Enterprise business ecological strategic capabilities and enterprise group ecosystem health: an analysis based on the Sichuan Port and Channel Development Enterprise Group

An enterprise group is a complex group of independent enterprises that are linked by a number of formal or informal relationships. Regarding enterprise group as a kind of business ecosystem, this dissertation explores the relationship between enterprise’s business ecological strategic capabilities and enterprise group’s ecosystem health based on Sichuan Port and Channel Development Enterprise Group, adopting business ecological perspective, enterprise capability theory and social network analysis theory. From ecological perspective, enterprises within a business ecosystem will be playing different roles. Therefore each of them will be having different basic strategic capabilities corresponding to its specific role, which will not only be influencing the enterprise’s own performance, but also stimulate the system’s ecosystem health. This dissertation used role-capabilities matching model to measure enterprise’s business ecological strategic capabilities, and construct a regression model of the enterprise’s role-capabilities matching rate and performance. We demonstrated and clarified enterprises business ecological strategic capabilities’ influence to the enterprise group’s ecosystem health. We proposed relevant theoretical hypotheses of the relationship between enterprise’s rolecapabilities matching rate and enterprise group’s ecosystem health, the every dimension of business ecological strategic capabilities of niche player and enterprise group’s ecosystem health, and verify our hypotheses using data from questionnaires responded by the top management in Sichuan Port and Channel Development Enterprise Group’ s enterprises. Main conclusions drawn were that 1) the higher the enterprise’s role-capabilities matching rate was, the better the enterprise group’s ecosystem health would be; 2) The niche player’s business ecological strategic capabilities of every dimensions have a positive impact on the enterprise group’s ecosystem health, yet different dimensions of business ecological strategic capabilities have different mechanisms in impacting such performance. Our findings have practical significance in enterprise group governance.Um grupo empresarial é um grupo complexo de empresas independentes ligadas por várias relações formais e informais. Considerando o grupo empresarial como um tipo de ecossistema empresarial, com base no Grupo Empresarial do Desenvolvimento do Canal e do Porto de Sichuan, esta dissertação explora a relação entre capacidades estratégicas ecológicas de negócios da empresa e a saúde do ecossistema do grupo empresarial, adotando a perspetiva ecológica de negócios, teoria de capacidade empresarial e teoria de análise de redes sociais. Do ponto de vista ecológico, as empresas num ecossistema de negócios desempenharão papéis diferentes. Por isso, cada um deles terá diferentes capacidades estratégias básicas, correspondentes ao seu papel específico, que não apenas influenciarão o desempenho da própria empresa, mas também estimularão a saúde do ecossistema. Esta dissertação usa o modelo de função-capacidade para medir as capacidades estratégicas ecológicas de negócios da empresa e constrói um modelo de regressão sobre a taxa de correspondência de função-capacidade da empresa e o seu desempenho. Demonstrámos e esclarecemos a influência das capacidades estratégicas ecológicas de negócio da empresa na saúde do ecossistema do grupo empresarial. Baseado na revisão extensiva de literatura na área de perspetiva ecológica de negócios, de teoria de capacidade empresarial e de teoria de análise de redes sociais, propomos hipóteses relevantes à relação entre a taxa de correspondência de função-capacidade da empresa e a saúde do ecossistema do grupo empresarial, entre cada dimensão das capacidades estratégias ecológicas do jogador de nicho e a saúde do ecossistema do grupo empresarial. Pesquisamos na relação entre empresas no ecossistema do grupo empresarial, as capacidades estratégicas ecológicas de empresa, a saúde do ecossistema do grupo empresarial, com base nos questionários feitos pela administração sénior das empresas do Grupo Empresarial do Desenvolvimento do Canal e do Porto de Sichuan e verificamos as nossas hipóteses através dos dados obtidos a partir dos questionários. As conclusões são: 1) mais alta a taxa de correspondência de função-capacidade da empresa, melhor saúde do ecossistema do grupo empresarial; 2) as capacidades estratégicas ecológicas de negócios de cada um dos participantes de cada dimensão têm um impacto positivo na saúde do ecossistema do grupo empresarial, mas diferentes dimensões das capacidades estratégicas ecológicas de negócios têm mecanismos diferentes para influenciar esse desempenho. Os nossos resultados não apenas contribuem para a construção do ecossistema de negócios dentro do grupo empresarial, mas também têm significado teórico para estudos quantitativos sobre micro-questões relacionadas ao ecossistema de negócios

Cell polarity: stretching prevents developmental cramps

Initiation and successive development of organs induce mechanical stresses at the cellular level. Using the tomato shoot apex, a new study now proposes that mechanical strain regulates the plasma membrane abundance of the PIN1 auxin transporter, thereby reinforcing a positive feed-back loop between growth and auxin accumulation

Cellular mechanisms for cargo delivery and polarity maintenance at different polar domains in plant cells

The asymmetric localization of proteins in the plasma membrane domains of eukaryotic cells is a fundamental manifestation of cell polarity that is central to multicellular organization and developmental patterning. In plants, the mechanisms underlying the polar localization of cargo proteins are still largely unknown and appear to be fundamentally distinct from those operating in mammals. Here, we present a systematic, quantitative comparative analysis of the polar delivery and subcellular localization of proteins that characterize distinct polar plasma membrane domains in plant cells. The combination of microscopic analyses and computational modeling revealed a mechanistic framework common to diverse polar cargos and underlying the establishment and maintenance of apical, basal, and lateral polar domains in plant cells. This mechanism depends on the polar secretion, constitutive endocytic recycling, and restricted lateral diffusion of cargos within the plasma membrane. Moreover, our observations suggest that polar cargo distribution involves the individual protein potential to form clusters within the plasma membrane and interact with the extracellular matrix. Our observations provide insights into the shared cellular mechanisms of polar cargo delivery and polarity maintenance in plant cells

Imaging the Centromedian Thalamic Nucleus Using Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping.

The centromedian (CM) nucleus is an intralaminar thalamic nucleus that is considered as a potentially effective target of deep brain stimulation (DBS) and ablative surgeries for the treatment of multiple neurological and psychiatric disorders. However, the structure of CM is invisible on the standard T1- and T2-weighted (T1w and T2w) magnetic resonance images, which hamper it as a direct DBS target for clinical applications. The purpose of the current study is to demonstrate the use of quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) technique to image the CM within the thalamic region. Twelve patients with Parkinson's disease, dystonia, or schizophrenia were included in this study. A 3D multi-echo gradient recalled echo (GRE) sequence was acquired together with T1w and T2w images on a 3-T MR scanner. The QSM image was reconstructed from the GRE phase data. Direct visual inspection of the CM was made on T1w, T2w, and QSM images. Furthermore, the contrast-to-noise ratios (CNRs) of the CM to the adjacent posterior part of thalamus on T1w, T2w, and QSM images were compared using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test. QSM dramatically improved the visualization of the CM nucleus. Clear delineation of CM compared to the surroundings was observed on QSM but not on T1w and T2w images. Statistical analysis showed that the CNR on QSM was significantly higher than those on T1w and T2w images. Taken together, our results indicate that QSM is a promising technique for improving the visualization of CM as a direct targeting for DBS surgery

Joint Rigid Motion Correction and Sparse-View CT via Self-Calibrating Neural Field

Neural Radiance Field (NeRF) has widely received attention in Sparse-View Computed Tomography (SVCT) reconstruction tasks as a self-supervised deep learning framework. NeRF-based SVCT methods represent the desired CT image as a continuous function of spatial coordinates and train a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) to learn the function by minimizing loss on the SV sinogram. Benefiting from the continuous representation provided by NeRF, the high-quality CT image can be reconstructed. However, existing NeRF-based SVCT methods strictly suppose there is completely no relative motion during the CT acquisition because they require \textit{accurate} projection poses to model the X-rays that scan the SV sinogram. Therefore, these methods suffer from severe performance drops for real SVCT imaging with motion. In this work, we propose a self-calibrating neural field to recover the artifacts-free image from the rigid motion-corrupted SV sinogram without using any external data. Specifically, we parametrize the inaccurate projection poses caused by rigid motion as trainable variables and then jointly optimize these pose variables and the MLP. We conduct numerical experiments on a public CT image dataset. The results indicate our model significantly outperforms two representative NeRF-based methods for SVCT reconstruction tasks with four different levels of rigid motion.Comment: 5 page

Homogeneous Carbon Nanotube/Carbon Composites Prepared by Catalyzed Carbonization Approach at Low Temperature

We synthesize carbon nanotube (CNT)/carbon composite using catalyzed carbonization of CNT/Epoxy Resin composite at a fairly low temperature of about 400∘C. The microstructure of the composite is characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results indicate that CNTs and pyrolytic carbon blend well with each other. Pyrolytic carbon mainly stays in an amorphous state, with some of it forming crystalline structures. The catalyst has the effect of eliminating the interstices in the composites. Remarkable increases in thermal and electrical conductivity are also reported

Global activity distribution patterns of top international Chinese contractors

Top international Chinese contractors\u27 (TICCs) are now major influential players in the global construction market. The last two decades have witnessed a remarkable growth in their global rankings, by revenue. The spatial distribution and expansive behaviors of TICCs are of interest to international contractors generally, as well as to national infrastructure procurers. Nevertheless, few researchers have considered the spatial distribution of TICCs. This study demonstrates that TICCs’ market selection and market positioning are not independent, but have similar characteristics. Clustering methods were used to order the data, with ESDA methods used to analyze the data. The key findings are that TICCs’ target specific national markets and that these markets tend to be geographically proximate creating regional agglomerations. The inference to be drawn is that TICCs tend to follow in each other\u27s footsteps as they expand globally

The Arabidopsis thaliana elongator complex subunit 2 epigenetically affects root development

The elongator complex subunit 2 (ELP2) protein, one subunit of an evolutionarily conserved histone acetyltransferase complex, has been shown to participate in leaf patterning, plant immune and abiotic stress responses in Arabidopsis thaliana. Here, its role in root development was explored. Compared to the wild type, the elp2 mutant exhibited an accelerated differentiation of its root stem cells and cell division was more active in its quiescent centre (QC). The key transcription factors responsible for maintaining root stem cell and QC identity, such as AP2 transcription factors PLT1 (PLETHORA1) and PLT2 (PLETHORA2), GRAS transcription factors such as SCR (SCARECROW) and SHR (SHORT ROOT) and WUSCHEL-RELATED HOMEOBOX5 transcription factor WOX5, were all strongly down-regulated in the mutant. On the other hand, expression of the G2/M transition activator CYCB1 was substantially induced in elp2. The auxin efflux transporters PIN1 and PIN2 showed decreased protein levels and PIN1 also displayed mild polarity alterations in elp2, which resulted in a reduced auxin content in the root tip. Either the acetylation or methylation level of each of these genes differed between the mutant and the wild type, suggesting that the ELP2 regulation of root development involves the epigenetic modification of a range of transcription factors and other developmental regulators