643 research outputs found
Drivers Of Organizational Innovativeness Among SMEs in Malaysia Halal Industry
The Malaysia Halal Industry has been one of the lucrative and profitable areas of business in Malaysia with
estimated global market value (food and non food) of US$2.1 trillion annually (Industry, 2006). The increasing awareness to select halal products has created a great demand for halal products and services. Malaysia is in a unique spot to become a global halal hub due to its outstanding infrastructure, favourable business atmosphere and well established policies and institutions that support initiatives engaged by the Malaysian Government. Unfortunately, majority of the entrepreneurs (SMEs) are unable to sustain in the market as after three years, the brand name disappear due to innovation, high competition with multinational companies and financial constraints.The main purpose of this paper is to emphasize the drivers of innovativeness in improving business performance among SMEs.Many theorists agreed that the organizational development depends on low or high level of innovativeness. This paper is based on the management behavior towards innovativeness which is crucial for enhancing business performance. It also highlighted the drivers of innovativeness in SMEs Malaysia Halal Industry and a framework for future empirical investigation is proposed
Joint distribution of the first and second eigenvalues at the soft edge of unitary ensembles
The density function for the joint distribution of the first and second
eigenvalues at the soft edge of unitary ensembles is found in terms of a
Painlev\'e II transcendent and its associated isomonodromic system. As a
corollary, the density function for the spacing between these two eigenvalues
is similarly characterized.The particular solution of Painlev\'e II that arises
is a double shifted B\"acklund transformation of the Hasting-McLeod solution,
which applies in the case of the distribution of the largest eigenvalue at the
soft edge. Our deductions are made by employing the hard-to-soft edge
transitions to existing results for the joint distribution of the first and
second eigenvalue at the hard edge \cite{FW_2007}. In addition recursions under
of quantities specifying the latter are obtained. A Fredholm
determinant type characterisation is used to provide accurate numerics for the
distribution of the spacing between the two largest eigenvalues.Comment: 26 pages, 1 Figure, 2 Table
Structure of the Mycobacterium smegmatis alpha-maltose-1-phosphate synthase GlgM
Mycobacterium tuberculosis produces glycogen (also known as alpha-glucan) to help evade human immunity. This pathogen uses the GlgE pathway to generate glycogen rather than the more well known glycogen synthase GlgA pathway, which is absent in this bacterium. Thus, the building block for this glucose polymer is alpha-maltose-1-phosphate rather than an NDP-glucose donor. One of the routes to alpha-maltose-1-phosphate is now known to involve the GlgA homologue GlgM, which uses ADP-glucose as a donor and alpha-glucose-1-phosphate as an acceptor. To help compare GlgA (a GT5 family member) with GlgM enzymes (GT4 family members), the X-ray crystal structure of GlgM from Mycobacterium smegmatis was solved to 1.9 angstrom resolution. While the enzymes shared a GT-B fold and several residues responsible for binding the donor substrate, they differed in some secondary-structural details, particularly in the N-terminal domain, which would be expected to be largely responsible for their different acceptor-substrate specificities
Extreme dietary specialisation in adult male southern elephant seals: determining variation between individual trophic diets
Although dietary studies have provided important insights into the causes and ramifications of diet variation for the southern elephant seal (SES) (Mirounga leonina), adult males are comparatively underrepresented within that literature. Individual males can vary morphologically as well as behaviourally, leading to differences in their life history trajectories and outcomes. Therefore, to improve our understanding of the male diet, we sought to determine the degree of dietary variation between as well as within individuals from the West Antarctic Peninsula. Secondly, we investigated whether individual morphological traits, seasonality, and year influenced their dietary variation. Whiskers were sampled from 31 adult male seals and used to measure the bulk stable isotope nitrogen (δ15N). We sequentially segmented each whisker to create a time series of datapoints for each individual, allowing us to compare δ15N variation within each seal as well as assess variation between the seals. We then investigated the relationships between male dietary variation and body length, girth, season, and year. We found that adult male SESs maintained an extremely specialised diet. Variation between individuals was strongly correlated with their body size, with larger seals feeding higher up the trophic web. Interestingly, seasonality and year both influenced variation within the seals’ diets, but only year was seen to influence the variability between seals. We discuss the possible causes and ramifications of dietary specialisation for the SES and highlight the need for combined tracking and stable isotope investigations to improve our understanding of the ontogeny of the seals’ dietary specialisation
A review of data on abundance, trends in abundance, habitat use and diet of ice-breeding seals in the Southern Ocean
The development of models of marine ecosystems in the Southern Ocean is becoming increasingly important as a means of understanding and managing impacts such as exploitation and climate change. Collating data from disparate sources, and understanding biases or uncertainties inherent in those data, are important first steps for improving ecosystem models. This review focuses on seals that breed in ice habitats of the Southern Ocean (i.e. crabeater seal, Lobodon carcinophaga; Ross seal, Ommatophoca rossii; leopard seal, Hydrurga leptonyx; and Weddell seal, Leptonychotes weddellii). Data on populations (abundance and trends in abundance), distribution and habitat use (movement, key habitat and environmental features) and foraging (diet) are summarised, and potential biases and uncertainties inherent in those data are identified and discussed. Spatial and temporal gaps in knowledge of the populations, habitats and diet of each species are also identified
Smooth adiabatic evolutions with leaky power tails
Adiabatic evolutions with a gap condition have, under a range of
circumstances, exponentially small tails that describe the leaking out of the
spectral subspace. Adiabatic evolutions without a gap condition do not seem to
have this feature in general. This is a known fact for eigenvalue crossing. We
show that this is also the case for eigenvalues at the threshold of the
continuous spectrum by considering the Friedrichs model.Comment: Final form, to appear in J. Phys. A; 11 pages, no figure
Single-block rockfall dynamics inferred from seismic signal analysis
International audienceSeismic monitoring of mass movements can significantly help to mitigate the associated hazards; however, the link between event dynamics and the seismic signals generated is not completely understood. To better understand these relationships, we conducted controlled releases of single blocks within a soft-rock (black marls) gully of the Rioux-Bourdoux torrent (French Alps). A total of 28 blocks, with masses ranging from 76 to 472 kg, were used for the experiment. An instrumentation combining video cameras and seismometers was deployed along the travelled path. The video cameras allow reconstructing the trajectories of the blocks and estimating their velocities at the time of the different impacts with the slope. These data are compared to the recorded seismic signals. As the distance between the falling block and the seismic sensors at the time of each impact is known, we were able to determine the associated seismic signal amplitude corrected for propagation and attenuation effects. We compared the velocity, the potential energy lost, the kinetic energy and the momentum of the block at each impact to the true amplitude and the radiated seismic energy. Our results suggest that the amplitude of the seismic signal is correlated to the momentum of the block at the impact. We also found relationships between the potential energy lost, the kinetic energy and the seismic energy radiated by the impacts. Thanks to these relationships, we were able to retrieve the mass and the velocity before impact of each block directly from the seismic signal. Despite high uncertainties, the values found are close to the true values of the masses and the velocities of the blocks. These relationships allow for gaining a better understanding of the physical processes that control the source of high-frequency seismic signals generated by rockfalls
Effect of chemical disorder on NiMnSb investigated by Appearance Potential Spectroscopy: a theoretical study
The half-Heusler alloy NiMnSb is one of the local-moment ferromagnets with
unique properties for future applications. Band structure calculations predict
exclusively majority bands at the Fermi level, thus indicating {100%} spin
polarization there. As one thinks about applications and the design of
functional materials, the influence of chemical disorder in these materials
must be considered. The magnetization, spin polarization, and electronic
structure are expected to be sensitive to structural and stoichiometric
changes. In this contribution, we report on an investigation of the
spin-dependent electronic structure of NiMnSb. We studied the influence of
chemical disorder on the unoccupied electronic density of states by use of the
ab-initio Coherent Potential Approximation method. The theoretical analysis is
discussed along with corresponding spin-resolved Appearance Potential
Spectroscopy measurements. Our theoretical approach describes the spectra as
the fully-relativistic self-convolution of the matrix-element weighted,
orbitally resolved density of states.Comment: JPD submitte
Finite-Element Discretization of Static Hamilton-Jacobi Equations Based on a Local Variational Principle
We propose a linear finite-element discretization of Dirichlet problems for
static Hamilton-Jacobi equations on unstructured triangulations. The
discretization is based on simplified localized Dirichlet problems that are
solved by a local variational principle. It generalizes several approaches
known in the literature and allows for a simple and transparent convergence
theory. In this paper the resulting system of nonlinear equations is solved by
an adaptive Gauss-Seidel iteration that is easily implemented and quite
effective as a couple of numerical experiments show.Comment: 19 page
The Production and Utilization of GDP-glucose in the Biosynthesis of Trehalose 6-Phosphate by Streptomyces venezuelae
Trehalose-6-phosphate synthase OtsA from streptomycetes is unusual in that it uses GDP-glucose as the donor substrate rather than the more commonly used UDP-glucose. We now confirm that OtsA from Streptomyces venezuelae has such a preference for GDP-glucose and can utilize ADP-glucose to some extent too. A crystal structure of the enzyme shows that it shares twin Rossmann-like domains with the UDP-glucose-specific OtsA from Escherichia coli. However, it is structurally more similar to Streptomyces hygroscopicus VldE, a GDP-valienol-dependent pseudoglycosyltransferase enzyme. Comparison of the donor binding sites reveals that the amino acids associated with the binding of diphosphoribose are almost all identical in these three enzymes. By contrast, the amino acids associated with binding guanine in VldE (Asn, Thr, and Val) are similar in S. venezuelae OtsA (Asp, Ser, and Phe, respectively) but not conserved in E. coli OtsA (His, Leu, and Asp, respectively), providing a rationale for the purine base specificity of S. venezuelae OtsA. To establish which donor is used in vivo, we generated an otsA null mutant in S. venezuelae. The mutant had a cell density-dependent growth phenotype and accumulated galactose 1-phosphate, glucose 1-phosphate, and GDP-glucose when grown on galactose. To determine how the GDP-glucose is generated, we characterized three candidate GDP-glucose pyrophosphorylases. SVEN_3027 is a UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase, SVEN_ 3972 is an unusual ITP-mannose pyrophosphorylase, and SVEN_2781 is a pyrophosphorylase that is capable of generating GDP-glucose as well as GDP-mannose. We have therefore established how S. venezuelae can make and utilize GDP-glucose in the biosynthesis of trehalose 6-phosphate
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