476 research outputs found
Evaluating In-house Work Integrated Learning Experiences Using the Business Model Canvas
CONTEXT
The school of Professional Practice and Leadership at UTS set up Optik Consultancy to provide students unable to access internships, with engineering projects set up by industry partners in a simulated workplace. In 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, 120 students (85 international and 35 domestic) completed Work Integrated Learning (WIL) in this manner. This was the 5th iteration of the project with the number of students increasing each year. This model has the potential to be extended to other groups such as refugees needing existing qualifications validated, or engineers returning to the workplace after an extended absence. To do this successfully, it is necessary to ensure the program meets participantsā requirements. This requires recognition of the complexity of the program and the development of a framework to ensure all elements that make a successful program are in place.
PURPOSE OR GOAL
This paper analyses the Optik Consultancy through the lens of the āBusiness Model Canvasā (Osterwalder & Pigneur (2010). As illustrated by Kline et al (2017), this framework can be adapted to design a template to meet the specific needs of educational projects. We aim to analyse the main activities and processes of the Optik Consultancy and redesign the Business Model Canvas for WIL engineering projects to identify the elements necessary for designing a similar project in other settings.
APPROACH
Firstly, we will investigate the Optik Consultancy through the lens of the āBusiness Model Canvas. This will enable us to identify key areas relevant to a simulated internship program in order to form an engineering WIL canvas. This canvas will explain what we do, how we do it and why. We will then apply our new canvas to the Optik Consultancy to see how far it conforms to our template. Finally, we will conceptualise a new canvas that can be replicated as a template for setting up similar programs in other disciplines.
ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES
By analysing the Optik Consultancy through the lens of an adapted Business Model Canvas, we will assess the key areas of our program from a different viewpoint. This will include justification of the program, the stakeholders involved, their needs and level of involvement, and the resources needed to make the program a success. Once this template has been established, we will have a conceptual tool that can be used to set up and analyse other WIL programs.
CONCLUSIONS
With some adaptations, the business model canvas can be applied to evaluate engineering WIL programs and provide a template to extend and review similar activities. To ensure that the model is applied accurately, further research will be necessary to evaluate the extent each area of the framework has been achieved
Local and global modes of drug action in biochemical networks
It becomes increasingly accepted that a shift is needed from the traditional target-based approach of drug development to an integrated perspective of drug action in biochemical systems. We here present an integrative analysis of the interactions between drugs and metabolism based on the concept of drug scope. The drug scope represents the set of metabolic compounds and reactions that are potentially affected by a drug. We constructed and analyzed the scopes of all US approved drugs having metabolic targets. Our analysis shows that the distribution of drug scopes is highly uneven, and that drugs can be classified into several categories based on their scopes. Some of them have small scopes corresponding to localized action, while others have large scopes corresponding to potential large-scale systemic action. These groups are well conserved throughout different topologies of the underlying metabolic network. They can furthermore be associated to specific drug therapeutic properties
Cluster Performance reconsidered: Structure, Linkages and Paths in the German Biotechnology Industry, 1996-2003
This paper addresses the evolution of biotechnology clusters in Germany between 1996 and 2003, paying particular attention to their respective composition in terms of venture capital, basic science institutions and biotechnology firms. Drawing upon the significance of co-location of "money and ideas", the literature stressing the importance of a cluster's openness and external linkages, and the path dependency debate, the paper aims to analyse how certain cluster characteristics correspond with its overall performance. After identifying different cluster types, we investigate their internal and external interconnectivity in comparative manner and draw on changes in cluster composition. Our results indicate that the structure, i.e. to which group the cluster belongs, and the openness towards external knowledge flows deliver merely unsystematic indications with regard to a cluster's overall success. Its ability to change composition towards a more balanced ratio of science and capital over time, on the other hand, turns out as a key explanatory factor. Hence, the dynamic perspective proves effective illuminating cluster growth and performance, where our explorative findings provide a promising avenue for further evolutionary research
Innovation and Access to Medicines for Neglected Populations: Could a Treaty Address a Broken Pharmaceutical R&D System?
As part of a cluster of articles leading up to the 2012 World Health Report and critically reflecting on the theme of āno health without research,ā Suerie Moon and colleagues argue for a global health R&D treaty to improve innovation in new medicines and strengthening affordability, sustainable financing, efficiency in innovation, and equitable health-centered governance
Surface Structure of Liquid Metals and the Effect of Capillary Waves: X-ray Studies on Liquid Indium
We report x-ray reflectivity (XR) and small angle off-specular diffuse
scattering (DS) measurements from the surface of liquid Indium close to its
melting point of C. From the XR measurements we extract the surface
structure factor convolved with fluctuations in the height of the liquid
surface. We present a model to describe DS that takes into account the surface
structure factor, thermally excited capillary waves and the experimental
resolution. The experimentally determined DS follows this model with no
adjustable parameters, allowing the surface structure factor to be deconvolved
from the thermally excited height fluctuations. The resulting local electron
density profile displays exponentially decaying surface induced layering
similar to that previously reported for Ga and Hg. We compare the details of
the local electron density profiles of liquid In, which is a nearly free
electron metal, and liquid Ga, which is considerably more covalent and shows
directional bonding in the melt. The oscillatory density profiles have
comparable amplitudes in both metals, but surface layering decays over a length
scale of \AA for In and \AA for Ga. Upon controlled
exposure to oxygen, no oxide monolayer is formed on the liquid In surface,
unlike the passivating film formed on liquid Gallium.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.
Microscopic View on Short-Range Wetting at the Free Surface of the Binary Metallic Liquid Gallium-Bismuth: An X-ray Reflectivity and Square Gradient Theory Study
We present an x-ray reflectivity study of wetting at the free surface of the
binary liquid metal gallium-bismuth (Ga-Bi) in the region where the bulk phase
separates into Bi-rich and Ga-rich liquid phases. The measurements reveal the
evolution of the microscopic structure of wetting films of the Bi-rich,
low-surface-tension phase along different paths in the bulk phase diagram. A
balance between the surface potential preferring the Bi-rich phase and the
gravitational potential which favors the Ga-rich phase at the surface pins the
interface of the two demixed liquid metallic phases close to the free surface.
This enables us to resolve it on an Angstrom level and to apply a mean-field,
square gradient model extended by thermally activated capillary waves as
dominant thermal fluctuations. The sole free parameter of the gradient model,
i.e. the so-called influence parameter, , is determined from our
measurements. Relying on a calculation of the liquid/liquid interfacial tension
that makes it possible to distinguish between intrinsic and capillary wave
contributions to the interfacial structure we estimate that fluctuations affect
the observed short-range, complete wetting phenomena only marginally. A
critical wetting transition that should be sensitive to thermal fluctuations
seems to be absent in this binary metallic alloy.Comment: RevTex4, twocolumn, 15 pages, 10 figure
The United States and global health: inseparable and synergistic? The Institute of Medicine's report on global health
In the wake of dynamic economic and political transitions worldwide, the Institute of Medicine recently released its report advocating investments in global health from the United States (US). The expert panel reinforces the ātransnational and interdisciplinaryā nature of global health research and practice as an endeavor āto improve health and achieve greater equity for all people worldwide.ā This report was judiciously timed given the growing recognition of global health, and is also acknowledged for incorporating themes that are particularly pertinent to the twenty-first century. New paradigms are introduced, denouncing the dichotomous distinction between rich and poor countries with the rapidly transitioning countries emerging as global powers, and affirming the need for models of respectful partnership and wider translation of science into practice. Cultivating sustainable partnerships and investing in the understanding and combat of diseases worldwide will become increasingly important for the US to maintain its global competitiveness, and may offer lessons in innovation, efficiency, and organization of institutions and human resources
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