Virtual Collaborative R&D Teams in Malaysia Manufacturing SMEs

This paper presents the results of empirical research conducted during March to September 2009. The study focused on the influence of virtual research and development (R&D) teams within Malaysian manufacturing small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The specific objective of the study is better understanding of the application of collaborative technologies in business, to find the effective factors to assist SMEs to remain competitive in the future. The paper stresses to find an answer for a question “Is there any relationship between company size, Internet connection facility and virtuality?”. The survey data shows SMEs are now technologically capable of performing the virtual collaborative team, but the infrastructure usage is less. SMEs now have the necessary technology to begin the implementation process of collaboration tools to reduce research and development (R&D) time, costs and increase productivity. So, the manager of R&D should take the potentials of virtual teams into account

Initial assessment of community midwives in rural Pakistan

The goal of this Population Council study, funded by USAID through the Pakistan Initiative for Mothers and Newborns (PAIMAN) project, was to assess the potential of community midwifery services in rural Pakistan in order to provide necessary evidence for future decisions regarding the training, practice, and placement of community midwives (CMWs). The introduction of a new cadre of skilled birth attendants is significant, especially at a time when Pakistan is working toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The report makes the following recommendations: 1) opportunities for practical training should be followed meticulously; 2) selection criteria should be revised especially for age and adherence to the requirement of being resident in the respective rural community; 3) uniformity of assessment must be ensured through the development of an assessment board; 4) the placement of CMWs must be linked with other program activities to facilitate referrals and promote health education; and 5) since supervision is a critical component for ensuring a high quality of services, standards should be developed for monitoring CMWs

Spatial variations of rain intensity over a short length propagation for 5G links based on a rain gauge network

Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequency range is among operating bands designated for terrestrial 5G networks. A critical challenge of link-budgeting in mm-wave 5G networks is the precise estimation of rain attenuation for short-path links. The difficulties are further amplified in tropical and subtropical regions where the rainfall rate has a higher intensity. Different models have been proposed to predict rain attenuation. The distance factor is an important parameter in predicting total attenuation from specific rain attenuation. This study investigates the distance factor based on rain gauge networks and measured rain attenuation at 26 GHz for a 300 m link in Malaysia. Considerable discrepancies between available models were observed especially when applied for shorter path links. Also, significant variability of rain intensity is observed from the rain gauge network. This study recommends further investigation of the distance factor for a shorter link. Hence, a measurement campaign incorporating rain gauge networks was established to examine spatial variations of rain intensity over a less than 1 km link. The motivation is to develop a suitable distance factor model for 5G mm-wave propagation

Minimization of Threshold-Current Dependence of Quantum Dot Laser Using InN

This paper focuses on the effect of threshold current density on different characteristics of quantum dot based laser. To investigate the effect, different characteristics have been analyzed using quantum dot as the active layer material of the laser structure. Performance improvement of quantum dot laser using InN has been achieved in terms of minimization of the threshold current dependence such as mirror loss, modal gain, turn-on delay and so forth. Numerical results have been analyzed considering the values of threshold current densities of GaN, AlN and InN based quantum dot lasers. Analytical results show that internal loss increases linearly with the increase of the threshold current density. However, other characteristics like mirror loss, modal gain, turn-on delay have nonlinear dependence on the threshold current density for any material used in the active layer. The threshold current density of InN quantum dot based laser is lower than that of other existing quantum dot based lasers. Analytical results ascertained that mirror loss has been increased a little bit. Conversely, internal loss and modal gain have been minimized considerably using InN based quantum dot in the active layer of the laser structure. In addition, turn-on delay time has been also minimized significantly

Reusing three-phase power-flow object components for unbalanced harmonic analysis

In this paper, the harmonic penetration method is developed as a component-based application. The direct nodal voltage harmonic solution is developed as an independent software component and then integrated with existing three-phase power-flow software components. The harmonic solution reuses many facilities available in the fundamental frequency power-flow object components. The nonlinear devices such as six pulse converters are modeled as entity objects and inherited from the basic object-oriented power-system device model at fundamental frequency. Also, the linear solver also is reused form the power-flow component library. The application of object components shows that the development of complicated algorithms becomes easy due to the high code reusability

A Comparative Taxonomy of Parallel Algorithms for RNA Secondary Structure Prediction

RNA molecules have been discovered playing crucial roles in numerous biological and medical procedures and processes. RNA structures determination have become a major problem in the biology context. Recently, computer scientists have empowered the biologists with RNA secondary structures that ease an understanding of the RNA functions and roles. Detecting RNA secondary structure is an NP-hard problem, especially in pseudoknotted RNA structures. The detection process is also time-consuming; as a result, an alternative approach such as using parallel architectures is a desirable option. The main goal in this paper is to do an intensive investigation of parallel methods used in the literature to solve the demanding issues, related to the RNA secondary structure prediction methods. Then, we introduce a new taxonomy for the parallel RNA folding methods. Based on this proposed taxonomy, a systematic and scientific comparison is performed among these existing methods

Assessing the potential acceptability of a new cadre of community midwives for pregnancy and delivery related care in rural Pakistan: Findings from a qualitative study

The Population Council designed an operations research study to assess the potential acceptability of a new cadre of community midwives (CMWs) for pregnancy and delivery-related care in rural Pakistan. Specific objectives of the study were to determine the need for skilled birth attendants, identify any misconceptions in the community about CMWs, determine levels of acceptance in the community, and explore barriers to the placement of CMWs in the community. The report recommends sensitizing family members so they are more willing to grant permission for pregnant women to consult CMWs, developing flexible fee structures, giving clients greater accessibility, building a network of resources, and establishing collaborative networks with local TBAs

Continuous dynamic sliding mode control strategy of PWM based voltage source inverter under load variations

For closed-loop controlled DC-AC inverter system, the performance is highly influenced by load variations and online current measurement. Any variation in the load will introduce unwanted periodic error at the inverter output voltage. In addition, when the current sensor is in faulty condition, the current measurement will be imprecise and the designed feedback control law will be ineffective. In this paper, a sensorless continuous sliding mode control (SMC) scheme has been proposed to address these issues. The chattering effect due to the discontinuous switching nature of SMC has been attenuated by designing a novel boundary-based saturation function where the selection of the thickness of boundary is dependent to the PWM signal generation of the inverter. In order to remove the dependency on the current sensor, a particle swarm optimization(PSO) based modified observer is proposed to estimate the inductor current in which the observer gains are optimized using PSO by reducing the estimation errors cost function. The proposed dynamic smooth SMC algorithm has been simulated in MATLAB Simulink environment for 0.2-kVA DC-AC inverter and the results exhibit rapid dynamic response with a steady-state error of 0.4V peak-to-peak voltage under linear and nonlinear load perturbations. The total harmonic distortion (THD) is also reduced to 0.20% and 1.14% for linear and non-linear loads, respectively

Effects of isometric strength and plyometric training on running performance: a randomized controlled study

The aim of the study was to compare the effects of isometric strength (IST) and plyometric training (PT) on endurance running performance. Methods: Twenty-six endurance runners (18 males and 8 females; age 36 +/- 6 years, stature 1.69 +/- 0.05 m body mass 61.6 +/- 8.0 kg, VO2max 50.4 +/- 5.8 ml center dot kg(-1)center dot min(-1)) completed the countermovement jump (CMJ), isometric mid-thigh pull (IMTP), 2.4 km run time trial (2.4kmTT), running economy test (RE) and a graded exercise test measures at baseline. They were then randomly assigned to three groups, the control (CON), PT or IST group, and completed the circuit, plyometric or isometric training, respectively, twice a week for 6 weeks, while still continuing to perform their planned running training. They then completed the same set of measures performed at baseline post-intervention. Results: Significant time x group interactions and time main effect were observed for 2.4kmTT (P = .002, n(p)(2) = .45 and P < .001, n( )(2)=0.72), maximal aerobic speed (MAS) (P = .006, n(p)(2) = .39), CMJ height (P < .001, n(p)(2) = .55) and IMTP relative peak force (P = .001, n(p)(2) = .50) in favor of PT and IST. Significant main effect for time was observed for 2.4kmTT (P < .001, n(p)(2) = .72), RE (P = .048, n(p)(2) = .17), VO2max (P = .047, n(p)(2) = .18), MAS (P < .001, n(p)(2) = .63), CMJ height (P < .001, n(p)(2) = .51) and IMTP relative peak force (P < .001, n(p)(2) = .58). Conclusion: In conclusion, both PT and IST were similarly effective at enhancing running endurance performance. However, IST resulted in greater improvement to RE.The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio