Inter-municipal cooperation, economies of scale and cost efficiency: an application of stochastic frontier analysis to Dutch municipal tax departments

Inter-municipal cooperation is increasingly popular in European countries. Saving cost is a key motivation. This paper analyses the relation between inter-municipal cooperation and cost efficiency among Dutch municipal tax departments between 2005 and 2012. Motivated by the notion that cost savings are ascribed to scale economies, the...

Optimizing Silicon Oxide Embedded Silicon Nanocrystal Inter-particle Distances

We demonstrate an analytical method to optimize the stoichiometry and thickness of multilayer silicon oxide films in order to achieve the highest density of non-touching and closely spaced silicon nanocrystals after annealing. The probability of a nanocrystal nearest-neighbor distance within a limited range is calculated using the...

On the Intersite Variability in Inter-Annual Nearshore Sandbar Cycles

Inter-annual bar dynamics may vary considerably across sites with very similar environmental settings. In particular, the variability of the bar cycle return period (Tr) may differ by a factor of 3 to 4. To date, data studies are only partially successful in explaining differences in Tr, establishing at best weak correlations to local...

Overcoming barriers to institutional integration in European second-tier urban regions

Within the debates about the socio-economic advantages of cohesive urban regions, several barriers to institutional integration are said to exist, especially when a metropolitan government is absent and integration relies on inter-municipal cooperation. Some barriers are associated with different urban region structures, such as the...

Predictive path following with arrival time awareness for waterborne AGVs

Large ports are seeking innovative logistical ways to improve their competitiveness world-wide. This article proposes waterborne AGVs, inspired by conventional automated guided vehicles and autonomous surface vessels, for transport over water. A predictive path following with arrival time awareness controller is proposed for such waterborne AGVs...

Characterization of multi-GNSS between-receiver differential code biases using zero and short baselines

Care should be taken to minimize adverse impact of receiver differential code biases (DCBs) on global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-derived ionospheric parameters. It is therefore of importance to ascertain the intrinsic characteristics of receiver DCBs, preferably in the context of new-generation GNSS. In this contribution, we present a...

Extended stakeholder interaction analysis: Innovative smart living design cases

In order to become more innovative, companies that operate in the Smart Living domain increasingly initiate and participate in networked business environments that transcend industry boundaries. Inter-organizational collaboration is often characterized by conflicting strategic interests and incoherent operational business processes and...

Dynamic stakeholder interaction analysis: Innovative smart living design cases

In order to become more innovative, companies that operate in the Smart Living domain increasingly initiate and participate in networked business environments that transcend industry boundaries. Inter-organizational collaboration is often characterized by conflicting strategic interests and incoherent operational business processes and...

BeiDou inter-satellite-type bias evaluation and calibration for mixed receiver attitude determination

The Chinese BeiDou system (BDS), having different types of satellites, is an important addition to the ever growing system of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). It consists of Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites, Inclined Geosynchronous Satellite Orbit (IGSO) satellites and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites. This paper...

The last will be first: Water transfers from agriculture to cities in the Pangani river basin, Tanzania

Water transfers to growing cities in sub-Sahara Africa, as elsewhere, seem inevitable. But absolute water entitlements in basins with variable supply may seriously affect many water users in times of water scarcity. This paper is based on research conducted in the Pangani river basin, Tanzania. Using a framework drawing from a theory of water...

Strategies for Orchestrating and Managing Supply Chains in Public Service Networks

Joining-up is high on the e-government agenda as this is expected to improve service delivery to citizens and businesses. It requires public and private organizations to cooperate with each other within networks that are formed around public services that cross the boundaries of organizations. Cross-organizational processes in such a network are...

A Novel Receiver Architecture for Single-Carrier Transmission over Time-Varying Channels

In this paper, we present a single-carrier transceiver for rapidly time-varying channels, where the equalization step is implemented in the frequency domain. When the channel abides with both fast fading and severe inter-block interference, our equalizer relies on a band approximation of the frequencydomain channel matrix to maintain low...