An evaluation of the Product Development Partnership Programme between New Zealand businesses and Institute of Technology and Engineering, Massey University : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology in Product Development at Massey University

Some text cut off from Appendix IX-This masterate thesis, An Investigation of The Effectiveness of the Product Development Partnership Programme Between New Zealand Businesses and Massey University, is the final report of a masters research undertaken throughout New Zealand from mid 2000 to mid 2001. The primary purpose of this research was to evaluate the Product Development Partnership Programme (PDPP) at Massey University from 1997 to 1999. The study intends to provide an in-depth understanding of (i) the PDPP, (ii) its design and management, and (iii) the survey outcomes to the client companies and Massey University. A nation-wide self-administered survey was mailed to fifty-five New Zealand companies who had sponsored student projects from 1997 to 1999. The total survey sample accounted for the survey analysis was reduced to forty-six as a result of seven surveys returned with apologies of being unable to participate and two were returned uncompleted. An overall response rate of 48% was achieved by contacting the companies prior to the full-scale mail-out and follow-up calls when the deadline of returning the survey was drawing near and/or had past. A series of case study interviews with the selected mail survey respondents was conducted following the nation-wide mail-out. The objective for the interviews was to gain more depth and clarification on some of the answers given in the survey. This thesis contributes new knowledge for the reason that, in spite of being almost a decade since the PDPP was first introduced at Massey University, no formal and/or comprehensive study has been undertaken to measure its performance. Other than meeting the domestic needs, this thesis would also be able to satisfy the international needs and interests on Product Development practice that incorporates the student-client relationship in the academic domain. Results of this study show that more than three-quarters of the respondent companies carry out all the thirteen common stages in Product Development proccss, either formally or informally. The percentage of Product Development usage in the respondent companies was much higher in this research compared to studies conducted in related area and subject. Yet, the results also showed that all but one client company's utilisation of Product Development practice remained unaffected by their involvement in the PDPP. This was due to the insufficient time to introduce such a sophisticated system to companies untrained to it and with limited financial and human resources. It needs to be reminded that improving the client company's PD process or helping them to install a new PD process is not the objective of the PDPP. Companies of limited financial and human resources were mainly those of micro and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which were accounted for 73% (6 micro enterprises and 10 SMEs) of the total responses returned. According to 95% of the mail survey respondents "consumer research information" was the most useful among the nine benefits listed in the questionnaire. The number of businesses favouring marketing research and marketing research information indicated that New Zealand companies are increasingly acknowledging the importance and usefulness of marketing research information in new product development (NPD). Overall. 68% of the survey respondents rated the information gathered and skills learned through the PDPP useful. Besides providing the client companies with information and skills useful to them, PDPP also gave them the opportunities and assistance needed to test the product concepts and reach commercialisation quicker. Analysis of the survey found that student's ability and performance, and communication with students were the main obstacles to the progress of the project. The same aspects were also found to be the top three most important factors to Product Development projects. This thus demonstrated that project barriers and factors important to Product Development project were inter-related with each other. The majority of the respondent companies considered "helping student and university" as their main objective to joining the partnership programme. Other notable objectives from the client companies' point of view on the joint-partnership project included economical reason to get a potential project underway and gaining access to research expertise. When asked about their opinion of the concept of working with Massey through the partnership project, all of the case study companies supported the concept. On top of that they also believed that the Programme is beneficial for both the student to gain practical experiences and assist them in testing the new product concepts quickly leading to economic benefits. Overall, though there are improvements such as project scope that matches the student's ability and project timeframe, resources availability, and communication to be made in order to be continually successful, PDPP had received satisfying reception and recognition from the responded client companies. The recognition received from the client companies was based on the assistance given to the new projects, project benefits received which included information gained and skill learned, and to some also included project commercialisation

"Old Wine in a New Bottle: Subprime Mortgage Crisis—Causes and Consequences"

This paper seeks to explain the causes and consequences of the United States subprime mortgage crisis, and how this crisis has led to a generalized credit crunch in other financial sectors that ultimately affects the real economy. It postulates that, despite the recent financial innovations, the financial strategies—leveraging and financial risk mismatching—that led to the present crisis are similar to those found in the United States savings-and-loan debacle of the late 1980s and in the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. However, these strategies are based on market innovations that have heightened, not reduced, systemic risks and financial instability. They are as the title implies: old wine in a new bottle. Going beyond these financial practices, the underlying structural causes of the crisis are located in the loose monetary policies of central banks, deregulation, and excess liquidity in financial markets that is a consequence of the kind of economic growth that produces various imbalances—trade imbalances, financial sector imbalances, and wealth and income inequality. The consequences of excessive risk, moral hazards, and rolling bubbles are discussed.

#mytweet via Instagram: Exploring User Behaviour across Multiple Social Networks

We study how users of multiple online social networks (OSNs) employ and share information by studying a common user pool that use six OSNs - Flickr, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube. We analyze the temporal and topical signature of users' sharing behaviour, showing how they exhibit distinct behaviorial patterns on different networks. We also examine cross-sharing (i.e., the act of user broadcasting their activity to multiple OSNs near-simultaneously), a previously-unstudied behaviour and demonstrate how certain OSNs play the roles of originating source and destination sinks.Comment: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, 2015. This is the pre-peer reviewed version and the final version is available at http://wing.comp.nus.edu.sg/publications/2015/lim-et-al-15.pd

Quality management practices of food manufacturers: a comparative study between small, medium and large companies in Malaysia

The objective of this study is to identify the extent of quality management (QM) practices implemented by the food manufacturing companies in Malaysia. Second, is to identify the level of QM practices implemented by the small, medium, and large food manufacturing companies in Malaysia. In addition, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between quality management practices with the operational performance and market performance of the food manufacturing companies in Malaysia. This study utilized quantitative approach by constructing a survey questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed statistically using SPSS version 22.0. Food manufacturing companies were discovered implementing all the quality management practices components measured. In terms of the types of QM practices, GMP, HACCP, ISO 9001 and TQM were implemented. The implementation level in terms of the components and types of QM practices was found highest in large companies, followed by medium companies and small companies. Statistical different was observed in the implementation level between small companies with medium and large companies. However, no significant difference discovered between medium companies and large companies. It was found that quality management practices were significantly related with the operational performance and market performance of the food manufacturing companies in Malaysia. This study carries an important message in terms of the managerial economics in which a specific company performance can be improved individually by implementing the identified QM practices. This is particularly important to the small sized and medium sized enterprises for effective resources control. This study served as the framework for food manufacturing industries to understand their current position in implementing the QM practices. At the same time, promote continuous improvement in the current practices via benchmarking process

Mechanisms of Antitumour Activity of 3,19-(2 Bromobenzylidene) Andrographolide (SRJ09)

To date, most of the clinical cytotoxic anticancer drugs target all rapidly dividing cells and are non-selective in their mechanism of action by disrupting essential components that are crucial to both malignant and normal cells. Hence, the search for more effective and selective anticancer drugs is currently being researched actively involving the various entities of the drug discovery programme. We at UPM have shown that andrographolide (AGP), a compound isolated from a local herb, Andrographis paniculata, to have anticancer activity in vitro and in vivo. In order to improve the antitumour properties of AGP, semi-synthetic derivatives of this compound were synthesised in our laboratory, with the aim of identifying the most promising anticancer compound among the AGP derivatives and to elucidate the mechanism(s) of action of the compound. The in vitro antitumour study showed that 3,19-(2-bromobenzylidene)andrographolide (SR09) displayed better antitumour activity when compared with AGP and other derivatives namely 3,19-(2- chlorobenzylidene)andrographolide (SRJ11) and 3,19-(3-chloro-4- fluorobenzylidene) andrographolide (SRJ23). The antitumour activity of AGP, SRJ09, SRJ11 and SRJ23 was shown to be not compromised by P-glycoprotein activities in MES-SA Dx5 multidrug resistant cell line. The time-course study revealed SRJ09 had a rapid acting interval compared with AGP. SRJ09 was previously shown to induce G1-phase cell cycle arrest and in this study the effect was shown attributed to increased of p21 (CDK inhibitor) expression without affecting the expression of cyclin D1. Apoptosis was the main mode of cell death induced by SRJ09 and was p53 and bcl-2 independent, which might suggest that SRJ09 act through the extrinsic apoptotic pathway. A simple pharmacokinetic study was performed in Balb/c for the purpose of dose selection for in vivo study revealed that SRJ09 had a relatively short half-life but was able to reach in vitro cytotoxic concentration range. In a subsequent in vivo antitumour study, SRJ09 delayed quadruple tumour growth by 4 day in HCT-116 colon cancer xenografted mice treated with 400 mg/kg SRJ09 (q4d×3) when compared with control. In conclusion, SRJ09 have been proven as a lead anticancer agent given to its ability to induce in vitro cell cycle arrest and apoptosis and to have in vivo antitumour activity. Therefore, further studies in improving the anticancer properties of SRJ09 by chemical modification will be advantageous

Quantum Oscillations in Nodal Line Systems

We study signatures of magnetic quantum oscillations in three-dimensional nodal line semimetals at zero temperature. The extended nature of the degenerate bands can result in a Fermi surface geometry with topological genus one, as well as a Fermi surface of electron and hole pockets encapsulating the nodal line. Moreover, the underlying two-band model to describe a nodal line is not unique, in that there are two classes of Hamiltonian with distinct band topology giving rise to the same Fermi surface geometry. After identifying the extremal cyclotron orbits in various magnetic field directions, we study their concomitant Landau levels and resulting quantum oscillation signatures. By Landau-fan-diagram analyses we extract the non-trivial $\pi$ Berry phase signature for extremal orbits linking the nodal line.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

A Context-Aware Based Authorization System For Pervasive Grid Computing

Tujuan kajian ini adalah untuk mengatasi had grid pervasif terutamanya dalam bidang pengesahan kuasa.Kemajuan dalam teknologi tanpa wayar telah mempercepatkan evolusi dari teknologi grid kepada grid pervasif. The purpose of this study was to address the limitation of pervasive grid particularly on the area of authorization. The advance in wireless technologies had accelerated the evolution from grid technologies to pervasive grid

Old wine in a new bottle: Subprime mortgage crisis - causes and donsequences

This paper seeks to explain the causes and consequences of the United States subprime mortgage crisis, and how this crisis has led to a generalized credit crunch in other financial sectors that ultimately affects the real economy. It postulates that, despite the recent financial innovations, the financial strategiesleveraging and financial risk mismatchingthat led to the present crisis are similar to those found in the United States savings-and-loan debacle of the late 1980s and in the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. However, these strategies are based on market innovations that have heightened, not reduced, systemic risks and financial instability. They are as the title implies: old wine in a new bottle. Going beyond these financial practices, the underlying structural causes of the crisis are located in the loose monetary policies of central banks, deregulation, and excess liquidity in financial markets that is a consequence of the kind of economic growth that produces various imbalancestrade imbalances, financial sector imbalances, and wealth and income inequality. The consequences of excessive risk, moral hazards, and rolling bubbles are discussed

Pseudo-solidification of dredged marine soils with cement - fly ash for reuse in coastal development

The dislodged and removed sediments from the seabed, termed dredged marine soils, are generally classified as a waste material requiring special disposal procedures. This is due to the potential contamination risks of transporting and disposing the dredged soils, and the fact that the material is of poor engineering quality, unsuitable for usage as a conventional good soil in construction. Also, taking into account the incurred costs and risk exposure in transferring the material to the dump site, whether on land or offshore, it is intuitive to examine the possibilities of reusing the dredged soils, especially in coastal development where the transportation route would be of shorter distance between the dredged site and the construction location. Pseudo-solidification of soils is not a novel idea though, where hydraulic binders are injected and mixed with soils to improve the inherent engineering properties for better load bearing capacity. It is commonly used on land in areas with vast and deep deposits of soft, weak soils. However, to implement the technique on the displaced then replaced dredged soil would require careful study, as the material is far more poorly than their land counterparts, and that the deployment of equipment and workforce in a coastal environment is understandably more challenging. The paper illustrates the laboratory investigation of the improved engineering performance of dredged marine soil sample with cement and fly ash blend. Some key findings include optimum dosage of cement and fly ash mix to produce up to 30 times of small strain stiffness improvement, pre-yield settlement reduction of the treated soil unaffected by prolonged curing period, and damage of the cementitious bonds formed by the rather small dosage of admixtures in the soil post-yield. In short, the test results show a promising reuse potential of the otherwise discarded dredged marine soils