Business Processes Management in the Netherlands and Portugal: The Effect of BPM Maturity on BPM Performance

In the last decade, business process management (BPM) has become essential for corporations to maintain their control over business processes. Therefore it is highly important for companies to know which factors influence business process performance. Consequently, this study focuses on the relationship between BPM maturity and BPM performance. The paper aims to determine (1) whether BPM maturity has a significant effect on BPM performance and (2) whether there is a significant difference between a country that is in a relatively more mature stadium with regard to BPM practices and one that is still going through an adapting phase. In this case we compared the Netherlands and Portugal, in which Portugal reflects the country that is going through an adoption phase. A total of 138 Dutch and 58 Portuguese companies responded to an online survey about BPM practices. For this research, 29 Dutch and 12 Portuguese commercial companies with at least 1,000 employees were taken into account. Statistical empirical research shows that BPM maturity has a significant positive effect on BPM performance. It also shows that although the effect is positive in both countries there is a significant difference between the Netherlands and Portugal. The effect of BPM maturity on BPM performance is higher in Portugal than in the Netherlands. The research concludes that large commercial companies in both countries can attain a better BPM performance by raising their BPM maturity

Systematic review of the relationship between 20m shuttle run performance and health indicators among children and youth

Objective This systematic review aimed to summarize research that assessed the associations between 20 m shuttle run test (20mSRT) performance and indicators of physiological, psychosocial and cognitive health among school-aged children and youth. Design Systematic review. Methods Five online databases were used to identify peer-reviewed studies published from 1980 to 2016. Studies were included if they matched these criteria: population (children and youth with a mean age of 5–17 years and/or in Grades 1–12), intervention/exposure (performance on the 20mSRT), and outcomes (health indicators: adiposity, cardiometabolic biomarkers, cognition, mental health, psychosocial health, self-esteem and physical self-perception, quality of life and wellbeing, bone health, musculoskeletal fitness, motor skill development, and injuries and/or harm). Narrative syntheses were applied to describe the results. A lack of homogeneity precluded a meta-analysis approach. Results Overall, 142 studies that determined an association between 20mSRT performance and a health indicator were identified, representing 319,311 children and youth from 32 countries. 20mSRT performance was favourably associated with indicators of adiposity, and some indicators of cardiometabolic, cognitive, and psychosocial health in boys and girls. Fewer studies examined the relationship between 20mSRT performance and measures of quality of life/wellbeing, mental health and motor skill development, and associations were generally inconsistent. The quality of the evidence ranged from very low to moderate across health indicators. Conclusion and Implications These findings support the use of the 20mSRT as a holistic indicator of population health in children and youth

The three species monomer-monomer model in the reaction-controlled limit

We study the one dimensional three species monomer-monomer reaction model in the reaction controlled limit using mean-field theory and dynamic Monte Carlo simulations. The phase diagram consists of a reactive steady state bordered by three equivalent adsorbing phases where the surface is saturated with one monomer species. The transitions from the reactive phase are all continuous, while the transitions between adsorbing phases are first-order. Bicritical points occur where the reactive phase simultaneously meets two adsorbing phases. The transitions from the reactive to an adsorbing phase show directed percolation critical behaviour, while the universal behaviour at the bicritical points is in the even branching annihilating random walk class. The results are contrasted and compared to previous results for the adsorption-controlled limit of the same model.Comment: 12 pages using RevTeX, plus 4 postscript figures. Uses psfig.sty. accepted to Journal of Physics

Regional Climate Trends and Scenarios for the U.S. National Climate Assessment Part 4. Climate of the U.S. Great Plains

This document is one of series of regional climate descriptions designed to provide input that can be used in the development of the National Climate Assessment (NCA). As part of a sustained assessment approach, it is intended that these documents will be updated as new and well-vetted model results are available and as new climate scenario needs become clear. It is also hoped that these documents (and associated data and resources) are of direct benefit to decision makers and communities seeking to use this information in developing adaptation plans. There are nine reports in this series, one each for eight regions defined by the NCA, and one for the contiguous U.S. The eight NCA regions are the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Great Plains, Northwest, Southwest, Alaska, and Hawai‘i/Pacific Islands. These documents include a description of the observed historical climate conditions for each region and a set of climate scenarios as plausible futures – these components are described in more detail below. While the datasets and simulations in these regional climate documents are not, by themselves, new, (they have been previously published in various sources), these documents represent a more complete and targeted synthesis of historical and plausible future climate conditions around the specific regions of the NCA. There are two components of these descriptions. One component is a description of the historical climate conditions in the region. The other component is a description of the climate conditions associated with two future pathways of greenhouse gas emissions

Nonequilibrium Critical Dynamics of a Three Species Monomer-Monomer Model

We study a three species monomer-monomer catalytic surface reaction model with a reactive steady state bordered by three equivalent unreactive phases where the surface is saturated with one species. The transition from the reactive to a saturated phase shows directed percolation critical behavior. Each pair of these reactive-saturated phase boundaries join at a bicritical point where the universal behavior is in the even branching annihilating random walk class. We find the crossover exponent from bicritical to critical behavior and a new exponent associated with the bicritical interface dynamics.Comment: 4 pages RevTex. 4 eps figures included with psfig.sty. Uses multicol.sty. Accepted for publication in PR

Synthesis and in vitro evaluation of a multifunctional and surface-switchable nanoemulsion platform

We present a multifunctional nanoparticle platform that has targeting moieties shielded by a matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP2) cleavable PEG coating. Upon incubation with MMP2 this surface-switchable coating is removed and the targeting ligands become available for binding. The concept was evaluated in vitro using biotin and αvβ3-integrin-specific RGD-peptide functionalized nanoparticles.National Heart, Lung, and Blood InstituteNational Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Program of Excellence in Nanotechnology (PEN) Award Contract HHSN268201000045C

Spontaneous clearance of Chlamydia trachomatis accounting for bacterial viability in vaginally or rectally infected women (FemCure)

Objectives: Spontaneous clearance of Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) infections can occur between diagnosis and treatment. We followed CT patien

The three species monomer-monomer model: A mean-field analysis and Monte Carlo study

We study the phase diagram and critical behavior of a one dimensional three species monomer-monomer surface reaction model. Static Monte Carlo simulations show a phase diagram consisting of a reactive steady state bordered by three equivalent unreactive phases where the surface is saturated with one monomer species. The transitions from the reactive to saturated phases are all continuous, while the transitions between poisoned phases are first-order, with bicritical points where the reactive phase meets two poisoned phases. A mean-field cluster analysis predicts all of the qualitative features of the phase diagram only when correlations up to triplets of adjacent sites are included. Dynamic Monte Carlo simulations show that the transition from the reactive to a saturated phase show critical behavior in the directed percolation universality class, while the bicritical point shows critical behavior in the even branching annihilating random walk class. The crossover from bicritical to critical behavior is also studied.Comment: 16 pages using RevTeX, plus 10 figures. Uses psfig.st