Single-particle reconstruction can be used to perform three-dimensional (3D) imaging of homogeneous populations of nano-sized objects, in particular viruses and proteins. Here, it is demonstrated that it can also be used to obtain 3D reconstructions of heterogeneous populations of inorganic nanoparticles. An automated acquisition scheme in a scanning transmission electron microscope is used to collect images of thousands of nanoparticles. Particle images are subsequently semi-automatically clustered in terms of their properties and separate 3D reconstructions are performed from selected particle image clusters. The result is a 3D dataset that is representative of the full population. The study demonstrates a methodology that allows 3D imaging and analysis of inorganic nanoparticles in a fully automated manner that is truly representative of large particle populations.

IBM Finland, a small national subsidiary, was at once a Finnish business and an interface to much larger networks of technological innovation and knowledge sharing. We contextualize its development within a nested set of institutions and identities: IBM's Nordic operations, its European business, and its World Trade Corporation. Its development was profoundly shaped by Finland's unique geopolitical position during the Cold War. IBM's internal structures anticipated and paralleled those of the European Union, with mechanisms for international cooperation, for the creation of transnational identities, and for the resolution and regulation of disputes between national subsidiaries.

A new method to perform X-ray absorption correction for spherical particles in quantitative energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy in the scanning transmission electron microscope is presented. An absorption correction factor is derived and simulated data is presented encompassing a range of X-ray absorption conditions. Theoretical calculations are compared with experimental data of X-ray counts from Au nanoparticles to verify the derived methodology. The effect of detector elevation angle is considered and a comparison with thin-film absorption correction is included.

The new generation of energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) detectors with higher count rates than ever before, paves the way for a new approach to quantitative elemental analysis in the scanning transmission electron microscope. Here we demonstrate a method of calculating partial cross sections for use in quantifying EDX data, beneficial especially because of the simplicity of its implementation. Applying this approach to acid-leached PtCo catalyst nanoparticles leads to quantitative determination of the Pt surface enrichment.

In the decade after the Second World War IBM rebuilt its European operations as integrated, wholly owned subsidiaries of its World Trade Corporation, chartered in 1949. Long before the European common market eliminated trade barriers, IBM created its own internal networks of trade, allocating the production of different components and products between its new subsidiaries. Their exchange relationships were managed centrally to ensure that no European subsidiary was a consistent net importer. At the heart of this system were eight national electric typewriter plants, each assembling parts produced by other European countries. IBM promoted these transnational typewriters as symbols of a new and peaceful Europe and its leader, Thomas J. Watson, Sr., was an enthusiastic supporter of early European moves toward economic integration. We argue that IBM’s humble typewriter and its innovative system of distributed manufacturing laid the groundwork for its later domination of the European computer business and provided a model for the development of transnational European institutions.

The future matters to business history, because the adoption of new technology and new organizational forms has often been driven by acceptance of a collective sense of what the future will be. Investments are made and strategies set on an industry-wide basis, influenced by the predictions of business consultants, industry groups, and futurists. To explore the part played by the future in shaping the past, we focus on the establishment and early acceptance of the idea of a rapid and inevitable transition to a “cashless society” in the US retail financial services industry during the 1960s and 1970s. Our aim is thus to advance a methodological point rather than to arrive at a definitive conclusion about the future of money.

During the 1960s, many academics, consultants, computer vendors, and journalists promoted the “totally integrated management information system” (MIS) as the destiny of corporate computing and of management itself. This concept evolved out of the frustrated hopes of 1950s corporate “systems men” (represented by the Systems and Procedures Association) to establish themselves as powerful “generalist” staff experts in administrative techniques. By redefining the computer as a managerial “information system,” rather than a simple technical extension of punch-card “data processing,” the systems men sought to establish jurisdiction over corporate computing and to replace accountants as the primary agents of managerial control. The apparently unlimited power of the computer supported a new conception of information, defined as the exclusive domain of the systems men (assisted by operations research specialists and computer technicians). While MIS proved impossible to construct during the 1960s, both its dream of all-encompassing automated information systems and the resulting association of information with the computer endured into the twenty-first century.