Realizing IT Strategic Alignment and Business Performance: An Integration of Three Perspectives

IT strategic alignment remains a key concern for business executives over decades. Unfortunately, prior empirical studies tend to ignore the relevance of cultural and capability dimensions to IT strategic alignment. Consequently, whether IT-related orientation and capabilities are adequate for attaining organizational goals and leading to business values still requires exploration. This study adopts three perspectives to understand why and how IT strategic alignment can be achieved through IT-related orientation and capabilities in program (i.e. project portfolio), management, and flexibility. This study develops a model to examine the relationships among such IT-related orientation, IT capabilities, IT strategic alignment, and subsequent business performance. Accordingly, seven hypotheses were proposed and the model was tested with Partial Least Square technique based on the data collected from a survey of 209 manufacturing firms in Taiwan. The results support our model with seven hypotheses confirmed. By focusing on relevant IT-related orientation, IT capabilities, and IT strategic alignment, this study extends the literatures on program (project portfolio) management, IT capability, and strategic management by manifesting the effects the studied constructs from the bridging, transformative, and adaptive perspectives. Implications of the results are provided and limitations and future research directions are discussed

An optimally efficient technique for the solution of systems of nonlinear parabolic partial differential equations

This paper describes a new software tool that has been developed for the efficient solution of systems of linear and nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) of parabolic type. Specifically, the software is designed to provide optimal computational performance for multiscale problems, which require highly stable, implicit, time-stepping schemes combined with a parallel implementation of adaptivity in both space and time. By combining these implicit, adaptive discretizations with an optimally efficient nonlinear multigrid solver it is possible to obtain computational solutions to a very high resolution with relatively modest computational resources. The first half of the paper describes the numerical methods that lie behind the software, along with details of their implementation, whilst the second half of the paper illustrates the flexibility and robustness of the tool by applying it to two very different example problems. These represent models of a thin film flow of a spreading viscous droplet and a multi-phase-field model of tumour growth. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges of obtaining highly scalable parallel performance for a software tool that combines both local mesh adaptivity, requiring efficient dynamic load-balancing, and a multigrid solver, requiring careful implementation of coarse grid operations and inter-grid transfer operations in parallel

Short-Range Interactions and Scaling Near Integer Quantum Hall Transitions

We study the influence of short-range electron-electron interactions on scaling behavior near the integer quantum Hall plateau transitions. Short-range interactions are known to be irrelevant at the renormalization group fixed point which represents the transition in the non-interacting system. We find, nevertheless, that transport properties change discontinuously when interactions are introduced. Most importantly, in the thermodynamic limit the conductivity at finite temperature is zero without interactions, but non-zero in the presence of arbitrarily weak interactions. In addition, scaling as a function of frequency, $\omega$, and temperature, $T$, is determined by the scaling variable $\omega/T^p$ (where $p$ is the exponent for the temperature dependence of the inelastic scattering rate) and not by $\omega/T$, as it would be at a conventional quantum phase transition described by an interacting fixed point. We express the inelastic exponent, $p$, and the thermal exponent, $z_T$, in terms of the scaling dimension, $-\alpha < 0$, of the interaction strength and the dynamical exponent $z$ (which has the value $z=2$), obtaining $p=1+2\alpha/z$ and $z_T=2/p$.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review

Syzygies in equivariant cohomology for non-abelian Lie groups

We extend the work of Allday-Franz-Puppe on syzygies in equivariant cohomology from tori to arbitrary compact connected Lie groups G. In particular, we show that for a compact orientable G-manifold X the analogue of the Chang-Skjelbred sequence is exact if and only if the equivariant cohomology of X is reflexive, if and only if the equivariant Poincare pairing for X is perfect. Along the way we establish that the equivariant cohomology modules arising from the orbit filtration of X are Cohen-Macaulay. We allow singular spaces and introduce a Cartan model for their equivariant cohomology. We also develop a criterion for the finiteness of the number of infinitesimal orbit types of a G-manifold.Comment: 28 pages; minor change

Avoiding degenerate coframes in an affine gauge approach to quantum gravity

In quantum models of gravity, it is surmized that configurations with degenerate coframes could occur during topology change of the underlying spacetime structure. However, the coframe is not the true Yang--Mills type gauge field of the translations, since it lacks the inhomogeneous gradient term in the gauge transformations. By explicitly restoring this ``hidden" piece within the framework of the affine gauge approach to gravity, one can avoid the metric or coframe degeneracy which would otherwise interfere with the integrations within the path integral. This is an important advantage for quantization.Comment: 14 pages, Preprint Cologne-thp-1993-H

Three dimensional thermal-solute phase field simulation of binary alloy solidification

We employ adaptive mesh refinement, implicit time stepping, a nonlinear multigrid solver and parallel computation to solve a multi-scale, time dependent, three dimensional, nonlinear set of coupled partial differential equations for three scalar field variables. The mathematical model represents the non-isothermal solidification of a metal alloy into a melt substantially cooled below its freezing point at the microscale. Underlying physical molecular forces are captured at this scale by a specification of the energy field. The time rate of change of the temperature, alloy concentration and an order parameter to govern the state of the material (liquid or solid) are controlled by the diffusion parameters and variational derivatives of the energy functional. The physical problem is important to material scientists for the development of solid metal alloys and, hitherto, this fully coupled thermal problem has not been simulated in three dimensions, due to its computationally demanding nature. By bringing together state of the art numerical techniques this problem is now shown here to be tractable at appropriate resolution with relatively moderate computational resources

Deriving the mass of particles from Extended Theories of Gravity in LHC era

We derive a geometrical approach to produce the mass of particles that could be suitably tested at LHC. Starting from a 5D unification scheme, we show that all the known interactions could be suitably deduced as an induced symmetry breaking of the non-unitary GL(4)-group of diffeomorphisms. The deformations inducing such a breaking act as vector bosons that, depending on the gravitational mass states, can assume the role of interaction bosons like gluons, electroweak bosons or photon. The further gravitational degrees of freedom, emerging from the reduction mechanism in 4D, eliminate the hierarchy problem since generate a cut-off comparable with electroweak one at TeV scales. In this "economic" scheme, gravity should induce the other interactions in a non-perturbative way.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figur

Economic outcomes of percutaneous coronary intervention with drug-eluting stents versus bypass surgery for patients with left main or three-vessel coronary artery disease: One-year results from the SYNTAX trial

Objectives: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of alternative approaches to revascularization for patients with three-vessel or left main coronary artery disease (CAD). Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that, despite higher initial costs, long-term costs with bypass surgery (CABG) in multivessel CAD are similar to those for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). The impact of drug-eluting stents (DES) on these results is unknown. Methods: The SYNTAX trial randomized 1,800 patients with left main or three-vessel CAD to either CABG (n = 897) or PCI using paclitaxel-eluting stents (n = 903). Resource utilization data were collected prospectively for all patients, and cumulative 1-year costs were assessed from the perspective of the U.S. healthcare system. Results: Total costs for the initial hospitalization were $5,693/patient higher with CABG, whereas follow-up costs were$2,282/patient higher with PCI due mainly to more frequent revascularization procedures and higher outpatient medication costs. Total 1-year costs were thus $3,590/patient higher with CABG, while quality-adjusted life expectancy was slightly higher with PCI. Although PCI was an economically dominant strategy for the overall population, cost-effectiveness varied considerably according to angiographic complexity. For patients with high angiographic complexity (SYNTAX score > 32), total 1-year costs were similar for CABG and PCI, and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio for CABG was$43,486 per quality-adjusted life-year gained. Conclusions: Among patients with three-vessel or left main CAD, PCI is an economically attractive strategy over the first year for patients with low and moderate angiographic complexity, while CABG is favored among patients with high angiographic complexity

The unexpected resurgence of Weyl geometry in late 20-th century physics

Weyl's original scale geometry of 1918 ("purely infinitesimal geometry") was withdrawn by its author from physical theorizing in the early 1920s. It had a comeback in the last third of the 20th century in different contexts: scalar tensor theories of gravity, foundations of gravity, foundations of quantum mechanics, elementary particle physics, and cosmology. It seems that Weyl geometry continues to offer an open research potential for the foundations of physics even after the turn to the new millennium.Comment: Completely rewritten conference paper 'Beyond Einstein', Mainz Sep 2008. Preprint ELHC (Epistemology of the LHC) 2017-02, 92 pages, 1 figur

The Lax pairs for elliptic C_n and BC_n Ruijsenaars-Schneider models and their spectral curves

We study the elliptic C_n and BC_n Ruijsenaars-Schneider models which is elliptic generalization of system given in hep-th/0006004. The Lax pairs for these models are constructed by Hamiltonian reduction technology. We show that the spectral curves can be parameterized by the involutive integrals of motion for these models. Taking nonrelativistic limit and scaling limit, we verify that they lead to the systems corresponding to Calogero-Moser and Toda types.Comment: LaTeX2e, 25 pages, 1 table, some references added and rearranged together with misprints correcte