Performance factors for successful business incubators in Indonesian public universities

Measuring the performance of business processes is already a main concern for both faculty and enterprise players, since organizations are motivated to reach the productivity stage. Employing a performance achievement framework for the relationship between business incubator success factors will guarantee connection with commercial schemes, which support a high level of performance indicators in successful business incubator models. This research employs a quantitative approach, with the data analyzed using the IBM SPSS version 23 and Smart PLS version 3 statistical software packages. Employing a sample of 95 incubator managers from 19 universities which geographically located in Indonesia, it is shown that the image of business incubator factors has a positive effect on incubator performance. The study investigates the relationship between incubator performance and business incubator success factors in Indonesia. It was found that IT, as part of the business incubators’ facets/abilities, partially supports their performance; that the entry criteria directly support the performance of the incubators; that mentoring networks also support the performance, with good infrastructure systems as a moderating factor; that funding supports the performance of business incubators, also with good infrastructure systems as a moderating factor; and that university regulations and government support and protection enhance the performance of business incubators, with credits and rewards as a moderating factor. In addition, a variety of indicators from the local context affiliate positively to promote a community that highlighted the incubators’ strategies.N/

TeachOregon: Year 2 Evaluation Report

Foundations for a Better Oregon and the Chalkboard Project launched TeachOregon in 2012 to provide the opportunity for university teacher preparation programs and their community college and school district partners to work together to cocreate and pilot innovative models for collaborative, needs driven teacher preparation. The evaluation for the 3 year project is assessing (1) program implementation through a process study and (2) short term program outcomes through an impact study. The first two years of the TeachOregon initiative have featured important shifts in practice and an ongoing focus on a road set of interventions. The highlights of the Year 2 process study, based primarily on project teams' focus group descriptions of Year 2 work, can be summarized as follows.  TeachOregon grantees continue to be actively engaged and highly committed to implementing the road set of interventions introduced during Year 1. TeachOregon grantees report positive changes are taking place in each of the blueprint areas. Partners are planning for TeachOregon activities to continue beyond the grant.TeachOregon provides a framework and resources for responding to externally driven changes (e.g., edTPA, program accreditation).Partners are successfully navigating leadership changes and internal and external communication challenges.Partners are working to overcome internal and institutional barriers to change.Collecting and reporting data required for the impact evaluation presented significant challenges to the grantees. In some cases, partners had never reviewed and shared components of their data

Dual HLA B*42 and B*81-reactive T cell receptors recognize more diverse HIV-1 Gag escape variants

Closely related HLA alleles presenting similar HIV-1 epitopes can be associated with variable clinical outcome. Here the authors report their findings on CD8+ T cell responses to the HIV-1 Gag-p24 TL9 immunodominant epitope in the context of closely related protective and less protective HLA alleles, and their differential effect on viral contro

Entering the blackboard jungle: canonical dysfunction in conscious machines

The central paradigm of Artificial Intelligence is rapidly shifting toward biological models for both robotic devices and systems performing such critical tasks as network management and process control. Here we apply recent mathematical analysis of the necessary conditions for consciousness in humans in an attempt to gain some understanding of the likely canonical failure modes inherent to a broad class of global workspace/blackboard machines designed to emulate biological functions. Similar problems are likely to confront other possible architectures, although their mathematical description may be far less straightforward

Democratization’s Risk Premium: Partisan and Opportunistic Political Business Cycle Effects on Sovereign Ratings in Developing Countries

We use partisan and opportunistic political business cycle (“PBC”) considerations to develop a framework for explaining election-period decisions by credit rating agencies (“agencies”) publishing developing country sovereign risk-ratings (“ratings”). We test six hypotheses derived from the framework with 482 agency ratings for 19 countries holding 39 presidential elections from 1987-2000. We find that ratings are linked to the partisan orientation of incumbents facing election and to expectations of incumbent victory. Consistent with the framework, rating effects are sometimes greater for right-wing compared to left-wing incumbents, perhaps, because partisan PBC considerations with right-wing (left-wing) incumbents reinforce (counteract) opportunistic PBC considerations.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39931/3/wp546.pd

2015 Menino Survey of Mayors

The 2015 Menino Survey of Mayors represents the second nationally representative survey of American mayors released by the Boston University Initiatives on Cities. The Survey, based on interviews with 89 sitting mayors conducted in 2015, provides insight into mayoral priorities, policy views and relationships with their key partners, including other levels of government. Sitting mayors shared insight on their specific infrastructure needs and spending priorities, from roads and transit to water treatment and bike lanes, and reacted to police reforms proposed by the White House. They also shed light on the difficult choices they must often make, to promote affordable housing or improve the fiscal health of their city. A significant portion of the Survey is devoted to mayoral leadership, including areas of mayoral control and constituent approval, as well as constraints they confront under increasingly politicized and polarized state legislatures.Cit

Personalizing Interactions with Information Systems

Personalization constitutes the mechanisms and technologies necessary to customize information access to the end-user. It can be defined as the automatic adjustment of information content, structure, and presentation tailored to the individual. In this chapter, we study personalization from the viewpoint of personalizing interaction. The survey covers mechanisms for information-finding on the web, advanced information retrieval systems, dialog-based applications, and mobile access paradigms. Specific emphasis is placed on studying how users interact with an information system and how the system can encourage and foster interaction. This helps bring out the role of the personalization system as a facilitator which reconciles the user’s mental model with the underlying information system’s organization. Three tiers of personalization systems are presented, paying careful attention to interaction considerations. These tiers show how progressive levels of sophistication in interaction can be achieved. The chapter also surveys systems support technologies and niche application domains

Continence Across Continents To Upend Stigma and Dependency (CACTUS-D): study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial

Background: Urinary incontinence occurs in 40 % of women aged 65 years and over; however, only 15 % seek care and many delay healthcare seeking for years. Incontinence is associated with depression, social isolation, reduced quality of life, falls and other comorbidities. It is accompanied by an enormous cost to the individual and society. Despite the substantial implications of urinary incontinence on social, psychological and physical well-being of older women, the impact of continence promotion on urinary symptom improvement and subsequent effects on falls, quality of life, stigma, social participation and the cost of care remains unknown. Methods: This study is a mixed methods multi-national open-label 2-arm parallel cluster randomized controlled trial aiming to recruit 1000 community-dwelling incontinent women aged 65 years and older across Quebec, Western Canada, France and United Kingdom. Participants will be recruited through community organizations. Data will be collected at 6 time points: baseline and 1 week, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months and 12 months after baseline. One of the primary objectives is to evaluate whether the continence promotion intervention improves incontinence symptoms (measured with the Patient Global Impression of Improvement questionnaire, PGI-I) at 12 months post intervention compared to the control group. Other co-primary outcomes include changes in incontinence-related stigma, fall reduction, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio and quality-adjusted life years. Data analysis will account for correlation of outcomes (clustering) within community organizations. A qualitative sub-study will explore stigma reduction. Discussion: Community-based continence promotion programs may be a cost-effective strategy to reduce urinary incontinence, stigma and falls among older women with untreated incontinence, and simultaneously improve quality of life and healthy active life expectancy.European Research Area on Ageing2 (ERA-AGE2) progra

Using the EQ-5D as a performance measurement tool in the NHS

In a landmark move, the UK Department of Health (DH) is introducing the routine use of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) as a means of measuring the performance of health care providers in improving patient health. From April 2009 all patients will be asked to complete both generic (EQ-5D) and condition specific PROMs before and after surgery for four elective procedures; the intention is to extend this to a wide range of other NHS services. The aim of this paper is to report analysis of the EQ-5D data generated from a pilot study commissioned by the DH, and to consider the implications of the results for their use as performance indicators and measures of patient benefit. The EQ-5D has the potential advantage in the context of PROMs of enabling comparisons of performance across services as well as between providers; and in facilitating assessments of the cost effectiveness of NHS services. We present two new methods we have developed for analysing and displaying EQ-5D profile data: a Paretian Classification of Health Change, and a Health Profile Grid. Using these methods, we show that EQ-5D data can readily be used to generate useful insights into differences between providers in improving overall changes in health; results are also suggestive of striking differences in changes in health between surgical procedures. We conclude by noting a number of issues that remain to be addressed in the use of PROMs data as a basis for performance indicators