Organizational Characteristics and Performance of Export Promotion Agencies: Portugal and Ireland compared

Export Promotion Agencies (EPAs) have been in operation in developed countries since the beginning of the 20th century to improve the competitiveness of firms by increasing knowledge and competences applied to export market development. Some studies exists on the influence of organizational characteristics on EPAs’ performance, but, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have yet been conducted that analyze, detail and explain which of the EPAs’ organizational characteristics are associated to their differing levels of success. In the present paper we compare a laggard (Portuguese) and a highly efficient (Irish) EPA in terms of export promotion. A questionnaire was applied to the employees of the two EPAs who deal directly with firms in terms of exports promotion. Using the non-parametric test of Kruskal Wallis and factor analysis we found that there are clear differences between the agencies regarding organizational dimensions. In particular, Agência para o Investimento e Comércio Externo de Portugal (AICEP) emerges as an organization without any clear component of intentionality, being more concerned with internal matters rather than with actions directed at the market. In contrast, Enterprise Ireland (EI)’s philosophy is more market-oriented and taking the clients’ needs into consideration is a priority.Export Promotion Agencies; Organizational Performance; Portugal; Ireland

A model-based approach to service creation

This paper presents a model-based approach to support service creation. In this approach, services are assumed to be created from (available) software components. The creation process may involve multiple design steps in which the requested service is repeatedly decomposed into more detailed functional parts, until these parts can be mapped onto software components. A modelling language is used to express and enable analysis of the resulting designs, in particular the behaviour aspects. Methods are needed to verify the correctness of each design step. A technique called behaviour refinement is introduced to assess the conformance relation between an abstract behaviour and a more concrete (detailed) behaviour. This technique is based on the application of abstraction rules to determine the abstraction of the concrete behaviour such that the obtained abstraction can be compared to the original abstract behaviour. The application of this refinement technique throughout the creation process enforces the correctness of the created servic

Optimality conditions for the calculus of variations with higher-order delta derivatives

We prove the Euler-Lagrange delta-differential equations for problems of the calculus of variations on arbitrary time scales with delta-integral functionals depending on higher-order delta derivatives.Comment: Submitted 26/Jul/2009; Revised 04/Aug/2010; Accepted 09/Aug/2010; for publication in "Applied Mathematics Letters

A Rigorous Approach to Relate Enterprise and Computational Viewpoints

Multiviewpoint approaches allow stakeholders to design a system from stakeholder-specific viewpoints. By this, a separation of concerns is achieved, which makes designs more manageable. However, to construct a consistent multiviewpoint design, the relations between viewpoints must be defined precisely, so that the consistency of designs from these viewpoints can be verified. The goal of this paper is to make the consistency rules between (a slightly adapted version of) the RM-ODP enterprise and computational viewpoints more precise and to make checking the consistency between these viewpoints practically applicable. To achieve this goal, we apply a generic framework for relating viewpoints that includes reusable consistency rules. We implemented the consistency rules in a tool to show their applicability

A design-for-change approach: developing distributed applications from enterprise models

This paper presents a novel approach to distributed applications design. The proposed approach considers both the enterprise viewpoint and the computational\ud viewpoint of distributed applications during the design process. Two important benefits are thus accomplished: (1) the resulting distributed applications will better match the enterprise’s needs, and (2) changes in the enterprise can easily be translated to changes in the distributed application. The approach comes with a formal notation that makes it possible to define a precise relation between enterprise models and models of the distributed applications

Semantic verification of Behavior Conformance

This paper introduces a formal yet practical method to verify whether the behavior design of a distributed application conforms to the behavior design of the enterprise in which the application is embedded. The method allows both enterprise architects and application architects to talk about designs in their own terms, and introduces a common set of terms as the linking pin between enterprise and application designs. The formal semantics of these common terms allows us to verify the conformance between an enterprise and its applications formally and automatically

Fungi Associated with Dieback and Pruning Wounds of Grapevines in South Africa

Isolations were made from discoloured tissue of grapevines showing dieback symptoms in the winter rainfall region. Fifteen fungal species were isolated, of which Sphaeropsis sp. Fusarium oxysporum, Eutypa lata (anamorph: Libertella blepharis A.L. Smith), Pestalotia quepini and Botrytis cinerea could be designated as parasites. E. lata was the most probable cause of the dieback phenomenon. Additional isolates representing ten fungal genera were isolated from discoloured wood in spurs from visually healthy grapevines while organisms representing 14 genera were isolated from lesions in grapevines exhibiting dieback symptoms. Aspergillus sp. was more common in the healthy and marginal zones while Sphaeropsis sp. occurred more often in the healthy zone and Phylosticta sp. in the discoloured zone of pruning stubs. In lesions from vines with dieback symptoms, Altemaria alternata was isolated more regularly from the marginal zone between healthy and discoloured wood, while E. lata and Trichoderma harzianum were isolated more often from the older part of the lesion. A succession of fungi in the colonisation of pruning wounds and in dieback lesions is suggested

Alternatives for avoiding degradation in ecological wine

Organic wines are prone to suffer from oxidative degradation due to the restrictions in the winemaking. This work studies the influence of different chemical routes, due to thermal and oxidative processes, in the wine aromatic profile. The resistance to these processes after the addition of compounds with a presumably antioxidant capacity was evaluated. Ascorbic acid, resveratrol, calcium disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and the polyphenols: gallic acid, epicatechin and caffeic acid, were tested. The oxidative estate by cyclic voltammetry, aromatic composition and general profiles and sensorial analysis were performed; obtaining interesting differences depending on the applied treatment. All samples gave a characteristic voltammetry signal; showing a remarkable decrease in the current intensity on those samples that suffer a deeper degradation. Regarding the chemical analysis results, the application of the metal chelator EDTA, apart from the SO2 treatment, might be of interest to partly reduce the oxidative effect. Sensory differences were only found in samples treated with SO2 and those that had the addition of polyphenols, due to the appearance in these last samples of a strong vegetable aroma not perceptible in the other treatments.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio