An attempt to understand complexity in a government digital transformation project

Digital transformation projects will become one of the dominating tools for mastering digital transformation in governments. Studies show that such projects are complex undertakings and increasingly difficult to manage. The purpose of the paper is to provide a better understanding of the factors that cause complexity in government digital transformation projects. The authors use an in-depth case study approach to investigate factors of complexity in an ongoing digital transformation project. The results indicate that complexity in this project is rooted in dynamic relationships between multiple dimensions of organization, technologies, and innovation. The authors conclude that when organizational structuring, the introduction of new technology, and efforts to innovate and create added value for citizens and businesses operate in tandem, the pervasive complexity associated with delivering government digital transformation projects becomes increasingly difficult to manage

Numerical Experimental Investigation of Solidification Thickness around Cylindrical Surfaces for HVAC Cold Storage Systems

Thermal Ice Storage System (TISS) is an innovative way of storing night-time off-peak energy for daytime peak USAge. In many locations, demand for electrical power peaks during summer time. Air-conditioning equipment are the main reason accounting for as much as half of the power demand during the hot mid-day hours when electricity is most expensive. Since utilities have spare electrical generating capacity at night, electricity generated during this ldquo;off-peakrdquo; is much less expensive. In this research a numerical model for Latent Heat Storage (LHS) cylindrical tank has been obtained from a numerical package, ANSYS software ver. 15, and compared to an experimental data gathered from similar tank. The data showed good agreement with the experimental data with an error of 9%. The numerical model can be used to estimate ice thickness and tank geometries for any future work

Quaternary coastal uplift along the Talara Arc (Ecuador, Northern Peru) from new marine terrace data

Marine Geology, v. 228, n. 1-4, p. 73-91, 2006. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2006.01.004International audienceMarine terrace sequences have been investigated along the Talara Arc, a 1000-km-long stretch of the coast of Ecuador and northern Peru, characterized by subduction with a concave plan-view. Seven areas were investigated, evidencing flights of up to seven marine terraces with elevations reaching up to 360 m above mean sea level (amsl). Dating of the terraces was made using the Infra Red Stimulated Luminescence (IRSL) technique on sands as old as MIS 9 (∼330 ka). 14 C and U-series dates were obtained from fossil shells for geochronological cross control. Mean uplift rates along the Talara Arc range from about 0.10 up to 0.50 mm/ yr. The strongest uplift is observed in the Manta Peninsula of Ecuador in front of the subduction of the Carnegie Ridge. The uplift rate tends to slow down towards the northern and southern ends of the Talara Arc and then the transition toward the stable or subsiding coasts of central Peru and northern Ecuador and Colombia is sharp. The uplift appears to be homogeneous and related to 1) the map view curvature of the Arc, 2) the concave subduction pattern and 3) the Carnegie Ridge subduction

Local Excision Without Radiation for High-Grade Soft-Tissue Sarcoma of the Extremity and Superficial Trunk

Purpose. Limb-sparing surgery combined with radiation treatment has become the accepted treatment for patients with high-grade soft-tissue sarcoma. Adjuvant radiation was not routinely used at this institution for patients with clear margins after surgery.This retrospective review analyses the outcome of this group of patients

Socio-Demographic and Attitudinal Correlates of Problematic Social Media Use: Analysis of Ithra's 30-Nation Digital Wellbeing Survey

Time spent on social media continues to rise globally. For some individuals, social media use can become maladaptive and associated with clinically significant social and occupational impairments. This problematic social media use (PSMU) is also linked with poorer health and wellbeing. Much of our existing PSMU knowledge comes from single nation studies, heavily focused on adolescent and college-age samples. This study uses data from Ithra's 2021 global digital wellbeing survey to explore rates of PSMU and identify socio-demographic and attitudinal correlates. Participants (N = 15,000) were representative adult samples (N = 500) drawn from 30 nations. All participants provided socio-demographic data and completed a measure of PSMU, along with questions assessing attitudes toward social media and general usage patterns. PSMU prevalence was 6.82%, varying from 1.7 to 18.4% between nations. Multivariate logistical regression identified several correlates, including national culture, age, parenthood and frequency of use. These findings can help inform public policy and public health initiatives to reduce PSMU prevalence

Measurable signatures of quantum mechanics in a classical spacetime

We propose an optomechanics experiment that can search for signatures of a fundamentally classical theory of gravity and in particular of the many-body Schrödinger-Newton (SN) equation, which governs the evolution of a crystal under a self-gravitational field. The SN equation predicts that the dynamics of a macroscopic mechanical oscillator’s center-of-mass wave function differ from the predictions of standard quantum mechanics [H. Yang, H. Miao, D.-S. Lee, B. Helou, and Y. Chen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 170401 (2013)]. This difference is largest for low-frequency oscillators, and for materials, such as tungsten or osmium, with small quantum fluctuations of the constituent atoms around their lattice equilibrium sites. Light probes the motion of these oscillators and is eventually measured in order to extract valuable information on the pendulum’s dynamics. Due to the nonlinearity contained in the SN equation, we analyze the fluctuations of measurement results differently than standard quantum mechanics. We revisit how to model a thermal bath, and the wave-function collapse postulate, resulting in two prescriptions for analyzing the quantum measurement of the light. We demonstrate that both predict features, in the outgoing light’s phase fluctuations’ spectrum, which are separate from classical thermal fluctuations and quantum shot noise, and which can be clearly resolved with state of the art technology

Biomarkers of rapid chronic kidney disease progression in type 2 diabetes.

Here we evaluated the performance of a large set of serum biomarkers for the prediction of rapid progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in patients with type 2 diabetes. We used a case-control design nested within a prospective cohort of patients with baseline eGFR 30-60 ml/min per 1.73 m(2). Within a 3.5-year period of Go-DARTS study patients, 154 had over a 40% eGFR decline and 153 controls maintained over 95% of baseline eGFR. A total of 207 serum biomarkers were measured and logistic regression was used with forward selection to choose a subset that were maximized on top of clinical variables including age, gender, hemoglobin A1c, eGFR, and albuminuria. Nested cross-validation determined the best number of biomarkers to retain and evaluate for predictive performance. Ultimately, 30 biomarkers showed significant associations with rapid progression and adjusted for clinical characteristics. A panel of 14 biomarkers increased the area under the ROC curve from 0.706 (clinical data alone) to 0.868. Biomarkers selected included fibroblast growth factor-21, the symmetric to asymmetric dimethylarginine ratio, β2-microglobulin, C16-acylcarnitine, and kidney injury molecule-1. Use of more extensive clinical data including prebaseline eGFR slope improved prediction but to a lesser extent than biomarkers (area under the ROC curve of 0.793). Thus we identified several novel associations of biomarkers with CKD progression and the utility of a small panel of biomarkers to improve prediction.We acknowledge all the SUMMIT partners (http://www.imi-summit.eu/) for their assistance with this project. This work was funded by the Innovative Medicine Initiative under grant agreement no. IMI/115006 (the SUMMIT consortium) and the Go-DARTS cohort was funded by the Chief Scientists Office Scotland.This is the accepted manuscript of a paper published in Kidney International (Looker et al., Kidney International, 2015 doi: 10.1038/ki.2015.199). The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ki.2015.19

Alterations of tumor suppressor gene p16(INK4a )in pancreatic ductal carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Cell cycle inhibitor and tumor suppressor gene p16 / MTS-1 has been reported to be altered in a variety of human tumors. The purpose of the study was to evaluate primary pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas for potentially inactivating p16 alterations. METHODS: We investigated the status of p16 gene by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), nonradioisotopic single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP), DNA sequencing and hypermethylation analysis in 25 primary resected ductal adenocarcinomas. In addition, we investigated p16 protein expression in these cases by immunohistochemistry (IHC) using a monoclonal antibody clone (MS-887-PO). RESULTS: Out of the 25 samples analyzed and compared to normal pancreatic control tissues, the overall frequency of p16 alterations was 80% (20/25). Aberrant promoter methylation was the most common mechanism of gene inactivation present in 52% (13/25) cases, followed by coding sequence mutations in 16% (4/25) cases and presumably homozygous deletion in 12% (3/25) cases. These genetic alterations correlated well with p16 protein expression as complete loss of p16 protein was found in 18 of 25 tumors (72%). CONCLUSION: These findings confirm that loss of p16 function could be involved in pancreatic cancer and may explain at least in part the aggressive behaviour of this tumor type