The long and winding road: Routine creation and replication in multi-site organizations

Prior research on organizational routines in the ‘capabilities’ literature has either studied how new routines are created during an exploratory process of variation and selection or how existing routines are replicated during a phase of exploitation. Few studies have analyzed the life cycle of new routine creation and replication as an integrated process. In an in-depth case study of England’s Highways Agency, this paper shows that the creation and replication of a new routine across multiple sites involves four sequential steps: envisioning, experimenting, entrenching and enacting. We contribute to the capabilities research in two ways: first, by showing how different organizational levels, capabilities and logics (cognitive and behavioural) shape the development of new routines; and second, by identifying how distinct evolutionary cycles of variation and selective retention occur during each step in the process. In contrast with prior research on replication as an exact copy of a template or existing routine, our study focuses on the replication of an entirely new routine (based on novel principles) that is adapted to fit local operational conditions during its large-scale replication across multiple sites. We draw upon insights from adjacent ‘practice research’ and suggest how capabilities and practice studies may complement each other in future research on the evolution of routines

Nanomechanics of a Hydrogen Molecule Suspended between Two Equally Charged Tips

Geometric configuration and energy of a hydrogen molecule centered between two point-shaped tips of equal charge are calculated with the variational quantum Monte-Carlo (QMC) method without the restriction of the Born-Oppenheimer (BO) approximation. Ground state nuclear distribution, stability, and low vibrational excitation are investigated. Ground state results predict significant deviations from the BO treatment that is based on a potential energy surface (PES) obtained with the same QMC accuracy. The quantum mechanical distribution of molecular axis direction and bond length at a sub-nanometer level is fundamental for understanding nanomechanical dynamics with embedded hydrogen. Because of the tips' arrangement, cylindrical symmetry yields a uniform azimuthal distribution of the molecular axis vector relative to the tip-tip axis. With approaching tips towards each other, the QMC sampling shows an increasing loss of spherical symmetry with the molecular axis still uniformly distributed over the azimuthal angle but peaked at the tip-tip direction for negative tip charge while peaked at the equatorial plane for positive charge. This directional behavior can be switched between both stable configurations by changing the sign of the tip charge and by controlling the tip-tip distance. This suggests an application in the field of molecular machines.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure

Efficient UC Commitment Extension with Homomorphism for Free (and Applications)

Homomorphic universally composable (UC) commitments allow for the sender to reveal the result of additions and multiplications of values contained in commitments without revealing the values themselves while assuring the receiver of the correctness of such computation on committed values. In this work, we construct essentially optimal additively homomorphic UC commitments from any (not necessarily UC or homomorphic) extractable commitment. We obtain amortized linear computational complexity in the length of the input messages and rate 1. Next, we show how to extend our scheme to also obtain multiplicative homomorphism at the cost of asymptotic optimality but retaining low concrete complexity for practical parameters. While the previously best constructions use UC oblivious transfer as the main building block, our constructions only require extractable commitments and PRGs, achieving better concrete efficiency and offering new insights into the sufficient conditions for obtaining homomorphic UC commitments. Moreover, our techniques yield public coin protocols, which are compatible with the Fiat-Shamir heuristic. These results come at the cost of realizing a restricted version of the homomorphic commitment functionality where the sender is allowed to perform any number of commitments and operations on committed messages but is only allowed to perform a single batch opening of a number of commitments. Although this functionality seems restrictive, we show that it can be used as a building block for more efficient instantiations of recent protocols for secure multiparty computation and zero knowledge non-interactive arguments of knowledge

Pathogenic variability in monoconidial isolates of the sorghum anthracnose fungus Colletotrichum graminicola from single lesions and from monoconidial cultures.

A patogenidade de culturas c sub-culturas monospóricas de Colletotrichum graminicola obtidas de uma única lesão c de isolamentos monospóricos das cultivares de sorgo Tx623 e SC748-5 foi avaliada em 5 cultivares diferenciadoras. Isolados foram separados em diferentes fenótipos de virulência, indicando a ocorrência de instabilidade patogenica em isolados deste patógeno. Reversão de um estado de virulência para um de virulência foi observada para alguns isolados

Vibrational inelastic scattering effects in molecular electronics

We describe how to treat the interaction of travelling electrons with localised vibrational modes in nanojunctions. We present a multichannel scattering technique which can be applied to calculate the transport properties for realistic systems, and show how it is related to other methods that are useful in particular cases. We apply our technique to describe recent experiments on the conductance through molecular junctions.Comment: LaTeX, 12 pages, 3 figure

Computer Searches and Seizures: Some Unresolved Issues

The goal of this article is to illustrate the issues that arise in the context of computer search and seizures by examining several areas in which the application of Fourth Amendment concepts to computer searches and/or seizures can be problematic. In order to illustrate this point, the article will build on a hypothetical. The hypothetical situation assumes law enforcement officers have lawfully obtained a warrant to search for and seize evidence concerning the commission of one or more crimes. It will also be assumed that computer technology played some role in the commission of these crimes, so computer equipment and computer data are legitimate objects of the search. This hypothetical is used to explore three issues, each of which concerns the execution of a computer search and seizure warrant: Under what circumstances is it reasonable to conduct a search of computers and/or computer files off-site, as opposed to on-site? What, if any, role should the plain view doctrine play in computer searches and seizures? Is copying data contained on a hard drive or in some other electronic storage media a search? A seizure

The Construction and Validation of an Arithmetical Computation Test

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67909/2/10.1177_001316445301300206.pd