Scientists, engineers and managers - Partners in space

Management practices in aerospace industr

The IT performance evaluation in the construction industry

To date there has been limited published work in the construction management and engineering literature that has provided empirical evidence to demonstrate that IT can improve organizational performance. Without an explicit understanding about how IT can be effectively used to improve organizational performance, its justification will remain to be weak for managers. To ensure the continuous increase in IT based applications in the construction industry, sufficient evidence has to be provided for management in various professions of the construction industry to evaluate, allocate and utilize appropriate IT systems. In an attempt to explore the relationship between IT and productivity, an empirical investigation of 60 Professional Consulting Firms (PCF) from the Hong Kong construction industry was undertaken. A model for determining the organizational productivity of IT is proposed, and the methodology used to test the model is described. The findings are analyzed and a cross-profession comparison of the results indicated the differences in the use of IT. The research findings are discussed with similarities being drawn. The limitations of the research are then presented and discussed. The implications of the findings and conclusions then fully presented

A supplier selection strategy within the Malaysian telecommunications industry

The telecommunication industry in Malaysia has grown rapidly over the last 15 years, with effective supply chain management becoming increasing important within the sector. A multitude of providers and part owned Malaysian government companies, vendors and suppliers are involved in generating and creating value-adding products and services within this sector (across wireless, wireline, broadband business and consumer lines of business). This paper describes key challenges facing a major telecoms service provider in Malaysia with regards to drivers involved in the overall procurement and supplier selection with regards to components of performance management, decision-making, selection techniques, quality and cost management, procurement policy and procurement ethics. This paper further focuses on defining and detailing research currently being undertaken to develop a framework for identifying supplier selection drivers that are inherent within the sector and suggests a research approach to investigate and develop strategies for supplier selection for the telecommunications industry in Malaysia

Analysis of rs7526084 polymorphism in 3′ downstream of the sestrin 2 gene as an informative marker for molecular diagnosis of kidney stone disease

Background: Kidney stone disease is one of the most common disorders of urinary tract, manifesting with high clinical and genetic heterogeneity in population. Sestrin 2 is involved in many essential processes, especially oxidative and genotoxic stress. Regarding the importance of oxidative stress pathway deregulation in systemic diseases such as kidney disorders, this study was conducted to investigate the association between rs7526084 3′ downstream polymorphism of the sestrin 2 gene and risk of kidney stone in south Iranian patients. Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, 150 patients with kidney stone disease and 180 age- and gender-matched healthy individuals were participated from March to December 2015. Genotyping of the rs7526084 polymorphism was performed using the T-ARMS PCR method. Results: Frequency of the G allele was higher in controls than in cases, and a reduced risk of the disease was shown in the presence of this allele (OR: 0.66, 95CI: 0.48-0.91, P=0.01). Also, the risk of the disease was reduced in the presence of heterozygote CG (OR: 0.49, 95CI: 0.30-0.80, P=0.004) and homozygote GG (OR: 0.47, 95CI: 0.23-0.96, P=0.04) genotypes. Under the dominant genetic model for the G allele (GG+GC vs. CC), this allele significantly reduced the risk of the disease (OR: 0.49, 95CI: 0.31- 0.78, P= 0.002). Conclusion: Reduced risk of kidney stone in the presence of the G allele of the sestrin 2 gene polymorphism might provide the evidence in favor of the involvement of the oxidative stress pathway in the pathogenesis of kidney stone disease

Entanglement vs. gap for one-dimensional spin systems

We study the relationship between entanglement and spectral gap for local Hamiltonians in one dimension. The area law for a one-dimensional system states that for the ground state, the entanglement of any interval is upper-bounded by a constant independent of the size of the interval. However, the possible dependence of the upper bound on the spectral gap Delta is not known, as the best known general upper bound is asymptotically much larger than the largest possible entropy of any model system previously constructed for small Delta. To help resolve this asymptotic behavior, we construct a family of one-dimensional local systems for which some intervals have entanglement entropy which is polynomial in 1/Delta, whereas previously studied systems, such as free fermion systems or systems described by conformal field theory, had the entropy of all intervals bounded by a constant times log(1/Delta).Comment: 16 pages. v2 is final published version with slight clarification

Voter Confidence in the Agricultural Industry

Social scientists tend to agree that public opinion influences public policy. As the agricultural industry faces increased scrutiny from public officials and citizen advocacy groups, agricultural communication professionals are faced with the challenge of targeting messages that encourage public confidence in the industry. Research-based marketing segmentation may hold the key to effective political marketing for the industry. While some consumer research has been conducted to better understand food purchasing decisions, more is needed to better understand public attitudes toward the larger agricultural industry and to better recognize any segmentation in public opinion. This study’s findings—drawn from the Agriculture Institute of Florida’s 2006 survey, the 2000 United States Census of Population and Housing, and the 2002 United States Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture—may help guide future industry messages toward the public