"it was..." and "it can be..."

[preini]

Hello

I am sitting in front of two sentences, and I am pretty unsure about the tenses. Please help me.

Sentence A:

"It was found out that the experience had/have/had had no impact on the way how people handle/handled knowledge."

I am not sure what tense to use, is it isn't an indirect speech. So which tense do I have to use for the pattern: "it was + past participle + that ..."



I came accross a similar situation in my Sentence B:

"It can be concluded that this system support/supported this action."

Again, for me there is no reported speech. The similar pattern in this case is: "it can be + past participle + that ..."


Please, explain this to situations and the tenses that have to be used.
Thank you very much.

[David L.]

"It was found out that the experience had/have/had had no impact on the way how people handle/handled knowledge."

Firstly, omit the 'out' in 'found out'. "The study found that..." versus "He found out that you kissed his girlfriend."
Secondly, omit the 'how' in "on the way how"

Note the tense of the first verb form, "was found", referring to the conclusions reach in the study - Simple Past.
The 'experiences' that were studied must have occurred prior to the study being performed.
So - the action represented in the second verb form in the sentence actually occurred BEFORE the first action reported in the sentence. We indicate this by using the Past Perfect tense:

"...the experiences had had no impact..."

What do others think about "...how people handle' versus ...'how people handled...' ?
The same issues are involved in deciding "supports" versus "supported".