A model to assess customer alignment through customer experience concepts

Business and Information Technology Alignment (BITA) has been one of the main concerns of IT and Business executives and directors due to its importance to overall company performance, especially today in the age of digital transformation. For BITA has been developed several models which in general has focused in the implementation of alignment strategies for the internal operation of the organizations and in the measurement of this internal alignment, but, there is still a big gap in measurement models of the alignment with the external environment of the organizations. In this paper is presented the design and application of a maturity measurement model for BITA with the customers, where the customers are actors of the external environment of the companies. The proposed model involves evaluation criteria and business practices which the companies ideally do for improve the relationship with their customers.Comment: 12 pages, Preprint version, BIS 2019 International Workshops, Seville, Spain, June 26 to 28, 2019, Revised Paper

Electron Tomographic Studies of Mitochondrial Crista Topology: “Swirl” Mitochondria of Drosophila Flight Muscle

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2007 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, August 5 – August 9, 2007

A preliminary assessment of water partitioning and ecohydrological coupling in northern headwaters using stable isotopes and conceptual runoff models

Funded by European Research Council ERC. Grant Number: GA 335910 VEWA Swedish Science Foundation (SITES) Future Forest Formas (ForWater) SKB the Kempe foundation Environment Canada the Garfield Weston Foundation the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) the Northwest Territories Cumulative Impacts Monitoring ProgramPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Stimulating resilience for recovery: building adaptive resilience in emergency WASH response in Haiti, the Philippines and Lebanon

Recovery deficits are often witnessed within disaster-affected societies following post-disaster interventions. Humanitarian operations have struggled to find coherence between relief and recovery activities, which has resulted in a perceived operational ‘gap’ between relief, recovery and development. Building individual/household resilience within the humanitarian sphere has been theoretically posed to be fundamental for recovery; a programmatic consideration that could ensure former weak resilience would not hinder post-disaster recovery. Therefore, could a resilience building approach offer much needed solutions to the challenge of recovery within post-disaster contexts? This paper will present findings from recent doctoral research undertaken in the 2010 Haiti earthquake response, as well as presenting case study evidence from the 2013 post-disaster responses in the Philippines and the Syrian response in Lebanon. The paper will look specifically at the common barriers to recovery experienced by individuals/ households in a crisis event, understanding how emergency response operations within the WASH sector affects recovery, individual/ household resilience within the post-disaster environment will be detailed, gauging its relevance for stimulating recovery; giving case study examples of how in practice resilience at the individual/ household level can be operationalised in emergency response programming

Making space for experiences

Leisure and retail providers need to understand the elements of the visitor experience and the way in which they evaluate their satisfaction. This article suggests a holistic prism model of the interaction between the management and the visitor in a leisure space. This is applied to a netnographic study of visitors to a folk festival to illustrate the interconnectiveness of the different attributes causing dissatisfaction. It found that the physical and operational attributes were evaluated not through a checklist of individual features but as hindrances to the visitor's desire to make best use of the time. Visitors also evaluated the experience in the light of their own values and concerns, passing judgement on the values communicated by the management. At the heart of the experience was the enjoyment of choosing from an abundant offer and discovering something new. The main attraction is often only the pretext for enjoying the company of friends so places to meet before and chill-out afterwards are vital to the experience. The distinctiveness of the setting, the food and drink can become the sensory cues which give the event or location its uniqueness. The challenge to retail and leisure organisations is to design these elements of a memorable experience into their offerings

Surface Barkhausen Noise Investigations of Stress and Leakage Flux Signals in Line Pipe

Pipelines are subjected to a number of different sources of stress. The principal in-service stress component is due to line pressure, with operating stresses commonly about 60% of the yield strength. Pipelines may also be subjected to considerable bending stresses, particularly when constructed on unstable terrain such as permafrost. Residual stresses may also be present, generally resulting from processing or welding, but more seriously as a consequence of mechanical damage. Anomalously high stress levels, whether residual or applied, may lead to pipeline failure; as a result serious efforts are being made to develop on-line stress detection methods. It is well established that stress is a major factor affecting magnetic properties of ferromagnetic materials, however the effects are complex and have only recently begun to be understood [1,2]. Because of the strong influence of stress on magnetic properties, magnetic NDE techniques are being considered as potential methods for the detection of stress

4-Sulfamoylanilinium nitrate

In the crystal structure of the title compound, C6H9N2O2S+·NO3 −, the cations and anions are connected by N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds into a three-dimensional network

ADAMTS -1 and -4 are up-regulated following transient middle cerebral artery occlusion in the rat and their expression is modulated by TNF in cultured astrocytes

ADAMTS (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs) enzymes are a recently described group of metalloproteinases. The substrates degraded by ADAMTS-1, -4 and -5 suggests that they play a role in turnover of extracellular matrix in the central nervous system (CNS). ADAMTS-1 is also known to exhibit anti-angiogenic activity. Their main endogenous inhibitor is tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMP)-3. The present study was designed to investigate ADAMTS-1, -4 and -5 and TIMP-3 expression after experimental cerebral ischaemia and to examine whether cytokines known to be up-regulated in stroke could alter their expression by astrocytes in vitro. Focal cerebral ischaemia was induced by transient middle cerebral artery occlusion in the rat using the filament method. Our results demonstrate a significant increase in expression of ADAMTS-1 and -4 in the occluded hemisphere but no significant change in TIMP-3. This was accompanied by an increase in mRNA levels for interleukin (IL)-1, IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra) and tumour necrosis factor (TNF). ADAMTS-4 mRNA and protein was up-regulated by TNF in primary human astrocyte cultures. The increased ADAMTS-1 and -4 in experimental stroke, together with no change in TIMP-3, may promote ECM breakdown after stroke, enabling infiltration of inflammatory cells and contribute to brain injury. In vitro studies suggest that the in vivo modulation of ADAMTS-1 and -4 may be controlled in part by TNF.</p

Effect of Different Stages of Tensile Deformation on Magnetic Barkhausen Emission in High Strength Low Alloy Steel

Micromagnetic techniques have been considered as a potential non-destructive evaluation (NDE) method for microstructural characterization and stress/strain measurements in ferritic steels [1–14]. The effect of tensile deformation on micromagnetic parameters has been studied by many researchers [8–14]. Most of these studies have been done only in the elastic region and the obtained relation between magnetic parameters and the applied stress has been used to determine the residual stresses, considering that the residual stress level will not exceed the yield stress of the material. These studies have not taken into account the microstructural changes due to dislocations generation by the plastic deformation.</p