the service's technical features, these process choices affect quality perceptions, market share, revenues, costs, and profits. We propose a heuristic for the NP-hard service design problem that integrates realistic service delivery cost models with conjoint analysis. The resulting seller's utility function links expected profits to the intensity of a service's influential attributes and also reveals an ideal setting or level for each service attribute. In tests with simulated service design problems, our proposed configurations compare quite favorably with the designs suggested by other normative service design heuristics. [source] ,Knowledge' or Knowledgeable Banks?DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 1 2010International Financial Institutions' Generation of Knowledge in Times of Crisis The food-price crisis is testing the capacity of so-called ,knowledge institutions' to generate relevant knowledge with which to serve their clients better. This article analyses the voluminous knowledge generated by such banks and other international institutions in the context of the food-price crisis: in particular, its technical features; the depth and merits of the subsequent policy discussion; and the connection between the knowledge generated and specific policy advocacy. It also provides an explanation for the inability of these institutions to anticipate the dire consequences of the crisis, other than the widely accepted ,perfect storm' storyline. [source] To be or not to be a cog: the Bremen Cog in perspectiveINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 2 2000Ole Crumlin-Pedersen Following on from Thijs Maarleveld's paper in 1995 on type-names for archaeological finds of ships, the use of the term cog has been questioned by Timm Weski, who suggested the archaeological term Ijsselmeer-type instead. The present paper surveys a total of 18 ship-finds of this type with respect to date, origin and year of investigation, without finding support for the proposed change in terminology. Instead, the archaeological term cog should be restricted to seagoing vessels of the 12th,15th centuries which share the structural features of the lower part of hull with the Bremen Cog. Recent results of dendroanalysis point to the root of the Jutland peninsula as a more likely area than the former Zuiderzee for the transformation of a hypothetical older,proto-cog'-type for navigation on rivers and in the Waddensee into the proper seagoing medieval cog-type. Impulses for this transformation were found, most likely, in the need to circumnavigate Cape Skagen already in the 12th century, and technical features were probably taken over from large Scandinavian cargo ships of that period. © 2000 The Nautical Archaeology Society [source] COULD YOU TAKE A PICTURE OF MY BOAT, PLEASE?OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 4 2008THE USE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF MEDITERRANEAN SHIP REPRESENTATIONS Summary Representations of ships, sailors and seafarers are common in many ancient societies. They were carved, drawn or painted on a great variety of raw materials , stone, wood, metal, textiles and pottery , and can be found in settings such as caves, tombs or royal palaces. Their presence at these sites raises the possibility that these images of maritime life have symbolic or ritual connotations. This paper presents examples of representations of Phoenician and Punic ships from the first millennium BC, in an attempt to understand the role of both their creators and their audiences. These images are subsequently analysed in more detail, focusing on their technical features and their historical contexts. This paper concludes with a consideration of the social and religious aspects of ancient Mediterranean navigation. [source] THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE TUTANKHAMUN-CLASS CHARIOTOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 2 2004BELA I. SANDOR Summary. The Tutankhamun-class chariot, the earliest high-performance machine, existed in its refined form for about five centuries. Eight complete vehicles have survived and support the argument that they surpass all monumental structures of the pharaohs in engineering sophistication. There is no evidence of chariot racing from that era, but these chariots have many technical features that imply a pedigree based on racing. Several elements hint of thoughtful invention, advanced physical modelling and experimentation, with results that sometimes drastically and favourably differ from our concepts of vehicle design. It is difficult for us to envision a substantially better chariot made with the ancient materials of construction even if we were to apply our most advanced formulas and methods. There are two major areas of chariot analysis from an engineering standpoint, and both are accessible to non-specialists. The complex suspension system of springs and shock absorbers has advantages in structural dynamics, ride quality and safety. An example of the latter is a dual-purpose anti-roll device. The chariots' wheels have aircraft-like damage tolerance, and have fundamentally more perfect spokes and joints for carrying multi-axial loads than the wooden spokes of any classic car. This paper covers the essential technical features and historical perspectives of these chariots for archaeologists. [source] Endoscopic endonasal surgery for petrous apex lesionsTHE LARYNGOSCOPE, Issue 1 2009Adam M. Zanation MD Abstract Background: Endoscopic endonasal approaches to the ventral skull base are categorized based on their orientation in coronal and sagittal planes. For all of these approaches, the sphenoid sinus is the starting point, and provides orientation to important vascular and neural structures. Surgical approaches to the petrous apex include 1) a medial approach, 2) a medial approach with internal carotid artery (ICA) lateralization, and 3) a transpterygoid infrapetrous approach (inferior to the petrous internal carotid artery). The choice of a surgical approach depends on the relationship of the lesion to the internal carotid artery (medial or inferior), degree of medial expansion, and pathology. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the anatomic and technical features of endoscopic surgical approaches to the petrous apex, provide a new classification for approaches that focuses on the relationship of the lesion to the petrous internal carotid artery, and provide outcomes data on our first 20 endoscopic petrous apex approaches. Methods: A retrospective clinical outcome study of endoscopic petrous apex surgeries was performed at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The medical records from patients with endoscopic endonasal approaches to isolated petrous apex lesions were reviewed for demographics, diagnoses, presentation, endoscopic approach, and clinical outcomes. Patients with lesions that extended into the petrous apex but were not isolated to the petrous apex were excluded (e.g., clival chordoma with extension into the petrous apex). Results: Twenty patients were included in the analysis: 13 inflammatory cystic lesions (9 cholesterol granulomas and four petrous apicitis) and 7 solid lesions. Chondrosarcoma was the most common solid petrous apex lesion in our series. Twelve of 13 cystic lesions were drained endoscopically (one surgery was aborted early in the series). All drained patients had resolution of presenting symptoms. One patient had closure of the outflow tract without return of symptoms and one patient had revision endoscopic drainage due to scarring and neo-osteogenesis and return of unilateral headache. No carotid injuries and no new cranial neuropathies occurred perioperatively. The advantages and limitations of the medial transsphenoidal approaches (with and without carotid mobilization) and the transpterygoid infrapetrous approach are discussed. Conclusions: The endoscopic endonasal approach to petrous apex lesions is safe and effective for appropriately selected patients in the hands of experienced endoscopic skull base surgeons. If offers advantages of removing the hearing and facial nerve risks from the transtemporal/transcranial approaches and allows for a larger and more natural drainage pathway into the sinuses. Laryngoscope, 119:19,25, 2009 [source] | ||||||||||