Validating agent oriented methodology (AOM) for netlogo modelling and simulation

Science.gov (United States)

WaiShiang, Cheah; Nissom, Shane; YeeWai, Sim; Sharbini, Hamizan

2017-10-01

AOM (Agent Oriented Modeling) is a comprehensive and unified agent methodology for agent oriented software development. AOM methodology was proposed to aid developers with the introduction of technique, terminology, notation and guideline during agent systems development. Although AOM methodology is claimed to be capable of developing a complex real world system, its potential is yet to be realized and recognized by the mainstream software community and the adoption of AOM is still at its infancy. Among the reason is that there are not much case studies or success story of AOM. This paper presents two case studies on the adoption of AOM for individual based modelling and simulation. It demonstrate how the AOM is useful for epidemiology study and ecological study. Hence, it further validate the AOM in a qualitative manner.

Implementing large-scale programmes to optimise the health workforce in low- and middle-income settings: a multicountry case study synthesis.

Science.gov (United States)

Gopinathan, Unni; Lewin, Simon; Glenton, Claire

2014-12-01

To identify factors affecting the implementation of large-scale programmes to optimise the health workforce in low- and middle-income countries. We conducted a multicountry case study synthesis. Eligible programmes were identified through consultation with experts and using Internet searches. Programmes were selected purposively to match the inclusion criteria. Programme documents were gathered via Google Scholar and PubMed and from key informants. The SURE Framework - a comprehensive list of factors that may influence the implementation of health system interventions - was used to organise the data. Thematic analysis was used to identify the key issues that emerged from the case studies. Programmes from Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Malawi, Venezuela and Zimbabwe were selected. Key system-level factors affecting the implementation of the programmes were related to health worker training and continuing education, management and programme support structures, the organisation and delivery of services, community participation, and the sociopolitical environment. Existing weaknesses in health systems may undermine the implementation of large-scale programmes to optimise the health workforce. Changes in the roles and responsibilities of cadres may also, in turn, impact the health system throughout. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

www.PedRad.info, the first bilingual case-oriented publication platform for pediatric radiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hirsch, Wolfgang; Paetzel, Martina; Talanow, Roland

2005-01-01

On the Internet, there are few pediatric radiology databases. The most important and complete Web site is PediatricRadiology.com, which provides many radiological links but does not have its own database. We present an Internet project called PedRad.info (also known as Kinderradiologie-Online). The open-source, case-oriented publication platform publishes validated pediatric radiology findings on the Internet. A comparable on-line program, even for adult radiology, does not exist, so this tool is a pioneer in the area of Web-based information technology for medical and radiological communities. (orig.)

Predicting class testability using object-oriented metrics

OpenAIRE

Bruntink, Magiel; Deursen, Arie

2004-01-01

textabstractIn this paper we investigate factors of the testability of object-oriented software systems. The starting point is given by a study of the literature to obtain both an initial model of testability and existing OO metrics related to testability. Subsequently, these metrics are evaluated by means of two case studies of large Java systems for which JUnit test cases exist. The goal of this paper is to define and evaluate a set of metrics that can be used to assess the testability of t...

Statistical Study of the Magnetic Field Orientation in Solar Filaments

Science.gov (United States)

Hanaoka, Yoichiro; Sakurai, Takashi

2017-12-01

We have carried out a statistical study of the average orientation of the magnetic field in solar filaments with respect to their axes for more than 400 samples, based on data taken with daily full-Sun, full-Stokes spectropolarimetric observations using the He I 1083.0 nm line. The major part of the samples are the filaments in the quiet areas, but those in the active areas are included as well. The average orientation of the magnetic field in filaments shows a systematic property depending on the hemisphere; the direction of the magnetic field in filaments in the northern (southern) hemisphere mostly deviates clockwise (counterclockwise) from their axes, which run along the magnetic polarity inversion line. The deviation angles of the magnetic field from the axes are concentrated between 10° and 30°. This hemispheric pattern is consistent with that revealed for chirality of filament barbs, filament channels, and for other solar features found to possess chirality. For some filaments, it was confirmed that their magnetic field direction is locally parallel to their structure seen in Hα images. Our results for the first time confirmed this hemispheric pattern with the direct observation of the magnetic field in filaments. Interestingly, the filaments which show the opposite magnetic field deviation to the hemispheric pattern, are in many cases found above the polarity inversion line whose ambient photospheric magnetic field has the polarity alignment being opposite to that of active regions following the Hale–Nicholson law.

Exploring the Impact of Silos in Achieving Brand Orientation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gyrd-Jones, Richard I.; Helm, Clive; Munk, Jonas

2013-01-01

the achievement of brand orientation. Through inductive analysis of a case study of an organisation implementing a major brand-revitalisation strategy, this paper demonstrates how, despite a strong brand vision and high level of management commitment, functional silos associated with different mindsets......Brands are widely recognised as important sources of organisational value. Brand orientation describes the extent to which the organisation is orientated around the brand and around maximising brand potential. However, silos or divisions within the culture of an organisation can frustrate...... contributed to the failure of the new brand strategy. The paper concludes with recommendations for the brand platform to be implemented meaningfully and effectively within each silo....

Writing history: case study of the university of Victoria School of Nursing.

Science.gov (United States)

Scaia, Margaret R; Young, Lynne

2013-04-23

A historical examination of a nursing curriculum is a bridge between past and present from which insights to guide curriculum development can be gleaned. In this paper, we use the case study method to examine how the University of Victoria School of Nursing (UVic SON), which was heavily influenced by the ideology of second wave feminism, contributed to a change in the direction of nursing education from task-orientation to a content and process orientation. This case study, informed by a feminist lens, enabled us to critically examine the introduction of a "revolutionary" caring curriculum at the UVic SON. Our research demonstrates the fault lines and current debates within which a feminist informed curriculum continues to struggle for legitimacy and cohesion. More work is needed to illuminate the historical basis of these debates and to understand more fully the complex landscape that has constructed the social and historical position of women and nursing in Canadian society today.

FORMING ADAPTED TEAMS ORIENTED TO COLLABORATION: DETAILED DESIGN AND CASE STUDY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MARÍA PAULA ARIAS-BÁEZ

2013-01-01

Full Text Available El trabajo colaborativo es cada vez más importante debido al creciente tamaño y complejidad de los problemas. Para realizar trabajo colaborativo existen en el mercado diversas herramientas que potencian la compartición de información, la colaboración en las actividades de los compañeros de equipo y el seguimiento del progreso durante el desarrollo y el cierre del trabajo colaborativo. Una etapa previa al proceso colaborativo consiste en elegir los miembros del equipo que cooperarán con el objetivo de alcanzar las metas establecidas. Trabajos previos presentaron MATEO (acrónimo de Making Adapted TEams Oriented to collaboration, sistema genérico cuyo principal objetivo consiste en adaptar la conformación de equipos de trabajo, teniendo en cuenta características de los candidatos, del contexto (tanto individual como del trabajo colaborativo y otros criterios. El presente trabajo complementa el trabajo anterior, detallando el diseño de MATEO y su validación a través de un caso de estudio en el que se integra a una plataforma de trabajo colaborativo llamada AYLLU.

A comprehensive grid to evaluate case management's expected effectiveness for community-dwelling frail older people: results from a multiple, embedded case study.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Durme, Thérèse; Schmitz, Olivier; Cès, Sophie; Anthierens, Sibyl; Maggi, Patrick; Delye, Sam; De Almeida Mello, Johanna; Declercq, Anja; Macq, Jean; Remmen, Roy; Aujoulat, Isabelle

2015-06-18

Case management is a type of intervention expected to improve the quality of care and therefore the quality of life of frail, community-dwelling older people while delaying institutionalisation in nursing homes. However, the heterogeneity, multidimensionality and complexity of these interventions make their evaluation by the means of classical approaches inadequate. Our objective was twofold: (i) to propose a tool allowing for the identification of the key components that explain the success of case management for this population and (ii) to propose a typology based on the results of this tool. The process started with a multiple embedded case study design in order to identify the key components of case management. Based on the results of this first step, data were collected among 22 case management interventions, in order to evaluate their expected effectiveness. Finally, multiple correspondence analyses was conducted to propose a typology of case management. The overall approach was informed by Wagner's Chronic Care Model and the theory of complexity. The study identified a total of 23 interacting key components. Based on the clustering of response patterns of the 22 case management projects included in our study, three types of case management programmes were evidenced, situated on a continuum from a more "socially-oriented" type towards a more "clinically-oriented" type of case management. The type of feedback provided to the general practitioner about both the global geriatric assessment and the result of the intervention turned out to be the most discriminant component between the types. The study design allowed to produce a tool that can be used to distinguish between different types of case management interventions and further evaluate their effect on frail older people in terms of the delaying institutionalisation, functional and cognitive status, quality of life and societal costs.

Study of a magnetically oriented lyotropic mesophase

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Amaral, L.Q.; Pimentel, C.A.; Tavares, M.R.; Vanin, J.A.

A study of a magnetically oriented lyomesophase formed by a quaternary system (Na decyl sulfate/water/decanol/ Na sulfate) is reported. Small angle X-ray diffraction measurements have been performed on unoriented samples and samples previously subjected to the action of magnetic fields (H vector). A model of finite planar micelles surrounded by water is proposed [pt

Developing a study orientation questionnaire in Mathematics for primary school students

OpenAIRE

Van Der Walt, Martha

2009-01-01

The Study Orientation Questionnaire in Mathematics (Primary) is being developed as a diagnostic measure for South African teachers and counsellors to help primary school students improve their orientation towards the study of mathematics. In this study, participants were primary school students in the North-West Province of South Africa. During the standardisation in 2007, 1,013 students (538 boys: M age = 12.61; SD = 1.53; 555 girls: M age = 11.98; SD = 1.35; 10 missing values) were assessed...

An Empirical Study on Transit-Oriented Low-Carbon Urban Land Use Planning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dou, Yi; Luo, Xiao; Dong, Liang

2016-01-01

Low-carbon urban development is a hot spot of global concerns for fighting against climate change for China, transportation sector has a significant contribution to urban CO2 emissions, while the emissions are still increasing. Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) strategies provide a novel approach...... for urban planners to facilitate the urban carbon mitigation from transportation sector in long-term. While TOD strategies are emerging cases, they are merely qualitatively discussed in China, lacking practical indicators and quantitative verification for supporting the real urban plan...... population and transportation accessibility with Geographic Weighted Regression model. Results highlight that TOD can effectively improve the transportation network with higher accessibility and lower urban carbon emissions. The outcomes of this study provide critical insights to the recent practice...

Features structuring image of Ukraine in socio-political and socio-cultural discourse

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. O. Pocelujko

2015-08-01

Layers of socio-political discourse under defined-State officially and historically historiographical discourses. These discourses present the image of the state in the context of national history as the source, where by means of targeted public policy is formed and implemented state identity as the language of institutional communication. Images states that officially created in-state and historically historiographic discourses as a set of ethnic myths, frames, stereotypes intended to create mechanisms of perception and interpretation of the past of the country, used in educational policy as a tool for national identity with the corresponding identity discourse. Socio-cultural discourse and the corresponding image of the state is characterized by a strong plurality, conceptuality, multyparadyhmality. In the socio-cultural discourse is conceptualization image of the state as part of the living world as opposed to social and political discourse, in which the image of the state appears more like dogmatic ideological construct, which tends to uniqueness. In the scientific discourse in constructing the image of the state is dominated intellectual and conceptual component, while in the state mediadyskurs-image formed on the basis of emotional and social representations stained. Latest distributed in makroteksts designed to create appropriate social attitudes, sensatsion, mobilizing different social groups on a variety of events and more

The relationships between market orientation and alternative strategic orientations : A meta-analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Grinstein, A.

2008-01-01

Purpose - One of the strongest convictions in marketing is that market orientation contributes to firms' performance substantially more than alternative strategic orientations such as innovation and entrepreneurial orientations. Still, some studies show that alternative orientations can also

Creating a market-oriented product innovation process : A contingency approach

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kok, R.A.W.; Biemans, W.G.

This study analyzes how and why a firm's change program to create a market-oriented innovation process depends on its environmental, innovational and organizational context. Based on an organizational-learning capabilities framework, the results from a multiple case study indicate how a firm's

Understanding voter orientation in the context of political market orientation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ormrod, Robert P.; Henneberg, Stephan C.

2010-01-01

This article develops a conceptual framework and measurement model of political market orientation. The relationships between different behavioural aspects of political market orientation and the attitudinal influences of such behaviour are analysed, and the study includes structural equation...... modelling to test several hypotheses. While the results show that political parties focus on several different aspects of market-oriented behaviour, especially using an internal and societal orientation as cultural antecedents, a more surprising result is the inconclusive effect of a voter orientation...... on political market orientation. This lends support to the argument of 'looking beyond the customer' in political marketing research and practice. The article discusses the findings in the context of the existing literature on political marketing and commercial market orientation....

Socially Oriented Student Entrepreneurship: A Study of Student Change Agency in the Academic Capitalism Context

Science.gov (United States)

Mars, Matthew M.; Rhoades, Gary

2012-01-01

This paper presents two clarifying cases of socially oriented student entrepreneurship. The findings illuminate an overlooked organizational space located at the intersection of the public good and academic capitalist knowledge/learning regimes (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004) that provides students with the entrepreneurial agency to create social…

Resilience as strategy for climate adaptation under uncertainty. Case study on the area outside the dike of Rotterdam

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

De Jong, A.

2008-07-01

This study has two aims; (1) to obtain insight in the concepts resilience and uncertainty; to gain insight in how a resilience oriented approach deals with uncertainties about the future; and (2) putting the resilience oriented approach into operation in a case: the area outside the dike of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, which is designated for new buildings [nl

APPLICATION FRAMEWORK IN ENGINEERING SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE SYSTEM SERVICE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ade Hodijah

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The Service Engineering (SE is understood as a framework to create innovative services in application development of information technology approach to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA. Implementing SOA is required methodology to identify services that can be used again in the application and organization of a company. in this research, software development model used is object-oriented methodologies, SOA itself is a collection consisting of tools, technologies, frameworks, and best practices that facilitate the implementation of a service quickly. in a study this uses the tools of Business Process Management System (BPMS to support the implementation of service-oriented software. the purpose of this study is to produce a model of activities and artifacts of the application software development models of the SE with a case study Rate Loans. Validation to the design of the model is done through testing of the software produced. The results showed that the application of the SE in the development of service-oriented software can use the object-oriented methodology by providing additional value-added analysis and redesign of business processes to be implemented on a BPMS. BPMS usage of the application of the SE on the SOA has the advantage of visualization in the management of business processes.

The Effects of Strategic Orientations and Perceived Environment on Firm Performance

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Farkas Gergely

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Among micro, small, and medium-sized firms located in Hungary, I conducted a survey examining the effects of entrepreneurial and learning orientations, and that of perceived environment on firm performance. I studied the perceptions of environmental turbulence and environmental hostility. Three dimensions were examined both in the case of entrepreneurial orientation (i.e., innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking and in the case of learning orientation (i.e., commitment to learning, shared visions, and open-mindedness. The effects of such dimensions on firm performance were analyzed with the path analysis (PLS-SEM method. In the course of the research, firm performance was divided into three dimensions: efficiency, growth, and profit. The possible effect of available financial resources was also taken into consideration. Results show that the availability of financial resources is relatively important, although it is connected only to the growth dimension of performance. Strategic orientations should be interpreted as multi-dimensional, and they have an effect on different performance dimensions. The research was cross-sectional and has implications for long-term strategic decisions.

The Market Orientation and Performance Relationship: An Empirical Study in Private Universities

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Sefnedi Sefnedi

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This study examines the empirical link between three dimensions of market orientation, namely, student orientation, competitor orientation and inter-functional coordination, and private university performance in Kopertis X. The study was based on an empirical investigation of private universities located in Indonesia’s provinces of West Sumatera, Riau, Jambi, and Riau Islands. The primary data for the study were collected from a self-administered mail survey of 237 questionnaires from the private university resulting in a sample of 114 usable responses being returned. From the application of the multiple regression analysis it was concluded that all three dimensions of market orientation had a significant impact on private university performance. Student orientation as a predictor variable is the strongest predictor of private university performance then followed by competitor orientation, and inter-functional coordination. Bahasa Indonesia Abstrak: Penelitian ini menguji hubungan empiris antara tiga dimensi orientasi pasar, yaitu, orientasi mahasiswa, orientasi pesaing dan koordinasi antar-fungsional dan kinerja perguruan tinggi swasta di Kopertis X. Penelitian ini didasarkan pada penyelidikan empiris pada universitas swasta yang berada di provinsi Sumatera Barat, Riau, Jambi, dan Kepulaian Riau. Data primer dikumpulkan dari survei dimana dari 237 kuesioner yang disebarkan pada universitas swasta, diperoleh 114 kuesioner yang dikembalikan dan dapat digunakan sebagai sampel. Berdasarkan hasil analisis regresi berganda dapat disimpulkan bahwa ketiga dimensi orientasi pasar memiliki dampak yang signifikan terhadap kinerja perguruan tinggi swasta. Orientasi mahasiswa sebagai variabel prediktor terkuat terhadap kinerja perguruan tinggi swasta kemudian diikuti oleh orientasi pesaing, dan koordinasi antar-fungsional.

A Synthesis Model of Sustainable Market Orientation: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Influence on Academic Accreditation--A Case Study of Egyptian-Accredited Faculties

Science.gov (United States)

Abou-Warda, Sherein H.

2014-01-01

Higher education institutions are increasingly concerned about accreditation. Although sustainable market orientation (SMO) bears on academic accreditation, to date, no study has developed a valid scale of SMO or assessed its influence on accreditation. The purpose of this paper is to construct and validate an SMO scale that was developed in…

The interaction between network ties and business modeling : Case studies of sustainability-oriented innovations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Oskam, Inge; Bossink, Bart; de Man, Ard Pieter

2018-01-01

A stream of literature is emerging where network development and business modeling intersect. Various authors emphasize that networks influence business models. This paper extends this stream of literature by studying two cases in which we analyze how business modeling and networking interact over

The Interaction between network ties and business modeling : case studies of sustainability-oriented innovations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Oskam, Inge; Bossink, Bart; de Man, Ard-Pieter

2018-01-01

A stream of literature is emerging where network development and business modeling intersect. Various authors emphasize that networks influence business models. This paper extends this stream of literature by studying two cases in which we analyze how business modeling and networking interact over

The future of future-oriented cognition in non-humans: theory and the empirical case of the great apes.

Science.gov (United States)

Osvath, Mathias; Martin-Ordas, Gema

2014-11-05

One of the most contested areas in the field of animal cognition is non-human future-oriented cognition. We critically examine key underlying assumptions in the debate, which is mainly preoccupied with certain dichotomous positions, the most prevalent being whether or not 'real' future orientation is uniquely human. We argue that future orientation is a theoretical construct threatening to lead research astray. Cognitive operations occur in the present moment and can be influenced only by prior causation and the environment, at the same time that most appear directed towards future outcomes. Regarding the current debate, future orientation becomes a question of where on various continua cognition becomes 'truly' future-oriented. We question both the assumption that episodic cognition is the most important process in future-oriented cognition and the assumption that future-oriented cognition is uniquely human. We review the studies on future-oriented cognition in the great apes to find little doubt that our closest relatives possess such ability. We conclude by urging that future-oriented cognition not be viewed as expression of some select set of skills. Instead, research into future-oriented cognition should be approached more like research into social and physical cognition. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Strong orientational coordinates and orientational order parameters for symmetric objects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haji-Akbari, Amir; Glotzer, Sharon C

2015-01-01

Recent advancements in the synthesis of anisotropic macromolecules and nanoparticles have spurred an immense interest in theoretical and computational studies of self-assembly. The cornerstone of such studies is the role of shape in self-assembly and in inducing complex order. The problem of identifying different types of order that can emerge in such systems can, however, be challenging. Here, we revisit the problem of quantifying orientational order in systems of building blocks with non-trivial rotational symmetries. We first propose a systematic way of constructing orientational coordinates for such symmetric building blocks. We call the arising tensorial coordinates strong orientational coordinates (SOCs) as they fully and exclusively specify the orientation of a symmetric object. We then use SOCs to describe and quantify local and global orientational order, and spatiotemporal orientational correlations in systems of symmetric building blocks. The SOCs and the orientational order parameters developed in this work are not only useful in performing and analyzing computer simulations of symmetric molecules or particles, but can also be utilized for the efficient storage of rotational information in long trajectories of evolving many-body systems. (paper)

[Differentiation of coding quality in orthopaedics by special, illustration-oriented case group analysis in the G-DRG System 2005].

Science.gov (United States)

Schütz, U; Reichel, H; Dreinhöfer, K

2007-01-01

We introduce a grouping system for clinical practice which allows the separation of DRG coding in specific orthopaedic groups based on anatomic regions, operative procedures, therapeutic interventions and morbidity equivalent diagnosis groups. With this, a differentiated aim-oriented analysis of illustrated internal DRG data becomes possible. The group-specific difference of the coding quality between the DRG groups following primary coding by the orthopaedic surgeon and final coding by the medical controlling is analysed. In a consecutive series of 1600 patients parallel documentation and group-specific comparison of the relevant DRG parameters were carried out in every case after primary and final coding. Analysing the group-specific share in the additional CaseMix coding, the group "spine surgery" dominated, closely followed by the groups "arthroplasty" and "surgery due to infection, tumours, diabetes". Altogether, additional cost-weight-relevant coding was necessary most frequently in the latter group (84%), followed by group "spine surgery" (65%). In DRGs representing conservative orthopaedic treatment documented procedures had nearly no influence on the cost weight. The introduced system of case group analysis in internal DRG documentation can lead to the detection of specific problems in primary coding and cost-weight relevant changes of the case mix. As an instrument for internal process control in the orthopaedic field, it can serve as a communicative interface between an economically oriented classification of the hospital performance and a specific problem solution of the medical staff involved in the department management.

Pilot study comparing market orientation culture of businesses and schools of business.

Science.gov (United States)

Harmon, Harry A; Webster, Robert L; Hammond, Kevin L

2003-08-01

A market orientation culture has been described as one that blends an organization's commitment to customer value with a process of continuously creating superior value for customers. Developing such a culture is further described as (1) obtaining information about customers, competitors, and markets, (2) examining the gathered information from a total organizational perspective, (3) deciding how to deliver superior customer value, and (4) implementing actions to provide value to customers. A market orientation culture focuses on the customer, identifies issues in the competitive environment, and coordinates all functional areas to achieve organizational objectives. Research has found businesses with higher market orientation are more successful in achieving organizational objectives. The measurement of market orientation within businesses has been empirically tested and validated. However, empirical research on market orientation in nonprofit organizations such as universities has not been examined. This study investigated market orientation within the university setting, specifically Schools of Business Administration, and compared these data with previously published data within the business sector. Data for comparative purposes were collected via a national survey. Hypothesis testing was conducted. Results indicated significantly lower market orientation culture within the schools of business as reported by AACSB Business School Deans vis-à-vis managers of business enterprises.

Case Study: Testing with Case Studies

Science.gov (United States)

Herreid, Clyde Freeman

2015-01-01

This column provides original articles on innovations in case study teaching, assessment of the method, as well as case studies with teaching notes. This month's issue discusses using case studies to test for knowledge or lessons learned.

The Internationalisation of Early Childhood Education: Case Study from Selected Kindergartens in Bandung, Indonesia

Science.gov (United States)

Adriany, Vina

2018-01-01

For the past 20 years, early childhood education has undergone changes that have resulted from an alteration in Indonesian socio-political situations. One of the changes has resulted in the emergence of the internationalisation of early childhood education in Indonesia. This paper unpacks the complexity of the process. Three teachers from three…

Linking Entrepreneurial Orientation to Firm Performance in a Post-Socialist Market Context: the Case of Hungary

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David KOVACS

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Entrepreneurial orientation provoked the interest of numerous scholars as well as political and administrative decision-makers. Both start-ups and already established corporate entities are increasingly persecuting new opportunities, products, and business models in order to establish superiority above their competitive environment. The tendencies evince an optimist impact of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance, namely on financial performance. Beyond the aforementioned relationship, there are impulses such as environmental and organizational factors, which are affecting the businesses. The results of this study provide evidence of the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance in a post-socialist context. We test the impact of three moderators on this bivariate relationship. In contrast to the substantial body of literature for Western markets, we contribute to minimizing the considerable gap of research in post-socialist economies. Entrepreneurial orientation as an organizational behavior may affect the financial performance of businesses differently in distinct market contexts. Both, internal and external factors are crucial to identifying, analyze and monitor, to achieve superior performance and to overcome competitors. This study builds upon a stratified sampling survey of Hungarian company owners and managers from the Amadeus database. The study uses a deductive approach. For the analysis, we rely on structural equation modeling using the PLS algorithm. Our study contributes to the existing literature by means of confirming the entrepreneurial orientation to firm performance relationship for Hungary. In this context, we test the moderating effects of environmental dynamism, environmental hostility as environmental factors and firm age as an organizational factor. Environmental hostility is closely related to an unfavorable environment, deriving from rapid and radical changes in the industry, which are

Health regionalization in Amazonas: progress and challenges.

Science.gov (United States)

Garnelo, Luiza; Sousa, Amandia Braga Lima; Silva, Clayton de Oliveira da

2017-04-01

This paper analyses the health services regionalization process in the State of Amazonas through a case study covering the health sub-region Manaus Surroundings. This is a qualitative, descriptive and analytical research, which data were collected using interviews, documents and Internet reviews, oriented by the guiding concept of health regionalization. Study findings revealed a social setting dominated by asymmetry, verticality, competitiveness and fragile multilateral relations among municipalities, associated to a bureaucratic profile of local institutions operating in the region under study. The political agents have limited acknowledgement of the sociopolitical and institutional conditions in which they operate. They usually impute healthcare networks' management and operational issues to the natural and geographical characteristics of the Amazon region, but their financing, governance and technical capacity are insufficient to overcome them.

Orientation of Zn3P2 films via phosphidation of Zn precursors

Science.gov (United States)

Katsube, Ryoji; Nose, Yoshitaro

2017-02-01

Orientation of solar absorber is an important factor to achieve high efficiency of thin film solar cells. In the case of Zn3P2 which is a promising absorber of low-cost and high-efficiency solar cells, (110)/(001) orientation was only reported in previous studies. We have successfully prepared (101)-oriented Zn3P2 films by phosphidation of (0001)-oriented Zn films at 350 °C. The phosphidation mechanism of Zn is discussed through STEM observations on the partially-reacted sample and the consideration of the relationship between the crystal structures of Zn and Zn3P2 . We revealed that (0001)-oriented Zn led to nucleation of (101)-oriented Zn3P2 due to the similarity in atomic arrangement between Zn and Zn3P2 . The electrical resistivity of the (101)-oriented Zn3P2 film was lower than those of (110)/(001)-oriented films, which is an advantage of the phosphidation technique to the growth processes in previous works. The results in this study demonstrated that well-conductive Zn3P2 films could be obtained by controlling orientations of crystal grains, and provide a guiding principle for microstructure control in absorber materials.

Career Orientations and Career Route Preferences in R&D Organisations.

Science.gov (United States)

Petroni, Alberto

2000-01-01

A survey of 151 Italian scientists and engineers and case studies of a career development system for technical professionals revealed that career orientation (as measured by Schein's career anchors) is a useful predictor of career route preferences. (Author/JOW)

Scattering phase functions of horizontally oriented hexagonal ice crystals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen Guang; Yang Ping; Kattawar, George W.; Mishchenko, Michael I.

2006-01-01

Finite-difference time domain (FDTD) solutions are first compared with the corresponding T-matrix results for light scattering by circular cylinders with specific orientations. The FDTD method is then utilized to study the scattering properties of horizontally oriented hexagonal ice plates at two wavelengths, 0.55 and 12 μm. The phase functions of horizontally oriented ice plates deviate substantially from their counterparts obtained for randomly oriented particles. Furthermore, we compute the phase functions of horizontally oriented ice crystal columns by using the FDTD method along with two schemes for averaging over the particle orientations. It is shown that the phase functions of hexagonal ice columns with horizontal orientations are not sensitive to the rotation about the principal axes of the particles. Moreover, hexagonal ice crystals and circular cylindrical ice particles have similar optical properties, particularly, at a strongly absorbing wavelength, if the two particle geometries have the same length and aspect ratio defined as the ratio of the radius or semi-width of the cross section of a particle to its length. The phase functions for the two particle geometries are slightly different in the case of weakly absorbing plates with large aspect ratios. However, the solutions for circular cylinders agree well with their counterparts for hexagonal columns

Activity Recognition Invariant to Sensor Orientation with Wearable Motion Sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Yurtman, Aras; Barshan, Billur

2017-08-09

Most activity recognition studies that employ wearable sensors assume that the sensors are attached at pre-determined positions and orientations that do not change over time. Since this is not the case in practice, it is of interest to develop wearable systems that operate invariantly to sensor position and orientation. We focus on invariance to sensor orientation and develop two alternative transformations to remove the effect of absolute sensor orientation from the raw sensor data. We test the proposed methodology in activity recognition with four state-of-the-art classifiers using five publicly available datasets containing various types of human activities acquired by different sensor configurations. While the ordinary activity recognition system cannot handle incorrectly oriented sensors, the proposed transformations allow the sensors to be worn at any orientation at a given position on the body, and achieve nearly the same activity recognition performance as the ordinary system for which the sensor units are not rotatable. The proposed techniques can be applied to existing wearable systems without much effort, by simply transforming the time-domain sensor data at the pre-processing stage.

Aspect-Oriented Model-Driven Software Product Line Engineering

Science.gov (United States)

Groher, Iris; Voelter, Markus

Software product line engineering aims to reduce development time, effort, cost, and complexity by taking advantage of the commonality within a portfolio of similar products. The effectiveness of a software product line approach directly depends on how well feature variability within the portfolio is implemented and managed throughout the development lifecycle, from early analysis through maintenance and evolution. This article presents an approach that facilitates variability implementation, management, and tracing by integrating model-driven and aspect-oriented software development. Features are separated in models and composed of aspect-oriented composition techniques on model level. Model transformations support the transition from problem to solution space models. Aspect-oriented techniques enable the explicit expression and modularization of variability on model, template, and code level. The presented concepts are illustrated with a case study of a home automation system.

Four cases on market orientation of value chains in agribusiness and fisheries

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grunert, Klaus G.; Jeppesen, Lisbeth Fruensgaard; Jespersen, Kristina Risom

2004-01-01

is the 'long' version of the empirical work in the first major phase of the project, where we study four examples of food value chains to get insight into their degree of market orientation and possible determinants. The insights gained here have been used in subsequent empirical work that is currently......This working paper presents results from the project 'Supra-company level determinants of degree of market orientation of value chains in agriculture and fisheries', which is carried out in cooperation between MAPP - Centre for Research on Customer Relations in the Food Sector, Aarhus School...... of Business, Denmark, the Norwegian College of Fisheries Science, University of Tromsø, Norway, and the Department of Marketing, University of Stirling, Scotland. It has benefited from grants from the Danish Social Science Research Council and from the Norwegian Research Council. The present working paper...

Study of molecular orientations in Langmuir-Blodgett films

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lesieur, Pierre

1986-01-01

This research thesis reports the characterization of Langmuir-Blodgett films by electric paramagnetic resonance and by resonant Raman diffusion in polarized light. Films are made of mixed or alternated multi-layers of amphiphilic porphyrins and docosenoic acid. The author more particularly studied the orientation of porphyrinic macro-cycles with respect to the layer substrate [fr

Orientations of terminal cladodes of Platyopuntias

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nobel, P.S.

1982-01-01

The orientations of terminal unshaded cladodes of 23 species of platyopuntias were observed in North America, South America, Australia, and Israel. When the seasonality of rainfall favored cladode development in the winter and the site was located above 27/sup 0/N, the cladodes tended to face north-south (five cases, P < .001 for each). In all other cases without topographical blockage of incoming radiation, the tendency was to face east-west. For example, terminal cladodes of Opuntia phaeacantha var. discata and O. stricta tended to face north-south in Israel but east-west in the United States (P > .001). Such dissimilar orientation patterns also occurred for cladodes of 0. chlorotica at two sites in the Sonoran Desert and for O. basilaris var. basilaris developing at different seasons at a single site. Contrary to previously published observations, cladodes of O. ficus-indica and O. compressa had a significant tendency to orient (P > .001). When topographical features affected the direction of prevailing photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), the preferred orientation of terminal cladodes was changed accordingly. The preferred direction always maximized the interception of PAR, which is often a limiting factor in the productivity of cacti, even in a putatively high radiation environment.

Sustainability Orientation and Entrepreneurship Orientation: Is There a Tradeoff Relationship between Them?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chang Soo Sung

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Sustainability and entrepreneurship are often regarded as binary concepts that have a tradeoff relationship, meaning that the higher the social and environmental consideration, the lower the private and economic benefits. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of individual sustainability orientation on opportunity recognition and sustainable entrepreneurship intention, and examine whether it has a tradeoff relationship with entrepreneurship orientation. The result of this study shows that sustainability orientation has a positive relationship with opportunity recognition and entrepreneurship intention related to sustainability. Analysis of the moderating effects of entrepreneurship orientation reveals the positive effect with sustainability orientation but negative effect with opportunity recognition on sustainable entrepreneurship intention. This study would suggest implications to entrepreneurs on how to balance sustainability and entrepreneurship and promote sustainability entrepreneurship.

Relations- and task-oriented behaviour of school leaders: Cases from primary schools in Finland

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mani Man Singh Rajbhandari

2016-08-01

principals, teachers, special-education teachers, and administrative staff members. The results suggest that leadership behavioural styles in terms of relations-oriented and task-oriented behaviour are equally important for accommodating changes and development in schools. The results suggest that relations-oriented behaviour was preferred by those who had been in the organisation for a longer time. The task-oriented behavioural style was found to be adopted when changes were required by the municipality (school district, which needed to be urgently addressed to meet the current requirements for school infrastructural development and changes in the educational system. In addition, the school leaders with task-oriented behaviour were more effective, while leaders with relations-oriented behaviour were efficient and generated social harmony. These findings suggest that contextual variations enabled flexibility in leadership behavioural style.

[Action-oriented versus state-oriented reactions to experimenter-induced failures].

Science.gov (United States)

Brunstein, J C

1989-01-01

The present study assessed different effects of action-oriented versus state-oriented styles of coping with failure on achievement-related performance and cognition. In a learned helplessness experiment, students were exposed to an academic failure situation and were then tested on a series of problem-solving tasks, either immediately after the pretreatment or after a delay of 24 hours. Performance and cognitive concomitants were measured during both experimental periods. Results demonstrated that action orientation was associated with self-immunizing cognitions during helplessness training. Action-oriented participants improved their performance level even after repeated failure feedbacks. Moreover, action-oriented students assigned to the delayed test condition responded with increased striving for success and showed performance increments, even in comparison with control subjects. In contrast, state-oriented participants developed symptoms of helplessness and showed impaired performance during failure inductions. In later tests on problem-solving tasks, state-oriented groups responded with increased fear of failure. Independent of immediate or delayed test conditions, they soon lapsed into new performance decrements.

Preparatory Training, States of Goal Orientation, and Mentoring Relationship Effectiveness

Science.gov (United States)

Scielzo, Shannon; Neeper, Michael; Smith-Jentsch, Kimberly A.

2012-01-01

We used an online academic-advising program to examine the effects of preparatory training designed to elicit high states of learning-goal orientation and low states of avoid goal orientation. Results indicate that training was effective in some cases for manipulating states of goal orientation. The training did not directly affect behaviors as…

Childhood gender-typed behavior and adolescent sexual orientation: A longitudinal population-based study.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Gu; Kung, Karson T F; Hines, Melissa

2017-04-01

Lesbian and gay individuals have been reported to show more interest in other-sex, and/or less interest in same-sex, toys, playmates, and activities in childhood than heterosexual counterparts. Yet, most of the relevant evidence comes from retrospective studies or from prospective studies of clinically referred, extremely gender nonconforming children. In addition, findings are mixed regarding the relation between childhood gender-typed behavior and the later sexual orientation spectrum from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively lesbian/gay. The current study drew a sample (2,428 girls and 2,169 boys) from a population-based longitudinal study, and found that the levels of gender-typed behavior at ages 3.5 and 4.75 years, although less so at age 2.5 years, significantly and consistently predicted adolescents' sexual orientation at age 15 years, both when sexual orientation was conceptualized as 2 groups or as a spectrum. In addition, within-individual change in gender-typed behavior during the preschool years significantly related to adolescent sexual orientation, especially in boys. These results suggest that the factors contributing to the link between childhood gender-typed behavior and sexual orientation emerge during early development. Some of those factors are likely to be nonsocial, because nonheterosexual individuals appear to diverge from gender norms regardless of social encouragement to conform to gender roles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Interaction between Science Teaching Orientation and Pedagogical Content Knowledge Components

Science.gov (United States)

Demirdögen, Betül

2016-01-01

The purpose of this case study is to delve into the complexities of how preservice science teachers' science teaching orientations, viewed as an interrelated set of beliefs, interact with the other components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Eight preservice science teachers participated in the study. Qualitative data were collected in the…

An outcome study of gestalt-oriented growth workshops.

Science.gov (United States)

Leung, Grace Suk Man; Leung, Timothy Yuk Ki; Ng, Monica Lai Tuen

2013-01-01

Compared to other intervention modalities, there are relatively few outcome studies of gestalt therapy. This study aimed to address this gap by evaluating the therapeutic effects of four gestalt-oriented group workshops designed to enhance well-being in professionals trained as social workers, counselors, and psychologists. The results of this preliminary, uncontrolled study indicated that the 55 participants had better emotional well-being and experienced a heightened sense of hope following the workshops. The factors leading to these positive outcomes are discussed.

Fathers' Orientation to their Children's Autism Diagnosis: A Grounded Theory Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Hannon, Michael D; Hannon, LaChan V

2017-07-01

Sixteen fathers of individuals with autism were interviewed to develop a grounded theory explaining how they learned about their children's autism diagnosis. Results suggest the orientation process entails at least two phases: orienting oneself and orienting others. The orienting oneself phase entailed fathers having suspicion of developmental differences, engaging in research and education activities, having their children formally evaluated; inquiring about their children's prognosis, and having curiosities about autism's etiology. The orienting others phase entailed orientating family members and orienting members of their broader communities. Recommendations for responsive service provision, support for fathers, and future research are offered.

Inelastic x-ray study of plasmons in oriented single and multi-walled carbon nanotubes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Casa, D.M.; Upton, M.H.; Gog, T.; Misewich, J.; Hill, J.P.; Lowndes, D.; Eres, G.

2006-01-01

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) have a wide variety of interesting properties and a large number of potential aplications in electronic and optical devices. In this study we concentrate on one important aspect of their electronic stucture: the plasmon dispersions in both single- and multi-wall CNTs and their relation to those in graphite. For the first time inelastic X-ray scattering is used to study these collective electronic excitations in oriented CNT samples. The experiments were performed on the IXS instrument at beamline 9ID CMC-XOR, APS, ANL. The incident energy was defined by a Si(333) monochromator, a spherically bent Ge(733) diced analyzer at the end of a 1-m arm focused the incident radiation onto a solid-state detector. The overall resolution was ∼300 meV FWHM. The incident photons were linearly polarized perpendicular to the scattering plane. Energy loss scans were taken by varying the incident energy while keeping the exit energy fixed at 8.9805 keV. The momentum transfer was kept along the nanotubes axis. Spectra were taken at room temperature. The samples were oriented CNTs (both single- and multi-wall) grown on a Si substrate. The samples referred to as 'single-wall' were in fact a few walls at most (1-5) while the multi-walled ones had ∼12 walls. Fig. 1. shows the inelastic spectra for the single-, multi-wall, and highly oriented pyrolithic graphite (HOPG) from top to bottom. Momentum transfer was Q = 0.79 (angstrom) -1 in all cases, its direction was along the tubes for the first two samples or parallel to the sheets for graphite. The peaks at ∼10 and ∼30 eV are known as the π and σ + π plasmons respectively. Fig. 2. shows the complete dispersion curves for both plasmon modes as a function of momentum transfer for all three samples.

Personality Traits, Sexual Problems, and Sexual Orientation: An Empirical Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Peixoto, Maria Manuela; Nobre, Pedro

2016-01-01

Personality traits, namely neuroticism, have been suggested as vulnerability factors for the development and maintenance of sexual dysfunction in heterosexual samples. However, no evidence was found regarding homosexual samples. This study aimed to analyze the differences on personality traits between heterosexual and homosexual men and women with and without sexual problems. Participants were 285 individuals (142 men, 143 women) who completed a web-based survey. Participants answered the NEO Five-Factor Inventory, the Brief Symptomatology Inventory, and questions regarding sexual problems. The groups of men and women with and without sexual problems were matched for sociodemographic variables. A 2 (Group) × 2 (Sexual Orientation) multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted separately for each gender. Results indicated a significant main effect for group and for sexual orientation in male and female samples. Men with sexual problems scored higher on neuroticism, whereas women with sexual problems scored higher on neuroticism and lower on extraversion when compared with healthy controls, regardless of sexual orientation. In addition, gay men scored higher on neuroticism and lesbian women scored higher on conscientiousness compared with the heterosexual groups. The present findings emphasize the central role of neuroticism on sexual problems in both men and women regardless of sexual orientation.

Orientationally ordered phase produced by fully antinematic interactions: A simulation study

Science.gov (United States)

Romano, Silvano; de Matteis, Giovanni

2011-07-01

We consider here a classical model, consisting of D2h symmetric particles, whose centers of mass are associated with a three-dimensional simple-cubic lattice; the pair potential is isotropic in orientation space, and restricted to nearest neighbors. Two orthonormal triads define orientations of a pair of interacting particles; the simplest potential models proposed in the literature can be written as a linear combination involving the squares of the scalar products between corresponding unit vectors only, thus depending on three parameters, and making the interaction model rather versatile. A coupling constant with negative sign tends to keep the two interacting unit vectors parallel to each other, whereas a positive sign tends to keep them mutually orthogonal (antinematic coupling). We address here a special, extreme case of the above family, involving only antinematic couplings: more precisely, three antinematic terms whose coefficients are set to a common positive value (hence the name PPP model). The model under investigation produces a doubly degenerate pair ground state; the nearest-neighbor range of the interaction and the bipartite character of the lattice can propagate the pair ground state and increase the overall degeneracy, but without producing frustration. The model was investigated by a simplified molecular field treatment as well as by Monte Carlo simulation, whose results suggested a second-order transition to a low-temperature biaxially ordered phase; ground-state configurations producing orientational order have been selected by thermal fluctuations. The molecular field treatment also predicted a continuous transition, and was found to overestimate the transition temperature by a factor 2.

Human-centered modeling in human reliability analysis: some trends based on case studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mosneron-Dupin, F.; Reer, B.; Heslinga, G.; Straeter, O.; Gerdes, V.; Saliou, G.; Ullwer, W.

1997-01-01

As an informal working group of researchers from France, Germany and The Netherlands created in 1993, the EARTH association is investigating significant subjects in the field of human reliability analysis (HRA). Our initial review of cases from nuclear operating experience showed that decision-based unrequired actions (DUA) contribute to risk significantly on the one hand. On the other hand, our evaluation of current HRA methods showed that these methods do not cover such actions adequately. Especially, practice-oriented guidelines for their predictive identification are lacking. We assumed that a basic cause for such difficulties was that these methods actually use a limited representation of the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) paradigm. We proposed a human-centered model, which better highlights the active role of the operators and the importance of their culture, attitudes and goals. This orientation was encouraged by our review of current HRA research activities. We therefore decided to envisage progress by identifying cognitive tendencies in the context of operating and simulator experience. For this purpose, advanced approaches for retrospective event analysis were discussed. Some orientations for improvements were proposed. By analyzing cases, various cognitive tendencies were identified, together with useful information about their context. Some of them match psychological findings already published in the literature, some of them are not covered adequately by the literature that we reviewed. Finally, this exploratory study shows that contextual and case-illustrated findings about cognitive tendencies provide useful help for the predictive identification of DUA in HRA. More research should be carried out to complement our findings and elaborate more detailed and systematic guidelines for using them in HRA studies

The biological basis of human sexual orientation: is there a role for epigenetics?

Science.gov (United States)

Ngun, Tuck C; Vilain, Eric

2014-01-01

Sexual orientation is one of the largest sex differences in humans. The vast majority of the population is heterosexual, that is, they are attracted to members of the opposite sex. However, a small but significant proportion of people are bisexual or homosexual and experience attraction to members of the same sex. The origins of the phenomenon have long been the subject of scientific study. In this chapter, we will review the evidence that sexual orientation has biological underpinnings and consider the involvement of epigenetic mechanisms. We will first discuss studies that show that sexual orientation has a genetic component. These studies show that sexual orientation is more concordant in monozygotic twins than in dizygotic ones and that male sexual orientation is linked to several regions of the genome. We will then highlight findings that suggest a link between sexual orientation and epigenetic mechanisms. In particular, we will consider the case of women with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). These women were exposed to high levels of testosterone in utero and have much higher rates of nonheterosexual orientation compared to non-CAH women. Studies in animal models strongly suggest that the long-term effects of hormonal exposure (such as those experienced by CAH women) are mediated by epigenetic mechanisms. We conclude by describing a hypothetical framework that unifies genetic and epigenetic explanations of sexual orientation and the continued challenges facing sexual orientation research. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Entrepreneurial Competition Orientation and Profitability: The Case of a Developing Economy

OpenAIRE

Marjanova, Tamara Jovanov; Sofijanova, Elenica; Davcev, Ljupco; Temjanovski, Riste

2015-01-01

The main purpose of this paper is to verify the significance of the implementation of competition orientation (CO) as a part of market orientation for the financial performance of the entrepreneurial small and medium – sized companies in a developing economy. The objectives are: 1. To measure the level of each of the variables of the scale (CO 1: The management continuously analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors; CO 2: We regularly use information about our competitors in st...

How do patients actually experience and use art in hospitals? The significance of interaction: a user-oriented experimental case study

OpenAIRE

Nielsen, Stine L.; Fich, Lars B.; Roessler, Kirsten K.; Mullins, Michael F.

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT This article aims to understand patient wellbeing and satisfaction and to qualify the current guidelines for the application of art in hospitals. Employing anthropological methods, we focus on the interactional aspects of art in health interventions. A user-oriented study ranked 20 paintings, followed by an experiment using paintings in the dayroom of five medical wards. Fieldwork was done over a two-week period. During the first week, dayrooms were configured without the presence of...

Strategically oriented management and controlling of resource intensive projects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kemmeter, Sascha

2015-01-01

The book on strategically oriented management and controlling of resource intensive projects covers the following issues: frame of project management and project controlling, classification of the decommissioning of nuclear facilities as resource intensive projects, research design for case studies, results of the study of project management specific characteristics of decommissioning, reference model for the project management of nuclear facility decommissioning.

A simulation of orientation dependent, global changes in camera sensitivity in ECT

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bieszk, J.A.; Hawman, E.G.; Malmin, R.E.

1984-01-01

ECT promises the abilities to: 1) observe radioisotope distributions in a patient without the summation of overlying activity to reduce contrast, and 2) measure quantitatively these distributions to further and more accurately assess organ function. Ideally, camera-based ECT systems should have a performance that is independent of camera orientation or gantry angle. This study is concerned with ECT quantitation errors that can arise from angle-dependent variations of camera sensitivity. Using simulated phantoms representative of heart and liver sections, the effects of sensitivity changes on reconstructed images were assessed both visually and quantitatively based on ROI sums. The sinogram for each test image was simulated with 128 linear digitization and 180 angular views. The global orientation-dependent sensitivity was modelled by applying an angular sensitivity dependence to the sinograms of the test images. Four sensitivity variations were studied. Amplitudes of 0% (as a reference), 5%, 10%, and 25% with a cosθ dependence were studied as well as a cos2θ dependence with a 5% amplitude. Simulations were done with and without Poisson noise to: 1) determine trends in the quantitative effects as a function of the magnitude of the variation, and 2) to see how these effects are manifested in studies having statistics comparable to clinical cases. For the most realistic sensitivity variation (cosθ, 5% ampl.), the ROIs chosen in the present work indicated changes of <0.5% in the noiseless case and <5% for the case with Poisson noise. The effects of statistics appear to dominate any effects due to global, sinusoidal, orientation-dependent sensitivity changes in the cases studied

Developing a Study Orientation Questionnaire in Mathematics for primary school students.

Science.gov (United States)

Maree, Jacobus G; Van der Walt, Martha S; Ellis, Suria M

2009-04-01

The Study Orientation Questionnaire in Mathematics (Primary) is being developed as a diagnostic measure for South African teachers and counsellors to help primary school students improve their orientation towards the study of mathematics. In this study, participants were primary school students in the North-West Province of South Africa. During the standardisation in 2007, 1,013 students (538 boys: M age = 12.61; SD = 1.53; 555 girls: M age = 11.98; SD = 1.35; 10 missing values) were assessed. Factor analysis yielded three factors. Analysis also showed satisfactory reliability coefficients and item-factor correlations. Step-wise linear regression indicated that three factors (Mathematics anxiety, Study attitude in mathematics, and Study habits in mathematics) contributed significantly (R2 = .194) to predicting achievement in mathematics as measured by the Basic Mathematics Questionnaire (Primary).

High pressure dielectric studies on the structural and orientational glass.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaminska, E; Tarnacka, M; Jurkiewicz, K; Kaminski, K; Paluch, M

2016-02-07

High pressure dielectric studies on the H-bonded liquid D-glucose and Orientationally Disordered Crystal (ODIC) 1,6-anhydro-D-glucose (levoglucosan) were carried out. It was shown that in both compounds, the structural relaxation is weakly sensitive to compression. It is well reflected in the low pressure coefficient of the glass transition and orientational glass transition temperatures which is equal to 60 K/GPa for both D-glucose and 1,6-anhydro-D-glucose. Although it should be noted that ∂Tg(0)/∂p evaluated for the latter compound seems to be enormously high with respect to other systems forming ODIC phase. We also found that the shape of the α-loss peak stays constant for the given relaxation time independently on the thermodynamic condition. Consequently, the Time Temperature Pressure (TTP) rule is satisfied. This experimental finding seems to be quite intriguing since the TTP rule was shown to work well in the van der Waals liquids, while in the strongly associating compounds, it is very often violated. We have also demonstrated that the sensitivity of the structural relaxation process to the temperature change measured by the steepness index (mp) drops with pressure. Interestingly, this change is much more significant in the case of D-glucose with respect to levoglucosan, where the fragility changes only slightly with compression. Finally, kinetics of ODIC-crystal phase transition was studied at high compression. It is worth mentioning that in the recent paper, Tombari and Johari [J. Chem. Phys. 142, 104501 (2015)] have shown that ODIC phase in 1,6-anhydro-D-glucose is stable in the wide range of temperatures and there is no tendency to form more ordered phase at ambient pressure. On the other hand, our isochronal measurements performed at varying thermodynamic conditions indicated unquestionably that the application of pressure favors solid (ODIC)-solid (crystal) transition in 1,6-anhydro-D-glucose. This result mimics the impact of pressure on the

Fixation orientation in ankle fractures with syndesmosis injury.

Science.gov (United States)

Nimick, Craig J; Collman, David R; Lagaay, Pieter

2013-01-01

Accurate reduction of the syndesmosis has been shown to be an important prognostic factor for functional outcome in ankle injuries that disrupt the syndesmosis. The purpose of the present case series was to assess the fixation orientation and the position of the fibula within the tibial incisura after open reduction and internal fixation of ankle fractures with syndesmosis injury. Computed tomography was used to assess the accuracy of the reduction. Twelve patients were included in the present case series. A ratio representing the relationship between the tibia and fibula and the orientation of the syndesmotic fixation was measured preoperatively and postoperatively and compared with the uninjured contralateral ankle, representing the patient's normal anatomy. The measurements were accomplished electronically to one tenth of 1 mm using Stentor Intelligent Informatics, I-site, version 3.3.1 (Phillips Electronics; Andover, MA). Posteriorly oriented syndesmotic fixation caused posterior translation of the fibula with respect to the tibia and anteriorly oriented syndesmotic fixation caused anterior translation. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Inc.

The Orientations of the Giza Pyramids and Associated Structures

Science.gov (United States)

Nell, Erin; Ruggles, Clive

2014-08-01

Ever since Flinders Petrie undertook a theodolite survey on the Giza plateau in 1881 and drew attention to the extraordinary degree of precision with which the three colossal pyramids are oriented upon the four cardinal directions, there have been a great many suggestions as to how this was achieved and why it was of importance. Surprisingly, given the many astronomical hypotheses and speculations that have been offered in the intervening 130 years, there have been remarkably few attempts to reaffirm or improve on the basic survey data concerning the primary orientations. This paper presents the results of a week-long Total Station survey undertaken by the authors during December 2006 whose principal aim was to clarify the basic data concerning the orientation of each side of the three large pyramids and to determine, as accurately as possible, the orientations of as many as possible of the associated structures. The principal difference between this and all previous surveys is that it focuses upon measurements of sequences of points along multiple straight and relatively well preserved structural segments, with best-fit techniques being used to provide the best estimate of their orientation, as opposed to simple triangulation between directly identified or extrapolated corners. Our results suggest that there is only a very slight difference in orientation (c. 0.5 arc minutes) between the north-south axes of Khufu's and Khafre's pyramids, that the sides of Khafre's are more perfectly perpendicular than those of Khufu's, and that the east-west axis is closer to true cardinality in both cases. The broader context of associated structures suggests that the east-west orientation in relation to sunrise or (in one case) sunset may have been a, or even the, key factor in many cases.

Orientalism/Occidentalism

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Minca, C.; Ong, C.E.

2017-01-01

Orientalism and Occidentalism are interrelated concepts. Orientalism is defined in three keys ways: (i) as a study of “the Orient”; (ii) as a cultural and aesthetic concern with “the Orient”; and (iii) as a critical approach to understanding the construction of “the Orient” by European and American

SYSTEMIC AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ranka Jeknić

2007-01-01

Full Text Available This paper analyses one by one the neo-liberalism, social-democracy, radicalism and political-islamism, as four typical socio-political and economic attitudes toward individualism and collectivism as cultural dimensions in the contemporary socio-political and economic contex of globalization. The paper points out principal differences between these four standpoints, and after that, makes conclusions and points out some problematic questions in the conection with the cultural and systemic differences. Their comparative analysis is in the connection with new sociological theories of culture: functionalistic orientation, marxistic and postmodernistic.

Impact of Aspect-Oriented Programming on the Quality of Novices’ Programs: A Comparative Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marija Katic

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Aspect-oriented programming has been introduced in order to increase the modularity of object-oriented programs and is claimed to improve software quality. Although there are various researches on this claim, the question to what extent aspect-oriented programming improves the quality of programs depending on a developer’s experience still remains. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether aspect-oriented programming used by novice programmers improves the quality of programs, in terms of software flexibility and readability (consequently reusability and maintainability as well. As a part of an undergraduate course in programming paradigms and languages, a systematic comparison between students’ object-oriented and aspect-oriented solutions of the same problem was driven. In order to drive this comparison we have established the basis for the development of the new quality assessment model consisting of software metrics for an objective evaluation and student survey for subjective evaluation. The results show that the use of aspect-oriented programming lead to novices’ programs that are easier to change and read (flexible and readable compared to object-oriented programs. What is more, administered survey showed that students perceive their programs as more flexible and readable.

The Cost of being Object-Oriented: A Preliminary Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zoran Budimlić

1999-01-01

Full Text Available Since the introduction of the Java programming language, there has been widespread interest in the use Java for the high performance scientific computing. One major impediment to such use is the performance penalty paid relative to Fortran. To support our research on overcoming this penalty through compiler technology, we have developed a benchmark suite, called OwlPack, which is based on the popular LINPACK library. Although there are existing implementations of LINPACK in Java, most of these are produced by direct translation from Fortran. As such they do not reflect the style of programming that a good object‐oriented programmer would use in Java. Our goal is to investigate how to make object‐oriented scientific programming practical. Therefore we developed two object‐oriented versions of LINPACK in Java, a true polymorphic version and a “Lite” version designed for higher performance. We used these libraries to perform a detailed performance analysis using several leading Java compilers and virtual machines, comparing the performance of the object‐oriented versions of the benchmark with a version produced by direct translation from Fortran. Although Java implementations have been made great strides, they still fall short on programs that use the full power of Java’s object‐oriented features. Our ultimate goal is to drive research on compiler technology that will reward, rather than penalize good object‐oriented programming practice.

A study of earthquake-induced building detection by object oriented classification approach

Science.gov (United States)

Sabuncu, Asli; Damla Uca Avci, Zehra; Sunar, Filiz

2017-04-01

Among the natural hazards, earthquakes are the most destructive disasters and cause huge loss of lives, heavily infrastructure damages and great financial losses every year all around the world. According to the statistics about the earthquakes, more than a million earthquakes occur which is equal to two earthquakes per minute in the world. Natural disasters have brought more than 780.000 deaths approximately % 60 of all mortality is due to the earthquakes after 2001. A great earthquake took place at 38.75 N 43.36 E in the eastern part of Turkey in Van Province on On October 23th, 2011. 604 people died and about 4000 buildings seriously damaged and collapsed after this earthquake. In recent years, the use of object oriented classification approach based on different object features, such as spectral, textural, shape and spatial information, has gained importance and became widespread for the classification of high-resolution satellite images and orthophotos. The motivation of this study is to detect the collapsed buildings and debris areas after the earthquake by using very high-resolution satellite images and orthophotos with the object oriented classification and also see how well remote sensing technology was carried out in determining the collapsed buildings. In this study, two different land surfaces were selected as homogenous and heterogeneous case study areas. In the first step of application, multi-resolution segmentation was applied and optimum parameters were selected to obtain the objects in each area after testing different color/shape and compactness/smoothness values. In the next step, two different classification approaches, namely "supervised" and "unsupervised" approaches were applied and their classification performances were compared. Object-based Image Analysis (OBIA) was performed using e-Cognition software.

Predicting Teacher Emotional Labour Based on Multi-Frame Leadership Orientations: A Case from Turkey

Science.gov (United States)

Özdemir, Murat; Koçak, Seval

2018-01-01

Human behaviours in organisations are closely associated with leadership styles. The main purpose of this study is to find out the relationship between teachers' perception about multi-frame leadership orientations of principals and teachers' emotional labour. The study is based on Bolman and Deal's Four Frames Model, and, therefore, the…

Understanding political market orientation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ormrod, Robert P.; Henneberg, Stephan C.

influences of such behavior. The study includes structural equation modeling to investigate several propositions. While the results show that political parties need to focus on several different aspects of market-oriented behavior, especially using an internal and external orientation as cultural antecedents......This article develops a conceptual framework and measurement model of political market orientation that consists of attitudinal and behavioural constructs. The article reports on perceived relationships among different behavioral aspects of political market orientation and the attitudinal......, a more surprising result is the inconclusive effect of a voter orientation on market-oriented behaviours. The article discusses the findings in the context of the existing literature in political marketing and commercial market orientation....

Contextualising ECEC Research: The Case of Slovenia

Science.gov (United States)

Vidmar, Maša

2015-01-01

In the present study the longitudinal relations between quantity of centre-based child care (in months) and teacher reports of internalising and externalising behaviour in the first and second grades were examined for 325 Slovenian children. The socio-political context of affordable, accessible and homogenously high-quality child care is quite…

Fathers' Orientation to Their Children's Autism Diagnosis: A Grounded Theory Study

Science.gov (United States)

Hannon, Michael D.; Hannon, LaChan V.

2017-01-01

Sixteen fathers of individuals with autism were interviewed to develop a grounded theory explaining how they learned about their children's autism diagnosis. Results suggest the orientation process entails at least two phases: orienting oneself and orienting others. The orienting oneself phase entailed fathers having suspicion of developmental…

Digital Entrepreneurship in a Traditional Production Firm: A Longitudinal Case Study

OpenAIRE

Martin Hannibal; Erik S. Rasmussen

2014-01-01

Through a longitudinal case study this paper explores the repercussions from introducing a mobile commerce platform as just another instrument in the marketing toolbox in a traditional sales-oriented firm. Findings suggest that the implementation of the M-platform in addition to its intended purpose spawns a digital business model that allows the company to change its relations to distributors, retailers and customers enabling access to direct communication with end-users. However, the emergi...

Customer orientation and innovation : a comparative study of manufacturing and service firms

OpenAIRE

Wang, Qiang; Zhao, Xiande; Voss, Christopher

2016-01-01

This study investigates the effect of customer orientation on innovation performance in manufacturing and service firms by comparing their innovation mechanisms. Based on a sample of 1646 manufacturing firms and 686 service firms, our results indicate that customer orientation positively affects service innovativeness and product innovativeness in service firms and manufacturing firms, respectively, and that such effects are mediated by two important firm resources: supplier collaboration and...

The Interplay of Virtual Communities: A Multiple Case Study of E-Retailers in Yahoo E-Auctions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Julia Zhi-Xian Zhao

2012-06-01

Full Text Available This study investigated how businesses operate e-shops in a transaction-oriented virtual community. This research employed a multiple case study approach by observing three cases of e-retailers, as being new e-commerce initiates, operating their businesses on the Yahoo! e-auction website. The results showed that e-shops displaying amusing stories can attract site visitors and “spick and span” e-shop design format can be helpful for converting visitors into buyers.

Fulfilment of administrative and professional organisational obligations and nurses' customer-oriented behaviours.

Science.gov (United States)

Trybou, Jeroen; Gemmel, Paul

2016-07-01

The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between the perceived quality of organisational exchange and nurses' customer-oriented behaviours. Hospitals face increasing competitive market conditions. Registered nurses interact closely with patients and therefore play an important front-office role towards patients. A cross-sectional study was conducted. Registered nurses (n = 151) of a Belgian hospital received a questionnaire to assess the fulfilment of administrative and professional organisational obligations and their customer-oriented behaviours. We found a positive relationship between psychological contract fulfilment and nurses' customer-oriented behaviours. More precisely administrative and professional psychological contract fulfilment relates significantly to nurses' service delivery and external representation. In case of internal influence only administrative psychological contract fulfilment was significantly related. Nurses' perceptions of the fulfilment of administrative and professional obligations are important to their customer-oriented behaviours. Nurse managers must be aware of the impact of fulfilling both administrative and professional obligations of registered nurses in order to optimise their customer-oriented behaviours. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Economic impacts of short-rotation woody crops for energy or oriented strand board: a Minnesota case study

Science.gov (United States)

William F. Lazarus; Douglas G. Tiffany; Ronald S. Zalesny Jr.; Don E. Riemenschneider

2011-01-01

Short-rotation woody crops (SRWC) such as hybrid poplars are becoming increasingly competitive with agriculture on marginal land. The trees can be grown for energy and for traditional uses such as oriented strandboard. Using IMPLAN (Impact Analysis for Planning) software, we modeled the impacts of shifting land use from hay and pasture for cow-calf beef operations to...

Real-time object-oriented programming: studies and proposals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fouquier, Gilles

1996-01-01

This thesis contributes to the introduction of real-time features in object-oriented programming. Object-oriented programming favours modularity and reusability. Therefore, its application to real-time introduces many theoretical and conceptual problems. To deal with these problems, a new real-time object-oriented programming model is presented. This model is based on the active object model which allows concurrence and maintains the encapsulation property. The real-time aspect is treated by replacing the concept of task by the concept of method processing and by associating a real-time constraint to each message (priority or deadline). The set of all the running methods is scheduled. This model, called ATOME, contains several sub-models to deal with the usual concurrence control integrating their priority and deadline processing. The classical HPF and EDF scheduling avoid priority or deadline inversion. This model and its variants are new proposals to program real-time applications in the object-oriented way, therefore easing reusability and code writing. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated by extending and existing active object-based language to real-time, in using the rules defined in the ATOME model. (author) [fr

Social acceptance of CO{sub 2} storage: Review of case studies and literature review; Aceptabilidad Social del Almacenamiento de CO{sub 2}: Revision de Estudios de Caso y Revision de la Literatura

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sola, R; Oltra, C; Sala, R; Di Masso, M

2009-12-19

Stake holder and public acceptance of CCS will play an important role in the efficient technology development. Together with socio-political acceptance, local acceptance could raise significant challenges to CCS deployment. The objective of the present work is to analyse the social acceptance of CO{sub 2} storage. First, we review the social science literature on local reactions and acceptance of risk technology projects. Lessons learned during these last decades around possible local reactions to risk technology facilities could help in the design of communication strategies for the context of CO{sub 2} storage. Second, we review different case studies of European CCS projects in which some strategy of public information, communication or engagement has been initiated from the promoters of the project. (Author) 26 refs.

Temporal Doppler Effect and Future Orientation: Adaptive Function and Moderating Conditions.

Science.gov (United States)

Gan, Yiqun; Miao, Miao; Zheng, Lei; Liu, Haihua

2017-06-01

The objectives of this study were to examine whether the temporal Doppler effect exists in different time intervals and whether certain individual and environmental factors act as moderators of the effect. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we examined the existence of the temporal Doppler effect and the moderating effect of future orientation among 139 university students (Study 1), and then the moderating conditions of the temporal Doppler effect using two independent samples of 143 and 147 university students (Studies 2 and 3). Results indicated that the temporal Doppler effect existed in all of our studies, and that future orientation moderated the temporal Doppler effect. Further, time interval perception mediated the relationship between future orientation and the motivation to cope at long time intervals. Finally, positive affect was found to enhance the temporal Doppler effect, whereas control deprivation did not influence the effect. The temporal Doppler effect is moderated by the personality trait of future orientation and by the situational variable of experimentally manipulated positive affect. We have identified personality and environmental processes that could enhance the temporal Doppler effect, which could be valuable in cases where attention to a future task is necessary. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[Is "mental health" part of the common good? The sociopolitical framework of psychiatric ethics and the responsibility of health-care elites].

Science.gov (United States)

Bohlken, Eike

2014-07-01

Psychiatric work can only be that ethical as the framework of a health-care system allows. Thus, the responsibility of the health-care elites to establish a sociopolitical framework that suits psychiatric ethics is discussed on the basis of a theory of the common good and of a philosophical and normative elite theory. "Mental health" is demonstrated to be part of a basic sphere of the common good which cannot be denied to any member of a society. The final section discusses which specific duties can be derived for health-care elites on the ground of the aforementioned conception of "mental health" as a part of the common good. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Magnetic compass orientation in the European eel.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Caroline M F Durif

Full Text Available European eel migrate from freshwater or coastal habitats throughout Europe to their spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea. However, their route (~ 6000 km and orientation mechanisms are unknown. Several attempts have been made to prove the existence of magnetoreception in Anguilla sp., but none of these studies have demonstrated magnetic compass orientation in earth-strength magnetic field intensities. We tested eels in four altered magnetic field conditions where magnetic North was set at geographic North, South, East, or West. Eels oriented in a manner that was related to the tank in which they were housed before the test. At lower temperature (under 12°C, their orientation relative to magnetic North corresponded to the direction of their displacement from the holding tank. At higher temperatures (12-17°C, eels showed bimodal orientation along an axis perpendicular to the axis of their displacement. These temperature-related shifts in orientation may be linked to the changes in behavior that occur between the warm season (during which eels are foraging and the colder fall and winter (during which eels undertake their migrations. These observations support the conclusion that 1. eels have a magnetic compass, and 2. they use this sense to orient in a direction that they have registered moments before they are displaced. The adaptive advantage of having a magnetic compass and learning the direction in which they have been displaced becomes clear when set in the context of the eel's seaward migration. For example, if their migration is halted or blocked, as it is the case when environmental conditions become unfavorable or when they encounter a barrier, eels would be able to resume their movements along their old bearing when conditions become favorable again or when they pass by the barrier.

Magnetic compass orientation in the European eel.

Science.gov (United States)

Durif, Caroline M F; Browman, Howard I; Phillips, John B; Skiftesvik, Anne Berit; Vøllestad, L Asbjørn; Stockhausen, Hans H

2013-01-01

European eel migrate from freshwater or coastal habitats throughout Europe to their spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea. However, their route (~ 6000 km) and orientation mechanisms are unknown. Several attempts have been made to prove the existence of magnetoreception in Anguilla sp., but none of these studies have demonstrated magnetic compass orientation in earth-strength magnetic field intensities. We tested eels in four altered magnetic field conditions where magnetic North was set at geographic North, South, East, or West. Eels oriented in a manner that was related to the tank in which they were housed before the test. At lower temperature (under 12°C), their orientation relative to magnetic North corresponded to the direction of their displacement from the holding tank. At higher temperatures (12-17°C), eels showed bimodal orientation along an axis perpendicular to the axis of their displacement. These temperature-related shifts in orientation may be linked to the changes in behavior that occur between the warm season (during which eels are foraging) and the colder fall and winter (during which eels undertake their migrations). These observations support the conclusion that 1. eels have a magnetic compass, and 2. they use this sense to orient in a direction that they have registered moments before they are displaced. The adaptive advantage of having a magnetic compass and learning the direction in which they have been displaced becomes clear when set in the context of the eel's seaward migration. For example, if their migration is halted or blocked, as it is the case when environmental conditions become unfavorable or when they encounter a barrier, eels would be able to resume their movements along their old bearing when conditions become favorable again or when they pass by the barrier.

Object-oriented design and programming in medical decision support.

Science.gov (United States)

Heathfield, H; Armstrong, J; Kirkham, N

1991-12-01

The concept of object-oriented design and programming has recently received a great deal of attention from the software engineering community. This paper highlights the realisable benefits of using the object-oriented approach in the design and development of clinical decision support systems. These systems seek to build a computational model of some problem domain and therefore tend to be exploratory in nature. Conventional procedural design techniques do not support either the process of model building or rapid prototyping. The central concepts of the object-oriented paradigm are introduced, namely encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism, and their use illustrated in a case study, taken from the domain of breast histopathology. In particular, the dual roles of inheritance in object-oriented programming are examined, i.e., inheritance as a conceptual modelling tool and inheritance as a code reuse mechanism. It is argued that the use of the former is not entirely intuitive and may be difficult to incorporate into the design process. However, inheritance as a means of optimising code reuse offers substantial technical benefits.

Contemporary internal auditing practices : (new) roles and influencing variables. Evidence from extended case studies

OpenAIRE

G. SARENS; I. DE BEELDE

2004-01-01

Following the recommendation made by Rittenberg (1999), this study encompasses the broader nature of internal auditing that is evolving in practice and confirmed by the revised definition of internal auditing and the new Professional Practices Framework, both issued by the IIA in 1999. This study, based on six extended case studies, attempts to contribute to the literature by studying contemporary internal auditing practices in Belgium (assurance and / or consulting oriented), refining the in...

US NDC Modernization: Service Oriented Architecture Study Status

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hamlet, Benjamin R. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Encarnacao, Andre Villanova [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Harris, James M. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Young, Christopher J. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

2014-12-01

This report is a progress update on the USNDC Modernization Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) study describing results from Inception Iteration 1, which occurred between October 2012 and March 2013. The goals during this phase are 1) discovering components of the system that have potential service implementations, 2) identifying applicable SOA patterns for data access, service interfaces, and service orchestration/choreography, and 3) understanding performance tradeoffs for various SOA patterns

Experimental studies of hydrogen on boron nitride: II. NMR studies of orientational ordering of H2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Evans, M.D.; Sullivan, N.S.

1995-01-01

The authors report the results of NMR studies of thin films of hydrogen adsorbed on hexagonal boron nitride. Orientational ordering is observed below 1 K but the ordering is not complete, and a clear two-component ordering is observed. Molecules are either (i) almost completely ordered with local order parameters σ=left-angle 1-3/2Jz 2 right-angle clustered close to a maximum value of σ congruent 0.94 (comparable to the values for long range ordering in bulk samples at high ortho concentrations), and (ii) a large fraction of the molecules that remain nearly disordered with σ≤0.25. The degree of orientational ordering depends on the number of hydrogen layers and on the ortho-hydrogen concentration, and these studies indicate that ordering occurs principally in the first four layers closest to the substrate, with weaker orientational ordering in the outer layers near the free surface even at temperatures as low as 210 mK

Salespeople's Renqing Orientation, Self-esteem, and Selling Behaviors: An Empirical Study in Taiwan.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsai, Ming-Hong; Chi, Shu-Cheng Steve; Hu, Hsiu-Hua

2009-06-01

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate how salespeople's renqing orientation and self-esteem jointly affect their selling behavior. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Data were obtained from a survey of salespeople from 17 pharmaceutical and consumer-goods companies in Taiwan (n = 216). FINDINGS: Salespeople's renqing orientation (i.e., their propensity to adhere to the accepted norm of reciprocity) compensates the negative effect of self-esteem on their selling behaviors, such as adaptive selling and hard work. IMPLICATIONS: Our study results underscore the critical role of the character trait of renqing orientation in a culture emphasizing a norm of reciprocity. Therefore, it would be useful to consider a strategy of recruiting salespeople with either a high self-esteem or a combination of high renqing orientation and low self-esteem. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The existing literature of industrial/organizational psychology and marketing primarily relies on constructs that are derived from Western cultural contexts. However, the present paper extended these literatures by investigating the possible joint effects of self-esteem with a trait originated from the Chinese culture on salespeople's selling behaviors.

Does Online Game-Based Learning Work in Formal Education at School? A Case Study of VISOLE

Science.gov (United States)

Jong, Morris S. Y.

2015-01-01

VISOLE (Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Environment) is a teacher-facilitated pedagogical approach to integrating constructivist online game-based learning into formal curriculum teaching in school education. This paper reports a case study on the implementation of VISOLE in secondary Geography education. We compared the pedagogical…

Patient-centered care requires a patient-oriented workflow model.

Science.gov (United States)

Ozkaynak, Mustafa; Brennan, Patricia Flatley; Hanauer, David A; Johnson, Sharon; Aarts, Jos; Zheng, Kai; Haque, Saira N

2013-06-01

Effective design of health information technology (HIT) for patient-centered care requires consideration of workflow from the patient's perspective, termed 'patient-oriented workflow.' This approach organizes the building blocks of work around the patients who are moving through the care system. Patient-oriented workflow complements the more familiar clinician-oriented workflow approaches, and offers several advantages, including the ability to capture simultaneous, cooperative work, which is essential in care delivery. Patient-oriented workflow models can also provide an understanding of healthcare work taking place in various formal and informal health settings in an integrated manner. We present two cases demonstrating the potential value of patient-oriented workflow models. Significant theoretical, methodological, and practical challenges must be met to ensure adoption of patient-oriented workflow models. Patient-oriented workflow models define meaningful system boundaries and can lead to HIT implementations that are more consistent with cooperative work and its emergent features.

CROSSFIT – mental training. Case study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Beata Rolak

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Introduction: CrossFit is a challenging sport. It enforces full engagement of the athlete in every move during every training session. CrossFit teaches perseverance, discipline and respect. Sports psychology allows for in-depth analysis of trainings or competitions. The athlete can better prepare himself for what he may face, both on the mistakes made and on success. Regular mental training supports the athlete's ability to be successful in sports. The aim of the study: The purpose of this paper was to demonstrate the relationship between mental training - here mainly focused on concentration, self-confidence and imagery,  CrossFit and sports performance. Material and the method: This paper is a case study. The subject of the study was a male - 30 years old, training crossfit, with the 3-year training experience. Meeting  period with the subject male was conducted for 2 months. Before and after the meeting period there were used below mentioned methods: Sports Confidence Inventory (TSCI-PL; The Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS; The Imagination in Sport Questionnaire; The Sport  Orientation Questionnaire (SOQ and the profile of skills.   Results: There was a noticeable increase of the results in the questionnaires: Sports Confidence Inventory (TSCI-PL; The Imagination in Sport Questionnaire; The Sport  Orientation Questionnaire (SOQ questionnaire for the self-confidence (TSCI-PL.  The Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS there was an increase of the results regarding the somatic anxiety and worrying also there was a decrease in the scale of distraction. Conclusion: The meeting period turned out to be effective, however the mental training requires regularity and longevity in order to maintain consistency and repeatability of behavior.

West meets East: psychophysics studies for understanding mysterious Oriental health promoting practices

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Hai-Wen

2008-04-01

Based on his early graduated studies in psychophysics, the author has, in recent years, applied psychophysics for studying organic and motor senses (the two sensory systems deeply embedded inside of human body), and tried to understand the scientific foundation of the oriental health promoting practices. The preliminary results are promising and are discussed in detail in this paper. Psychophysics studies of organic and motor senses may be the tool to provide the connection between Western and Eastern medicines to form a balanced holistic medicine approach, and may help us to understand the scientific foundation of mysterious oriental health Promoting practices that serve as alternative medicines for promoting human wellness against illness.

Study of relationship between the organizational structure and market orientation from the viewpoint of nurse managers.

Science.gov (United States)

Bahadori, Mohammadkarim; Yaghoubi, Maryam; Javadi, Marzieh; Rahimi, Zahreh Agha

2015-01-01

Considering globalization of health care and quality improvement trend to respond to competition and customer orientation, attention to organizational structure and its relationship with market orientation is essential. Therefore, this study reviews the relationship between organizational structure and market orientation in selected hospitals of Isfahan (Iran). This study was a descriptive survey. The study population comprised nurse managers from selected hospitals (n = 80). Data collection tools were two questionnaires (market orientation questionnaire and organizational structure) that the validity and reliability were confirmed (r = 0.83 for market orientation questionnaire and r = 0.87 for organizational structure). SPSS (Ver. 16) software was used for the analyses. The mean score of organizational structure was 65.4 (11.2) and total mean of market orientation was 51.14 (17.6). All aspects of the organizational structure (Organization Centralization, Formalization in Organization, and Organization Complication) and market orientation (responding to competition, accountability, customer satisfaction, intelligent organization)-except by responding to clients with Formalization in Organization-as well as all aspects of the Systemic attitude (the system of internal coordination and communication systems_ and market orientation (responding to competition, accountability, customer satisfaction, intelligent organization), there was a meaningful relationship (P organizational structure and can lead managers' view to the analysis and recognizing elements of success and achievement to goals. With increasing competition in markets, globalization of health services, and presence in international markets and more attention to patients' satisfaction, hospitals need to understand and use of market orientation in order to promote quality and services in the health care system.

Large-scale hydropower system optimization using dynamic programming and object-oriented programming: the case of the Northeast China Power Grid.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ji-Qing; Zhang, Yu-Shan; Ji, Chang-Ming; Wang, Ai-Jing; Lund, Jay R

2013-01-01

This paper examines long-term optimal operation using dynamic programming for a large hydropower system of 10 reservoirs in Northeast China. Besides considering flow and hydraulic head, the optimization explicitly includes time-varying electricity market prices to maximize benefit. Two techniques are used to reduce the 'curse of dimensionality' of dynamic programming with many reservoirs. Discrete differential dynamic programming (DDDP) reduces the search space and computer memory needed. Object-oriented programming (OOP) and the ability to dynamically allocate and release memory with the C++ language greatly reduces the cumulative effect of computer memory for solving multi-dimensional dynamic programming models. The case study shows that the model can reduce the 'curse of dimensionality' and achieve satisfactory results.

Raw data from orientation studies in crystalline rock areas of the southeastern United States

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Price, V.

1976-03-01

Raw data are presented on orientation studies conducted in crystalline rock areas of the Southeast which were chosen because of published references to uranium mineralization. Preliminary data for four orientation study areas are included. These areas are Lamar County, Georgia; Oconee County, South Carolina; Brush Creek, North Carolina; and North Harper, North Carolina. Sample locality maps, tables of field data, and tables of analytical data are included for each study area

What predicts recovery orientation in county departments of mental health? A pilot study.

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Timothy T; Mahoney, Christine B; Adams, Neal; Felton, Mistique; Pareja, Candy

2010-09-01

In this pilot study we examined the determinants of recovery orientation among employees and influential stakeholders in a sample of 12 county departments of mental health in California. A two-level hierarchical linear model with random intercepts was estimated. Analyses show that recovery orientation has a U-shaped relationship with the age of staff/influential stakeholders and is negatively related to the difference between the desired level of adhocracy and the current level of adhocracy. Recovery orientation is positively related to the education level of staff/influential stakeholders, satisfying transformational leadership outcomes, and larger mental health budgets per capita. Policy implications are discussed.

Order-parameter tensor description of HPr in a medium of oriented bicelles.

Science.gov (United States)

van Lune, Franciska; Manning, Linda; Dijkstra, Klaas; Berendsen, Herman J C; Scheek, Ruud M

2002-07-01

Residual dipolar couplings between 15N and 1H nuclear spins in HPr were used to determine the protein's orientation in a medium of bicelles, oriented by a magnetic field. In the case of wild-type HPr the protein's non-spherical shape can explain its orientation in this medium. In the case of the F48W mutant it was found that at least one other mechanism contributes to the observed orientation of the protein, to a degree that depends on the concentration of phosphate ions in the medium. We propose that the F48W mutant has a weak affinity towards the bicelle-surfaces that decreases with increasing phosphate concentrations. We used an order-parameter description to analyse this situation and to determine the axis of main order and the sign of the order parameter pertaining to this additional orientation mechanism.

Gender differences in positive life orientation among the nursing home elders in China: A cross-sectional study.

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, Cheng; Zheng, Zhibo; Xian, Wei; Bai, Ming; Jin, Liying; Li, Yuting; Yang, Xiufei; Sheng, Yang; Ai, Wensi; Liu, Hongbo

2017-09-01

Life orientation among the nursing home elders would differ from those of community-dwelling elders due to the different living environment, but may have greater differences in gender. This study was designed to investigate the positive life orientation and explore the potential risk factors including gender disparities among nursing home elders in China. This cross-sectional study was conducted in Northeast China. Two steps cluster sampling procedure were chosen. Basic activities of daily living (BADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) systems were used to estimate the functional status. Positive life orientation was measured using the six-question life orientation scale (LOS). 2512 nursing home elders were enrolled in the study. The mean age of the participants was 73.14±6.746years. Of the 1308 men and 1204 women, 14.9% had a positive life orientation in women and 16.1% in men. Higher level of education, independent in BADL and IADL were related to positive life orientation both in men and women. Age and BMI were also found to be significantly associated with positive life orientation in men (OR=0.587, 1.132, respectively). For women, the influence of income and vision on positive life orientation was also significant (OR=1.967, 1.926, respectively). The positive life orientation was higher in men than women. The gender-specific differences contribute to take more effective measures to improve the positive life orientation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Problem-oriented project studies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Jørgen Lerche; Danielsen, Oluf

2010-01-01

and marking papers / essays is complemented and in some way overruled by a new role as supervisor and facilitator for the group of students working with a research problem, they themselves have picked. However different dimensions of this new teacher role can be seen – from expert in an academic field (result......-oriented focusing on how the final product demonstrates the students’ ‘correct’ way to handle the academic aspects of the subject in mind) to a role more focusing on processes, methodological dimensions and stressing the importance of a reflexive approach. Some teachers may even tend to take on a role...

Orientation sensitive deformation in Zr alloys: experimental and modeling studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Srivastava, D.; Keskar, N.; Manikrishna, K.V.; Dey, G.K.; Jha, S.K.; Saibaba, N.

2016-01-01

Zirconium alloys are used for fuel cladding and other structural components in pressurised heavy water nuclear reactors (PHWR's). Currently there is a lot of interest in developing alloys for structural components for higher temperature reactor operation. There is also need for development of cladding material with better corrosion and mechanical property of cladding material for higher and extended burn up applications. The performance of the cladding material is primarily influenced by the microstructural features of the material such as constituent phases their morphology, precipitates characteristics, nature of defects etc. Therefore, the microstructure is tailored as per the performance requirement by through controlled additions of alloying elements, thermo-mechanical- treatments. In order to obtain the desired microstructure, it is important to know the deformation behaviour of the material. Orientation dependent deformation behavior was studied in Zr using a combination of experimental and modeling (both discrete and atomistic dislocation dynamics) methods. Under the conditions of plane strain deformation, it was observed that single phase Zr, had significant extent of deformation heterogeneity based on local orientations. Discrete dislocation dynamics simulations incorporating multi slip systems had captured the orientation sensitive deformation. MD dislocations on the other hand brought the fundamental difference in various crystallographic orientations in determining the nucleating stress for the dislocations. The deformed structure has been characterized using X-ray, electron and neutron diffraction techniques. The various operating deformation mechanism will be discussed in this presentation. (author)

A study on the environmental friendliness of nuclear fuel cycle

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, K. J.; Lee, B. H.; Lee, S. Y.; Lim, C. Y.; Choi, Y. S.; Lee, Y. E.; Hong, D. S.; Cheong, J. H; Park, J. B.; Kim, K. K.; Cheong, H. Y; Song, M. C; Lee, H. J. [Korea Advanced Inst. of Science and Technology, Taejon (Korea, Republic of)

1998-01-01

The purpose of this study is to develop methodologies for quantifying environmental and socio-political factors involved with nuclear fuel cycle and finally to evaluate nuclear fuel cycle options with special emphasis given to the factors. Moreover, methodologies for developing practical radiological health risk assessment code system will be developed by which the assessment could be achieved for the recycling and reuse of scrap materials containing residual radioactive contamination. Selected scenarios are direct disposal, DUPIC(Direct use of PWR spent fuel in CANDU), and MOX recycle, land use, radiological effect, and non-radiological effect were chosen for environmental criteria and public acceptance and non-proliferation of nuclear material for socio-political ones. As a result of this study, potential scenarios to be chosen in Korea were selected and methodologies were developed to quantify the environmental and socio-political criteria. 24 refs., 27 tabs., 29 figs. (author)

Changing patterns of basic household consumption in the Inner Mongolian grasslands: a case study of policy-oriented adoptive changes in the use of grasslands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Du, B.; Zhen, L.; Groot, de R.S.; Goulden, C.E.; Long, X.; Cao, X.; Wu, R.; Sun, C.

2014-01-01

Grassland ecosystems, as the basic natural resources in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, are becoming increasingly sensitive to human intervention, leading to deterioration in fragile ecosystems. The goal of this study was to describe the restoration policy-oriented adoptive changes to basic

Low-temperature nuclear orientation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stone, N.J.; Postma, H.

1986-01-01

This book comprehensively surveys the many aspects of the low temperature nuclear orientation method. The angular distribution of radioactive emissions from nuclei oriented by hyperfine interactions in solids, is treated experimentally and theoretically. A general introductory chapter is followed by formal development of the theory of the orientation process and the anisotropic emission of decay products from oriented nuclei, applied to radioactive decay and to reactions. Five chapters on applications to nuclear physics cover experimental studies of alpha, beta and gamma emission, nuclear moment measurement and level structure information. Nuclear orientation studies of parity non-conservation and time reversal asymmetry are fully described. Seven chapters cover aspects of hyperfine interactions, magnetic and electric, in metals, alloys and insulating crystals, including ordered systems. Relaxation phenomena and the combined technique of NMR detection using oriented nuclei are treated at length. Chapters on the major recent development of on-line facilities, giving access to short lived nuclei far from stability, on the use of nuclear orientation for thermometry below 1 Kelvin and on technical aspects of the method complete the main text. Extensive appendices, table of relevant parameters and over 1000 references are included to assist the design of future experiments. (Auth.)

The control of the growth orientations of electrodeposited single-crystal nanowire arrays: a case study for hexagonal CdS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sun Hongyu; Li Xiaohong; Chen Yan; Li Wei; Zhang Xiangyi [State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, Yanshan University, 066004 Qinhuangdao (China); Li Feng; Liu Baoting [College of Physics Science and Technology, Hebei University, 071002 Baoding (China)], E-mail: xyzh66@ysu.edu.cn

2008-06-04

The controllable growth of highly aligned and ordered semiconductor nanowire arrays is crucial for their potential applications in nanodevices. In the present study, both the growth orientation and the microstructure of hexagonal CdS nanowire arrays electrodeposited in a porous alumina template with 40 nm diameter pores have been controlled by simply tuning the deposition current density. An extremely low current density of 0.05 mA cm{sup -2} is favorable for the growth of single-crystal CdS nanowires along the normal direction of the intrinsic low-surface-energy (103) face. This can be understood well by a modified critical dimension model given in the present work.

The control of the growth orientations of electrodeposited single-crystal nanowire arrays: a case study for hexagonal CdS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sun Hongyu; Li Xiaohong; Chen Yan; Li Wei; Zhang Xiangyi; Li Feng; Liu Baoting

2008-01-01

The controllable growth of highly aligned and ordered semiconductor nanowire arrays is crucial for their potential applications in nanodevices. In the present study, both the growth orientation and the microstructure of hexagonal CdS nanowire arrays electrodeposited in a porous alumina template with 40 nm diameter pores have been controlled by simply tuning the deposition current density. An extremely low current density of 0.05 mA cm -2 is favorable for the growth of single-crystal CdS nanowires along the normal direction of the intrinsic low-surface-energy (103) face. This can be understood well by a modified critical dimension model given in the present work

Study on a Process-oriented Knowledge Management Model

OpenAIRE

Zhang, Lingling; Li, Jun; Zheng, Xiuyu; Li, Xingsen; Shi, Yong

2007-01-01

Now knowledge has become the most important resource of enterprises. Process-oriented knowledge management (POKM) is a new and valuable research field. It may be the most practical method to deal with difficulties in knowledge management. The paper analyzes background, hypothesis and proposes of POKM, define the process knowledge, and give a process-oriented knowledge management model. The model integrates knowledge, process, human, and technology. It can improve the decision support capabili...

The application of method supplier’s complex evaluation. Case study

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Ekaterina Chytilová

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The main goal of this article includes the illustration of selecting bidders evaluation with help Method of complex evaluation of suppliers (MCE. Nowadays the evaluation of suppliers has more importance is in the supply chain management. For SMEs with discontinuous custom manufacturing supplier evaluation at first stage becomes a priority to maintain and enhance the competitiveness of farm output and overall competitiveness. This article presents results of control MCE. The results of this article are results of suppliers’ evaluation conditions and eliminations of MCE application on the base of real enterprise data. MCE is oriented to small and medium-sized enterprises with discontinue manufacturing to order. Research is oriented to selecting procedure of existing suppliers at the first stage of supply chain. Nationality and geographic location haven’t importance to MCE application. Illustrative case study presents the evaluation process to the specific conditions and subsequently demonstrated viability of MCE.

Peran Keluarga dalam Pengelolaan Kasus di Layanan Primer Melalui Five Family Oriented Questions

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Retno Asti Werdhani

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Pengelolaan kasus di layanan primer dengan pendekatan kedokteran keluarga memperhatikan potensi keluarga sebagai sumber daya pendukung dan atau penghambat keberhasilan penatalaksanaan pasien. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk melihat gambaran kasus di layanan primer dan persepsi keluarga mengenai pasien melalui five family oriented question (FFOQ. Pengambilan data dilakukan menggunakan kuesioner pada 162 pasien Puskesmas dan Klinik di DKI Jakarta pada tahun 2015–2016. Kuesioner terdiri atas karakteristik pasien dan 5 pertanyaan terbuka FFOQ. Analisis dilakukan secara kuantitatif dan kualitatif. Hasilnya menunjukkan sebagian besar kasus di layanan primer adalah penyakit non-infeksi (82,7% dengan proporsi usia terbanyak adalah >40 tahun (76,5%. Persepsi pasien dan keluarga tentang penyebab penyakit dan cara mengatasinya masih bervariasi. Orang tua, pasangan, dan anak merupakan anggota keluarga yang paling menguatirkan kondisi pasien. Sebanyak 71,6% responden merasa ada stresor dalam keluarganya. Sumber stresor bervariasi antara lain sosial ekonomi, keluarga, pekerjaan, dan diri sendiri. Dukungan kepada pasien berupa dukungan emosional dan finansial yang diberikan oleh anggota keluarga sesuai kemampuan masing-masing. Disimpulkan keluarga berperan sebagai faktor pendukung dan penghambat dalam pengelolaan kasus di layanan primer untuk menunjang pengelolaan lebih berorientasi kepada pasien dan keluarga. Kata Kunci: five family oriented question, keluarga, layanan primer     Family Acts in Cases Management In Primary Care through The Five Family Oriented Question   Abstract Family oriented in primary care sees family as supporting resources/inhibiting case management accomplishment. The aim of this study was describing cases in primary care and family perception of the patient through the five family oriented question (FFOQ. Interviews were conducted in 162 patients from public health centers and clinics in DKI Jakarta year 2015–2016. Data were

Two Studies of the Empirical Basis of Two Learning Resource-Oriented Motivational Strategies for Gifted Educators

Science.gov (United States)

Vladut, Anamaria; Vialle, Wilma; Ziegler, Albert

2016-01-01

Two learning resource-oriented motivational strategies for gifted educators are introduced: a homeostatic orientation that aims for balance and an allostatic orientation that aims at growth. In order to establish the empirical basis of these motivational strategies, two studies were conducted with samples of students from a specialized…

Cinematic Orientalism: Bab el Oued City & The Time that Remains

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Volkan Yücel

2018-04-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on orientalism as a cinematic paradigm in Islamic imagination. We compare two movies, “Bab el Oued City” (1994 and “The Time That Remains” (2009 that present different cases with regard to orientalism, fundamentalism and gender. We identify basic characters, their agency and roles in the whole setting. Our main argument about the movies, though originating from different contexts and historicity, is that they present somewhat conflicting cases with regard to issues we named above.

Detailed design of product oriented manufacturing systems

OpenAIRE

Silva, Sílvio Carmo; Alves, Anabela Carvalho

2006-01-01

This paper presents a procedure for the detailed design and redesign of manufacturing systems within a framework of constantly fitting production system configuration to the varying production needs of products. With such an approach is achieved the design of Product Oriented Manufacturing Systems – POMS. This approach is in opposition to the fitting, before hand, of a production system to all products within a company. In this case is usual to adopt a Function Oriented Manufactur...

Assessment of orientation practices for ethics consultation at Harvard Medical School-affiliated hospitals.

Science.gov (United States)

Zaidi, Danish; Kesselheim, Jennifer C

2018-02-01

Few studies have been conducted to assess the quality of orientation practices for ethics advisory committees that conduct ethics consultation. This survey study focused on several Harvard teaching hospitals, exploring orientation quality and committee members' self-evaluation in the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) ethics consultation competencies. We conducted a survey study that involved 116 members and 16 chairs of ethics advisory committees, respectively (52% and 62.5% response rates). Predictor variables included professional demographics, duration on committees and level of training. Outcome variables included familiarity with and preparedness in the ASBH competencies and satisfaction with orientations. We hypothesised that responses would be associated with both the aforementioned predictors and whether or not participants had encountered the ASBH competencies in training. A majority of respondents found their orientation curricula to be helpful (62%), although a significant portion of respondents did not receive any orientation (24%) or were unsatisfied with their orientation (14%). Familiarity with ASBH competencies was a statistically significant predictor of respondents' self-evaluation in particular categories (54% had heard of the competencies). Standard educational materials were reported as offered during orientation, such as readings (50%) and case studies (41%); different medium resources were less evidenced such as videos on ethics consultation (19%). Institutions should re-evaluate orientation practices for ethics committee members that perform ethics consultation. Integrating ASBH competencies and useful methods into a resourceful pedagogy will help improve both member satisfaction with orientation and preparation in consultation. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

Action-oriented knowledge, Information and Communcation Technology and Action Competence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, B. B.; Simovska, Venka

2005-01-01

health topic, namely food and nutrition. Additionally, the experience from the case study points to the new demands that action-oriented teaching and its interplay with the use of ITC and international collaboration place on teachers. Finally, a few challenges and implications for health promoting...... schools practice and related research are suggested....

Protection as care: moral reasoning and moral orientation among ethnically and socioeconomically diverse older women.

Science.gov (United States)

Dakin, Emily

2014-01-01

This study examined moral reasoning among ethnically and socioeconomically diverse older women based on the care and justice moral orientations reflecting theoretical frameworks developed by Carol Gilligan and Lawrence Kohlberg, respectively. A major gap in this area of research and theory development has been the lack of examination of moral reasoning in later life. This study addressed this gap by assessing socioeconomically and ethnically diverse older women's reasoning in response to ethical dilemmas showing conflict between autonomy, representative of Kohlberg's justice orientation, and protection, representative of Gilligan's care orientation. The dilemmas used in this study came from adult protective services (APS), the U.S. system that investigates and intervenes in cases of elder abuse and neglect. Subjects were 88 African American, Latina, and Caucasian women age 60 or over from varying socioeconomic status backgrounds who participated in eight focus groups. Overall, participants favored protection over autonomy in responding to the case scenarios. Their reasoning in responding to these dilemmas reflected an ethic of care and responsibility and a recognition of the limitations of autonomy. This reasoning is highly consistent with the care orientation. Variations in the overall ethic of care and responsibility based on ethnicity and SES also are discussed. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Alienated and politicized? : Young planners’ confrontation with entrepreneurial and authoritarian state intervention in urban development in Turkey

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Penpecioğlu, M.; Taşan-Kok, T.

2016-01-01

Planning in Turkey is dominated by powerful market interests and authoritarian state regulation, resulting in a conflictual socio-political environment. Caught in the crossfire between interventionist urban policies and a planning education system that is oriented towards the public good, planners

Effects of oriental medicine music therapy in an ovarian cancer patient with So-Eum-type constitution: a case report

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Seung-Hyun Lee

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The cancer incidence in Korea has been increasing, although there is a serious lack of supportive care for the treatment and management of the rapidly increasing number of cancer patients, and there is an immense need for therapeutic interventions to support cancer patients. A 47-year-old So-Eum-type Korean female patient, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, had been receiving chemotherapies. She was experiencing pain due to swelling of her hands and feet, and under extreme stress due to hardships of life. During the patient's fourth chemotherapy treatment, she received oriental medicine music therapy twice per week for 2 weeks, for 1 hour each time (4 sessions in total. A self-administered questionnaire and the visual analog scale were used to assess and determine the level of negative and positive feelings. After receiving the oriental medicine music therapy, her negative and positive feelings as well as the visual analog scale score that reflects subjective health conditions have improved and stabilized. This case report suggests the potential of oriental medicine music therapy as a complementary and alternative medical treatment method to promote and enhance quality of life and health conditions of cancer patients in postsurgical care and chemotherapy treatment.

Effects of oriental medicine music therapy in an ovarian cancer patient with So-Eum-type constitution: a case report.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Seung-Hyun; Song, Eunhye; Kim, Seul-Ki

2015-03-01

The cancer incidence in Korea has been increasing, although there is a serious lack of supportive care for the treatment and management of the rapidly increasing number of cancer patients, and there is an immense need for therapeutic interventions to support cancer patients. A 47-year-old So-Eum -type Korean female patient, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, had been receiving chemotherapies. She was experiencing pain due to swelling of her hands and feet, and under extreme stress due to hardships of life. During the patient's fourth chemotherapy treatment, she received oriental medicine music therapy twice per week for 2 weeks, for 1 hour each time (4 sessions in total). A self-administered questionnaire and the visual analog scale were used to assess and determine the level of negative and positive feelings. After receiving the oriental medicine music therapy, her negative and positive feelings as well as the visual analog scale score that reflects subjective health conditions have improved and stabilized. This case report suggests the potential of oriental medicine music therapy as a complementary and alternative medical treatment method to promote and enhance quality of life and health conditions of cancer patients in postsurgical care and chemotherapy treatment.

Pro-Social Goals in Achievement Situations: Amity Goal Orientation Enhances the Positive Effects of Mastery Goal Orientation.

Science.gov (United States)

Levontin, Liat; Bardi, Anat

2018-04-01

Research has neglected the utility of pro-social goals within achievement situations. In this article, four studies demonstrate that amity goal orientation, promoting mutual success of oneself together with others, enhances the utility of mastery goal orientation. We demonstrate this in longitudinally predicting performance (Studies 1 and 2) and in maintaining motivation after a disappointing performance (Studies 3 and 4). The studies demonstrate the same interaction effect in academic and in work achievement contexts. Specifically, whereas amity goal orientation did not predict achievement on its own, it enhanced the positive effect of mastery goal orientation. Together, these studies establish the importance of amity goal orientation while also advancing our understanding of the effects of other achievement goal orientations. We suggest future directions in examining the utility of amity goals in other contexts.

A study on the effectiveness of the orientation process and cross-cultural training for the expatriate

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Maxwell Agabu Phiri

2015-11-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on the effectiveness of the orientation process and cross-cultural training (CCT and its impact on cross-cultural adjustment for the expatriate. The objective of the study on which this paper is based is to evaluate the effectiveness of the orientation process for expatriates and to determine the need for a separate orientation and culture training. By improving the orientation process and identifying a need for culture specific training, the company can thus eliminate relocation and replacement costs. The main objective of this research is to design a guideline for the implementation of a culture specific orientation process for the expatriate. This will be done based on the recommendations made by the respondents of the survey. The paper reviews different writings in the areas of cross-cultural training, cross-cultural adjustment, the orientation process and the expatriate. The study highlights specific issues regarding cultural training, assignment failure and success, and the expatriate experiences. The research is motivated by the need to reduce assignment failure and the subsequent costs associated with engaging expatriation, and ensure smooth transition into a new culture. The research methodology utilized was qualitative, based on structured questionnaires and personal interviews. The study attempts to recommend, based on the findings, a culture centered orientation process for the expatriate

Online Student Orientation in Higher Education: A Developmental Study

Science.gov (United States)

Cho, Moon-Heum

2012-01-01

Although orientation for online students is important to their success, little information about how to develop an online student orientation (OSO) has appeared in the literature; therefore, the purpose of this article was to describe the entire process of developing an OSO. This article describes the analysis, design, development, and evaluation…

Teacher leadership in (in)action: three case studies of contrasting schools

OpenAIRE

Muijs, Daniel; Harris, Alma

2007-01-01

Teacher leadership is a concept that is gaining increasing interest from both practitioners and researchers, but at present the literature is characterised by a largely normative rather than empirical orientation, which has led to a lack of in-depth information on what teacher leadership looks like in practice, and what school factors can facilitate or present barriers to its development.In this paper we will present findings from three case studies in the UK. These three schools can be chara...

Factors associated with students' orientations to nursing.

Science.gov (United States)

Vanhanen, L; Janhonen, S

2000-05-01

Factors associated with students' orientations to nursing This paper presents the results of a study focusing on the factors associated with orientations to nursing. Students' orientations to nursing have not as yet been a focus of nursing research. In some other professions, however, professional orientation has been associated with learning motivation and study performance, and has been seen as a predictor of work satisfaction. In this study, students' orientations to nursing were defined in terms of caring, nursing expertise and life orientation. The hypothesis of whether students' pre-educational experiences of nursing, gender, choice of nursing specialty, problems with nursing studies and intention to stay in nursing were associated with different orientations was tested. The extent to which students were orientated to caring, nursing expertise and their own life was also examined. The orientation to nursing measurement tool, which has been developed on the basis of a qualitative study, was used to collect the data. Nurse teachers collected the data from nursing students (n=184) who were studying in three different nursing programmes in Finland. Non-parametric assessments (Mann-Whitney U-test and Kruskal-Wallis test) of the differences between the students' orientations were carried out. A majority of the students were highly life-orientated, and two-thirds had average nursing expertise or caring orientation scores. The results supported the study hypothesis of an association between students' orientations and their gender, choice of nursing speciality, problems with nursing studies and intention to stay in nursing. However, the hypothesis of an association between students' pre-educational nursing experiences and orientation to nursing was not supported. The contradictions between students' orientation to nursing and the philosophy of nursing underlying the study programme may be a source of motivational problems and dissatisfaction with nursing education

Orienting Attention Modulates Pain Perception: An ERP Study

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Chan, Sam C. C.; Chan, Chetwyn C. H.; Kwan, Anne S. K.; Ting, Kin-hung; Chui, Tak-yi

2012-01-01

Introduction Research has shown that people with chronic pain have difficulty directing their attention away from pain. A mental strategy that incorporates focused attention and distraction has been found to modulate the perception of pain intensity. That strategy involves placing attention on the nociceptive stimulus felt and shifting attention to a self-generated sub-nociceptive image and rehearsing it. Event-related potential was used to study the possible processes associated with the focus-then-orient strategy. Methods Eighteen pain-free participants received different levels of 50-ms nociceptive stimulations elicited by electric shocks at the right lateral malleolus (ankle). In perception trials, participants maintained the perceived nociceptive stimulus in working memory for 3,000 ms. In imagery trials, participants mentally generated and maintained the corresponding sub-nociceptive image they had learned previously. After both types of trials, participants evaluated the pain intensity of the incoming stimulus by recalling the feeling of the nociceptive stimulation at the beginning of the trial. Results Shifting attention from the incoming nociceptive to a self-generated sub-nociceptive image elicited central P2 and centro-parietal P3 waves, which were found to correlate with proportional scores on the Stroop Test. They were followed by a frontal N400 and a parietal P600, denoting generation of sub-nociceptive images in working memory. The voltages elicited in these potentials correlated moderately with attenuation of the pain ratings of the recalled nociceptive stimulations. Conclusions Focus-and-orient attention across nociceptive and sub-nociceptive images appears to be related to response inhibition. Mental rehearsal of the sub-nociceptive images was found to modulate the perception of the nociceptive sensation felt prior to the imagery. Such modulation seems to be mediated by generating and maintaining sub-nociceptive images in working memory. Future

Orienting attention modulates pain perception: an ERP study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sam C C Chan

Full Text Available INTRODUCTION: Research has shown that people with chronic pain have difficulty directing their attention away from pain. A mental strategy that incorporates focused attention and distraction has been found to modulate the perception of pain intensity. That strategy involves placing attention on the nociceptive stimulus felt and shifting attention to a self-generated sub-nociceptive image and rehearsing it. Event-related potential was used to study the possible processes associated with the focus-then-orient strategy. METHODS: Eighteen pain-free participants received different levels of 50-ms nociceptive stimulations elicited by electric shocks at the right lateral malleolus (ankle. In perception trials, participants maintained the perceived nociceptive stimulus in working memory for 3,000 ms. In imagery trials, participants mentally generated and maintained the corresponding sub-nociceptive image they had learned previously. After both types of trials, participants evaluated the pain intensity of the incoming stimulus by recalling the feeling of the nociceptive stimulation at the beginning of the trial. RESULTS: Shifting attention from the incoming nociceptive to a self-generated sub-nociceptive image elicited central P2 and centro-parietal P3 waves, which were found to correlate with proportional scores on the Stroop Test. They were followed by a frontal N400 and a parietal P600, denoting generation of sub-nociceptive images in working memory. The voltages elicited in these potentials correlated moderately with attenuation of the pain ratings of the recalled nociceptive stimulations. CONCLUSIONS: Focus-and-orient attention across nociceptive and sub-nociceptive images appears to be related to response inhibition. Mental rehearsal of the sub-nociceptive images was found to modulate the perception of the nociceptive sensation felt prior to the imagery. Such modulation seems to be mediated by generating and maintaining sub-nociceptive images in

Wildlife value orientations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gamborg, Christian; Jensen, Frank Søndergaard

2016-01-01

This article examined value orientations toward wildlife among the adult general Danish public in relation to age, sex, past and present residence, education, and income, using a U.S. survey instrument on Wildlife Value Orientations (WVO). The study used an Internet-based questionnaire sent...

Supporting Community-Oriented Educational Change

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Linda Mabry

1999-04-01

Full Text Available A study of a federally funded program to develop and implement community-oriented social studies curricula and curriculum-based assessments grounds cautions for educational change initiatives. In this case, despite the project director's stated intent to support teachers' desire for instruction regarding local culture and history, top-down support for classroom-level change evidenced insensitivity. Production and implementation of the planned curricula and assessments was obstructed by teacher's lack of cultural identification with the targeted community groups, workload, competing instructional priorities, inadequate communication, and organizational politics. Professional development was sometimes beneficial but more often ineffective—either perfunctory, unnecessary, or disregarded. The findings offer insight regarding educational change and a systemic analysis.

Temporal resolution of orientation-defined texture segregation: a VEP study.

Science.gov (United States)

Lachapelle, Julie; McKerral, Michelle; Jauffret, Colin; Bach, Michael

2008-09-01

Orientation is one of the visual dimensions that subserve figure-ground discrimination. A spatial gradient in orientation leads to "texture segregation", which is thought to be concurrent parallel processing across the visual field, without scanning. In the visual-evoked potential (VEP) a component can be isolated which is related to texture segregation ("tsVEP"). Our objective was to evaluate the temporal frequency dependence of the tsVEP to compare processing speed of low-level features (e.g., orientation, using the VEP, here denoted llVEP) with texture segregation because of a recent literature controversy in that regard. Visual-evoked potentials (VEPs) were recorded in seven normal adults. Oriented line segments of 0.1 degrees x 0.8 degrees at 100% contrast were presented in four different arrangements: either oriented in parallel for two homogeneous stimuli (from which were obtained the low-level VEP (llVEP)) or with a 90 degrees orientation gradient for two textured ones (from which were obtained the texture VEP). The orientation texture condition was presented at eight different temporal frequencies ranging from 7.5 to 45 Hz. Fourier analysis was used to isolate low-level components at the pattern-change frequency and texture-segregation components at half that frequency. For all subjects, there was lower high-cutoff frequency for tsVEP than for llVEPs, on average 12 Hz vs. 17 Hz (P = 0.017). The results suggest that the processing of feature gradients to extract texture segregation requires additional processing time, resulting in a lower fusion frequency.

Effects of tracheal orientation on development of ventilator-associated pneumonia: an experimental study.

Science.gov (United States)

Zanella, Alberto; Cressoni, Massimo; Epp, Myra; Hoffmann, Viktoria; Stylianou, Mario; Kolobow, Theodor

2012-04-01

Orientation of the trachea and tracheal tube below horizontal may prevent aspiration of oropharyngeal secretions into the lungs, which is a pivotal pathway in the pathogenesis of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). The incidence of VAP was evaluated in swine with orientation of trachea and tracheal tube above horizontal (model of semirecumbent position, currently recommended in patients) and below horizontal. Twenty-six mini-pigs were randomized into four groups: (A) eight mechanically ventilated with orientation of trachea 45° above horizontal for 72 h. In the remaining groups (B, C, D) the trachea was oriented 10° below horizontal, with (B) six mechanically ventilated for 72 h, (C) six mechanically ventilated for 72 h with enteral feeding, and (D) six mechanically ventilated for 168 h with enteral feeding. At the end of the study period, all pigs were sacrificed and the clinical diagnosis of VAP was microbiologically evaluated. No antibiotics were administered. All eight pigs kept orientated with the trachea 45° above horizontal developed VAP and respiratory failure (PaO(2)/F(i)O(2) = 132 ± 139 mmHg) with a median of 5.5 pulmonary lobes out of 6 colonized with average colonization of 9.3 × 10(7) CFU/g. None of the 18 pigs kept oriented with the trachea below horizontal developed VAP; 16 had sterile lungs, while 2, ventilated for 7 days, developed a low level of colonization. Orientation of the trachea above horizontal was uniformly associated with VAP and respiratory failure; positioning the trachea below horizontal consistently prevented development of VAP.

Entrepreneurial Orientation and Internationalisation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Decker, Arnim; Rollnik-Sadowska, Ewa; Servais, Per

Entrepreneurial orientation is a multidimensional construct that determines the strategic posture of a firm. In this study we investigate a sample of six manufacturing firms which are located both in a remote area and in a transition economy. Through interpreting the construct of entrepreneurial...... orientation as an attitude held by principals we investigate how entrepreneurial orientation affected the behaviour of these firms, specifically in terms of their internationalisation. Despite the fact that all firms have identical roots we find that entrepreneurial orientation held by their principals affect...

Socio-emotional conflict in collaborative learning—A process-oriented case study in a higher education context

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Näykki, Piia; Järvelä, Sanna; Kirschner, Paul A.; Järvenoja, Hanna

2018-01-01

This case study explores cognitive, motivational and socio-emotional challenges experienced in collaborative learning, how conflict emerges and what students’ emotional reactions and interpretations are. Collaborative work of 22 higher education students was followed during a three-month course.

Chinese Students' Goal Orientation in English Learning: A Study Based on Autonomous Inquiry Model

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Jianfeng

2014-01-01

Goal orientation is a kind of theory of learning motivation, which helps learners to develop their capability by emphasis on new techniques acquiring and environment adapting. In this study, based on the autonomous inquiry model, the construction of Chinese students' goal orientations in English learning are summarized according to the data…

Introducing the Contextual Orientation to Bible: A Comparative Study

Science.gov (United States)

Levisohn, Jon A.

2008-01-01

Barry Holtz' (2003) presentation of a map of orientations for the teaching of Bible provides a certain kind of focus for research, enabling us to ask deeper and richer question about those orientations. This article investigates the teaching of one teacher, in two different settings--more specifically, how that teacher introduces Bible in those…

FUTURE SHIP ENGINEERS’ TRAINING BY MEANS OF PROFESSIONALLY ORIENTED DISCIPLINES

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Уляна Ляшенко

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The article represents the problem of future ship engineers’ training by means of professionally oriented disciplines. This paper focuses on the effectiveness of future specialists’ training in case of implementation the author’s methods in the educational process of teaching (based on competence, person-oriented, module-rating, technological, activity, communicative approaches in accordance with cognitive-enriching, reproductive-activity and professional-creative stages. Leading principles of teaching(scientific approach, systematic and sequence approach, accessibility, conscious approach and activity, connection with life, individual approach and corresponding pedagogical conditions (implementation of holistic integrated approach while teaching professionally oriented disciplines; positive motivation of cadets’ professional interest through the contents, forms and means of educational activity of marine engineers’ professional training are defined; functioning mechanisms of interdisciplinary integration in the process of studying professionally oriented disciplines are disclosed. The author of the article grounds the purposefulness of implementation of the mentioned author’s methods in educational process as it will make the process of ship engineers’ professional training more effective and will allow to use the acquired professional knowledge and in the future professional activity.

Object-oriented analysis and design for information systems Modeling with UML, OCL, IFML

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Wazlawick, Raul Sidnei

2014-01-01

Object-Oriented Analysis and Design for Information Systems clearly explains real object-oriented programming in practice. Expert author Raul Sidnei Wazlawick explains concepts such as object responsibility, visibility and the real need for delegation in detail. The object-oriented code generated by using these concepts in a systematic way is concise, organized and reusable. The patterns and solutions presented in this book are based in research and industrial applications. You will come away with clarity regarding processes and use cases and a clear understand of how to expand a use case.

Language Orientations and the Sustainability of Arbanasi Language in Croatia – A Case of Linguistic Injustice

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Meštrić Klara Bilić

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Despite numerous positive aspects of the global development of language-as-right orientation, we argue that its application is rooted in methodological nationalism, i.e. the idea of society being equal to a nationstate (Chernilo 2006, and the monoglot ideology based on the idea of one proper version of a historically and politically privileged dialect carrying the status of a language. This dominant preconception of social phenomena thus leaves many varieties in a legislative vacuum. As a consequence, language rights, often in the form of more or less mandatory legal instruments, concern only a (politically established few. When this institutional inadequacy is paired with the existing orders of indexicality, then these varieties face marginalisation processes that render language use even more unsustainable. To address the issue of language sustainability, we analyse the language-as-right, language-as-resource and language-as-problem orientations in Croatia on the case of the Arbanasi, a community of descendants of Catholic albanophones who settled in the periphery of Zadar in the 18th century and whose group identity is marked by significant language loss. We analyse how speakers and community members themselves perceive marginalisation processes, especially concerning linguistic (injustice that stems from the policies that hinder sustainability of Arbanasi language use in the long run.

Visible, Legitimate, and Beautiful Justice: A Case Study of Music Education Formalization within a Haitian NGO

Science.gov (United States)

Shorner-Johnson, Kevin

2017-01-01

When music education is formalized within schools and non-governmental organizations, it often becomes aligned with justice-oriented aims of providing universal access to music education. This qualitative case study examines the formation of a marching band within a Haitian school in northeastern Haiti. Data sources collected and analyzed included…

Ethical issues in action-oriented research in Indonesia.

Science.gov (United States)

Rachmawaty, Rini

2017-09-01

Action-oriented research is one of the most frequent research types implemented to transform community health in Indonesia. Three researchers and 11 graduate students from a developed country in East Asia conducted a fieldwork program in a remote area in South Sulawesi Province. Although the project was completed, whether or not the international standards for human subject research were applied into that study remains unclear. This study aimed to examine ethical issues raised from that case, analyze constraints to the problems, and recommend alternatives to protect vulnerable populations from being exploited by local/international researchers. A problem-solving approach was used in this study. It began with problem identification, evaluation of the action-oriented research goal, investigation of the constraints to the problem, and recommendation of some relevant alternatives to address the central issue. Ethical Consideration: The approval for conducting the action-oriented research that being investigated in this work was only obtained from the Head of local district. Some ethical issues were found in this case. No special protection for this population, no informed consent was obtained from the participants, exposure to social and economic risks, no future benefits for the subjects, and conflict of interests. Lack of control from the local research ethics committee and lack of competence of local researchers on human subject research were considered as the constraints to the problems. Creating an independent research ethics committee, providing research ethics training to the local researchers, obtaining written/video consents from underserved populations, and meeting local health needs were recommended alternatives to solve these problems. Indonesian government bodies should reform their international collaborative system on research involving human subjects. Exploitation may not occur if all participants as well as all local and national governing bodies

Blockchain-Oriented Coalition Formation by CPS Resources: Ontological Approach and Case Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexey Kashevnik

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Cyber-physical systems (CPS, robotics, Internet of Things, information and communication technologies have become more and more popular over the last several years. These topics open new perspectives and scenarios that can automate processes in human life. CPS are aimed at interaction support in information space for physical entities communicated in physical space in real time. At the same time the blockchain technology that becomes popular last years allows to organize immutable distributed database that store all significant information and provide access for CPS participants. The paper proposes an approach that is based on ontology-based context management, publish/subscribe semantic interoperability support, and blockchain techniques. Utilization of these techniques provide possibilities to develop CPS that supports dynamic, distributed, and stable coalition formation of the resources. The case study presented has been implemented for the scenario of heterogeneous mobile robots’ collaboration for the overcoming of obstacles. There are two types of robots and an information service participating in the scenario. Evaluation shows that the proposed approach is applicable for the presented class of scenarios.

Energy Transition in the Nebular City: Connecting Transition Thinking, Metabolism Studies, and Urban Design

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Griet Juwet

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Transforming urban infrastructures is an essential part of creating more sustainable urban regions. But rethinking these complex systems requires a better understanding of their spatial dimensions and their relation with urban morphology and spatial structure. This paper addresses that gap by examining different conceptualizations of technical infrastructure and space in science, technology and society studies (STS, transition thinking, urban metabolism studies, and urban political ecology, and draws connections with the spatial perspective of urban planning and design. It illustrates and tests these concepts through the case of energy transition in the Flemish region of Belgium. Transport and supply networks have played a crucial role in facilitating, structuring, and reproducing the region’s characteristic dispersed and energy-intensive urban landscape. Bringing different disciplinary perspectives together, the research broadens the conceptualization of the spatial dimension in transition thinking, and identifies useful concepts and design parameters for urban design to engage with the technical and socio-political complexity of transforming urban infrastructure. It reveals the energy transition as an inherently spatial project, and explores the spatially and socio-politically transformative potential of the transition towards a new energy system.

Possibilities of the Integration of the Method of the Ecologically Oriented Independent Scientific Research in the Study Process

Science.gov (United States)

Grizans, Jurijs; Vanags, Janis

2010-01-01

The aim of this paper is to analyse possibilities of the integration of the method of the ecologically oriented independent scientific research in the study process. In order to achieve the set aim, the following scientific research methods were used: analysis of the conceptual guidelines for the development of environmentally oriented entrepreneurship, interpretation of the experts' evaluation of the ecologically oriented management, analysis of the results of the students' ecologically oriented independent scientific research, as well as monographic and logically constructive methods. The results of the study give an opportunity to make conclusions and to develop conceptual recommendations on how to introduce future economics and business professionals with the theoretical and practical aspects of ecologically oriented management during the study process.

Childhood Abuse Experiences and the COMT and MTHFR Genetic Variants Associated With Male Sexual Orientation in the Han Chinese Populations: A Case-Control Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Qin, Jia-Bi; Zhao, Guang-Lu; Wang, Feng; Cai, Yu-Mao; Lan, Li-Na; Yang, Lin; Feng, Tie-Jian

2018-01-01

variants could be positively associated with the development of homosexuality. However, it remains unknown how these factors jointly play a role in the development of homosexuality, and more studies in different ethnic populations and with a larger sample and a prospective design are required to confirm our findings. Qin J-B, Zhao G-L, Wang F, et al. Childhood Abuse Experiences and the COMT and MTHFR Genetic Variants Associated With Male Sexual Orientation in the Han Chinese Populations: A Case-Control Study. J Sex Med 2018;15:29-42. Copyright © 2017 International Society for Sexual Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Market Orientation Impact on Radical and Incremental Marketing Innovation: A Study of Saudi Arabia Hospital Marketing Efforts

OpenAIRE

Alshahry Abdullah saeed A; Wang Aimin

2015-01-01

We conducted an empirical study to measure influence of market orientation on marketing innovation in hospitals in Saudi Arabia. The sample includes 109 hospital workers that have been identified as having an adequate knowledge of the subject of research. In particular we explain the impact of customer orientation, inter-functional orientation and competitor orientation on marketing innovation. Furthermore the moderating effects of centralization and formalization on those relationships are e...

A Study of the Mediating Role of Product Management on Relationship between Market orientation and firm Performance (Case Study: Home appliances manufacturing companies in Esfahan Province)

OpenAIRE

Hassan Ghorbani; Azade Yaghootkar

2013-01-01

The present paper, titled ‘A Study of the Effect of market orientation on SME firm performance the mediating role of product management’ Seek to answer the question Which aspects of product management how affect the firm performance Thus the product management literature, as well as market orieantation and performance in home appliances factories in Isfahan Province are examined. This research, in terms of its purpose, is an applied one; and in terms of implementation method, is a survey with...

Orientation Use of Houses in Rural - Urban (A Case Study in the Eastern District of Kartasura, Sukoharjo 2001

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Choirul Amin

2004-01-01

Full Text Available Kartasura, seen formspace point of view, has special position because it is located in the corridor intersection between Semarang – Surakarta – Yogyakarta. Which becomes three central developing cities in central part of Java. This study is carried out in border town area in east part of Kartasura, which consist of four village – Pabelan, Gonilan, Gumpang, and Makamhaji. That are growing fast due to the effect of urban characteristic from Surakarta. The orientation phenomena of the use of house (OPR, the urban population that led to the commercial use is an interesting fact dealing with the influence of urban activities in those areas. The goal of this study is to know the kindsand the spread of the space of OPR population in east part of Kartasura and the factors, which is studied, is the houses in the research areas and the respondents are the owner of the houses. The sampling uses systematic proportional random sampling. The location of house sample (UMS, UNS, Islamic Boarding Shcool of Assalam, health services (RSIS and RSO, and commercial services (ALFA, UMS stores. All of them are located in Pabelan and Makamhaji. While industrial center consist of PT Tyfountex and small industries around it in Gumpang. Every central activities is divided into two cluster based on the relative distance from central activities (far and near, so as a whole there are four clusters which made up of two clusters in service center and the other in industrial center. Sample at every cluster is taken proportional about 2,5% based on homogenity consideration, whether the selecction of house sampling is taken randomly. The numbers of samples as a whole 175 respondents. The collected data are prensented in the form of frequency and cross table. Qualitative data analysis uses logical thought, deductive induccctive, analogy and comparison, while quantitative data analysis is done using frequency table analysis and cross table. The use of both analysis is sadapted

Effect of pre-existing crystallographic preferred orientation on the rheology of Carrara marble

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Raadt, W.S.; Burlini, L.; Kunze, K.; Spiers, C.J.

2014-01-01

Abstract Localized deformation during high temperature plastic flow is frequently attributed to mechanical weakening caused by grain size reduction and, in some cases, by the development of a crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO). This study aims to investigate experimentally the contribution

Strategy analysis frameworks for strategy orientation and focus

OpenAIRE

Isoherranen, V. (Ville)

2012-01-01

Abstract The primary research target of this dissertation is to develop new strategy analysis frameworks, focusing on analysing changes in strategic position as a function of variations in life cycle s-curve/time/typology/market share/orientation. Research is constructive and qualitative by nature, with case study methodology being the adopted approach. The research work is carried out as a compilation dissertation containing four (4) journal articles. The theoretical framework of thi...

International differences in alcohol use according to sexual orientation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bloomfield, Kim; Wicki, Matthias; Wilsnack, Sharon

2011-01-01

Most research on sexual orientation and alcohol use in the United States has found higher rates of alcohol use and abuse among gay men and lesbians. Studies from other countries have found smaller or no differences between sexual minority and heterosexual women and men. The present study used...... general population survey data from 14 countries to examine high-volume and risky single-occasion drinking by sexual orientation. Data from 248 gay men and lesbians and 3720 heterosexuals were analyzed in a case-control design. In several countries partnered or recently partnered gay men and lesbians had...... no greater risk of heavy drinking or engaging in heavy drinking than heterosexual controls. Only lesbians in North America showed higher risk for both indicators. Future general population health research should include larger samples of gays and lesbians and use more comprehensive measures of sexual...

International Differences in Alcohol Use According to Sexual Orientation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bloomfield, K.; Wicki, M.; Wilsnack, S.

2011-01-01

Most research on sexual orientation and alcohol use in the United States has found higher rates of alcohol use and abuse among gay men and lesbians. Studies from other countries have found smaller or no differences between sexual minority and heterosexual women and men. The present study used...... general population survey data from 14 countries to examine high-volume and risky single-occasion drinking by sexual orientation. Data from 248 gay men and lesbians and 3720 heterosexuals were analyzed in a case-control design. In several countries partnered or recently partnered gay men and lesbians had...... no greater risk of heavy drinking or engaging in heavy drinking than heterosexual controls. Only lesbians in North America showed higher risk for both indicators. Future general population health research should include larger samples of gays and lesbians and use more comprehensive measures of sexual...

Case Study; »Could Happen to You« Series

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Mahdi Montazer Ghaem

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Considering perennial relation of the masses with concepts of determinism and free will, the intrinsic importance of these concepts in the area of religion, as well as regarding the ability of media in constructing the masses’ narrative of existence and also taking into account relations between religion, state and television in Iran, this study seeks to answer the question raised in the sample case study of a religious serial concerning representation of free will to its audiences. Hence, a brief introduction of the concept in Islamic thought and its implications has offered at first, to recognize the implied conflict between absolute determinism and absolute discretion in the practical part of this research. Adopting representational theory approach, we have used a combination of discourse analysis approaches and Greimas actantial model to analyze the serial dialogs about free will and underlying structure of activism, respectively. In this study we have shown that the series inspires deterministic-oriented discourse, by drawing actors’ charts of opening and final sequences as well as their schematic diagram. Type of narrative sequences and activity pattern also are deterministic, and the series is based on retributive nature of difficulties and reward-oriented character of pleasures. Two signifiers of fatalism and dreamful are attracted in its discourse area and influencing of social structures is rejected.

CHANGING UNIVERSITY STUDENT POLITICS IN SRI LANKA: FROM NORM ORIENTED TO VALUE ORIENTED STUDENT MOVEMENTS

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Gamini Samaranayake

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This paper analyzes the causes of student political activism in Sri Lankan universities by paying attention to the history of student politics starting from the 1960s when the first traces of such activism can be traced. Towards this end, it makes use of the analytical framework proposed by David Finlay that explains certain conditions under which students may be galvanized to engage in active politics. Analyzing different socio-political contexts that gave rise to these movements, and the responses of incumbent governments to such situations, it concludes that in order to mitigate the risk of youth getting involved in violent politics, it is necessary to address larger structural issues of inequality.

Student evaluation of a problem-oriented module of clinical medicine within a revised dental curriculum.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tack, C.J.J.; Plasschaert, A.J.M.

2006-01-01

As part of a revised dental curriculum, a 3(rd) year module on medical subjects was developed based on a mixture of self-study and problem-oriented approach using cases. Pairs of students had to select a specific medical problem and solve a paper patient case using a problem-solving cycle. Results

Personality Patterns of Physicians in Person-Oriented and Technique-Oriented Specialties

Science.gov (United States)

Borges, Nicole J.; Gibson, Denise D.

2005-01-01

This study investigated differences in personality patterns between person-oriented and technique-oriented physicians. It tested an integrative framework by converting the scores on the Personality Research Form (PRF) to the Big-Five factors and built a predictive model of group membership in clinical specialty area. PRF scores from 238 physicians…

CASE STUDY CRITIQUE; UPPER CLINCH CASE STUDY

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Case study critique: Upper Clinch case study (from Research on Methods for Integrating Ecological Economics and Ecological Risk Assessment: A Trade-off Weighted Index Approach to Integrating Economics and Ecological Risk Assessment). This critique answers the questions: 1) does ...

How can a tour guide robot’s orientation influence visitors’ orientation and formations?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Karreman, Daphne Eleonora; Ludden, Geke Dina Simone; van Dijk, Elisabeth M.A.G.; Evers, Vanessa

2015-01-01

In this paper, we describe a field study with a tour guide robot that guided visitors through a historical site. Our focus was to determine how a robot’s orientation behaviour influenced visitors’ orientation and the formations groups of visitors formed around the robot. During the study a

Recovery-oriented care in a secure mental health setting: "striving for a good life".

Science.gov (United States)

McKenna, Brian; Furness, Trentham; Dhital, Deepa; Park, Malcolm; Connally, Fiona

2014-01-01

Recovery-oriented care acknowledges the unique journey of the consumer to regain control of his or her life in order to live a good life. Recovery has become a dominant policy-directed model of mental health service delivery. Even services that have traditionally been institutional and custodial have been challenged to embrace a recovery-oriented model. The aim of this qualitative study was to provide a description of service delivery in a secure in-patient mental health service, which has developed a self-professed recovery-oriented model of service delivery. An in-depth case study of the secure in-patient service using an exploratory research design was undertaken to meet the aim of this study. Qualitative data was gathered from interviews with consumers and staff (n = 15) and a focus group with carers (n = 5). Data were analyzed using a content analysis approach. Ethical approval for the study was obtained. The stakeholders readily described the secure service within recovery domains. They described a common vision; ways to promote hope and autonomy; examples of collaborative partnership which enhanced the goal of community integration; a focus on strength-based, holistic care; and the management of risk by taking calculated risks. Discrepancies in the perceptions of stakeholders were determined. This case study research provides a demonstrable example of recovery-in-action in one secure mental health service in Australia. It is intended to assist mental health services and clinicians seeking guidance in developing strategies for building and maintaining partnerships with consumers and carers in order for secure services to become truly recovery-oriented.

A simple greedy algorithm for dynamic graph orientation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Berglin, Edvin; Brodal, Gerth Stølting

2017-01-01

Graph orientations with low out-degree are one of several ways to efficiently store sparse graphs. If the graphs allow for insertion and deletion of edges, one may have to flip the orientation of some edges to prevent blowing up the maximum out-degree. We use arboricity as our sparsity measure....... With an immensely simple greedy algorithm, we get parametrized trade-off bounds between out-degree and worst case number of flips, which previously only existed for amortized number of flips. We match the previous best worst-case algorithm (in O(log n) flips) for general arboricity and beat it for either constant...... or super-logarithmic arboricity. We also match a previous best amortized result for at least logarithmic arboricity, and give the first results with worst-case O(1) and O(sqrt(log n)) flips nearly matching degree bounds to their respective amortized solutions....

The Impact of Alternative Market Orientation Strategies on Firm Performance: Customer versus Competitor Orientation

OpenAIRE

Micheels, Eric T.; Gow, Hamish R.

2010-01-01

Research studies have differed over the importance of the relative emphasis of a customer versus competitor orientation in the development of a market orientation (Slater and Narver, 1994; Tajeddini, 2010). In this study, we assess whether the emphasis of one component over another of a market orientation is an important determinant of firm performance within the Illinois beef industry, specifically the cow-calf sector. Using a series of OLS regressions, we examine the importance of a market ...

'Our struggles are bigger than the World Cup': civic activism, state-society relations and the socio-political legacies of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Science.gov (United States)

Cornelissen, Scarlett

2012-06-01

South Africa's hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup saw a large number of public demonstrations, strikes and other forms of civic campaigning. World Cup activism was both preceded and followed by extensive and intensifying public unrest and industrial action that in the period before the tournament, threatened to derail the event. This paper assesses the motivations, forms and implications of the activism during South Africa's staging of the FIFA finals and interprets them against the larger context of shifting state-society relations in the country. There are two purposes to the analysis. First, to explore the underlying internal social forces that gave shape to the protests at the time, and the possible influence of the exogenous politics of mega-event social mobilization. Second, the implications and outcomes of these dynamics for longer term socio-political processes in the country are considered. The activism displayed many of the features of the politics of contestation of sport mega-events today. Importantly, however, the activism stemmed from a particular systemic dynamic and reflected changing relations in the post-apartheid political community. Therefore, while the World Cup was used as a strategic opportunity by many advocacy groups, it was one that rather fleetingly and ambivalently presented an additional platform to such groups in an otherwise on-going set of political battles. Rather than a strong case study of sport's transformative capacity, the civic campaigning during South Africa's World Cup demonstrates the way a sport mega-event can be used as a strategic entry point by civil society groups in their engagement with the state, although this can occur with greater or lesser success. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2012.

Towards a Service-Oriented Enterprise: The Design of a Cloud Business Integration Platform in a Medium-Sized Manufacturing Enterprise

Science.gov (United States)

Stamas, Paul J.

2013-01-01

This case study research followed the two-year transition of a medium-sized manufacturing firm towards a service-oriented enterprise. A service-oriented enterprise is an emerging architecture of the firm that leverages the paradigm of services computing to integrate the capabilities of the firm with the complementary competencies of business…

Beyond the case study dilemma in urban planning: using a meta-matrix to distil critical success factors in transit-oriented development

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Thomas, R.; Bertolini, L.

2014-01-01

Case study is well established as a learning tool and as a research methodology in the field of planning. However, there are a number of barriers to the use of single-case study results in planning practice and research. Meta-analysis is one approach to this case study ‘dilemma’. This article

The effects of proportional representation and gender orientation of the task on emergent leadership behavior in mixed-gender work groups.

Science.gov (United States)

Karakowsky, L; Siegel, J P

1999-08-01

Much of the research that has examined the behavioral consequences of membership in mixed-gender work groups suggests that men are more participative and influential in task-related behavior. Drawing from elements of sociological, structural, and psychological perspectives, this study examined the effects of group gender composition and gender orientation of the group's task on patterns of emergent leadership behavior. Participants were assigned to male-dominated, female-dominated, or balanced-gender groups for the purpose of discussing and generating solutions for two business-related cases--each case emphasized either male-oriented or female-oriented expertise. The findings suggest that the proportional representation of men and women in a work group, along with the gender orientation of the group's task, can significantly influence the level of leadership behavior exhibited in group activity.

An Orientation-Based Unification of Young Jetted AGN: The Case of 3C 286

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Berton, Marco [Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “G. Galilei,” Università di Padova, Padova (Italy); Brera Astronomical Observatory (INAF), Merate (Italy); Foschini, Luigi; Caccianiga, Alessandro [Brera Astronomical Observatory (INAF), Merate (Italy); Ciroi, Stefano [Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “G. Galilei,” Università di Padova, Padova (Italy); Congiu, Enrico [Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “G. Galilei,” Università di Padova, Padova (Italy); Brera Astronomical Observatory (INAF), Merate (Italy); Cracco, Valentina; Frezzato, Michele; La Mura, Giovanni; Rafanelli, Piero, E-mail: marco.berton@unipd.it [Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “G. Galilei,” Università di Padova, Padova (Italy)

2017-07-25

In recent years, the old paradigm according to which only high-mass black holes can launch powerful relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) has begun to crumble. The discovery of γ-rays coming from narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s), usually considered young and growing AGN harboring a central black hole with mass typically lower than 10{sup 8} M{sub ⊙}, indicated that also these low-mass AGN can produce powerful relativistic jets. The search for parent population of γ-ray emitting NLS1s revealed their connection with compact steep-spectrum sources (CSS). In this proceeding we present a review of the current knowledge of these sources, we present the new important case of 3C 286, classified here for the fist time as NLS1, and we finally provide a tentative orientation based unification of NLS1s and CSS sources.

An Orientation-Based Unification of Young Jetted AGN: The Case of 3C 286

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berton, Marco; Foschini, Luigi; Caccianiga, Alessandro; Ciroi, Stefano; Congiu, Enrico; Cracco, Valentina; Frezzato, Michele; La Mura, Giovanni; Rafanelli, Piero

2017-01-01

In recent years, the old paradigm according to which only high-mass black holes can launch powerful relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) has begun to crumble. The discovery of γ-rays coming from narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s), usually considered young and growing AGN harboring a central black hole with mass typically lower than 10 8 M ⊙ , indicated that also these low-mass AGN can produce powerful relativistic jets. The search for parent population of γ-ray emitting NLS1s revealed their connection with compact steep-spectrum sources (CSS). In this proceeding we present a review of the current knowledge of these sources, we present the new important case of 3C 286, classified here for the fist time as NLS1, and we finally provide a tentative orientation based unification of NLS1s and CSS sources.

Mental health orientation for self-help group members: A feasibility study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Basavaraj Shrinivasa

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Treatment gap for mental health care in low- and middle-income (LAMI countries is very large, and building workforce using the locally available resources is very much essential in reducing this gap. The current study is a preliminary work toward this direction. Materials and Methods: A single group pre- and post-design was considered for assessing the feasibility of Mental Health Orientation (MHO Program for Self-Help Group members. Assessment of participants' MHO using Orientation Towards Mental Illness (OMI scale was undertaken at three levels: baseline assessment before the intervention, after completing 2 days orientation program, and 6 weeks later. Results: Analysis of data resulted in statistically significant mean scores in the domains of areas of causation (F[1.41, 40.7] = 21.7, P< 0.000, ηp2 = 0.428, perception of abnormality (F[1.27, 36.8] = 15.8, P< 0.000, ηp2 = 0.353, treatment (F[1.42, 41.3] = 34.8, P< 0.000, ηp2 = 0.546, and after effect (F[1.36,39.4] = 26.7, P< 0.000, ηp2 = 0.480. Although the overall mean scores of all the domains of OMI were found to be statistically significantly different, there was no significant difference in the mean scores between post and follow-up assessments on areas of causation (μd = 1.27, P = 0.440 and treatment (μd = 1.00, P = 0.156. Conclusion: Overall, the findings of our study demonstrate that brief MHO program can exert a beneficial effect on bringing about significant change in the orientation of the participants toward mental illness but need to be refreshed over time to make the impact of the program stay longer.

Multicultural Humanistic Psychology: Empirical Investigations of Humanistic Concepts.

Science.gov (United States)

Chaffins, Belinda J.; McConnell, Stephen C.

Multicultural psychology examines existential-humanistic concerns in reference to the unique world of the client. Some of these contextual variables include race, age, religion, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, sociocultural and sociopolitical influences, as well as the roles of power, privilege, and disadvantage. Diversity impacts…

Different facets of market orientation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ormrod, Robert P.; Henneberg, Stephan C.

2009-01-01

the UK parties generally exhibited similar levels of market orientation on each of the relevant construct dimensions, the German parties had more distinct profiles; thus the applied dimensions of political market orientation show discriminatory power within and across electoral systems. In the UK......In this study we employ the concept of political market orientation to better understand how the main political parties in the UK and Germany relate to other stakeholders in the political sphere through an exploratory content analysis of their core election offering, the manifesto. This study has...... two aims: firstly, we will discuss the different facets of the market orientation of the main UK and German parties in their respective 2005 General Elections through an exploratory content analysis, and secondly, we will compare characteristics of market orientation between the two countries. Whilst...

a Task-Oriented Disaster Information Correlation Method

Science.gov (United States)

Linyao, Q.; Zhiqiang, D.; Qing, Z.

2015-07-01

With the rapid development of sensor networks and Earth observation technology, a large quantity of disaster-related data is available, such as remotely sensed data, historic data, case data, simulated data, and disaster products. However, the efficiency of current data management and service systems has become increasingly difficult due to the task variety and heterogeneous data. For emergency task-oriented applications, the data searches primarily rely on artificial experience based on simple metadata indices, the high time consumption and low accuracy of which cannot satisfy the speed and veracity requirements for disaster products. In this paper, a task-oriented correlation method is proposed for efficient disaster data management and intelligent service with the objectives of 1) putting forward disaster task ontology and data ontology to unify the different semantics of multi-source information, 2) identifying the semantic mapping from emergency tasks to multiple data sources on the basis of uniform description in 1), and 3) linking task-related data automatically and calculating the correlation between each data set and a certain task. The method goes beyond traditional static management of disaster data and establishes a basis for intelligent retrieval and active dissemination of disaster information. The case study presented in this paper illustrates the use of the method on an example flood emergency relief task.

Gender Variance in Childhood and Sexual Orientation in Adulthood: A Prospective Study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Steensma, T.D.; van den Ende, J..; Verhulst, F.C.; Cohen-Kettenis, P.T.

2013-01-01

Introduction. Several retrospective and prospective studies have reported on the association between childhood gender variance and sexual orientation and gender discomfort in adulthood. In most of the retrospective studies, samples were drawn from the general population. The samples in the

Study of proton polarization in charge exchange process on optically oriented sodium atoms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zelenskij, A.N.; Kokhanovskij, S.A.

1984-01-01

Using high-power adjustable dye lasers for electron spin orientation in a charge-exchange target enables to significantly increase the proton polarization efficiency. A device is described that permits to avoid growth of the polarized proton beam emittance in a charge-exchange process in a strong magnetic field. The devise main feature is the use of an intensive source of neutral hydrogen atoms and the presence of a helium additional charge-exchange target which actualy is a proton ''source''. The helium charge-exchange cell is placed in the same magnetic field of a solenoid where a cell with oriented sodium is placed, a polarized electron being captured by a proton in the latter cell. In this case the beam at the solenoid inlet and outlet is in a neutral state; emittance growth related to the effect of end magnetic fields is not observed. The device after all prouduces polarized protons, their polarization degree is measured and the effect of various factors on polarization degree is studied. The description of the laser source and laser system is given. Measurement results have shown the beam intensity of neutral 7 keV atoms which passed through a polarizer to be 2 mA. The proton current doesn't depend. On the beeld fin the region of chrge exchange for the 8 kGs magnetic field. The degree of sodium polarization was 80% and polarized proton current approximately 70 μA at a temperature of the polarized sodium cell corresponding to the density of sodium vapar approximately 3x10 13 at/cm 2

Preventive home care of frail older people: a review of recent case management studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Hallberg, Ingalill Rahm; Kristensson, Jimmie

2004-09-01

Preventive actions targeting community-dwelling frail older people will be increasingly important with the growing number of very old and thereby also frail older people. This study aimed to explore and summarize the empirical literature on recent studies of case/care management interventions for community-dwelling frail older people and especially with regard to the content of the interventions and the nurse's role and outcome of it. Very few of the interventions took either a preventive or a rehabilitative approach using psycho-educative interventions focusing, for instance, on self-care activities, risk prevention, health complaints management or how to preserve or strengthen social activities, community involvement and functional ability. Moreover, it was striking that very few included a family-oriented approach also including support and education for informal caregivers. Thus it seems that the content of case/care management needs to be expanded and more influenced by a salutogenic health care perspective. Targeting frail older people seemed to benefit from a standardized two-stage strategy for inclusion and for planning the interventions. A comprehensive geriatric assessment seemed useful as a base. Nurses, preferably trained in gerontological practice, have a key role in case/care management for frail older people. This approach calls for developing the content of case/care management so that it involves a more salutogenic, rehabilitative and family-oriented approach. To this end it may be useful for nurses to strengthen their psychosocial skills or develop close collaboration with social workers. The outcome measures examined in this study represented one of three perspectives: the consumer's perspective, the perspective of health care consumption or the recipient's health and functional ability. Perhaps effects would be expected in all three areas and thus these should be included in evaluative studies in addition to measures for family and/or informal

Creating a new innovation practice and a different innovation orientation through implementation of an idea competition tool

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nicolajsen, Hanne Westh; Scupola, Ada

2012-01-01

We investigate how an idea competition tool act as catalyst to create a new innovation practice and innovation orientation in an engineering consultancy company. The idea competition is used internally in the organization to collect employee ideas for internal process improvements. The case study...... barriers by creating a strategic business architecture encouraging employees to contribute with innovative ideas that the company may develop and implement for the good of the company. The findings indicate that more and different innovation orientations may co-exist in the same organization, complementing...... each other, such as balancing an external customer orientation with an innovation orientation focusing on internal innovations....

Deconstructing sexual orientation: understanding the phenomena of sexual orientation.

Science.gov (United States)

Stein, T S

1997-01-01

The very terms of a debate about whether or not sexual orientation is primarily a biological phenomenon fail to consider the complex origins of the phenomenon. Deconstruction of the term "homosexuality" shows that it refers to multiple factors which cannot be studied as or subsumed under a unitary concept. Adequate understanding of sexual orientation must consider the developmental, interpersonal, experiential, and cultural dimensions of sexuality, as well as any biological contributions to sexual attraction, behavior, and identity.

Future Orientation, School Contexts, and Problem Behaviors: A Multilevel Study

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Pan; Vazsonyi, Alexander T.

2013-01-01

The association between future orientation and problem behaviors has received extensive empirical attention; however, previous work has not considered school contextual influences on this link. Using a sample of N = 9,163 9th to 12th graders (51.0% females) from N = 85 high schools of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the…

Market-oriented programming and its application to power load management

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ygge, F

1998-04-01

Market-oriented programming is a new approach to design and implementation of resource allocation mechanisms in computer systems. It has its roots in different disciplines, such as economics and computer science (in particular the area of multi-agent systems). This is divided into two different parts, focusing on: (1) central foundations and mechanisms of market-oriented programming, and (2) the use of market-oriented programming in practical applications. Market-oriented programming is seen as a programming paradigm based on abstractions such as prices and demands. Concepts, terminology and theory from micro-economics form the foundations of the paradigm. Central aspects of these foundations are investigated and some new insights are presented. Furthermore, some relations between standard optimization/resource allocation approaches and markets are described, and novel theorems are introduced. A published, and generally recognized, market oriented approach to the application building climate control is analyzed in detail. A new approach to this application, based on market-oriented programming, is introduced and shown to be superior to the analyzed approach in many ways. The case study pinpoints a number of potential pitfalls as well as advantages of market-oriented approaches to this and other applications. A second investigated application is power load management, i.e. the management of loads at the customer`s side for obtaining more efficient energy systems management. The basis of the application is described and a new market oriented approach is introduced and analyzed. The approach is shown to have a number of advantages compared to existing approaches to this problem. The main conclusion of the thesis is that there are some potential pitfalls of market-oriented programming, but when used with care it provides a highly natural and efficient means for resource allocation in computer systems

Service oriented product innovation for improved environmental performance. An an exploratory case study of the air conditioning and cooling sector

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cook, M.; Maggs, H.; Neame, C.; Lemon, M. [The School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire (United Kingdom)

2006-09-15

The need to improve the environmental performance of production and consumption practices within advanced industrialised nations is widely accepted. Finding ways to satisfy demand using far fewer resources is central to research in this field. For many, the trajectories of service orientated products are thought to provide an opportunity to address this need and anticipate futures in which economic growth is de-coupled from resource use. This paper presents the findings of exploratory research in the air-conditioning and cooling sector, which sought to understand how these benefits might be realised. It suggests that these benefits will not arise as a result of economic restructuring but rather that a deeper understanding of the process of service innovation, which underpins trajectories of service orientated products, is required to develop effective policy.

OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING IN SCHOOL COURSE OF INFORMATICS

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Хамид Абдулович Гербеков

2017-12-01

Full Text Available In article approaches to training of student in object-oriented programming in the environment of the Windows operating system are considered. The analysis of the literature on the programming and the modern school textbook on informatics, and also theoretical material on object-oriented programming within the informative line “Algorithmization and programming” of school course of informatics is for this purpose carried out. The object-oriented approached essentially differs from structured programming in fact that the object-oriented programming paradigm is more open and scalable. It doesn’t mean that transition to the object-oriented approach to programming demands a failure from all algorithm applied in case of structural pro-applications of all earlier found and tested method and receptions. On the contrary new elements are always based on prior experience. Object approach creates a set of essential convenience which under other conditions can’t provide. Object-oriented programming in the environment of the Windows operating system to interest student from the first lesson and to do training fascinating and interesting because student can control object which the modern students face since the childhood on the personal computers, pads and phones.

Deformation and orientation effects in the binary symmetric decay of 20,21,22Ne*

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Singh, BirBikram; Kaur, Manpreet; Gupta, Raj K.

2014-01-01

We have extended the study of binary symmetric decay (BSD) of extremely light mass compound systems 20,21,22 Ne* formed in 10,11 B+ 10,11 B reactions at E lab = 48 MeV, to explore the role of deformations and orientations, using the Dynamical Cluster decay Model (DCM). In the present work, we find that with inclusion of quadruple deformations and 'hot compact' orientations of nuclei σ ff increases in comparison to the case of spherical considerations of nuclei

Object oriented distributed programming: studies and proposals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guerraoui, Rachid

1992-01-01

This thesis contributes to the investigation of the object concept in distributed programming. Henceforth, this programming style has become a reality in the computer science world, since it allows to increase of the availability of applications and to decrease their execution time. Nevertheless, designing a distributed application is a hard task: the various abstraction levels that must be considered hinder the software reusability and maintenance, while errors and concurrent accesses are often sources of executions incoherence. The object concept improves the software modularity, and raises the computing abstraction level. Integrating distribution related aspects into the object model brings up the issues of expressing the concurrency and maintaining the coherency. The investigation of these problems in this thesis has been guided by a major concern for the preservation of the intrinsic properties of object-orientation, and the orthogonality of the solutions given. The main contributions of the thesis are: (i) the classification, regarding modularity, of the different design alternatives for object-oriented concurrent languages; (ii) the evaluation of various transactional mechanisms in object-based concurrent languages, and the design of an atomic asynchronous communication protocol named ACS; (iii) the definition of a transaction-based object-oriented concurrent language called KAROS; (iv) the implementation of a modular framework which allows to combine in a same application, various concurrency control and error recovery mechanisms; (v) the identification of a formal property, named general atomicity, which constitutes a correctness criteria for atomic objects specifications. (author) [fr

Benchmarking and performance enhancement framework for multi-staging object-oriented languages

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Ahmed H. Yousef

2013-06-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on verifying the readiness, feasibility, generality and usefulness of multi-staging programming in software applications. We present a benchmark designed to evaluate the performance gain of different multi-staging programming (MSP languages implementations of object oriented languages. The benchmarks in this suite cover different tests that range from classic simple examples (like matrix algebra to advanced examples (like encryption and image processing. The benchmark is applied to compare the performance gain of two different MSP implementations (Mint and Metaphor that are built on object oriented languages (Java and C# respectively. The results concerning the application of this benchmark on these languages are presented and analysed. The measurement technique used in benchmarking leads to the development of a language independent performance enhancement framework that allows the programmer to select which code segments need staging. The framework also enables the programmer to verify the effectiveness of staging on the application performance. The framework is applied to a real case study. The case study results showed the effectiveness of the framework to achieve significant performance enhancement.

Politics of the aged: orientations and behavior in major liberal democracies.

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Edinger, L J

1985-01-01

Do the political outlook and electoral behavior of the elderly differ notably from that of younger adults in leading capitalist democracies? A cross-national examination of poll data suggests that on the whole they do not. Among the aged certain cross-national differences in rates of political participation beyond voting may be related to differences in national socio-political structures as well as differences in individual attributes.

Market Orientation and Sources of Knowledge to Innovate in SMEs: A Firm Level Study

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Simone Regina Didonet

2016-10-01

Full Text Available This work examines the relationship between the three market orientation (MO components, i.e. customer orientation, competitor orientation and inter-functional coordination, and the extension to which small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs use different sources of knowledge to innovate. Based on a sample of 181 Chilean SMEs, a confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA was performed to analyze the relationship among constructs. The results show that the extension to which SMEs use different sources of knowledge to innovate depends on the interactions between MO components. This study addresses a gap in the literature, by linking and interrelating market orientation components to the innovation perspective in SMEs. Therefore, we provide insights into the role of each MO component in influencing the extension to which firms seek for and use different sources of knowledge to innovate and attempt to explain some literature inconsistencies on the theme.

Social marketing's unique contribution to mental health stigma reduction and HIV testing: two case studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Thackeray, Rosemary; Keller, Heidi; Heilbronner, Jennifer Messenger; Dellinger, Laura K Lee

2011-03-01

Since its inception in 2005, articles in Health Promotion Practice's social marketing department have focused on describing social marketing's unique contributions and the application of each to the practice of health promotion. This article provides a brief review of six unique features (marketing mix, consumer orientation, segmentation, exchange, competition, and continuous monitoring) and then presents two case studies-one on reducing stigma related to mental health and the other a large-scale campaign focused on increasing HIV testing among African American youth. The two successful case studies show that social marketing principles can be applied to a wide variety of topics among various population groups.

Moral Orientation, Gender, and Salary.

Science.gov (United States)

Manning, Roger W.

A study examined the relationship among gender, moral orientation, and pay. Although the participants were about equal in terms of gender, 48 males and 53 females, males tended to hold higher degrees. The researcher hypothesized that salaries would be differentiated based on gender and moral orientation. Assumptions were that care-oriented males…

IT Service Departments Struggle to Adopt a Service-Oriented Philosophy

OpenAIRE

Aileen Cater-Steel

2009-01-01

Many IT service departments are adopting IT service management best practice frameworks such as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) to improve the quality of service to customers. This study reports on recent surveys and case studies of organizations which have embarked on IT service management improvement. It highlights specific difficulties experienced by organizations. Six factors were found to be critical in achieving an effective service-oriented philosophy. The factors are support from...

Novel studies of molecular orientation in synthetic polymeric membranes for gas separation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ismail, Ahmad Fauzi

1998-01-01

The main objective of this investigation was to produce a super-selective asymmetric membrane for gas separation. To achieve this, molecular orientation induced by rheological conditions during membrane fabrication was investigated and related to the gas separation performance of flat sheet and hollow fiber membranes. Infrared dichroism, a spectroscopic technique, was developed in the first phase of the research to directly measure molecular orientation in flat sheet membranes. The degree of molecular orientation was found to increase with increasing shear during fabrication which enhanced both pressure-normalised flux and selectivity of the coated membranes. The rheology of polymer solutions and the mechanism of molecular orientation have been treated in detail for membrane production. This is a novel approach since previous fundamental work has focused on the phase inversion process. The current study showed that rheological conditions during membrane fabrication have the utmost importance in enhancing membrane selectivity. The effects of molecular orientation at greater shear, as experienced by hollow fiber membranes during extrusion through the spinneret channel, were investigated in the second phase of this research. In order to produce a good quality fiber, a unique tube-in-orifice spinneret and a modified hollow fiber spinning rig were designed and fabricated. Thus the combined effects of reduced water activity in the bore coagulant during hollow fiber spinning and rheologically induced molecular orientation were investigated. The selectivity of the coated high shear hollow fiber membranes was heightened and even surpassed the recognised intrinsic selectivity of the polymer. Pressure-normalised flux also increased with increasing shear rate. In the third phase of this research phase inversion conditions were further optimised to give a superior skin layer and thus provide an even better platform for the advantageous effects of molecular orientation. These

Learner Behaviour in a MOOC Practice-Oriented Course: In Empirical Study Integrating TAM and TPB

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Hsi-Hsun; Su, Chung-Ho

2017-01-01

Few practice-oriented courses are currently integrated into online learning platforms, such as OpenCourseWare, Khan Academy, and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). It is worthwhile to explore how learners respond to information technology and new teaching methods when practice-oriented course are placed online. Therefore, this study probes…

Percutaneous Endoscopic Management for Oriental Cholangiohepatitis: A Case Report and a Brief Review of the Literature

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Khalil Aloreidi

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Oriental cholangiohepatitis (OCH is a disease characterized by intrabiliary pigment stone formation, resulting in recurrent bouts of cholangitis. OCH is found mostly in Southeast Asia but it is occasionally recognized in Western societies. OCH etiology is largely unknown. We report our experience with a patient who presented with acute cholecystitis. Following laparoscopic cholecystectomy, she developed acute cholangitis due to multiple biliary tree stones. She underwent ERCP to clear the stones from common bile duct. For the intrahepatic stones, she underwent novel hybrid percutaneous endoscopic technique. The procedure resulted in complete clearance of biliary tree stones and resolution of her symptoms. The aim of this case is to increase awareness of this disease when patients from endemic areas present with biliary stones.

Public Responses to CO2 Storage Sites. Lessons from Five European Cases

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Oltra, C.; Boso, A. [Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas CIEMAT, Madrid (Spain); Upham, P. [Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki and Centre for Integrated Energy Research, University of Leeds, Leeds (United Kingdom); Riesch, H. [Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, London (United Kingdom); Brunsting, S. [ECN Policy Studies, Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands ECN, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Duetschke, E. [Fraunhofer-Institut fuer System- und Innovationsforschung ISI, Karlsruhe (Germany); Lis, A. [Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University, Budapest (Hungary)

2012-05-24

Studies of the factors involved in public perceptions of CO2 storage projects reveal a level of complexity and diversity that arguably confounds a comprehensive theoretical account. To some extent, a conceptual approach that simply organises the relevant social scientific knowledge thematically, rather than seeking an integrated explanation, is as useful as any single account that fails to do justice to the contingencies involved. This paper reviews and assembles such knowledge in terms of six themes and applies these themes to five European cases of carbon capture and storage (CCS) implementation. We identify the main factors involved in community responses to CCS as relating to: the characteristics of the project; the engagement process; risk perceptions; the actions of the stakeholders; the characteristics of the community, and the socio-political context.

Study Orientation Ply of Fiberglass on Blade Salt Water Pump Windmill using Abaqus

Science.gov (United States)

Badruzzaman, B.; Sifa, A.

2018-02-01

Windmill is one tool to generate energy from wind energy is converted into energy motion, salt production process still using traditional process by utilizing windmill to move sea water to salt field With a windmill driven water system, a horizontal axis type windmill with an average windmill height of 3-4 m, with a potential wind speed of 5-9 m / s, the amount of blade used for salt water pumps as much as 4 blades, one of the main factor of the windmill component is a blade, blade designed for the needs of a salt water pump by using fiberglass material. On layer orientation 0°,30°,45°,60° and 90° with layer number 10 and layer thickness 2 mm, the purpose of this study was to determine the strength of fiberglass that was influenced by the orientation of the layer, and to determine the orientation of fiberglass layer before making. This method used Finite Element Analysis method using ABAQUS, with homogenous and heterogeneous layer parameters. The simulation result shows the difference in von misses value at an angle of 0°, 30°, 45°,60° homogeneous value is greater than heterogeneous value, whereas in orientation 90 heterogeneous values have value 1,689e9 Pa, greater than homogenous 90 orientation value of 1,296e9 Pa.

The individual-oriented and social-oriented Chinese bicultural self: testing the theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Luo

2008-06-01

The author proposes a bicultural self theory for contemporary Chinese individuals, encompassing 2 main components: the individual-oriented self and the social-oriented self. The social orientation is rooted in traditional Chinese conceptualization of the self, whereas the individual orientation has evolved and developed under Western influences along with recent societal modernization. The author conducted a series of 5 studies to test the theory and relate the model to important issues in current personality and social psychological research, such as cultural individualism-collectivism, self-construals, motivation, cognition, emotion, and well-being. A total of 977 university students in Taiwan participated. The author found that contrasting self-aspects were differentially associated with the aforementioned constructs, as theoretically predicted. This evidence thus generally supported the bicultural self model.

Routine for uncertainties evaluation: study case in mammography; Roteiro para avaliacao de incertezas: caso estudo em mamografia

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Peixoto, J.G.P. [Instituto de Radioprotecao e Dosimetria (IRD/CNEN-RJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)]. E-mail: guiherm@ird.gov.br; Almeida, C.E.V de [Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ/LCR), RJ (Brazil). Lab. de Ciencias Radiologicas

2005-03-15

This paper gives a orientation in the identification of uncertainties in the measurement object and the influence magnitudes which directly affect the results of measurements. The entry magnitudes presented in this work applies exclusively for this study case, and their use depends of the professional for the choice of those entry magnitudes.

Effect of Egg Orientation on Malposition in Hatching Eggs

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İsmail Durmuş

2015-09-01

Full Text Available This research was conducted to determine the effects of orientation in the hatching eggs on hatching results and position disorders, so the eggs were placed in incubator for 3 groups as orientation of normal, horizontal and small end up. In this study, 1680 hatching eggs were divided into 3 groups with 7 replicates of 80 eggs in each. Hatchability of fertile eggs, malformation ratio, malposition ratio, weight loss ratio, chick quality, embryo death ratios in the early, middle and late stage of embriogenesis and mortality ratio were investigated in this research. There were significant differences among the groups in terms of egg weight loss ratio, embryo death in the late stage of embriogenesis, malposition ratio, hatching rate , whereas no significant differences among the groups in respect to malformation ratio, chick quality, embryo death in early and late embriogenesis. It was determined that the late embrionic mortality increased because of the position errors in case of hatching eggs orientation and the head of the embryo in small end up of eggs.

Cultural Orientation and Interdisciplinarity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Sofie Søndergaard

2004-01-01

I begin the article with an account of the background to the German debate on ‘Literaturwissenschaft als Kulturwissenschaft’, including the introduction of the concept of ’cultural orientation’ as a strategy for achieving interdisciplinarity. This is followed by a consideration of the discussion ...... of the object of literary studies as a way of defining the disciplinarity or identity of literary studies. Finally I summarize some of the characteristics of culturally orientated literary studies.......I begin the article with an account of the background to the German debate on ‘Literaturwissenschaft als Kulturwissenschaft’, including the introduction of the concept of ’cultural orientation’ as a strategy for achieving interdisciplinarity. This is followed by a consideration of the discussion...

Western Image of the Orient and Oriental in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile: A Postcolonial Reading

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Mevlüde ZENGİN

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This paper attempts to read Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (1937, a Hercule Poirot detective novel from a postcolonial stand in general but in particular it seeks traces of Orientalism in it. Expertly plotted and set in Egypt, an exotic background, Death on the Nile is analyzed in this study, through Edward W. Said’s critique of Orientalism, to detect the novel’s projection of the Orient and oriental. Orientalism is defined by Edward Said in his groundbreaking book Orientalism (1978 as a scholarly discipline involving the negative portrayal of the East and eastern people, values and culture by westerners and as western construction of the Orient in occidental discourse through western perspective. Composed of two sections the essay begins with a brief introduction to postcolonial criticism and the critique of Orientalism. Next Death on the Nile is analyzed in the light of the criticism of Orientalism in the second section. The projection of the Orient and oriental people, places, values, concepts and so forth detected in the novel are presented in two subsections of this part. The study concludes that Death on the Nilebeing a detective novel has an orientalist quality when it comes to the reflection of the Orient and oriental though Christie does not foreground this quality of the novel. Another conclusion reached at the end of this study is that for Christie, the Queen of detective fiction has been considered to be a best-selling novelist of all time, her novel, Death on the Nile with its orientalist attitude to the East and easterner, must have contributed to the construction of a negative and false image of the Orient in western mind and discourse

Why competitors matter for market orientation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Hans Eibe

2009-01-01

  Purpose - This paper investigates whether it is meaningful to decompose market orientation into customer orientation and competitor orientation and what possible implications this decomposition may have for researchers and business practitioners.   Design - Through a review of existing market...... orientation research, two of its salient dimensions, customer orientation and competitor orientation, are theoretically investigated. Then, two symmetric component measures are developed and tested on 308 manufacturing firms in a cross-sectional questionnaire survey, supplemented with census data.   Findings...... - Empirical evidence reveals that, while competitor orientation is positively related to a firm's market share, a customer orientation is detrimental to a firm's return on assets for firms in less competitive environments.   Research implications and limitations - The study advocates moving beyond ‘global...

Why competitors matter for market orientation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Hans Eibe

2009-01-01

and empirically tests two novel symmetric component measures of customer orientation and competitor orientation. Academicians are provided with insights with respect to the content and symmetry of component measures of the market orientation construct and their relation to firm performance. Furthermore, business......  Purpose - This paper investigates whether it is meaningful to decompose market orientation into customer orientation and competitor orientation and what possible implications this decomposition may have for researchers and business practitioners.   Design - Through a review of existing market...... - Empirical evidence reveals that, while competitor orientation is positively related to a firm's market share, a customer orientation is detrimental to a firm's return on assets for firms in less competitive environments.   Research implications and limitations - The study advocates moving beyond ‘global...

Beginning Java programming the object-oriented approach

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Baesens, Bart; vanden Broucke, Seppe

2015-01-01

A comprehensive Java guide, with samples, exercises, case studies, and step-by-step instruction Beginning Java Programming: The Object Oriented Approach is a straightforward resource for getting started with one of the world's most enduringly popular programming languages. Based on classes taught by the authors, the book starts with the basics and gradually builds into more advanced concepts. The approach utilizes an integrated development environment that allows readers to immediately apply what they learn, and includes step-by-step instruction with plenty of sample programs. Each chapter c

An observation tool for studying patient-oriented workflow in hospital emergency departments.

Science.gov (United States)

Ozkaynak, M; Brennan, P

2013-01-01

Studying workflow is a critical step in designing, implementing and evaluating informatics interventions in complex sociotechnical settings, such as hospital emergency departments (EDs). Known approaches to studying workflow in clinical settings attend to the activities of individual clinicians, thus being inadequate to characterize patient care as a cooperative work. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we introduce a novel, theory-driven patient-oriented workflow methodology, which better addresses the complex, multiple-provider nature of patient care. Second, we report the development of an observational tool and protocol for use in studies of this type, and the results of an evaluation study. We created a tablet computer implementation of an instrument to efficiently capture patient-oriented workflow, and evaluated it through a field study in three EDs. We focused on activities occurring over time during a single patient care episode as well as the roles of the ED staff members who conducted the activities. The evidence generated supports the validity, viability, and reliability of the tool. The coverage of the tool in terms of activities and roles was satisfactory. The tool was able to capture the sequence of activity-role pairs for 108 patient care episodes. The inter-rater reliability assessment yielded a high kappa value (0.79). The patient-oriented workflow methodology has the potential to facilitate modeling patient care in EDs by characterizing both roles and activities in sequence. The methodology also provides researchers and practitioners a more realistic and comprehensive workflow perspective that can inform the design, implementation and evaluation of health information technology interventions.

Characteristics of leadership-oriented women

OpenAIRE

Htun, Tin Tin; Yamamoto, Mariko

2001-01-01

The present study explores within-gender differences between high leadership-oriented women and low leadership-oriented women regarding their characteristics and attitudes. One hundred and ninety-two Japanese ...

STEPS OF THE DESIGN OF CLOUD ORIENTED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT IN THE STUDY OF DATABASES FOR FUTURE TEACHERS OF INFORMATICS

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Oleksandr M. Kryvonos

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The article describes the introduction of cloud services in the educational process of the discipline «Databases» of future teachers of informatics and the design of the cloud oriented learning environment on their basis. An analysis of the domestic experience of forming a cloud oriented learning environment of educational institutions is carried out, given interpretation of concepts «cloud oriented distance learning system», «cloud oriented learning environment in the study of databases», «the design of the cloud oriented learning environment in the study of databases for future teachers of informatics». The following stages of designing COLE are selected and described: targeted, conceptual, meaningful, component, introductory, appraisal-generalization. The structure of the educational interaction of subjects in the study of databases in the conditions of the COLE is developed by the means of the cloud oriented distance learning system Canvas, consisting of communication tools, joint work, and planning of educational events, cloud storages.

The value of grounded theory for disentangling inequalities in maternal-childhealthcare in contexts of diversity: A psycho-sociopolitical approach

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Sonia Hernández Plaza

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Adopting a psycho-sociopolitical approach, the present paper describes the results of a community-basedparticipatory needs assessment focusing on the perceived needs of women of reproductive age as users ofprimary healthcare in contexts of migration-driven diversity and socioeconomic vulnerability in theMetropolitan Area of Lisbon. The investigation comprised 64 in-depth interviews with women, includingnatives and immigrants to Portugal from the main origin countries in the context under study (Brazil, CapeVerde, and other Portuguese- speaking African countries and a survey of 125 women, again natives andimmigrants from these countries. The central role of qualitative methodology and grounded theory, in theframework of a multi-method research, allowed understanding the needs of women as embedded incontexts characterized by asymmetrical power relations, in terms of unequal opportunities and resources,at multiple interrelated ecological levels (personal, relational, organizational, community, socioeconomic,health system/policy, cultural/migration. The priority perceived needs of women were primarily related tosocioeconomic disadvantage, severely aggravated in the current contexts of crisis; and factors at the healthsystem level, mainly unequal access to family doctors, excessive waiting lists, and increases in the directcosts of healthcare. Results allow questioning the adequacy of cultural competence approaches for thereduction of inequalities in maternal-child healthcare in the context under study, showing the critical andinnovative value of qualitative methodology and grounded theory in research on social justice and healthin contexts of diversity characterized by unequal power dynamics.

Postdictive modulation of visual orientation.

Science.gov (United States)

Kawabe, Takahiro

2012-01-01

The present study investigated how visual orientation is modulated by subsequent orientation inputs. Observers were presented a near-vertical Gabor patch as a target, followed by a left- or right-tilted second Gabor patch as a distracter in the spatial vicinity of the target. The task of the observers was to judge whether the target was right- or left-tilted (Experiment 1) or whether the target was vertical or not (Supplementary experiment). The judgment was biased toward the orientation of the distracter (the postdictive modulation of visual orientation). The judgment bias peaked when the target and distracter were temporally separated by 100 ms, indicating a specific temporal mechanism for this phenomenon. However, when the visibility of the distracter was reduced via backward masking, the judgment bias disappeared. On the other hand, the low-visibility distracter could still cause a simultaneous orientation contrast, indicating that the distracter orientation is still processed in the visual system (Experiment 2). Our results suggest that the postdictive modulation of visual orientation stems from spatiotemporal integration of visual orientation on the basis of a slow feature matching process.

Organizing for Customer and Competitor Orientation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Hans Eibe; Slater, Stanley F.

2007-01-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of structural liaison devices, specialization, the presence of a marketing function, and competitive intensity as antecedents to firms' customer and competitor orientation. Results based on a sample of 99 medium-sized (50-250 employees......) manufacturing firms indicate, that while specialization and liaison devices facilitate customer orientation only liaison devices facilitate competitor orientation. Competitive intensity has no effects on customer orientation but influence competitor orientation. The results also indicate that the presence...... of a marketing function has no influence on the level of firms' customer and competitor orientation....

The use of intraoperative computed tomography navigation in pituitary surgery promises a better intraoperative orientation in special cases

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Stefan Linsler

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: The safety of endoscopic skull base surgery can be enhanced by accurate navigation in preoperative computed tomography (CT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI. Here, we report our initial experience of real-time intraoperative CT-guided navigation surgery for pituitary tumors in childhood. Materials and Methods: We report the case of a 15-year-old girl with a huge growth hormone-secreting pituitary adenoma with supra- and perisellar extension. Furthermore, the skull base was infiltrated. In this case, we performed an endonasal transsphenoidal approach for debulking the adenoma and for chiasma decompression. We used an MRI neuronavigation (Medtronic Stealth Air System which was registered via intraoperative CT scan (Siemens CT Somatom. Preexisting MRI studies (navigation protocol were fused with the intraoperative CT scans to enable three-dimensional navigation based on MR and CT imaging data. Intraoperatively, we did a further CT scan for resection control. Results: The intraoperative accuracy of the neuronavigation was excellent. There was an adjustment of <1 mm. The navigation was very helpful for orientation on the destroyed skull base in the sphenoid sinus. After opening the sellar region and tumor debulking, we did a CT scan for resection control because the extent of resection was not credible evaluable in this huge infiltrating adenoma. Thereby, we were able to demonstrate a sufficient decompression of the chiasma and complete resection of the medial part of the adenoma in the intraoperative CT images. Conclusions: The use of intraoperative CT/MRI-guided neuronavigation for transsphenoidal surgery is a time-effective, safe, and technically beneficial technique for special cases.

Science Education for Empowerment and Social Change: A Case Study of a Teacher Educator in Urban Pakistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Zahur, Rubina; Barton, Angela Calabrese; Upadhyay, Bhaskar Raj

2002-01-01

Discusses the purpose of science education for children of the very poor classes in caste-oriented developing countries such as Pakistan. Presents a case study of one teacher educator whose beliefs and practices sharply deviated from the norm--she believes that science education ought to be about empowering students to make physical and political…

Listening to "How the Patient Presents Herself": A Case Study of a Doctor-Patient Interaction in an Emergency Room

Science.gov (United States)

Delbene, Roxana

2015-01-01

This is a case-study based on a micro-ethnography analyzing a doctor-patient interaction in an emergency room (ER) in New York City. Drawing on the framework of narrative medicine (Charon, 2006), the study examines how a phenomenological approach to listening to the patient facilitated the patient's narrative orientation not only to relevant…

Integration of health technology assessment recommendations into organizational and clinical practice: A case study in Catalonia.

Science.gov (United States)

Gagnon, Marie-Pierre; Sánchez, Emília; Pons, Joan M V

2006-01-01

Evaluating the impact of recommendations based upon health technology assessment (HTA) represents a challenge for both HTA agencies and healthcare policy makers. This research sought to understand factors affecting the uptake of HTA recommendations to support decision making with respect to the introduction of three health technologies. Using a multidimensional framework, based upon a combination of theoretical models, a case study was conducted. A total of twenty-eight semistructured interviews were done with physicians from fifteen hospitals and other stakeholders in Catalonia. Interview content was analyzed iteratively and classified according to theoretical dimensions and contextual factors. At the sociopolitical level, factors related to the organization and financing of the health system were found to affect the utilization of HTA recommendations. At the healthcare organization level, existing collaborations between the hospital and the HTA agency favored the integration of recommendations into practices. Formalism in the organization also influenced the utilization of HTA recommendations. At the professional level, the high degree of autonomy of specialists, the importance of peers and collegial control, and the definition of professional roles and responsibilities influenced physicians' willingness to integrate HTA recommendations into their practice. This study offers a comprehensive framework to understand the complex dynamics that affect adoption of health technologies in organizational and professional practices. The findings suggest some avenues to promote the integration of HTA recommendations into practices and, thus, increase the utilization of scientific evidence to support decision making in health care.

Applying of component system development in object methodology, case study

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Milan Mišovič

2013-01-01

Full Text Available To create computarization target software as a component system has been a very strong requirement for the last 20 years of software developing. Finally, the architectural components are self-contained units, presenting not only partial and overall system behavior, but also cooperating with each other on the basis of their interfaces. Among others, components have allowed flexible modification of processes the behavior of which is the foundation of components behavior without changing the life of the component system. On the other hand, the component system makes it possible, at design time, to create numerous new connections between components and thus creating modified system behaviors. This all enables the company management to perform, at design time, required behavioral changes of processes in accordance with the requirements of changing production and market.The development of software which is generally referred to as SDP (Software Development Process contains two directions. The first one, called CBD (Component–Based Development, is dedicated to the development of component–based systems CBS (Component–based System, the second target is the development of software under the influence of SOA (Service–Oriented Architecture. Both directions are equipped with their different development methodologies. The subject of this paper is only the first direction and application of development of component–based systems in its object–oriented methodologies. The requirement of today is to carry out the development of component-based systems in the framework of developed object–oriented methodologies precisely in the way of a dominant style. In some of the known methodologies, however, this development is not completely transparent and is not even recognized as dominant. In some cases, it is corrected by the special meta–integration models of component system development into an object methodology.This paper presents a case study

Chromosome Gene Orientation Inversion Networks (GOINs) of Plasmodium Proteome.

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Quevedo-Tumailli, Viviana F; Ortega-Tenezaca, Bernabé; González-Díaz, Humbert

2018-03-02

The spatial distribution of genes in chromosomes seems not to be random. For instance, only 10% of genes are transcribed from bidirectional promoters in humans, and many more are organized into larger clusters. This raises intriguing questions previously asked by different authors. We would like to add a few more questions in this context, related to gene orientation inversions. Does gene orientation (inversion) follow a random pattern? Is it relevant to biological activity somehow? We define a new kind of network coined as the gene orientation inversion network (GOIN). GOIN's complex network encodes short- and long-range patterns of inversion of the orientation of pairs of gene in the chromosome. We selected Plasmodium falciparum as a case of study due to the high relevance of this parasite to public health (causal agent of malaria). We constructed here for the first time all of the GOINs for the genome of this parasite. These networks have an average of 383 nodes (genes in one chromosome) and 1314 links (pairs of gene with inverse orientation). We calculated node centralities and other parameters of these networks. These numerical parameters were used to study different properties of gene inversion patterns, for example, distribution, local communities, similarity to Erdös-Rényi random networks, randomness, and so on. We find clues that seem to indicate that gene orientation inversion does not follow a random pattern. We noted that some gene communities in the GOINs tend to group genes encoding for RIFIN-related proteins in the proteome of the parasite. RIFIN-like proteins are a second family of clonally variant proteins expressed on the surface of red cells infected with Plasmodium falciparum. Consequently, we used these centralities as input of machine learning (ML) models to predict the RIFIN-like activity of 5365 proteins in the proteome of Plasmodium sp. The best linear ML model found discriminates RIFIN-like from other proteins with sensitivity and

Perception of Sexual Orientation from Facial Structure: A Study with Artificial Face Models.

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González-Álvarez, Julio

2017-07-01

Research has shown that lay people can perceive sexual orientation better than chance from face stimuli. However, the relation between facial structure and sexual orientation has been scarcely examined. Recently, an extensive morphometric study on a large sample of Canadian people (Skorska, Geniole, Vrysen, McCormick, & Bogaert, 2015) identified three (in men) and four (in women) facial features as unique multivariate predictors of sexual orientation in each sex group. The present study tested the perceptual validity of these facial traits with two experiments based on realistic artificial 3D face models created by manipulating the key parameters and presented to Spanish participants. Experiment 1 included 200 White and Black face models of both sexes. The results showed an overall accuracy (0.74) clearly above chance in a binary hetero/homosexual judgment task and significant differences depending on the race and sex of the face models. Experiment 2 produced five versions of 24 artificial faces of both sexes varying the key parameters in equal steps, and participants had to rate on a 1-7 scale how likely they thought that the depicted person had a homosexual sexual orientation. Rating scores displayed an almost perfect linear regression as a function of the parameter steps. In summary, both experiments demonstrated the perceptual validity of the seven multivariate predictors identified by Skorska et al. and open up new avenues for further research on this issue with artificial face models.

A QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF MARKET ORIENTATION AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE OF LISTED COMPANIES: EVIDENCE FROM GHANA

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Solomon A. Keelson

2012-01-01

The study is part of a larger research of market orientation, which was conducted to build on previous research, and particularly examined the association between market orientation and business performance in a larger market context, using a synthesis model approach. Using the survey approach 24 companies out of 37 listed companies participated in the quantitative study; where 72 senior officials were surveyed from August 2011 to September 2011, through a five-likert scale questions. In this...

Dynamics of Stability of Orientation Maps Recorded with Optical Imaging.

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Shumikhina, S I; Bondar, I V; Svinov, M M

2018-03-15

Orientation selectivity is an important feature of visual cortical neurons. Optical imaging of the visual cortex allows for the generation of maps of orientation selectivity that reflect the activity of large populations of neurons. To estimate the statistical significance of effects of experimental manipulations, evaluation of the stability of cortical maps over time is required. Here, we performed optical imaging recordings of the visual cortex of anesthetized adult cats. Monocular stimulation with moving clockwise square-wave gratings that continuously changed orientation and direction was used as the mapping stimulus. Recordings were repeated at various time intervals, from 15 min to 16 h. Quantification of map stability was performed on a pixel-by-pixel basis using several techniques. Map reproducibility showed clear dynamics over time. The highest degree of stability was seen in maps recorded 15-45 min apart. Averaging across all time intervals and all stimulus orientations revealed a mean shift of 2.2 ± 0.1°. There was a significant tendency for larger shifts to occur at longer time intervals. Shifts between 2.8° (mean ± 2SD) and 5° were observed more frequently at oblique orientations, while shifts greater than 5° appeared more frequently at cardinal orientations. Shifts greater than 5° occurred rarely overall (5.4% of cases) and never exceeded 11°. Shifts of 10-10.6° (0.7%) were seen occasionally at time intervals of more than 4 h. Our findings should be considered when evaluating the potential effect of experimental manipulations on orientation selectivity mapping studies. Copyright © 2018 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

EFFECT OF MARKET ORIENTATION ON SMALL BUSINESS PERORMANCE IN SMALL TOWN IN MALAYSIA: AN EMPRICAL STUDY ON MALAYSIAN SMALL FIRMS

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Muhammad Masroor ALAM

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Most research on market orientation, and performance was related to big firms. In this study, based on the theoretical framework, a model was developed to investigate the effect of market orientation on business performance in small firms. To test the relationships among the variables, data from 53 small firms in the small town of Chunglun at Sintok, Kedah was used. The findings show that the three components of market orientation are related positive to business performance of small firms. The further analysis also confirmed that customer orientation and competitor orientation are strong predictors of small firm performance. The findings of this study confirm that market orientation behavior also applies to small firms.

A Case Report of Sequela of Operation of Talus Osteonecrosis

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Choi Sung-Hun

2006-02-01

Full Text Available Objective : The clinic study or report about Oriental Medical treatment about osteonecrosis is very insufficient. Therefore, we report a case about a sequela of operation of talus osteonecrosis treated by Oriental Medical treatments. Methods : The patient was managed by bee venom and Carthami Flos Herbal-Acupuncture, Sa-am and body acupucture, oxibustion, physical theraphy and herbal medicine. We evaluated the patient through Visual Analogue Scale(VAS. Results : After 25 days of treatment, the patient showed that clinical symptoms was decreased and VAS changed from 10 to 2. Conclusion : In this case, Oriental Medical treatments for a sequela of operation of talus osteonecrosis was effective. But further studies are required to confirm the effect of these methods

Why do some countries spend more for health? An assessment of sociopolitical determinants and international aid for government health expenditures.

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Liang, Li-Lin; Mirelman, Andrew J

2014-08-01

A consensus exists that rising income levels and technological development are among key drivers of total health spending. Determinants of public sector health expenditure, by contrast, are less well understood. This study examines a complex relationship across government health expenditure (GHE), sociopolitical risks, and international aid, while taking into account the impacts of national income, debt and tax financing and aging populations on health spending. We apply a fixed-effects two-stage least squares regression method to a panel dataset comprising 120 countries for the years 1995 through 2010. Our results show that democratic accountability has a diminishing positive correlation with GHE, and that levels of GHE are higher when government is more stable. Corruption is associated with less GHE in developing countries, but with higher GHE in developed countries. We also find that development assistance for health (DAH) is fungible with domestically financed government health expenditure (DGHE). For an average country, a 1% increase in DAH to government is associated with a 0.03-0.04% decrease in DGHE. Furthermore, the degree of fungibility of DAH to government is higher in countries where corruption or ethnic tensions are widespread. However, DAH to non-governmental organizations is not fungible with DGHE. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Study to validate the outcome goal, competencies and educational objectives for use in intensive care orientation programs.

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Boyle, M; Butcher, R; Kenney, C

1998-03-01

Intensive care orientation programs have become an accepted component of intensive care education. To date, however, there have been no Australian-based standards defining the appropriate level of competence to be attained upon completion of orientation. The aim of this study was to validate a set of aims, competencies and educational objectives that could form the basis of intensive care orientation and which would ensure an outcome standard of safe and effective practice. An initial document containing a statement of the desired outcome goal, six competency statements and 182 educational objectives was developed through a review of the orientation programs developed by the investigators. The Delphi technique was used to gain consensus among 13 nurses recognised for their expertise in intensive care education. The expert group rated the acceptability of each of the study items and provided suggestions for objectives to be included. An approval rating of 80 per cent was required to retain each of the study items, with the document refined through three Delphi rounds. The final document contains a validated statement of outcome goal, competencies and educational objectives for intensive care orientation programs.