A Search for Discriminative Linguistic Markers in ICT Practitioner Discourse, for the Ex Ante Identification of Disruptive Innovation

Disruptive innovations have the potential to disrupt markets, and drive them in new directions. A common problem faced by business organizations is identifying such disruptive innovations. From a managerial perspective, there is real value in being able to accurately identify disruptive innovations early in the product life-cycle, as it affords the organization the opportunity to put in place business strategies that leverage this information, to gain maximal competitive advantage. This investigation was undertaken to determine if linguistic markers could be identified in ICT practitioner discourse that could be used to discriminate between traditional business intelligence (BI) - the legacy or incumbent technology, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) BI - a new technology and candidate disruptive innovation. Quantitative content analysis undertaken using the tool Veneficium WordFrequencyCounter, was used to analyze written practitioner discourse identified from within the Industry Newsgroup file of LexisNexis Academic universe. Analysis was undertaken using attribute sets derived deductively from the academic literature, and inductively from the data itself, which provided both manifest and latent meaning of component words. Individual relative word associations with both the traditional BI and SaaS BI corpora were also analyzed. Analysis of the attribute set usage data provided evidence that manifest and latent word meaning remained consistent for the time period investigated in this study (2000 to 2012), and so could support the purpose of this study, and was suggestive of the fact that SaaS BI could be a disruptive technology. The study also identified that there was a significant difference in vendor and industry attribute set usage between the SaaS BI and traditional BI corpora, consistent with the Abernathy-Utterback model. Analysis of individual word associations with the traditional BI and SaaS BI corpora identified a number of word association patterns that could discriminate between traditional BI and SaaS BI that may be transferable to other technologies. A crossover event pattern was also identified (in which the word association pattern switches between the incumbent and new technology), which may be able to provide an indication that a technology innovation is, or is about to become, disruptive. This study contributes a new approach for investigating disruptive innovation, and highlights the potential of using content analysis of practitioner discourse to identify linguistic markers for disruptive innovation. The key contribution of the study is the observation that discriminative linguistic markers can in fact be identified, and that such markers appear to have predictive capabilities. That is, they may allow organizations to identify disruptive innovations ex ante

Developing a multi-pollutant conceptual framework for the selection and targeting of interventions in water industry catchment management schemes

In recent years water companies have started to adopt catchment management to reduce diffuse pollution in drinking water supply areas. The heterogeneity of catchments and the range of pollutants that must be removed to meet the EU Drinking Water Directive (98/83/EC) limits make it difficult to prioritise areas of a catchment for intervention. Thus conceptual frameworks are required that can disaggregate the components of pollutant risk and help water companies make decisions about where to target interventions in their catchments to maximum effect. This paper demonstrates the concept of generalising pollutants in the same framework by reviewing key pollutant processes within a source-mobilisation-delivery context. From this, criteria are developed (with input from water industry professionals involved in catchment management) which highlights the need for a new water industry specific conceptual framework. The new CaRPoW (Catchment Risk to Potable Water) framework uses the Source-Mobilisation-Delivery concept as modular components of risk that work at two scales, source and mobilisation at the field scale and delivery at the catchment scale. Disaggregating pollutant processes permits the main components of risk to be ascertained so that appropriate interventions can be selected. The generic structure also allows for the outputs from different pollutants to be compared so that potential multiple benefits can be identified. CaRPow provides a transferable framework that can be used by water companies to cost-effectively target interventions under current conditions or under scenarios of land use or climate change

Energy dependence of {\rm K}S0^0_{\rm S} and hyperon production at CERN SPS

Recent results on K$^0_{\rm S}$ and hyperon production in Pb-Pb collisions at 40 and 158 $A$ GeV/$c$ beam momentum from the NA57 experiment at CERN SPS are presented. Yields and ratios are compared with those measured by the NA49 experiment, where available. The centrality dependence of the yields and a comparison with the higher collision energy data from RHIC are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, proceedings of QM2004 conferenc

Legal Uncertainty and Aberrant Contracts: The Choice of Law Clause

Legal uncertainty about the applicability of local consumer protection can destroy a consumer’s claim or defense within the consumer arbitration environment. What is worse, because the consumer arbitration system cannot accommodate either legal complexity or legal uncertainty, the tendency will be to resolve cases in the way the consumer’s form contract dictates, that is, in favor of the drafter. To demonstrate this effect and advocate statutory change, this article focuses on fee-shifting statutes in California and several other states. These statutes convert very common one-way fee-shifting terms (consumer pays business’s attorneys fees if business wins but not the other way around) into two-way fee-shifting provisions (loser pays winner’s fees in all cases). As written, these statutes level the lopsided playing field created by the drafter and, indeed, may give consumers access to lawyers in cases where their claims or defenses are strong. But choice of law provisions, found in the same consumer forms, introduce near-impenetrable uncertainty into the applicability of those same statutes, thereby reducing or eliminating the intended statutory benefits. Statutory change is needed to restore the intended benefits of the otherwise applicable fee-shifting statutes (and of other local consumer protection similarly degraded by drafters’ choice of law clauses); the article concludes by presenting a roadmap for state statutory reform

A new VME trigger processor for the NA57 experiment

The ALICE experiment will use a trigger concept requiring independent deadtimes for each sub-detector system, and with detector-specific past-future protection. These features are implemented in a new VME-based trigger processor for the NA57 experiment. Monitoring and diagnostic features of the new trigger processor are also described.List of Figures Figure 1:ALICE trigger logic diagram. Figure 2:Layout of the NA57 experiment. Figure 3:Schematic layout of NA57 VME central trigger processor. Figure 4:Example of a trigger definition script. </A

Updated Design for the ALICE Central Trigger

The trigger and data acquisition systems in the ALICE experiment have undergone significant changes in the last year. Thisis (i) in response to the incorporation of new detectors, (ii) the result of the use of front-end buffering schemes in theALICE sub-detectors and (iii) because of new more pessimistic estimates of the data volume generated by the TimeProjection Chamber (TPC). In this report, we review the specification for the updated ALICE CentralTrigger and examinehow it might be implemented using currently available electronics components. The User Requirement Document and theTechnical Specification for this system are being discussed by the ALICE collaboration.(Abstract only available, full text to follow

A 'place based' approach to work and employment: the end of reciprocity, ordinary working families and 'giggers' in a place

The authors define ‘place basing’ as the study of work and employment in a particular place. They are interested in understanding the limitations of work opportunities therein and so focus on workers and jobs that are not subject to the threat of off-shoring or relocation elsewhere but which are low paid and insecure. The authors theorize three contributions to new knowledge that flow from a place-based study of work and employment by demonstrating how precarious flexible often zero hour work eschews reciprocity between employer and employees and workers. They focus their research on ordinary working families and the ‘permissive visibility’ of bad work. The research points to an idealized model of individual and family economic functioning that is able to cope with physical and mental challenges individually without burdening the state. As the findings on workers and households demonstrate, this ideal is far from the reality they experience

Atomic-Scale Time-Resolved Imaging of Krypton Dimers, Chains and Transition to a One-Dimensional Gas

Single-atom dynamics of noble-gas elements have been investigated using time-resolved transmission electron microscopy (TEM), with direct observation providing for a deeper understanding of chemical bonding, reactivity, and states of matter at the nanoscale. We report on a nanoscale system consisting of endohedral fullerenes encapsulated within single-walled carbon nanotubes ((Kr@C60)@SWCNT), capable of the delivery and release of krypton atoms on-demand, via coalescence of host fullerene cages under the action of the electron beam (in situ) or heat (ex situ). The state and dynamics of Kr atoms were investigated by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Kr atom positions were measured precisely using aberration-corrected high-resolution TEM (AC-HRTEM), aberration-corrected scanning TEM (AC-STEM), and single-atom spectroscopic imaging (STEM-EELS). The electron beam drove the formation of 2Kr@C120 capsules, in which van der Waals Kr2 and transient covalent [Kr2]+ bonding states were identified. Thermal coalescence led to the formation of longer coalesced nested nanotubes containing more loosely bound Krn chains (n = 3–6). In some instances, delocalization of Kr atomic positions was confirmed by STEM analysis as the transition to a one-dimensional (1D) gas, as Kr atoms were constrained to only one degree of translational freedom within long, well-annealed, nested nanotubes. Such nested nanotube structures were investigated by Raman spectroscopy. This material represents a highly compressed and dimensionally constrained 1D gas stable under ambient conditions. Direct atomic-scale imaging has revealed elusive bonding states and a previously unseen 1D gaseous state of matter of this noble gas element, demonstrating TEM to be a powerful tool in the discovery of chemistry at the single-atom level