How Can We Introduce the Most Effective Incentive Plan for Non-Exempt Employees?

Question: How can we introduce the most effective and efficient incentive plan to motivate non-exempt employees and to drive improvement of the organization’s overall performance

Case of chronic indolent pheochromocytoma that caused medically controlled hypertension but treatment-resistant diabetes mellitus

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Knowledge Management: A Tripartite Conceptual Framework for Career and Technical Teacher Educators

Researchers and practitioners consider knowledge management to be a strategic intervention that integrates organizational resources such as technologies and human resources. This conceptual paper focuses on the foundational contributions of economics, sociology, and psychology to knowledge management. Select theories from each foundational area are illustrated. Links are made to the research and practice of career and technical teacher educators. Suggestions for further research include examining the inter-connective links of these foundational areas as a means to help career and technical teacher educators identify the value they add to their broader organizational work contexts

Understanding Member Identification in the Online Travel Communities and Member Voluntary Behaviors

The purpose of this study was to: (1) identify significant factors influencing online travel community members to interact with other members; (2) explore member participation behaviors in the online community; and (3) reveal highly beneficial online travel member voluntary behaviors that occur when members develop a sense of belonging to the community. Data were collected from members of online travel communities by conducting web-based online survey. Three hundred fifty two community members from 37 travel-related online communities participated in the survey. Using LISREL 8.5, the structural model was examined in terms of model goodness-of-fit, overall explanatory power, and postulated causal links. Results indicated that travel involvement, social affiliation, and community benefits are significant factors that drive people into online community activities. The relationship between community benefits and community interaction varied depending on a member's observation level. Results also showed that membership progresses over time by confirming the sequential relationship of community observation to community interaction to community identification. Lastly, results of this study suggested that members' active observations with other members strengthen their sense of belonging to the online travel community, resulting in favorable member voluntary behaviors such as knowledge sharing, community promotion, and behavioral changes.School of Hotel and Restaurant Administratio

Department chairs' perceptions of knowledge management strategies in colleges of education : measurement of performance and importance by organizational factors

Includes bibliographical references (pages [187]-199).In order to address and overcome challenges that higher education institutions confront, it is critical for higher education institutions to embrace and recognize the applicability and implication of knowledge management. Knowledge management helps establish a comprehensive framework for developing leadership, creating an organizational culture, applying existing technologies to an organization, and increasing awareness of the importance of measurement for decision making. The purpose of this study was to: (a) assess the perceptions of academic department chairs in colleges of education of performance of knowledge management strategies, (b) examine the perceptions of department chairs of the importance of knowledge management strategies, and (c) identify organizational factors that may differ in knowledge management strategies in perceptions of performance and perceptions of importance. Two research questions guided this inquiry: (1) how academic department chairs in colleges of education differ in their perceptions of performance of their departments based on the applications of knowledge management strategies (leadership, culture, technology, and measurement) by organizational factors, and (2) how academic department chairs in colleges of education differ in their perceptions of the importance of knowledge management strategies by organizational factors. This research examined the differences in knowledge management strategies by organizational factors in colleges of education. Academic departments in colleges of education were selected from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. Data were collected through a web-based internet survey. Descriptive statistics, t tests, and analysis of variance based on indices and scales for the perceptions of the performance and the importance of knowledge management strategies were examined for differences by organizational factors. This study strengthens the idea that knowledge management can play a key role in managing academic departments in higher education institutions. The findings suggest that knowledge management as a strategy for organizational change relies on: (a) strong leadership with the understanding about the value of knowledge and internal human resources, (b) an organizational culture that facilitates collaboration and learning, (c) technological infrastructure that supports research, teaching and service activities, and (d) a systematic evaluation mechanism that proves the investment to be worth it. Implications for practice and future research were drawn.Ed.D. (Doctor of Education

Human endometrial cell coculture reduces the endocrine disruptor toxicity on mouse embryo development

BACKGROUNDS: Previous studies suggested that endocrine disruptors (ED) are toxic on preimplantation embryos and inhibit development of embryos in vitro culture. However, information about the toxicity of endocrine disruptors on preimplantation development of embryo in human reproductive environment is lacking. METHODS: Bisphenol A (BPA) and Aroclor 1254 (polychlorinated biphenyls) were used as endocrine disruptors in this study. Mouse 2-cell embryos were cultured in medium alone or vehicle or co-cultured with human endometrial epithelial layers in increasing ED concentrations. RESULTS: At 72 hours the percentage of normal blastocyst were decreased by ED in a dose-dependent manner while the co-culture system significantly enhanced the rate and reduced the toxicity of endocrine disruptors on the embryonic development in vitro. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, although EDs have the toxic effect on embryo development, the co-culture with human endometrial cell reduced the preimplantation embryo from it thereby making human reproductive environment protective to preimplantation embryo from the toxicity of endocrine disruptors

Withdrawal of antihypertensive medication in young to middle-aged adults: a prospective, single-group, intervention study

Background Although antihypertensive drug therapy is commonly believed to be a life-long therapy, several recent guidelines have suggested that antihypertensive medications can be gradually reduced or discontinued for some patients whose blood pressure (BP) is well-controlled for an extended period. Thus, this pilot study aimed to describe the success rate of antihypertensive drug discontinuation over 6months among young and middle-aged patients with hypertension. Methods This was a prospective, single-group, intervention study. Patients were eligible for inclusion if their cardiologist judged them to be appropriate candidates for this study, their BP had been controlled both in the office (< 140/90mmHg) and 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring (< 135/85mmHg) for at least 6months with a single tablet dose of antihypertensive medication. A total of 16 patients withdrew their antihypertensive medications at baseline after they received the education, and were followed up over 6months. After the follow-ups, six patients participated in the in-depth interview. Results The likelihood of remaining normotensive at 30, 90, 180, and 195days was 1.00, 0.85, 0.51, and 0.28, respectively. There were also no significant differences in baseline characteristics and self-care activities over time between normotensive (n = 8) and hypertensive groups (n = 8). In the interview, most patients expressed ambivalent feelings toward stopping medications. Psychological distress (e.g., anxiety) was the primary reason for withdrawal from this study although the patients BP was under control. Conclusions We found that only a limited portion of antihypertensive patients could stop their medication successively over 6months. Although we could not identify factors associated with success in maintaining BP over 6months, we believe that careful selection of eligible patients may increase success in stopping antihypertensive medications. Also, continuous emotional support might be essential in maintaining patients off-medication.This work was supported by the Korean Society of Hypertension (2018)

EFFECTS OF LANDING HEIGHT ON LOWER EXTREMITY JOINT BIOMECHANICS DURING UNILATERAL AND BILATERAL LANDINGS

The aim of this study was to examine the lower extremity kinematics and kinetics during landing phase, in response to the effects of landing height during unilateral and bilateral landing. Ten young healthy male subjects (age: 26.1±1.8yr, height: 183.2±4.4cm, weight: 76.1±6.9kg) participated in this study. Each subject performed the unilateral and bilateral landing from a 30cm and 45cm wooden platform. The results showed the peak vertical ground reaction force (PVGRF) was increased during unilateral landing and at greater landing height (

A scheduling algorithm for multiport memory minimization in datapath synthesis

Abstract- In this paper, we present a new scheduling algorithms that generates area-efficient register transfer level datapaths with multiport memories. The proposed scheduling algorithm assigns an operation to a specific control step such that maximal sharing of functional units can be achieved with minimal number of memory ports, while satisfying given constraints. We propose a measure of multiport memory cost, MAV (Multiple Access Variable) which is defined as a variable accessed at several control steps, and overall memory cost is reduced by equally distributing the MAVs throughout all the control steps. When compared with previous approaches for several benchmarks available from the literature, the proposed algorithm generates the datapaths with less memory modules and interconnection structures by reflecting the memory cost in the scheduling process