The enhanced Software Life Cyle Support Environment (ProSLCSE): Automation for enterprise and process modeling

In this paper, we have introduced a comprehensive method for enterprise modeling that addresses the three important aspects of how an organization goes about its business. FirstEP includes infrastructure modeling, information modeling, and process modeling notations that are intended to be easy to learn and use. The notations stress the use of straightforward visual languages that are intuitive, syntactically simple, and semantically rich. ProSLCSE will be developed with automated tools and services to facilitate enterprise modeling and process enactment. In the spirit of FirstEP, ProSLCSE tools will also be seductively easy to use. Achieving fully managed, optimized software development and support processes will be long and arduous for most software organizations, and many serious problems will have to be solved along the way. ProSLCSE will provide the ability to document, communicate, and modify existing processes, which is the necessary first step

Extensive horizontal gene transfer in cheese-associated bacteria.

Acquisition of genes through horizontal gene transfer (HGT) allows microbes to rapidly gain new capabilities and adapt to new or changing environments. Identifying widespread HGT regions within multispecies microbiomes can pinpoint the molecular mechanisms that play key roles in microbiome assembly. We sought to identify horizontally transferred genes within a model microbiome, the cheese rind. Comparing 31 newly sequenced and 134 previously sequenced bacterial isolates from cheese rinds, we identified over 200 putative horizontally transferred genomic regions containing 4733 protein coding genes. The largest of these regions are enriched for genes involved in siderophore acquisition, and are widely distributed in cheese rinds in both Europe and the US. These results suggest that HGT is prevalent in cheese rind microbiomes, and that identification of genes that are frequently transferred in a particular environment may provide insight into the selective forces shaping microbial communities

Organizational Images And Member Identification

We develop a model to explain how images of one's work organization shape the strength of his or her identification with the organization. We focus on two key organizational images: one based on what a member believes is distinctive, central, and enduring about his or her organization and one based on a member's beliefs about what outsiders think about the organization. According to the model, members assess the attractiveness of these images by how well the image preserves the continuity of their self-concept, provides distinctiveness, and enhances self-esteem. The model leads to a number of propositions about how organizational identification affects members' patterns of social interaction.Managemen

Organisation and Management of Services for the Provision of AIDS to Daily Living

1 . This study was undertaken with funding from the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust to examine services for the provision of aids and adaptations with a view to improving their efficiency and effectiveness. 2. The data on which the study is based came from specially mounted surveys in contrasting areas of Glasgow. Samples of consecutive referrals for aids and adaptations provide the main data base; these surveys are supplemented by retrospective surveys of equipment use, an assessment of unmet need and a study of professional work practices. 3. Provision of aids and adaptations is split between community nursing services (operated by Health Board) and community occupational therapy services (operated by Local Authority Social Work Departments). This division is confusing to patients/clients and gives rise to duplication and overlap in service provision. 4. In both services patients/clients experience considerable delay in obtaining aids and adaptations. Delays in the occupational therapy service occur at two stages:- between referral and assessment and between assessment and delivery: 1 in 2 clients waiting for more than a month for assessment and just under 1 in 3 experienced a further delay of more than a month before receiving their aids and adaptations. Delays are shorter and less frequent in the nursing service, yet around 1 in 3 patients waited for more than a week and 1 in 9 more than a month for equipment from the nursing stores. 5. For both services delays were attributable to inefficiencies in the storage and delivery systems. Stores were too small, inadequately staffed and badly organised. Drivers often had other competing duties and were not replaced over holidays and at times of sickness. 6. In the occupational therapy service the limited time OTs spent on assessment contributed to further delay for the client. In the present study OTs spent 30% of their time with clients compared with 48% on clerical duties. OTs felt that approximately one third of their duties could be delegated to assistants and/or clerical workers. 7. Both services are predominately reactive and no concerted effort is made to identify unmet need. The study does not provide first hand evidence of the extent oof unmet need, but data available from a local survey showed that almost 1 in 2 of those found to be disabled were without an appropriate aid/adaptation. Of those with such an unmet need, only 14% were already on the waiting list of the local occupational therapy service. 8. In both services a substantial proportion of equipment, around 15%, remains in patients' homes unused and unavailable for reissue. The potential for recycling is further limited by inadequate facilities for cleaning and repair of returned equipment. 9. Improvements in both services can be achieved by Introducing Improved forms, changes in staff deployment and upgrading of storage facilities. Specific recommendations are made in relation to these and other proposed changes. 10 Further improvements require a more fundamental restructuring and a move from the present dual service arrangement to an integrated system. Strong arguments are made for a single assessment form and for a single storage and distribution system

The use of satellite data in understanding and predicting convective and large-scale dynamical processes

Mesoscale convective processes and how they affect and interact with mid-latitude cyclones were studied. The ageostrophic and associated vertical motion field was calculated using a highly accurate iterative method of solving the semigeostrophic omega equation. The tendencies for convective destabilization in the 850-750 mb layer due to differential geostrophic and ageostrophic advection and differential moist adiabatic ascent, were found. The spectral models of the index oscillation, one barotropic and the other baroclinic, were developed. Theoretical and observational studies of cloud streets were conducted