Enhancing Consultants' IT Skills: A Reverse Mentoring Project

13-16 July 2002 Many medical students arrive with excellent IT skills and experience of mentoring their peers in secondary school. Senior clinicians, by contrast, did not grow up with the technology and often feel left behind by the IT revolution. This generation gap is often seen as a threat to the authority of clinical tutors. We have set up a reverse mentoring scheme to help consultants develop their IT skills. With a grant from the post graduate dean, we have recruited thirty medical students to act as personal trainers to thirty consultants and specialist registrars. Each participant is issued with a set of learning vouchers which enables them to purchase four hours of training and a password to access the learning resources from the project website. This paper will describe the methods used, and report on the results of this unique reverse mentoring scheme

An investigation of the uses of corporate reputation: a managerial perspective in the Taiwanese pharmaceutical industry

Purpose (mandatory) The present study develops a conceptual model that examines the underlying mechanisms of the link between the uses of corporate reputation and brand image strategy, from the corporate communication perspective. The study incorporates three kinds of uses of corporate reputation: value creation, strategic resources and corporate communication. Design/methodology/approach (mandatory) Using a qualitative approach, in-depth interviews were conducted with top executives in the pharmaceutical industry in Taiwan to investigate the effects of the uses of corporate reputation on brand image strategy from the managerial perspective. Findings (mandatory) Findings provide richness into forming the basis for developing a framework of the uses of reputation, with implications for managers and academics alike. The qualitative findings generally showed that three dimensions of the uses of corporate reputation (i.e. value creation, strategic resources and corporate communication) are applicable to managers’ brand image strategy implementation. For the Taiwanese pharmaceutical industry, the research highlights that value creation herein pertains to the value created for the firm, as (a) cost/sacrifice value, (b) symbolic/expressive value, and (c) experience/hedonic value. Originality/value (mandatory) Reputation is one of the most important concerns for pharmaceutical firms, as it develops and builds trust with key stakeholders. However, in the pharmaceutical industry context, the application and uses of corporate reputation is little researched. A need exists for research that examines the effects of the uses of corporate reputation at the firm level. This study fills this important gap in developing a conceptual framework for the uses of corporate reputation in the pharmaceutical industry. In addition, most studies on the uses of corporate reputation in pharmaceuticals are in the contexts of Western countries, thus, limiting the generalisablility. Taiwan is the context for the present study

Negative Magnetoresistance in the Nearest-neighbor Hopping Conduction

We propose a size effect which leads to the negative magnetoresistance in granular metal-insulator materials in which the hopping between two nearest neighbor clusters is the main transport mechanism. We show that the hopping probability increases with magnetic field. This is originated from the level crossing in a few-electron cluster. Thus, the overlap of electronic states of two neighboring clusters increases, and the negative magnetoresistance is resulted.Comment: Latex file, no figur

Investigating the uses of corporate reputation and its effects on brand segmentation, brand differentiation and brand positioning: evidence from the Taiwanese pharmaceutical industry

This study advances current knowledge on building a brand strategy that includes corporate reputation. It employs three theories – value creation, strategic resources and corporate communication – to study the uses of corporate reputation and its effect on brand segmentation, brand differentiation and brand positioning. In the context of the Taiwanese pharmaceutical industry, a sequential mixed method approach is applied and data are analyzed using PLS SEM. Findings demonstrate the relative impacts of three uses of corporate reputation (value creation, strategic resources and corporate communication) on brand image strategy (brand segmentation, brand differentiation and brand positioning) and the implications are evaluated. This study discovers that the inclusion of medicine prices is necessary and that it negatively moderates the impact of the overall uses of corporate reputation on overall brand image strategy. This research contributes empirically as one of the few that tests reputation-and-branding-building models outside the USA and Europe

SLE_k: correlation functions in the coefficient problem

We apply the method of correlation functions to the coefficient problem in stochastic geometry. In particular, we give a proof for some universal patterns conjectured by M. Zinsmeister for the second moments of the Taylor coefficients for special values of kappa in the whole-plane Schramm-Loewner evolution (SLE_kappa). We propose to use multi-point correlation functions for the study of higher moments in coefficient problem. Generalizations related to the Levy-type processes are also considered. The exact multifractal spectrum of considered version of the whole-plane SLE_kappa is discussed

Origin of conductivity cross over in entangled multi-walled carbon nanotube network filled by iron

A realistic transport model showing the interplay of the hopping transport between the outer shells of iron filled entangled multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) and the diffusive transport through the inner part of the tubes, as a function of the filling percentage, is developed. This model is based on low-temperature electrical resistivity and magneto-resistance (MR) measurements. The conductivity at low temperatures showed a crossover from Efros-Shklovski (E-S) variable range hopping (VRH) to Mott VRH in 3 dimensions (3D) between the neighboring tubes as the iron weight percentage is increased from 11% to 19% in the MWNTs. The MR in the hopping regime is strongly dependent on temperature as well as magnetic field and shows both positive and negative signs, which are discussed in terms of wave function shrinkage and quantum interference effects, respectively. A further increase of the iron percentage from 19% to 31% gives a conductivity crossover from Mott VRH to 3D weak localization (WL). This change is ascribed to the formation of long iron nanowires at the core of the nanotubes, which yields a long dephasing length (e.g. 30 nm) at the lowest measured temperature. Although the overall transport in this network is described by a 3D WL model, the weak temperature dependence of inelastic scattering length expressed as L_phi ~T^-0.3 suggests the possibility for the presence of one-dimensional channels in the network due to the formation of long Fe nanowires inside the tubes, which might introduce an alignment in the random structure.Comment: 29 pages,10 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Phys. Rev.

InAs-AlSb quantum wells in tilted magnetic fields

InAs-AlSb quantum wells are investigated by transport experiments in magnetic fields tilted with respect to the sample normal. Using the coincidence method we find for magnetic fields up to 28 T that the spin splitting can be as large as 5 times the Landau splitting. We find a value of the g-factor of about 13. For small even-integer filling factors the corresponding minima in the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations cannot be tuned into maxima for arbitrary tilt angles. This indicates the anti-crossing of neighboring Landau and spin levels. Furthermore we find for particular tilt angles a crossover from even-integer dominated Shubnikov-de Haas minima to odd-integer minima as a function of magnetic field

Dental Treatment Approach in Cantho University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Vietnam

The traditional morphological concept to dental care has shown many drawbacks and is not appropriate in many cases. To counteract these shortcomings, a problem-solving approach has been introduced in dental curriculum of Cantho University of Medicine and Pharmacy (CTUMP), Vietnam. This approach should be reflected in dental practice in CTUMP. Objective: To investigate the problem-solving approach to dental care of CTUMP by patterns of tooth extraction, and tooth rehabilitation. Methods: Cross-sectional data on DMF, dental treatments planned, dental treatments delivered from 1549 dental records of patients aged ≥18 of CTUMP were analyzed. Results: The majority of patients were aged 18-29 (929, 60%), classified as professional and skilled workers (1112 subjects, 72%), lived in urban areas (1156 subjects, 75%), and women (932, 60%). The number of teeth eventually receiving dental treatment was lower than the number of teeth indicated for the treatment. On average, each patient had 2 teeth receiving treatment. Tooth restoration was the most common treatment (1390, 70%). Molars were the most treated teeth (842, 43%). Molars showed statistically significant higher chance for restoration and extraction than premolars and anterior teeth (Wilcoxon-signed-ranks test p ≤ 0.017). No statistically significance was found in tooth replacement between premolar and molar regions. The dental treatments aimed to preserve all teeth regardless of dental regions. Tooth replacement may tend to be morphologically based rather than functionally as most prostheses restored the complete dental arch. Conclusions: The approach to dental care in CTUMP tends to be morphologically conservative.DOI: 10.14693/jdi.v22i1.37

Corporate impression formation in online communities: a qualitative study

Purpose: This study aims to evaluate elements of corporate communication in online communities (OCs) and their influence on corporate impression formation. Interactive online platforms such as OCs are growing. Companies are discovering their importance and increasingly include OCs in their communication activities. The present study identifies the underlying components relevant to successful corporate communication in OCs, and further explore if and how online community members (OCMs) expect companies to communicate with them, explaining how corporate impressions are formed. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative research method was chosen, consisting of two stages. In stage one, seventeen expert interviews with academics and practitioners were conducted, and in stage two, twelve OCMs were interviewed to clarify the concepts and gain new insights. Findings: The study gains new knowledge relating to corporate communication in OCs and image formation. Specifically, the authors identify and confirm important key constructs in corporate impression formation in OCs, namely, relevance of messages, communication style, social context cues, affiliation, perceived similarity, source credibility and interpersonal communication. Furthermore, a conceptual model is proposed on the relationship between communication elements relevant in online communities and their influence on corporate impression. Theoretical and practical implications: The study helps to refine existing concepts of corporate impression formation in OCs. It is suggested that understanding how corporate impression is formed in OCs helps companies to participate in virtual networks, improving their corporate impression

Effect of Thermal Gradients on the Electromigration Lifetime in Power Electronics

The combined effects of electromigration and thermomigration are studied. Significantly shorter electromigration lifetimes are observed in the presence of a temperature gradient. This cannot be explained by thermomigration only, but is attributed to the effect of temperature gradient on electromigration-induced failures