Continuity Culture: A Key Factor for Building Resilience and Sound Recovery Capabilities

This article investigates the extent to which Jordanian service organizations seek to establish continuity culture through testing, training, and updating of their business continuity plans. A survey strategy was adopted in this research. Primary and secondary data were used. Semistructured interviews were conducted with five senior managers from five large Jordanian service organizations registered with the Amman Stock Exchange. The selection of organizations was made on the basis of simple random sampling. Interviews targeted the headquarters only in order to obtain a homogenous sample. Three out of five organizations could be regarded as crisis prepared and have better chances for recovery. The other two organizations exhibited characteristics of standard practice that only emphasizes the recovery aspect of business continuity management (BCM), while paying less attention to establishing resilient cultures and embedding BCM. The findings reveal that the ability to recover following major incidents can be improved by embedding BCM in the culture of the organization and by making BCM an enterprise-wide process. This is one of few meticulous studies that have been undertaken in the Middle East and the first in Jordan to investigate the extent to which service organizations focus on embedding BCM in the organizational culture

Mechanical and kinetic effects of shortened tropomyosin reconstituted into myofibrils

The effects of tropomyosin on muscle mechanics and kinetics were examined in skeletal myofibrils using a novel method to remove tropomyosin (Tm) and troponin (Tn) and then replace these proteins with altered versions. Extraction employed a low ionic strength rigor solution, followed by sequential reconstitution at physiological ionic strength with Tm then Tn. SDS-PAGE analysis was consistent with full reconstitution, and fluorescence imaging after reconstitution using Oregon-green-labeled Tm indicated the expected localization. Myofibrils remained mechanically viable: maximum isometric forces of myofibrils after sTm/sTn reconstitution (control) were comparable (~84%) to the forces generated by non-reconstituted preparations, and the reconstitution minimally affected the rate of isometric activation (kact), calcium sensitivity (pCa50), and cooperativity (nH). Reconstitutions using various combinations of cardiac and skeletal Tm and Tn indicated that isoforms of both Tm and Tn influence calcium sensitivity of force development in opposite directions, but the isoforms do not otherwise alter cross-bridge kinetics. Myofibrils reconstituted with Δ23Tm, a deletion mutant lacking the second and third of Tm’s seven quasi-repeats, exhibited greatly depressed maximal force, moderately slower kact rates and reduced nH. Δ23Tm similarly decreased the cooperativity of calcium binding to the troponin regulatory sites of isolated thin filaments in solution. The mechanisms behind these effects of Δ23Tm also were investigated using Pi and ADP jumps. Pi and ADP kinetics were indistinguishable in Δ23Tm myofibrils compared to controls. The results suggest that the deleted region of tropomyosin is important for cooperative thin filament activation by calcium

Asymptotic Solutions For A Relativistic Formulation Of The Generalized Nonextensive Thomas–Fermi Model

The semiclassical Thomas–Fermi model for heavy atoms was recently extended to include nonextensive statistical mechanics and relativistic effects. While this generalized model has potential application to neutron stars and in understanding the screening process in relativistic dense astrophysical plasmas, there has not been a study on the behavior of the Thomas–Fermi potential Φ(x) due to nonextensive statistical mechanics and relativistic effects. In the present paper, we extend this literature by obtaining asymptotic solutions though the application of the δ-expansion method, which was previously employed to study the standard Thomas–Fermi equation. Making use of this asymptotic solution, we approximate the value of the critical slope Φ′(0) for various values of the thermodynamic and relativistic corrections to the standard Thomas–Fermi model. These results allow us to understand how the addition of thermodynamic and relativistic corrections modifies the behavior of the Thomas–Fermi potential

Instability in the self-similar motion of a planar solidification front

Understanding the solidification process of a binary alloy is important if one is to control the microstructure obtained during the casting of metals. While much work has been done on the steady state solidification problem, despite their relevance to metallurgical applications, there is less known about non-steady solidification problems and their stability. In the paper we shall consider the non-steady solidification problem in which the planar solidification front moves in a self-similar manner, in both infinite and semi-infinite planar one-dimensional geometries. For each geometry exact solutions are known for the resulting Stefan problem. We direct our attention to the stability of each solution, demonstrating that while the concentration and thermal solutions remain stable, the interface corresponding to the solidification front can develop instabilities. For each geometry, we find that there are always unstable perturbations, although we observe qualitative differences in the form of the unstable perturbations for each case. These results generalize and extend several existing studies in the literature, and throw light on the instability inherent in the non-steady solidification process

Instability in the self-similar motion of a planar solidification front

Understanding the solidification process of a binary alloy is important if one is to control the microstructure obtained during the casting of metals. While much work has been done on the steady state solidification problem, despite their relevance to metallurgical applications, there is less known about non-steady solidification problems and their stability. In the paper we shall consider the non-steady solidification problem in which the planar solidification front moves in a self-similar manner, in both infinite and semi-infinite planar one-dimensional geometries. For each geometry exact solutions are known for the resulting Stefan problem. We direct our attention to the stability of each solution, demonstrating that while the concentration and thermal solutions remain stable, the interface corresponding to the solidification front can develop instabilities. For each geometry, we find that there are always unstable perturbations, although we observe qualitative differences in the form of the unstable perturbations for each case. These results generalize and extend several existing studies in the literature, and throw light on the instability inherent in the non-steady solidification process