e-HR Systems Implementation: A Conceptual Framework

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) enable innovative ways of carrying on routine organizational tasks via the power of virtual work environment. Piggy-backing on the success of E-commerce systems, organizations are increasingly making use of Web-based Human Resource Management (e-HR) systems. These systems offer organizations the promise of huge performance improvement as well as of overhauling the entire HR function itself. This latter possibility is expected to offer competitive advantage to organizations. However, it is not known (a) at what level of sophistication should organizations pitch their e-HR systems and (b) what contextual factors moderate the relationship between e-HR systems implementation and their benefits. In this research-in-progress paper we offer a conceptual framework and a research plan to develop a theory of e-HR systems implementation

Indian women at work: Struggling between visibility and invisibility

status: publishe

Mobilizing master narratives through categorical narratives and categorical statements when default identities are at stake

© The Author(s) 2017. In research interviews, interviewees are usually well aware of why they were selected, and in their narratives they often construct ‘default identities’ in line with the interviewers’ expectations. Furthermore, narrators draw on shared cultural knowledge and master narratives that tend to form an implicit backdrop of their stories. Yet in this article we focus on how some of these master narratives may be mobilized explicitly when default identities are at stake. In particular, we investigate interviews with successful female professionals from diverse geographical contexts. We found that the interviewees deal with challenges to their ‘successful professional’ identities by drawing on categorical narratives or categorical statements. As such, the interviewees talk into being a morally ordered gendered worldview, thus making explicit gendered master narratives about their societies and workplaces. In general, this article shows that categorical narratives and statements can bring (the typically rather elusive) master narratives to the surface and that these can thus contribute to the narrators’ identity work.status: publishe

Tailored nitrogen dioxide sensing response of three-dimensional graphene foam

Ultralight and macroporous three-dimensional reduced graphene oxide (rGO) foams are prepared by lyophilization (freeze-drying) technique to avoid a conventional template method. This method allows tailoring the porosity of the foams by varying the weight percentages of graphene oxide dispersions in water. Three different rGO foams of 0.2, 0.5 and 1.0 wt% are used for NO2 sensing. Sensing response from the tailored structure of rGO is found to be directly related to the density. A maximum of 20% sensing response is observed for a higher porosity of the structure, better than the known results so far on graphene foams in the literature. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Modified fermi level in strontium nanoparticles decorated reduced graphene oxide for wide concentration detection of nitrogen dioxide at room temperature

We demonstrate room temperature nitrogen dioxide (NO2) sensing at parts per billion level (ppb) using a chemiresistive sensor based on strontium nanoparticles decorated reduced graphene oxide. Among the various functional materials used for NO2 sensing, it is a unique study reported for the first time using hybrid of reduced graphene oxide with a low work function alkaline earth metal. An increase of nearly 222% in sensing response is observed in the hybrid device over reduced graphene oxide alone at a concentration of 1 ppm. Moreover, the hybrid device exhibits a good sensitivity to NO2 over a wide concentration range from 500 ppb to 104 ppm. Additionally, the hybrid device is highly selective to NO2 amongst other pollutants. The integration of strontium nanoparticles onto reduced graphene oxide imparts excellent performance to the hybrid sensor due to their high adsorption energy for NO2. Further, strontium nanoparticle, being a low work function material, raises the fermi level of reduced graphene oxide and populate it with more electrons thus facilitating rapid charge transfer to electrophilic nitrogen dioxide. Hence, strontium nanoparticles attribute to an important role in fast and selective adsorption of nitrogen dioxide at room temperature with underlying graphene helping in rapid charge transfer

The complex genetics of hypoplastic left heart syndrome.

Congenital heart disease (CHD) affects up to 1% of live births. Although a genetic etiology is indicated by an increased recurrence risk, sporadic occurrence suggests that CHD genetics is complex. Here, we show that hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a severe CHD, is multigenic and genetically heterogeneous. Using mouse forward genetics, we report what is, to our knowledge, the first isolation of HLHS mutant mice and identification of genes causing HLHS. Mutations from seven HLHS mouse lines showed multigenic enrichment in ten human chromosome regions linked to HLHS. Mutations in Sap130 and Pcdha9, genes not previously associated with CHD, were validated by CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing in mice as being digenic causes of HLHS. We also identified one subject with HLHS with SAP130 and PCDHA13 mutations. Mouse and zebrafish modeling showed that Sap130 mediates left ventricular hypoplasia, whereas Pcdha9 increases penetrance of aortic valve abnormalities, both signature HLHS defects. These findings show that HLHS can arise genetically in a combinatorial fashion, thus providing a new paradigm for the complex genetics of CHD. Nat Genet 2017 Jul; 49(7):1152-59