B2B e-marketplaces in the airline industry:process drivers and performance indicators

Competitive pressures are increasing within and between different strategically oriented groups of airlines. This paper focuses on the level of efficiency improvements gained by using e-Marketplaces in the procurement process. Findings from a survey among 88 international airlines reveal that the use of Business-to-Business (B2B) e-Marketplaces does play different roles across the various airline groupings. Airlines that are involved in strategic alliances show higher joint procurement activities than airlines that are not involved in strategic alliances. However, alliances are probably viewed as loose arrangements and thus airlines may be reluctant to share information on procurement prices and processes with another airline that could also be acting as a competitor. The financial involvement in or initiation of e-Marketplaces by airlines is very low. Low cost airlines show high use of e-Marketplaces, but demonstrate little financial involvement in contrast. Overall, the categories of spares and repairs, office supplies, tools and ground support equipment (GSE) show the greatest potential for reducing costs and increasing procurement process efficiencies. The intense competitive pressures facing carriers will make their search for tools to realise even incremental savings and efficiency gains ever more urgent. There is evidence that e-Marketplaces are one tool to improve such performance indicators

EDDEPPS: an environment for optimal parallel software design

This paper describes an environment for performance-oriented design of portable parallel software. The environment consists of a graphical design tool based on the PVM communication library for building parallel algorithms, a state-of-the-art simulation engine and a visualization tool for animation of program execution and visualization of platform and network performance measures and statistics.  The toolset is used to model a virtual machine composed of a cluster of workstations interconnected by a local area network. The simulation model used is modular and its components are interchangeable which allows easy re-configuration of the platform. The model is validated using experiments on the COMMSI benchmark from the Parkbench suite, and a standard image processing algorithm with maximum errors of 1% and 10% respectively

A new perspective on the integration-responsiveness pressures confronting multinational firms

The Integration-Responsiveness framework of Prahalad and Doz (1987) has been used extensively in the international business literature to typify the diverse and often-conflicting environmental pressures confronting firms as they expand worldwide. Although the IR framework has been successfully applied for over a decade, many theoretical and empirical studies have focused on the consequences of these pressures rather than the pressures themselves. Prahalad and Doz identified the economic, technological, political, customer and competitive factors that create the global integration and local responsiveness pressures on the diverse businesses and functions in MNEs. This article explains the methodology, including the procedure for data collection and analysis. The researchers conclude with a discussion of their findings and directions for future research, speculating as to the appropriate definition of the domain of IR pressures and the criteria they might use to validate measures of these

Calcium signalling-dependent mitochondrial dysfunction and bioenergetics regulation in respiratory chain Complex II deficiency

International audienceDespite advanced knowledge on the genetic basis of oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS)-related diseases, the molecular and/or cellular determinants for tissue specific dysfunction are not completely understood. Here, we report the cellular events associated with mitochondrial respiratory Complex II deficiency occurring prior to cell death. Mutation or chronic inhibition of Complex II determined a large increase of basal and agonist-evoked Ca2+ signals in the cytosol and the mitochondria, in parallel with mitochondrial dysfunction characterized by membrane potential (∆ψmit) loss, [ATP] reduction and increased Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) production. cytosolic and mitochondrial Ca2+ overload are linked to increased ER Ca2+ leakage, and to SERCA2b and PMCA proteasome-dependent degradation. Increased [Ca2+]mit is also contributed by decreased mitochondrial motility and increased ER-mitochondria contact sites. Interestingly, increased intracellular [Ca2+] activated on the one hand a compensatory Ca2+-dependent glycolytic ATP production and determined on the second hand mitochondrial pathology. These results revealed the primary role for Ca2+ signalling in the control of mitochondrial dysfunction and cellular bioenergetics outcomes linked to respiratory chain Complex II deficiency