Operational Capabilities: The Secret Ingredient

We develop a theoretical definition of operational capabilities, based on the strategic management and operations management literature, and differentiate this construct from the related constructs of resources and operational practices, drawing upon the resourcebased view of the firm as our foundation. We illustrate the key features of operational capabilities using the illustration of a restaurant kitchen. Because the traits of operational capabilities are distinct, they create a barrier to imitation, making them a potential source of competitive advantage. However, operational capabilities are particularly challenging to measure, because they emerge gradually and are tacit, embedded, and manifested differently across firms. In solving this measurement conundrum, we draw upon similar situations experienced by Schein (2004) and Eisenhardt and Martin (2000) in operationalizing organizational culture and dynamic capabilities. A taxonomy of six emergent operational capabilities is developed: operational improvement, operational innovation, operational customization, operational cooperation, operational responsiveness, and operational reconfiguration. A set of measurement scales is developed, in order to measure each of the operational capabilities, and validated using two different datasets. This allows replication of the psychometric properties of the multi-item scales and helps to ensure the validity of the resulting measures

Effects of armadin on hepatic transaminases in rats with acute generalized peritonitis on the background of diabetes mellitus

The article discusses the issues about the effect of the Armadin on the hepatic transaminase in rats with acute generalized peritonitis on the background of diabetes mellitus. The experiment was performed on 48 white male adult rats, which were divided into two groups. The experimental group – animals with simulated acute generalized peritonitis against the background of streptozotocin-induced diabetes with the drug “Armadin” (ethylmethylhydroxypyridine succinate) application (n=24). The control group – animals with simulated acute generalized peritonitis against the background of streptozotocin-induced diabetes without pharmacocorrection (n = 24). Diabetes mellitus was simulated by a single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin at the dose of 60 mg/kg. Acute generalized peritonitis was induced with 10% faecal suspension in a dose of 0.5 ml per 100 g of animal weight in the abdominal cavity of laboratory animals by puncture method. Every day for 6 days, rats of experimental group received the drug “Armadin” at the doses of 100 mg/kg. We found a probable decrease in aminotransferase activity on day 3 of the study in rats of the experimental group after administration of Armadin. Thus, ALT activity decreased by 26.7%, and AST activity – by 25.9% compared to the control group. On the 7th day of the study, the activity of ALT in the blood of rats of the experimental group decreased to 0.50 ± 0.03 mmol/l, which was 49.5% lower than the control group of rats in this period of the experiment. Similar changes are observed in the study of AST activity, where, accordingly, it decreased by 48 % relative to control. The positive effect of the drug "Armadin" on the body of rats, with AGP on the background of STZ-induced diabetes, is manifested by the restoration of the functional state of the liver

Machine learning technique for morphological classification of galaxies at z<0.1 from the SDSS

Methods. We used different galaxy classification techniques: human labeling, multi-photometry diagrams, Naive Bayes, Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, k-Nearest Neighbors, and k-fold validation. Results. We present results of a binary automated morphological classification of galaxies conducted by human labeling, multiphotometry, and supervised Machine Learning methods. We applied its to the sample of galaxies from the SDSS DR9 with redshifts of 0.02 < z < 0.1 and absolute stellar magnitudes of 24m < Mr < 19.4m. To study the classifier, we used absolute magnitudes: Mu, Mg, Mr , Mi, Mz, Mu-Mr , Mg-Mi, Mu-Mg, Mr-Mz, and inverse concentration index to the center R50/R90. Using the Support vector machine classifier and the data on color indices, absolute magnitudes, inverse concentration index of galaxies with visual morphological types, we were able to classify 316 031 galaxies from the SDSS DR9 with unknown morphological types. Conclusions. The methods of Support Vector Machine and Random Forest with Scikit-learn machine learning in Python provide the highest accuracy for the binary galaxy morphological classification: 96.4% correctly classified (96.1% early E and 96.9% late L types) and 95.5% correctly classified (96.7% early E and 92.8% late L types), respectively. Applying the Support Vector Machine for the sample of 316 031 galaxies from the SDSS DR9 at z < 0.1, we found 141 211 E and 174 820 L types among them.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. The presentation of these results was given during the EWASS-2017, Symposium "Astroinformatics: From Big Data to Understanding the Universe at Large". It is vailable through \url{http://space.asu.cas.cz/~ewass17-soc/Presentations/S14/Dobrycheva_987.pdf

The best of times and the worst of times: empirical operations and supply chain management research

We assess the current state of empirical research in operations and supply chain management (OSM), using Dickens’ contrast between the best of times and the worst of times as a frame. The best of times refers to the future that empirical OSM research is now entering, with exciting opportunities available using big data and other new data sources, new empirical approaches and analytical techniques and innovative tools for developing theory. These are well aligned with new research questions related to the digital economy, Industry 4.0, the impact of the millennial generation as consumers, social media, 3D printing, etc. However, we also explore how it is the worst of times, focusing on the challenges and problems that plague empirical OSM research. Our goal is to show how OSM researchers can learn from the worst of times, in order to be poised to take advantage of the best of times. We introduce the research diamond as a vehicle for emphasising the importance of a balanced research perspective that treats the research problem, theory, data collection and data analysis as equally important, requiring alignment between them. By learning and addressing the issues in this period of the best of times and the worst of times, we can take advantage of the opportunities facing our field to generate research that is balanced, insightful, rigorous, relevant, impactful and interesting

The XXL Survey: XII. Optical spectroscopy of X-ray-selected clusters and the frequency of AGN in superclusters

This article belongs to the first series of XXL publications. It presents multifibre spectroscopic observations of three 0.55 sq.deg. fields in the XXL Survey, which were selected on the basis of their high density of X-ray-detected clusters. The observations were obtained with the AutoFib2+WYFFOS (AF2) wide-field fibre spectrograph mounted on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope. The paper first describes the scientific rationale, the preparation, the data reduction, and the results of the observations, and then presents a study of active galactic nuclei (AGN) within three superclusters. We obtained redshifts for 455 galaxies in total, 56 of which are counterparts of X-ray point-like sources. We were able to determine the redshift of the merging supercluster XLSSC-e, which consists of six individual clusters at z~0.43, and we confirmed the redshift of supercluster XLSSC-d at z~0.3. More importantly, we discovered a new supercluster, XLSSC-f, that comprises three galaxy clusters also at z~0.3. We find a significant 2D overdensity of X-ray point-like sources only around the supercluster XLSSC-f. This result is also supported by the spatial (3D) analysis of XLSSC-f, where we find four AGN with compatible spectroscopic redshifts and possibly one more with compatible photometric redshift. In addition, we find two AGN (3D analysis) at the redshift of XLSSC-e, but no AGN in XLSSC-d. Comparing these findings with the optical galaxy overdensity we conclude that the total number of AGN in the area of the three superclusters significantly exceeds the field expectations. The difference in the AGN frequency between the three superclusters cannot be explained by the present study because of small number statistics. Further analysis of a larger number of superclusters within the 50 sq. deg. of the XXL is needed before any conclusions on the effect of the supercluster environment on AGN can be reached.Comment: 11 pages, published by A&