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3D printing techniques such as material extrusion based additive manufacturing provide a promising and cost effective manufacturing technique. However, the main challenges in industrial applications remain with the quality assurance of mass produced parts. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of compression moulding as a rapid consolidation method for 3D printed composites, with an aim to reduce voids and defects and thus improving quality assurance of printed parts.

To develop an understanding of the inherent voids in 3D parts and the influence on mechanical properties, material extrusion additively manufactured (MEX) parts were post consolidated by using compression moulding at elevated temperature.

This study comparatively investigates the influence of carbon fibre length, undergoing process induced scission during filament extrusion and IM and its impact on void content and mechanical properties. It was found that the post consolidation significantly reduced the voids and the mechanical properties were significantly improved compared to the nonconsolidated material extrusion additively manufactured parts, reaching values similar to those of the IM parts.

Adaptation of extrusion-based additive manufacturing with hybridisation of reliable compression moulding technology transcends into series production of highly adaptive end user applications, such as drones, advanced sports prosthetics, competitive cycling and more.

This paper adds to the current understanding of 3D printing and provides a step towards quality assurance for mass production.

The notion, technologies and organizational elaboration of traceability have become more prominent and more systematic in recent years in many different fields, notably food. This chapter argues that traceability has many faces: it is a programmatic value embedded in norms and regulations; it is a frontier of technology development such as blockchain, and it is a continuous processual and political dynamic of organizational connectedness, leading also to resistance. These different aspects make up “traceability infrastructures,” which embody a number of tensions and dynamics. Three such dynamics are explored in this chapter: the tension between organizational entities and meta-entities, problems of agency and the distribution of responsibility, and dialectics of connectivity and disconnectivity. These three dynamics generate three testable propositions, which define a prolegomena for a new subject of “traceability studies.” Overall, traceability is argued to be an ongoing process of connecting discrete agencies – a process of “chainmaking” – and is formative of more or less stable forms of distributed agency and responsibility.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship between information technology (IT) use and management innovation through the mediator role of knowledge-based resources.

The paper presents empirical evidence from a survey of 109 companies that run hotel establishments in the Spanish territory. A model of relationships is proposed and tested through a system of structural equations.

The use of IT favors the development of organizational knowledge and the ability to integrate this knowledge. Moreover, a positive and direct relationship was found between IT use and management innovation, and indirectly through organizational knowledge and knowledge integration capability.

The designed questionnaire did not include any questions related to specific IT tools that could contribute to better knowledge management practices in hospitality organizations, but rather generic questions about IT use. The large number of IT tools that can potentially support knowledge management practices in hospitality companies would make the questionnaire unwieldy for its target respondents.

This paper sheds light on a topic that has hardly been studied in the services literature. Specifically, it addresses the way organizations can facilitate management innovation through the use of IT, while considering the mediator role of knowledge-based resources.

El objetivo de este estudio es evaluar la relación entre el uso de las tecnologías de la información (TIC) y la innovación organizativa a través del papel mediador de los recursos basados en el conocimiento.

El trabajo presenta evidencia empírica a partir de una encuesta realizada a 109 empresas que gestionan establecimientos hoteleros en todo el territorio español. Un modelo de relaciones se propone y testa mediante un sistema de ecuaciones estructurales.

El uso de TIC favorece el desarrollo del conocimiento organizacional y la capacidad para integrar dicho conocimiento. Además, se encontró una relación directa y positiva entre el uso de TIC y la innovación organizativa, así como una relación mediada por el conocimiento organizacional y la capacidad de integración del conocimiento.

El cuestionario diseñado no incluyó preguntas relacionadas con herramientas de TIC específicas que pudieran contribuir a mejores prácticas de gestión del conocimiento en empresas de alojamiento turístico, sino preguntas genéricas sobre el uso de TIC. El gran número de herramientas de TIC que potencialmente pueden apoyar las prácticas de gestión del conocimiento en las empresas de alojamiento, complicaría la cumplimentación del cuestionario por parte de los encuestados.

Este estudio amplía el conocimiento sobre un tema escasamente estudiado en la literatura de servicios. En concreto, se aborda la forma en que las organizaciones pueden facilitar la innovación organizativa a través del uso de TIC considerando, simultáneamente, el papel mediador de los recursos basados en el conocimiento.

To explore the funds of knowledge that six emergent bilingual students build upon as they produce multimodal texts, how the practices surrounding these events are mediated, and the role of student agency within an ethnographic social semiotics framework. Ethnographic methods were used to document this yearlong study that included videotaping small group interactions, writing field notes, conducting interviews, and collecting multimodal work samples. The researcher served as a participant observer in a third-grade classroom where she met with students two days per week to interact with mulitmodal poetry. The findings reveal the media-rich popular culture and home digital practices students bring with them to school and the ways in which these resources were utilized for designing multimodal poetry. Several essential factors are discussed including funds of knowledge, role of play and creativity, nonlinear writing structures, and agentive design decisions. Multimodal text making requires a revamping of classroom literacy instruction that embraces multiple modes especially noting the importance of images, central role of experiential learning, and space for student choice thus empowering them as learners.

Over the past three decades, new off-grid electrification infrastructures – as micro-grids and other solar solutions – have moved from innovative initiatives, conducted by NGOs and private stakeholders, to a credible model promoted by international organizations for electrification of rural areas in developing countries. Multiple conditions support their spread: major technological advances in the field of renewable energies (panels, batteries), intensive Chinese industrial production allowing lower prices, institutional reforms in Africa including these solutions in major national electrification programmes, and, finally, an opening to the private sector as a supposed guarantee of the projects’ viability. However, while the development of this market calls for significant investments, a vast set of calculations and a strong “micro-capitalist” doctrine, all involved in their design, experts admit that a large proportion of projects hardly survive or even fail.

This chapter investigates these failures by exploring the ecology of such infrastructures, designed for “the poor.” It discusses “thinking infrastructures” in terms of longevity by focusing on economic failures risks. The authors argue that the ecology of the infrastructure integrates various economic conversions and exchanges chains expected to participate in the infrastructure’s functioning. By following energy access solutions for rural Africa in sub-regions of Senegal and Madagascar, from their political and technical design to their ordinary life, the authors examine the tensions and contradictions embedded within the scripts of balance supposed to guarantee their success.

This study links the notion of responsible strategic communication to the field of lobbying at the European (EU) level. It provides empirical findings on the relevance of informal interaction and communication in EU public affairs (PA). Focusing on functional expectations and uses tied to informality from an actors’ perspective, this study not only includes lobbyists and their attempts to gain influence on political actors but also attempts of lobbyists to control journalistic output through informal relationships and exchange mechanisms. The results are discussed with a view to further inform the concept of “responsible lobbying.”

Building on a theoretical background from strategic communication, informal politics and interest group research, findings from a qualitative content analysis of 43 semi-structured interviews with actors from PA (n = 27) and journalism (n = 16) at the EU level are reported, focusing on one policy case.

The study shows motives for establishing and using informality for both actor types. Functional expectations relate to a range of tasks at the core of the respective actors’ day-to-day activities: monitoring political developments, pre-negotiating policy options in protected, confidential spaces with political decision-makers, receiving relevant sectoral background information and “technical coaching” on legislative dossiers directed to journalists.

Studies on lobbying have rarely been conducted from a strategic communications perspective, especially focusing the EU level. Albeit widely accepted, the understanding of lobbying and PA as an informal activity has not been scrutinized by academic research.

Global evidence indicates that multiple structural, biological, and behavioural mechanisms link gender-based violence (GBV), HIV/HCV, and substance misuse among women and adolescent girls. The aim of this chapter is to briefly summarise and synthesise recent literature that examines the complex and bi-directional relationships among these epidemics in different populations of adolescent girls and women around the world. To inform this chapter, a selective search strategy was conducted, prioritising use of meta-analytic epidemiological studies and research on interventions and policies that address different aspects of the syndemic among women and girls who use drugs worldwide. The search targeted publications from 2015 to 2019 using PubMed, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar. The chapter highlights methodological and geographic gaps in existing policy, intervention, and implementation research and makes recommendations for strategies to tackle these gaps. It also identifies a continuum of multilevel evidence-based interventions that target the risk environments and key syndemic mechanisms linking these intersecting epidemics that have been found to be effective in reducing intimate partner violence and other forms of GBV, substance use, and HIV/HCV risks. This chapter also assesses inclusiveness of existing research and interventions for underserved and disproportionately affected populations, affecting adolescent girls, sexual minority women, and racial/ethnic minority women and identifies strategies to target gaps or disparities for these key affected populations. Finally, this chapter describes the gaps and opportunities that harm reduction programmes, medical settings, and other community organisations experience in implementing gender-responsive programmes and policies to redress these intersecting epidemics.