Tecnatom has participated in the qualification of some ultrasonic techniques for the Nuclear Power Plants in Sweden. These qualifications have been performed by means of Technical Justifications and practical trials on test specimens with real defects. Also, ultrasonic simulation software has been used as aid for technical justifications. This paper will describe some of these qualification pro...

The basic audio quality of 5.1 multichannel audio reproduction was evaluated under different technical conditions. The obtained database of subjective responses was used to develop a multichannel audio quality expert system. There are three aims of this development: (1) to predict audio quality as a function of individual channel bandwidth, (2) to predict audio quality as a function of given do...

iii DEDICATION I would like to thank my parents Alvaro and Vera for a lifetime of support and my wife Heather for making the last five years a great chapter in my life. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to acknowledge Jim Ross who manufactured the multi-electrode arrays and aided in techniques such as platinum plating employed in the manufacturing process as well as quantification of el...

I consider directed technical change in an economy where market structure is endogenous. Endogeneity of market structure leads to both theoretical and empirical implications that are substantially different from those in the existing literature and that in some cases are rather surprising. There are two dimensions of directed technical change: directed firm entry (new firms enter the industry w...

The link between high temperatures and ambulance transports in Takamatsu area, Japan was investigated. Monthly observations for ambulance transports (2004-2008) were obtained from Fire Department Service in Takamatsu. Data of temperatures in Takamatsu area, Japan (2004-2008) were used by Japan Meteorological Agency. Effect of high temperatures on ambulance transports was analyzed. By using data...

Two studies were conducted investigating the relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and occupational safety. In Study 1, data were obtained from company human resource and safety directors across 138 organizations. LISREL VIII results showed that an HPWS was positively related to occupational safety at the organizational level. Study 2 used data from 189 front-line employees ...

This article investigates whether the choice experiment approach can be used to assess people's preferences and the determinants of these preferences in order to estimate the costs and benefits of different configurations of the transport of hazardous materials by rail. Changes in the exposure to hazardous materials that people are subjected to are used rather than changes in accident risk. To ...

This paper describes the design and evaluation of an innovative smart mobility aid for the frail visually impaired. The Personal Adaptive Mobility AID (PAM-AID) was developed to address the difficulties in personal mobility of the frail and elderly visually impaired. The paper provides an overview of the PAM-AID research at Trinity College and describes the evolutionary nature of the design pro...

this study investigates the influence of some chemical additives such as methanol, ethanol, sodium oleat, chloroform and sodium hexametaphosphate (shmp) on the dry fine grinding of calcite (x50= 33 µm) using a stirred media mill. the experiments were carried out by a batch operation, and the change in colour properties (ry, whiteness and yellowness) of calcite powder. the results showed that th...