Complexities of large-scale technology project failure: A forensic analysis of the Seattle popular monorail authority

“Being stuck in traffic doesn’t have to be a way of life.” This beautiful prologue came from the Elevated Transportation Company (ETC) board’s letter in the ETC Seattle Popular Monorail Plan, one of the largest public works projects ever proposed in the city of Seattle. Three years after this proposal, the Seattle Monorail Project (SMP) was shut down by voters on November 8, 2005. This paper critically analyzes the SMP through the lens of stakeholder theory. This perspective provides valuable insights into the failure of the SMP. We theorize that SMP’s failure might have been avoided had its leadership recognized the many stakeholders that had power over the plan and, more importantly, the dynamic changes in relationships between the stakeholders. Failure might also have been avoided by managing conflicts in stakeholders’ expectations. Specifically, we use stakeholder theory to develop four propositions that are relevant in the context of large-scale technology projects. One, organizations are more likely to succeed when have effective mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating interactions between stakeholders and changes in their positions in relation to their strategic innovation projects. Two, organizations are more likely to succeed when they tradeoff the conflicts in expectations and interests that stakeholders hold. Three, organizations are more likely to implement complex technology projects by understanding stakeholders’ expectations and the interplay between stakeholders. Four, organizations are more likely to achieve their innovative projects when they define stakeholders in terms of their power over their strategic objectives. The paper makes a contribution both to the research and practice of major technological infrastructure projects, strategic innovations, and government technology management

An agent-based fuzzy cognitive map approach to the strategic marketing planning for industrial firms

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Industrial Marketing Management. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.Industrial marketing planning is a typical example of an unstructured decision making problem due to the large number of variables to consider and the uncertainty imposed on those variables. Although abundant studies identified barriers and facilitators of effective industrial marketing planning in practice, the literature still lacks practical tools and methods that marketing managers can use for the task. This paper applies fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) to industrial marketing planning. In particular, agent based inference method is proposed to overcome dynamic relationships, time lags, and reusability issues of FCM evaluation. MACOM simulator also is developed to help marketing managers conduct what-if scenarios to see the impacts of possible changes on the variables defined in an FCM that represents industrial marketing planning problem. The simulator is applied to an industrial marketing planning problem for a global software service company in South Korea. This study has practical implication as it supports marketing managers for industrial marketing planning that has large number of variables and their cause–effect relationships. It also contributes to FCM theory by providing an agent based method for the inference of FCM. Finally, MACOM also provides academics in the industrial marketing management discipline with a tool for developing and pre-verifying a conceptual model based on qualitative knowledge of marketing practitioners.Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (Korea

On the Margins of Ghana and Kawkaw: Four seasons of excavation at Tongo Maaré Diabal (AD 500-1150), Mali

This article summarises the results of four seasons of excavation at Tongo Maaré Diabal (AD 500-1150), near Douentza, Mali. Deep stratigraphic excavations were directed by MacDonald and Togola in 1993, 1995 and by MacDonald in 1996. Complementary, large exposure excavations of the abandonment layer were undertaken by Gestrich in 2010. The combined excavation results speak to topics of craft specialisation, trade, and social organisation. They provide evidence of a specialised blacksmithing community situated at the margins of early Middle Niger and Niger Bend statehood and urbanisation.Le présent article porte sur les résultats de quatre saisons de fouilles sur le site de Tongo Maaré Diabal (AD 500-1150), non loin de la ville de Douentza au Mali. Des fouilles stratigraphiques en profondeur ont été réalisées par MacDonald et Togola en 1993 et 1995 ; et par MacDonald en 1996. Des fouilles complémentaires du dernier horizon d’occupation ont été réalisées sur une grande surface par Gestrich en 2010. Les résultats de ces campagnes portent sur des thèmes de la spécialisation artisanale, du commerce et de l’organisation sociale. Ils nous permettent de décrire une communauté des métallurgistes spécialisées, située en marges des anciens développements étatiques et urbains du Moyen Niger et de la Boucle du Niger.This article is in English

Laboratory information management in a central Nigerian hospital: non-collected or undelivered reports as quality indicator

Background: Reporting laboratory reports to the requesting physician is one vital component of the clinical laboratory testing process. Poor management of information generated in the laboratory, such as non collection/non-delivery of test reports, can adversely affect patient care and safety.Aim: To determine the proportion and financial impact of some laboratory test reports not collected or delivered to the requesting physician.Methods: A review of laboratory records of requests and collected reports of malaria parasite, urine microscopy, culture and sensitivity, and blood culture from June 2014 to December 2014 was carried out, and data analyzed.Results: A total of 5321 laboratory requests comprising 4506 malaria parasites (MP), 414 urine microscopy, culture and sensitivity (urine m/c/s), and 410 blood culture were made, processed and reports generated. Of these, 1040 (19.6%) were not collected or delivered to the requesting physician. Urine m/c/s with 37.9% (157/414) accounted for the highest test-specific non-collected reports, closely followed by blood culture with 37.7% (151/401) and MP with 16% (732/4506). ICU with 54.6% (18/33) and A&E with 21% (149/710) accounted for the highest department-specific non-collected or undelivered reports. The cost of all non-collected or delivered reports was N1, 442,560 or 29.3% of the cost of the total requests during the study period.Conclusion: The proportion of non-collected or undelivered test reports as seen in this study is huge, and indicates a poor laboratory information management system. There is therefore, need to institute and implement appropriate laboratory quality management system to improve patient care and reduce wastage of resources.Keywords: Information management, Laboratory Report, Central Nigeri

Antibiogram of bacterial agents of lower respiratory tract infections in a central Nigerian hospital

BACKGROUND: Lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) are one of the major public health concerns in Nigeria. They are associated with significant morbidity and mortality in children and adults.AIM: To identify bacterial causative agents of lower respiratory tract infections and to determine their antibiotic susceptibility profile to locally available antibiotics.METHODS: This was a retrospective study conducted at National Hospital Abuja (NHA). Laboratory data of processed sputum samples of patients with suspected lower respiratory tract infection at National Hospital Abuja were extracted, reviewed and analyzed from 1st January 2016- 1st December 2016. RESULT: Out of the six hundred and thirteen cases, 89 (14.5%) had an established bacterial cause. The prevalence of LRTIs was higher in males (56.1%) than females. Age group 21-40 (25.8%) had the highest cases of LRTIs followed by those aged 41- 60 (20.2%). Klebsiellapneumoniae (52.8%) was the most predominant isolates, followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (15.7%), Staphylococcus aureus (13.5%), Escherichia coli (7.9%), Enterococcus spp (5.6%) and Proteus spp (4.5%). The predominant bacterial pathogens were generally highly susceptible to fluoroquinolones, aminoglycosides and carbapenems.CONCLUSION: Klebsiellapneumoniae was the most common bacterial causative agent of LRTIs in Abuja. Fluroquinolones, aminoglycosides and carbapenemsare antibiotics of good choice for empiric management of this infection in this locality. Regular monitoring of trends of this aetiologic agent and its antimicrobial susceptibility profile is important in effective management of these infections.KEY WORDS: Antibiogram, Bacterial Isolates, LRTIs, National Hospital Abuja, Nigeri

Global MHD simulations of Saturns's magnetosphere at the time of Cassini approach

We present the results of a 3D global magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the magnetosphere of Saturn for the period of Cassini's initial approach and entry into the magnetosphere. We compare calculated bow shock and magnetopause locations with the Cassini measurements. In order to match the measured locations we use a substantial mass source due to the icy satellites (\sim1 x 10^{28} s^{-1} of water product ions). We find that the location of bow shock and magnetopause crossings are consistent with previous spacecraft measurements, although Cassini encountered the surfaces further from Saturn than the previously determined average location. In addition, we find that the shape of the model bow shock and magnetopause have smaller flaring angles than previous models and are asymmetric dawn-to-dusk. Finally, we find that tilt of Saturn's dipole and rotation axes results in asymmetries in the bow shock and magnetopause and in the magnetotail being hinged near Titan's orbit (\sim20 R _S)

Two-dimensional mapping of triaxial strain fields in a multiferroic BiFeO3 thin film using scanning x-ray microdiffraction

The dramatically enhanced polarizations and saturation magnetizations observed in the epitaxially constrained BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films with their pronounced grain-orientation dependence have attracted much attention and are attributed largely to the constrained in-plane strain. Thus, it is highly desirable to directly obtain information on the two-dimensional (2D) distribution of the in-plane strain and its correlation with the grain orientation of each corresponding microregion. Here the authors report a 2D quantitative mapping of the grain orientation and the local triaxial strain field in a 250 nm thick multiferroic BFO film using a synchrotron x-ray microdiffraction technique. This direct scanning measurement demonstrates that the deviatoric component of the in-plane strain tensor is between 5x10(-3) and 6x10(-3) and that the local triaxial strain is fairly well correlated with the grain orientation in that particular region. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.X1145Nsciescopu

Missense mutations in the perforin (PRF1) gene as a cause of hereditary cancer predisposition

Perforin, a pore-forming toxin released from secretory granules of NK cells and CTLs, is essential for their cytotoxic activity against infected or cancerous target cells. Bi-allelic loss-of-function mutations in the perforin gene are invariably associated with a fatal immunoregulatory disorder, familial haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis type 2 (FHL2), in infants. More recently, it has also been recognized that partial loss of perforin function can cause disease in later life, including delayed onset FHL2 and haematological malignancies. Herein we report a family in which a wide range of systemic inflammatory and neoplastic manifestations have occurred across three generations. We found that disease was linked to two missense perforin gene mutations (encoding A91V, R410W) that cause protein misfolding and partial loss of activity. These cases link the partial loss of perforin function with some solid tumours that are known to be controlled by the immune system, as well as haematological cancers. Our findings also demonstrate that perforin gene mutations can contribute to hereditary cancer predisposition

Differential effects of anti-B7-1 and anti-B7-2 monoclonal antibody treatment on the development of diabetes in the nonobese diabetic mouse.

Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) is thought to be an immunologically mediated disease resulting in the complete destruction of the insulin-producing islets of Langerhans. It has become increasingly clear that autoreactive T cells play a major role in the development and progression of this disease. In this study, we examined the role of the CD28/B7 costimulation pathway in the development and progression of autoimmune diabetes in the nonobese diabetic (NOD) mouse model. Female NOD mice treated at the onset of insulitis (2-4 wk of age) with CTLA4Ig immunoglobulin (Ig) (a soluble CD28 antagonist) or a monoclonal antibody (mAb) specific for B7-2 (a CD28 ligand) did not develop diabetes. However, neither of these treatments altered the disease process when administered late, at > 10 wk of age. Histological examination of islets from the various treatment groups showed that while CTLA4Ig and anti-B7-2 mAb treatment blocked the development of diabetes, these reagents had little effect on the development or severity of insulitis. Together these results suggest that blockade of costimulatory signals by CTLA4Ig or anti-B7-2 acts early in disease development, after insulitis but before the onset of frank diabetes. NOD mice were also treated with mAbs to another CD28 ligand, B7-1. In contrast to the previous results, the anti-B7-1 treatment significantly accelerated the development of disease in female mice and, most interestingly, induced diabetes in normally resistant male mice. A combination of anti-B7-1 and anti-B7-2 mAbs also resulted in an accelerated onset of diabetes, similar to that observed with anti-B7-1 mAb treatment alone, suggesting that anti-B7-1 mAb's effect was dominant. Furthermore, treatment with anti-B7-1 mAbs resulted in a more rapid and severe infiltrate. Finally, T cells isolated from the pancreas of these anti-B7-1-treated animals exhibited a more activated phenotype than T cells isolated from any of the other treatment groups. These studies demonstrate that costimulatory signals play an important role in the autoimmune process, and that different members of the B7 family have distinct regulatory functions during the development of autoimmune diabetes

The Chinese classroom paradox: A cross-cultural comparison of teacher controlling behaviors

postprin