Alan David Marwick

Knowledge management technology

Selected technologies that contribute to knowledge management solutions are reviewed using Nonakas model of organizational knowledge creation as a framework. The extent to which knowledge transformation within and between tacit and explicit forms can be supported by the technologies is discussed, and some likely future trends are identified. It is found that the strongest contribution to current solutions is made by technologies that deal largely with explicit knowledge, such as search and classification. Contributions to the formation and communication of tacit knowledge, and support for making it explicit, are currently weaker, although some encouraging developments are highlighted, such as the use of text-based chat, expertise location, and unrestricted bulletin boards. Through surveying some of the technologies used for knowledge management, this paper serves as an introduction to the subject for those papers in this issue that discuss technology.

Studies of “Non-ideal” Superconductors using Dc Magnetic Methods

Among the most informative and facile methods for investigations of a superconductor are measurements of its static magnetization. The objective of this paper is to analyze some experimental features frequently observed in static (dc) magnetization studies of conventional and high-Tc superconductors. We shall discuss investigations employing measurement protocols in which the sample is cooled through the superconductive transition temperature in a finite magnetic field (“field-cooled”) and compare this with zero-field-cooled studies. Also considered are reversible and irreversible materials; particle size effects; some effects of granular and multiply-connected materials; penetration depth studies of type II materials in the vortex state; and fine scale “multiconnected” materials formed by heavy ion irradiation that produces very significant enhancements of the critical current density Jc in the high temperature superconductor Y1Ba2Cu307. Many of these superconductors are “non-ideal” in that they may contain defects and inhomogeneities or may have small dimensions comparable with microscopic superconductive lengths. Practically speaking, however, such materials are often encountered experimentally and can have very desirable physical properties, such as the high Jc values that developed in the ion-irradiated crystal. In the following, we assume that the reader is familiar with the fundamentals of superconductivity, which are thoroughly treated in many sources.1–4