263 research outputs found

    Shaping the organizational architecture for SME survival : a case of nascent small restaurants in Durban

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    This study explores how planning, leading and organising activities shaped the organisational architecture of the nascent small restaurants that survived the first five years of operating in Durban in South Africa. Twelve owners of nascent small restaurants in Durban were selected using purposive sampling and interviewed to gather data. Themes of how planning, leading and organizing shaped the components of the Mc Kinsey 7-S model in the restaurant were delineated using thematic analysis. The study reveal that the organisational architecture of the nascent restaurant relied on emergent and entrepreneurial planning in the creative use of staff and skills to exploit opportunities and contain disruptions to service. Engaging employees to model the desired values but also using them as an instrument to achieve specific goals depicted an ambidextrous style of leadership. Multiskilling of staff enhanced resilience to operational and customer changes while the empowerment of employees was undermined by trust deficit in the organisational architecture of the restaurant. Critical changes are imperative to re-align the organisational architecture of the restaurant and ensure that it enhances survival.http://www.ajhtl.comam2020Marketing Managemen

    Quasiparticle Interactions in Fractional Quantum Hall Systems: Justification of Different Hierarchy Schemes

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    The pseudopotentials describing the interactions of quasiparticles in fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states are studied. Rules for the identification of incompressible quantum fluid ground states are found, based upon the form of the pseudopotentials. States belonging to the Jain sequence nu=n/(1+2pn), where n and p are integers, appear to be the only incompressible states in the thermodynamic limit, although other FQH hierarchy states occur for finite size systems. This explains the success of the composite Fermion picture.Comment: RevTeX, 10 pages, 7 EPS figures, submitted fo Phys.Rev.

    T-bet controls intestinal mucosa immune responses via repression of type 2 innate lymphoid cell function

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    Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) play an important role in regulating immune responses at mucosal surfaces. The transcription factor T-bet is crucial for the function of ILC1s and NCR+ ILC3s and constitutive deletion of T-bet prevents the development of these subsets. Lack of T-bet in the absence of an adaptive immune system causes microbiota-dependent colitis to occur due to aberrant ILC3 responses. Thus, T-bet expression in the innate immune system has been considered to dampen pathogenic immune responses. Here, we show that T-bet plays an unexpected role in negatively regulating innate type 2 responses, in the context of an otherwise intact immune system. Selective loss of T-bet in ILCs leads to the expansion and increased activity of ILC2s, which has a functionally important impact on mucosal immunity, including enhanced protection from Trichinella spiralis infection and inflammatory colitis. Mechanistically, we show that T-bet controls the intestinal ILC pool through regulation of IL-7 receptor signalling. These data demonstrate that T-bet expression in ILCs acts as the key transcriptional checkpoint in regulating pathogenic vs. protective mucosal immune responses, which has significant implications for the understanding of the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel diseases and intestinal infections

    Mixed States of Composite Fermions Carrying Two and Four Vortices

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    There now exists preliminary experimental evidence for some fractions, such as ν\nu = 4/11 and 5/13, that do not belong to any of the sequences ν=n/(2pn±1)\nu=n/(2pn\pm 1), pp and nn being integers. We propose that these states are mixed states of composite fermions of different flavors, for example, composite fermions carrying two and four vortices. We also obtain an estimate of the lowest-excitation dispersion curve as well as the transport gap; the gaps for 4/11 are smaller than those for 1/3 by approximately a factor of 50.Comment: Accepted for PRB rapid communication (scheduled to appear in Nov 15, 2000 issue

    Negatively Charged Excitons and Photoluminescence in Asymmetric Quantum Well

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    We study photoluminescence (PL) of charged excitons (XX^-) in narrow asymmetric quantum wells in high magnetic fields B. The binding of all XX^- states strongly depends on the separation δ\delta of electron and hole layers. The most sensitive is the ``bright'' singlet, whose binding energy decreases quickly with increasing δ\delta even at relatively small B. As a result, the value of B at which the singlet--triplet crossing occurs in the XX^- spectrum also depends on δ\delta and decreases from 35 T in a symmetric 10 nm GaAs well to 16 T for δ=0.5\delta=0.5 nm. Since the critical values of δ\delta at which different XX^- states unbind are surprisingly small compared to the well width, the observation of strongly bound XX^- states in an experimental PL spectrum implies virtually no layer displacement in the sample. This casts doubt on the interpretation of PL spectra of heterojunctions in terms of XX^- recombination

    Multifunctional metal matrix composites with embedded printed electrical materials fabricated by Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing

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    This work proposes a new method for the fabrication of Multifunctional Metal Matrix Composite (MMC) structures featuring embedded printed electrical materials through Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing (UAM). Printed electrical circuitries combining conductive and insulating materials were directly embedded within the interlaminar region of UAM aluminium matrices to realise previously unachievable multifunctional composites. A specific surface flattening process was developed to eliminate the risk of short circuiting between the metal matrices and printed conductors, and simultaneously reduce the total thickness of the printed circuitry. This acted to improve the integrity of the UAM MMC’s and their resultant mechanical strength. The functionality of embedded printed circuitries was examined via four-point probe measurement. DualBeam Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Focused Ion Beam (FIB) milling were used to investigate the microstructures of conductive materials to characterize the effect of UAM embedding energy whilst peel testing was used to quantify mechanical strength of MMC structures in combination with optical microscopy. Through this process, fully functioning MMC structures featuring embedded insulating and conductive materials were realised whilst still maintaining high peel resistances of ca. 70 N and linear weld densities of ca. 90%

    All-sky search for long-duration gravitational wave transients with initial LIGO

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    We present the results of a search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in two sets of data collected by the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston detectors between November 5, 2005 and September 30, 2007, and July 7, 2009 and October 20, 2010, with a total observational time of 283.0 days and 132.9 days, respectively. The search targets gravitational wave transients of duration 10-500 s in a frequency band of 40-1000 Hz, with minimal assumptions about the signal waveform, polarization, source direction, or time of occurrence. All candidate triggers were consistent with the expected background; as a result we set 90% confidence upper limits on the rate of long-duration gravitational wave transients for different types of gravitational wave signals. For signals from black hole accretion disk instabilities, we set upper limits on the source rate density between 3.4×10-5 and 9.4×10-4 Mpc-3 yr-1 at 90% confidence. These are the first results from an all-sky search for unmodeled long-duration transient gravitational waves. © 2016 American Physical Society

    All-sky search for long-duration gravitational wave transients with initial LIGO

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    We present the results of a search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in two sets of data collected by the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston detectors between November 5, 2005 and September 30, 2007, and July 7, 2009 and October 20, 2010, with a total observational time of 283.0 days and 132.9 days, respectively. The search targets gravitational wave transients of duration 10-500 s in a frequency band of 40-1000 Hz, with minimal assumptions about the signal waveform, polarization, source direction, or time of occurrence. All candidate triggers were consistent with the expected background; as a result we set 90% confidence upper limits on the rate of long-duration gravitational wave transients for different types of gravitational wave signals. For signals from black hole accretion disk instabilities, we set upper limits on the source rate density between 3.4×10-5 and 9.4×10-4 Mpc-3 yr-1 at 90% confidence. These are the first results from an all-sky search for unmodeled long-duration transient gravitational waves. © 2016 American Physical Society
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