Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
2,639
result(s) for
"Furniture making"
Sort by:
The crafted world of Wharton Esherick
Widely celebrated as the father of the Studio Furniture Movement, Wharton Esherick is one of the most important furniture designers of the twentieth century. Presenting his preserved hillside house and studio, this book showcases seven decades of innovative woodwork and sculpture, embodying his influence on American art and design.
BOOK
Structural Optimization of Sustainable Lightweight Hemp Shive-Fiber Panels
This study investigates the structural optimization of lightweight three-layer panels made from industrial hemp shives (core) and hemp fibers (faces) as a sustainable alternative to wood-based materials in furniture manufacturing. Panels with target densities of 400–600 kg·m−3 and face-layer contents of 30%–50%were produced and tested to European standards. The optimal configuration—600 kg·m−3 with ~37%–41% face layers—achieved a modulus of elasticity up to 3750 N·mm−2 and a bending strength (MOR) up to 21.57 N·mm−2. Across the design space, water absorption ranged from ~83% to 162%, and the minimum thickness swelling was ~29%, indicating that while the mechanical properties meet the requirements for P2 particleboards (EN 312) and in some cases approach MDF benchmarks for dry use, thickness swelling remains above the EN 622-5 limit (12%) and thus precludes MDF classification. These findings demonstrate the technical feasibility of hemp shive–fiber panels and underscore the need to balance density and face-layer ratio to avoid loss of core densification at excessive face contents. From a sustainability perspective, the use of rapidly renewable hemp and agricultural residues highlights the potential of these composites to support resource-efficient, low-carbon furniture production, while future work should target improved water resistance through binder and process modifications.
Journal Article
Finance, Firm Size, and Growth
Although research shows that financial development accelerates aggregate economic growth, economists have not resolved conflicting theoretical predictions and ongoing policy disputes about the cross-firm distributional effects of financial development. Using cross-industry, cross-country data, the results are consistent with the view that financial development exerts a disproportionately positive effect on small firms. These results have implications for understanding the political economy of financial sector reform.
Journal Article
Speed of SME Internationalization and Performance
This paper studies the performance consequences of the speed of SME internationalization. The authors identify three research gaps: few studies treat speed as an independent variable; most studies analyze speed only until internationalization starts; and, finally, studies have paid little attention to the multidimensionality of the speed concept. The authors seek to address these gaps and to contribute to the literature on the dynamics of internationalization by developing three measures of internationalization speed, which capture its multidimensionality. Building on the theories of learning advantage of newness and time compression diseconomies, the study presents three hypotheses on speed's effect on performance, and the theoretically derived research model is tested on a sample of 183 SMEs visited on site. The analysis demonstrates that the speed of a firm's increase in the breadth of its international markets has a positive but curvilinear effect on firm performance. It also demonstrates that the speed of a firm's increase in commitment of foreign resources has a negative but curvilinear effect on the performance of the firm. These results have implications both for scholars interested in the dynamics of firm internationalization and for SME managers.
Journal Article
DO FOREIGN FIRMS CROWD OUT DOMESTIC FIRMS? EVIDENCE FROM THE CZECH REPUBLIC
I examine how foreign presence affects the growth and survival of domestic firms. Separating a negative crowding out and positive technology spillovers, I analyze whether the crowding out effect is dynamic, that is, domestic firms cut production over time as foreign firms grow, or a static effect realized on foreign entry into the industry. Using 1994-2001 firmlevel Czech data, I find evidence of both technology spillovers and crowding out. However, crowding out is only short term; after initial entry shakeout, growing foreign sales increase domestic firm growth and survival, indicating domestic demand creation effect. However, I find no such benefits from domestic competition.
Journal Article
Automatic Estimation of Drill Wear Based on Images of Holes Drilled in Melamine Faced Chipboard with Machine Learning Algorithms
In this article, an approach to drill wear evaluation is presented. Tool condition monitoring is an important problem in furniture manufacturing and similar industries. At the same time, approaches that rely on sets of sensors, often tend to be to robust or complex for the production environment. Instead of signals acquired from dedicated sensors, presented approach uses images of drilled holes as input data. Initial pictures are processed and enhanced in order to highlight the crucial properties. A set of selected features is then calculated on the resulting images, and later used during the training of 5 state-of-the-art classifiers. Presented research also evaluates number of images for consecutive drillings that needs to be taken into account in order to produce accurate results. From the selected set, the best performing classifier was Random Forest and it achieved close to 100% accuracy.
Journal Article
Shocks and Stocks: A Bottom-up Assessment of the Relationship Between Oil Prices, Gasoline Prices and the Returns of Chinese Firms
Oil price shocks are known to affect the financial sector of the economy, due to the inflationary effects, and increasing costs of doing business they create. Though oil-shocks and financial markets are widely researched, there remains scope for deeper understanding using firm level data. We therefore contribute to the literature by extending widely applied multi-factor asset pricing models to a sample of 963 Chinese firms (between 2005–2013) to (i) systematically evaluate their reactions to oil price shocks, and (ii) further include regulated gasoline prices as a more direct measure of the energy-prices faced by firms. 89.2% of firms are susceptible to oil shocks, with positive and negative reactions observed even for firms within the same industry. Gasoline price shocks are more pervasive, affecting 95.7% of firms. Considering oil and gasoline separately allows us to review gasoline price regulation in China, which ultimately appears ineffective in achieving its intended goals.
Journal Article
CRAFTS OF KASHMIR
Craft refers to an activity that requires skill and expertise.There are numerous varieties of crafts, for example textiles that includes embroidery, lace making, felt knitting, quilting, tapestry art, weaving. In the name of wood craft, there are wood carving, furniture making etc. Paper craft includes paper modelling, origami paper folding, paper machie. Pottery craft includes various types of ceramics, mosaic art etc. Jewellery making includes the metalwork, engraving as well as enamelling. This paper seeks to understand the type of crafts and the history of crafts in Kashmir.
Journal Article
Multi-Factorial Load Analysis of Pine Sawlogs in Transport to Sawmill
This study analyzed the variability of truckloads of large-sized pine logs transported to a furniture manufacturing mill, depending on the origin of the timber, delivery period, length of the transported logs, volume of the load and its mass. It was assumed that the volume and mass of the transported timber load depends on the season of the year and the origin of the timber, which has a significant impact on the mass of one cubic meter of the load. The analysis of the wood origin parameters (location of its growth) took into account the type of forest habitat, soil type and stand abundance. The characteristics of the tree parameters from which the roundwood was obtained took into account age, diameter at breast height (DBH) and height of the stand. The origin of the timber was determined for 1063 timber loads from 40 forest districts transported over a 12 month period. We obtained an average timber load volume of 29.34 m3 which includes single shipments differing significantly in their volume of between 24.21 and 36.51 m3. The origin of the timber, habitat conditions and stand parameters of the harvesting site influence load mass and the mass of 1 m3 of load. The delivery date has an impact on the studied elements of the sawlogs load, with two similar periods—spring and summer. The volume of the transported timber is already at a stabilized level in accordance with legal regulations, which is no longer dependent on other factors and only on the accepted conversion factors for roundwood density and the mass of the empty vehicle set. This has not influenced a reduction in the mass of the transported timber.
Journal Article
Are firms that receive R&D subsidies more innovative?
This paper looks at the effectiveness of R&D grants for Canadian plants that already benefit from R&D tax credits. Using a non-parametric matching estimator and data from the 2005 Survey of Innovation from Statistics Canada, we find that firms that benefited from both policy measures introduced more new products than their counterparts that only benefited from R&D tax incentives. They also made more world-first product innovations and were more successful in commercializing their innovations. The paper gives also a detailed step-by-step explanation of how to apply the non-parametric matching technique. /// Cette étude examine l'efficacité des subventions à la recherche-développement pour les établissements canadiens qui bénéficient déjà de crédits d'impôt à la recherche. En utilisant un estimateur non-paramétrique d'appariement, nous trouvons que les établissements qui bénéficient des deux mesures de soutien à la recherche introduisent plus de nouveaux produits sur le marché que celles qui ne bénéficient que des crédits d'impôt. Elles réussissent aussi à mettre plus de premières mondiales sur le marché et à mieux commercialiser leurs nouveaux produits. Nous exposons aussi en détail les étapes à suivre pour une estimation non-paramétrique d'appariement.
Journal Article