Collaborate to compete : a strategic weapon for SMEs

This paper reports on the value of collaboration in helping SMEs identify more clearly their positions in their markets and to provide pointers to strategies that might lead to increased profitability

Collaboration : a key competence for competing in the 21st century

It is now an accepted fact that in the 21st century competition will be between networks of organisations and individuals, which efficiently and effectively integrate their competencies and resources in order to compete in a global economy (Bititci et al, 2004). Similarly the SME'2000 conference, which was held in Bologna, concluded that 'SMEs belonging to networks are often more competitive and innovative than those operating in isolation. When working together, SMEs can increase their focus through specialisation in functions that are complementary within their networks'

Education Program using Non-Pharmacologic Support during Benzodiazepine Reduction in Patients with Anxiety Disorders

A private mental health clinic developed an initiative to aid patients with anxiety disorders to taper their use of benzodiazepines. Based on best practices, a treatment protocol was developed in which patients attended 4 sessions (1 per month) in which they combined instruction in non-pharmaceutical anti-anxiety techniques (guided imagery, mindfulness meditation, deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, exercise, emotional freedom) with cognitive behavioral therapy and use of selective serotonin re uptake inhibitors. Participants experienced a reduction in benzodiazepine use. This small scale initiative showed that the holistic approach to anxiety management was an effective plan to decrease the use of benzodiazepines in the treatment of anxiety disorder

Genome-wide association study for calving performance using high-density genotypes in dairy and beef cattle

peer-reviewedBackground Calving difficulty and perinatal mortality are prevalent in modern-day cattle production systems. It is well-established that there is a genetic component to both traits, yet little is known about their underlying genomic architecture, particularly in beef breeds. Therefore, we performed a genome-wide association study using high-density genotypes to elucidate the genomic architecture of these traits and to identify regions of the bovine genome associated with them. Results Genomic regions associated with calving difficulty (direct and maternal) and perinatal mortality were detected using two statistical approaches: (1) single-SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) regression and (2) a Bayesian approach. Data included high-density genotypes on 770 Holstein-Friesian, 927 Charolais and 963 Limousin bulls. Several novel or previously identified genomic regions were detected but associations differed by breed. For example, two genomic associations, one each on chromosomes 18 and 2 explained 2.49 % and 3.13 % of the genetic variance in direct calving difficulty in the Holstein-Friesian and Charolais populations, respectively. Imputed Holstein-Friesian sequence data was used to refine the genomic regions responsible for significant associations. Several candidate genes on chromosome 18 were identified and four highly significant missense variants were detected within three of these genes (SIGLEC12, CTU1, and ZNF615). Nevertheless, only CTU1 contained a missense variant with a putative impact on direct calving difficulty based on SIFT (0.06) and Polyphen (0.95) scores. Using imputed sequence data, we refined a genomic region on chromosome 4 associated with maternal calving difficulty in the Holstein-Friesian population and found the strongest association with an intronic variant in the PCLO gene. A meta-analysis was performed across the three breeds for each calving performance trait to identify common variants associated with these traits in the three breeds. Our results suggest that a portion of the genetic variation in calving performance is common to all three breeds. Conclusion The genomic architecture of calving performance is complex and mainly influenced by many polymorphisms of small effect. We identified several associations of moderate effect size but the majority were breed-specific, indicating that breed-specific alleles exist for calving performance or that the linkage phase between genotyped allele and causal mutation varies between breeds

Economic Time Series for Irish lndustry and Services. ESRI Technical Series No 5 November 1990

The purpose of this paper is to describe certain new economic time series which have been constructed in the course of updating the HERMES-IRELAND model. The updating of the model involved inter alia the disaggregation of the industrial-and services sectors. Data at this new disaggregated level is not available in Ireland from a single source. Therefore this disaggregation exercise involved the collection of a considerable amount of new data from a variety of sources. The sources and meihodology used to construct these new data are described in this paper. In the construction of the new data set, an overriding imperative was to maintain simplicity since the data set constructed has to be maintained and updated on a regular basis. The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 defines the disaggregated industrial and services sectors. Section 3 describes the data sources and methodology used in constructing the time series. Section 4 outlines the mnemonic system used to identify the different variables. Sections 5-12 then describe each set of economic variables derived in turn, each of these sections includes the computer macro used to generate the variables. The appendices 1-3 give a complete listing of all the economic series input and derived in the course of this exercise