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International audience; Relevant for engineering a wide range of technological systems, Property Model Methodology (PMM) is applied in this paper to the development process of a helicopter function in the frame of the ARP4754A/ED79A. After a short presentation of the method, the case study is presented: "to retract and to extend airborne the landing gear system". Then, each stage of the PMM development process is illustrated by examples from the case study: (1) Modeling the top level requirements specification, (2) Validating the requirements specification by proof and simulation, (3) Modeling the architectural design, Refining the top level requirements into requirements specified to the different subsystems contributing to the function and Modeling the terminal subsystems detailed designs (4) Validating the requirements specified to the contributing subsystems by proof or simulation, (5) Verifying the design models by simulation and finally (6-8) Verifying physical implementations by test on the basis of all validation and verification scenarios accumulated throughout the development. At end, lessons learnt and industrial perspectives are summarized highlighting how PMM is a methodology adapted to the challenges facing to systems engineering by the globalization of development processes and showing how PMM can provide a powerful conceptual framework to support digital continuity within globalized Design Organizations. Modeling, simulation, proof and test generation activities are supported by the MATLAB and Simulink products. Introduction The aeronautic industry has to deliver more and more complicated systems in term of functions while maintaining high level of quality and safety/reliability. In the same time, competition is driving aircraft manufacturers to strongly improve their costs (including non-recurring costs) and development lead time. At the age of globalization, these systems are designed and produced by large, multicultural, geographically distributed teams belonging to different industrial organizations. This evolution introduces additional complexities (the complexity of a goal-oriented process refers to its propensity to fail [Suh, 2005]). To face these challenges, classical systems engineering approaches

The objective of this research was to investigate the moderating effect of information technology (1T) infrastructure on the relationship between health care information management and quality performance within health care departments. The variables that were measured included both management and customer perceptions of quality, management of health care information (MOHCI), and IT infrastructure. This research focused on the determinants of departmental quality. The study conceptualized and developed measures for quality, MOHCI, and IT infrastructure variables. A significant relationship was observed between the management of health care information and quality performance. IT infrastructure exhibited a direct, rather than a moderating, effect on quality performance. The research also found/ that significant differences exist between customer and manager perceptions of quality.

Rising health care costs and customer dissatisfaction with services has prompted many hospital administrators to begin scrutinizing their operations. The initial challenge for administrators is to identify the critical processes of the hospital. Since the main purpose of a hospital is to improve the health of its patients, one of its core processes involves the procedures of the operating room (OR). Focusing on OR processes should prove to be one important lever for improving the overall quality of hospital services.

Empowerment, creativity, and organizational memory are constructs that have been researched in MIS. While each construct has received individual attention, we have found relatively little research linking them. One of the major edicts of empowerment is delegation of decision making authority to lower-level employees. Increased authority allows employees more freedom to be creative. However, if creative thought is generated but not captured, innovative ideas may be lost. Organizational memory can capture creative ideas as they are generated so that empowered teams can draw upon positive creative experiences. We developed a theoretical model to illuminate the relationships between organizational memory, worker empowerment, and creativity. The model portrays the linkages between empowerment and creativity, creativity and organizational memory, and organizational memory and empowerment. The model was developed based on the literature in each respective area and an interview-based study concerning “empowered” systems development project teams and organizational memory. Analysis of the interview data revealed that empowered workers generate creative solutions to problems. However, creative solutions can only be used for future projects if they are somehow recorded into organizational memory. Organizations that empowered their workforce and embraced creativity reported increased customer satisfaction, waste reduction, and some quality gains. In contrast, those that did not empower reported little or no change. Organizations that recorded creative solutions to problems believe that retrieval of this information could be potentially useful for future projects. Potential challenges faced by organizations classified into each cell are also presented. This classification scheme should prove useful as a guide to organizations examining the potential benefits and pitfalls of worker empowerment and organizational memory.

The Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy is rapidly being adopted by organizations that are concerned about remaining competitive in an intensely competitive global marketplace. As a result, Information Technology (IT) is being developed and deployed to foster these quality programs. However, little empirical research is available concerning implementation of technology in TQM environments. Research is needed to guide organizations toward a path of successful implementation of quality systems. The objective of this study is to devise a set of guidelines for organizations attempting to infuse total quality into their systems development efforts. The study draws upon data gathered from case studies of three organizations involved in total quality systems development. The three organizations were chosen based on their differences in size (total revenues). Contrasting the three organizations should add richness to the development of TQM guidelines. The study begins with a review of the quality research. The methodology is described in the next section. A synopsis of the case studies is then presented. Finally, a set of guidelines and theoretical implications synthesized from the literature and cases are introduced.

Building on a prior case and field study work, the author developed a process improvement model. The proposed model includes four interdependent components-a systematic methodology to guide quality efforts, an environment conducive to change, empowerment mechanisms for the people who do the work, and information technology (IT) to facilitate automation. The model was used to contrast the process improvement approaches between U.S. and Japanese companies. Results included differences between process improvement approaches, management/worker roles, creativity, change visions, and work environments.

The price of survival for modern man in a finite world is restraint of his insatiable demands upon the natural environment and due treatment of that environment with the respect and care which he would accord to the life- support system of a space-ship upon which he was a passenger. Self-control has now become the quality that is perhaps most essential to the individual and to society alike. Collective self-control became essential when man found himself the greatest threat to his own survival and development.

International audience; The rapid explosion of linked data has resulted into many weakly structured and incomplete data sources, where typing information might be missing. On the other hand, type information is essential for a number of tasks such as query answering, integration, summarization and partitioning. Existing approaches for type discovery, either completely ignore type declarations available in the dataset (implicit type discovery approaches), or rely only on existing types, in order to complement them (explicit type enrichment approaches). Implicit type discovery approaches are based on instance grouping, which requires an exhaustive comparison between the instances. This process is expensive and not incremental. Explicit type enrichment approaches on the other hand, are not able to identify new types and they can not process data sources that have little or no schema information. In this paper, we present HInT, the first incremental and hybrid type discovery system for RDF datasets, enabling type discovery in datasets where type declarations are missing. To achieve this goal, we incrementally identify the patterns of the various instances, we index and then group them to identify the types. During the processing of an instance, our approach exploits its type information, if available, to improve the quality of the discovered types by guiding the classification of the new instance in the correct group and by refining the groups already built. We analytically and experimentally show that our approach dominates in terms of efficiency, competitors from both worlds, implicit type discovery and explicit type enrichment while outperforming them in most of the cases in terms of quality.

DNA barcoding and metabarcoding is increasingly used to effectively and precisely assess and monitor biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems. As these methods rely on data availability and quality of barcode reference libraries, it is important to develop and follow best practices to ensure optimal quality and traceability of the metadata associated with the reference barcodes used for identification. Sufficient metadata, as well as vouchers, corresponding to each reference barcode must be available to ensure reliable barcode library curation and, thereby, provide trustworthy baselines for downstream molecular species identification. This document (1) specifies the data and metadata required to ensure the relevance, the accessibility and traceability of DNA barcodes and (2) specifies the recommendations for DNA harvesting and for the storage of both voucher specimens/samples and barcode data, (undefined)

We examine whether impact investing is more effective in fostering business venture success and social impact when directed toward ventures located in vs. outside disadvantaged urban areas (i.e., areas with high crime, unemployment, and poverty). We explore this question in the context of loans made to business ventures located in French “banlieues” vs. “non-banlieues”. We find that loans issued to banlieue ventures, compared to non-banlieue ventures, yield greater improvements in financial performance, as well as greater social impact in terms of the creation of local employment opportunities, quality jobs, and jobs for minorities — all of which contribute to the social inclusion of marginalized communities and the development of sustainable cities.

International audience; The paper is based on idea realized under Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Key Action 2 and focused on educational activities for attracting technical education to young people. The project based on exchange of good practices involves seven partners from three countries (Poland, Estonia and France). Three of them represents sector of higher education and four are schools located in the neighbour of the technical university. Unfortunately, in recent years number of candidates entering to technical universities (particularly in Europe) decreases. Partners exchange ideas how to increase number of students who starts education in technical area. Another project goal is to examine possibilities how the university can contribute in increasing quality of technical education at schools. Main project ideas and results of project activities are reported in the paper.

International audience; The paper is focused on new educational activities focused on attracting young people for technical education. The idea is based on realization of the project under Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership (Key Action 2). The project based on exchange of good practices involves seven partners. Three of them represents sector of higher education and four are schools located in the neighbor of the technical university. Partners exchange ideas how to increase number of students who starts education in technical area, which seems a bit difficult, but engineers are very expected by the industry. The second project goal is to examine possibilities how the university can contribute in increasing quality of technical education at schools. Main project ideas and results of realized project activities are reported in the paper.

A dozen of green and sustainable labels have emerged on the financial markets of the Member States of the European Union since the creation of a first label in 1997 in France, allocated to nearly 1,360 financial products, demonstrating a quantitative success, especially in France. This article analyzes the development of such green and socially responsible labels in Europe over the past decades , their construction dynamics, and questions the real benefits of a proliferation of labels in this industry. Does the multiplicity of factors contributing to the development of labels achieve the desired end or does it encumber the market with loud but uncertain signals? While household savings are at their highest and there is a demand for financing the ecological transition, does the proliferation of labels not complicate the readability of the market ? We show that, instead of simplifying the choice of agents, the multiplication of labels tends to increase the noise provided by each of the quality signals and deteriorate confidence. Economic agents have less interest in benefiting from a generic label but are looking for less demanding labeling at a lower cost. The whole system can therefore play in a counterproductive way, each actor minimizing the intrinsic effort provided. As the number of labels grows, the information asymmetry grows and end investors may therefore turn away from labeled products. Only regulator can counter this trend.; Une dizaine de labels verts et durables ont vu le jour sur les marchés financiers des États membres de l'Union européenne depuis la création d'un premier label en 1997 en France, attribués à près de 1360 produits financiers, démontrant un succès quantitatif, notamment en France. Cet article analyse l'évolution de ces labels verts et durables en Europe au cours des dernières décennies, leur dynamique de construction, et s'interroge sur les réels bénéfices d'une prolifération de labels dans ce secteur. La multiplicité des facteurs contribuant au développement des labels atteint-elle le but recherché ou encombre-t-elle le marché de signaux forts mais incertains? Alors que l'épargne des ménages est au plus haut et qu'il existe une demande de financement de la transition écologique, la multiplication des labels ne complique-t-elle pas la lisibilité du marché? Nous montrons que, au lieu de simplifier le choix des agents, la mutliplication des labels tend à accroître le bruit fourni par chacun des signaux de qualité et détériorer la confiance. Les agents économiques ont moins intérêt à bénéficier d’un label générique mais recherchent à moindre coût une labelisation moins exigeante. L’ensemble du système peut donc jouer de façon contreproductive, chaque acteur minimisant l’effort intrinsèque fourni. L’asymmétrie d’information s’accroît à mesure que le nombre de labels grandit et les investisseurs finaux risquent donc de se détourner in fine des produits labelisés. Seul le regulateur peut contrer cet effet.

International audience; According to the directive on energy end-use efficiency and energy services (ESD), the European Member States shall adopt a national indicative energy savings target of 9% (or beyond) in 2016. The issue of the energy savings evaluation is crucial for its implementation. The French White Certificates (FWC) scheme is one of the important measures for France to fulfill its ESD target. However, the accountings of energy savings in the FWC scheme and in the ESD are different. Therefore, an analysis of the consistency of the two systems is needed. A concrete example of actions on residential buildings is used to illustrate the challenges for policy marker and stakeholders to set harmonized evaluation rules. The FWC and ESD calculations appear to be consistent from a physics point of view, as long as calculations are well-documented. But due to differences in the policy objectives, calculation routines may be necessary to convert national energy savings unit (e.g., kWh cumac) into supranational energy savings unit (e.g., ESD kWh). Finally, the work done to establish a transparent evaluation system brings additional benefits (e.g., increased visibility and quality of the actions), which will improve the results of the energy efficiency policies on long term.

Does distributive injustice increase the likelihood of joint venture (JV) termination? JVs display social exchange characteristics, and are, therefore, assessed not only based on economic rationale but also based on distributive justice which acts as a norm governing social exchanges. This paper draws on social exchange theory to redefine distributive justice in JVs, and explains the pathway from the emergence of distributive injustice to the eventual JV termination. We suggest that while both economic and justice considerations determine joint venture termination, they have different implications for JV termination mode. Based on a sample of 284 joint ventures formed between 1996 and 2010, we find evidence that distributive injustice increases the likelihood of termination of the JV in general, and the likelihood of acquisition of the JV, in particular.

We model the decision making process used by Experts at the Canadian Innovation Centre to classify early stage venture proposals based on potential commercial success. The decision is based on thirty-seven attributes that take values in { - 1 , 0 , 1 } . We adopt a conjunctive decision framework due to Astebro and Elhedhli (2005) that selects a subset of attributes and determines two threshold values: one for the maximum allowed negatives (n) and one for minimum required positives (p). A proposal is classified as a success if the number of positives is greater than or equal to p and the number of negatives is less than or equal to n over the selected attributes. Based on a data set of 561 observations, the selection of attributes and the determination of the threshold values is modeled as a large-scale mixed integer program. Two solution approaches are explored: Benders decomposition and Tabu search. The first, was very slow to converge, while the second provided high quality solutions quickly. Tabu search provides excellent classification accuracy for predicting commercial successes as well as replicating Experts’ forecasts, opening the venue for the use of Tabu search in scoring and classification problems.

The article deals with the value orientation of teachers in the Czech Republic, who attempt to extend their formal education in the process of lifelong learning. The quality of the teacher directly influences the quality of the educational process, therefore the qualification of teachers has become the front theme of the international organisations. Lifelong Learning Centres as parts of the universities offer the programmes for teachers to extend their formal qualification. The primary aim of the article is to analyse teachers’ value orientation reflected by the formal education.

This paper examines how accounting quality affects the degree of debt concentration in corporate capital structures (i.e., a firm’s tendency to predominantly rely on only a few types of debt). Motivated by theoretical and empirical research that supports a strong link between creditors’ coordination costs and debt concentration and the importance of accounting quality in reducing these coordination costs, we hypothesize that firms with low accounting quality have a more concentrated debt structure. Measuring financial reporting quality by the disclosure of material internal control weaknesses over financial reporting (ICWs), we find that ICWs lead to a significantly more concentrated debt structure. We also show that the effect of ICWs on the degree of debt concentration is stronger for more severe ICW disclosures and for firms with a higher credit risk, further reinforcing the importance of financial reporting quality in determining debt concentration.

We study a large-scale French reform that provided generous downside insurance for unemployed individuals starting a business. We study whether this reform affects the composition of people who are drawn into entrepreneurship. New firms started in response to the reform are, on average, smaller, but have similar growth expectations and education levels compared to start-ups before the reform. They are also as likely to survive or to hire. In aggregate, the effect of the reform on employment is largely offset by large crowd-out effects. However, because new firms are more productive, the reform has the impact of raising aggregate productivity. These results suggest that the dispersion of entrepreneurial abilities is small in the data, so that the facilitation of entry leads to sizable Schumpeterian dynamics at the firm-level.

We find evidence supporting the hypothesis that countries at times misreport their economic data in a strategic manner. Among those suspected are countries with fixed exchange rate regimes, high negative net foreign asset positions or negative current account balances, which corroborates the intuition developed with a simple economic model. We also find that countries with bad institutional quality rankings and those in Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Latin America release economic data of questionable veracity. Our evidence calls for models with public signals to consider strategic misinformation and for establishing independent statistical agencies to assure the delivery of high quality economic data.

Managers like to think well of themselves, and of the firms that employ them. However, positive illusions can bias a manager's evaluation of market outcomes, self-servingly crediting success on the superior quality of one's own product but blaming failure on the aggressive price of a competitor's offering. These distorted attributions stem from the idea that product quality better serves the manager's motivation for self-enhancement and self-presentation than price: product quality is seemingly more central to the firm, less susceptible to external market forces, and more stable over time. We position our theory in the psychology of attribution, define self-serving behavior and provide experimental and survey evidence of this phenomenon, and develop a model of price-quality competition that incorporates the empirical findings. In particular, we first study the natural benchmark equilibrium provided by unbiased decision makers. We then introduce self-serving behavior in the presence of myopic principals, or of forward-looking principals who anticipate the limitations of managers and set first-period decisions accordingly.