Understanding Subcultures and Change Dynamics in E-Government: An Empirical Study of a Local Government in Malaysia

Governments worldwide are faced with a rapidly changing business environment, with reform and modernization at the forefront of many agendas. One country which has embarked on a significant programme of E-Government transformation is Malaysia. A key goal of E-Government transformation is to harness the potential of information communication technology (ICT), particularly web-based systems, to improve how governments function internally and externally (Moon et al. 2014). While ICT offers the potential to revolutionize how governments operate, the extent to which ICT is being used effectively to support E-Government services, particularly at the local government council level, has been brought into question (Wong et al. 2010). One important factor, which can act as an enabler or barrier (more often the latter) to E-Government, is organizational culture. Increasingly, researchers (e.g. Choudrie et al. 2010; Zhao and Khan, 2013) have suggested that a lack of effort in understanding organizational culture is a key reason why many E-Government change programs encounter problems. Regardless of the budding literature emphasizing the importance of understanding the relationship between organizational culture and E-Government, research on understanding different subcultures, and the dynamic of change, which influence the ability to manage and implement E-Government projects, still remains an area to be explored in more detail

Integration of an On-Axis General Sun-Tracking Formula in the Algorithm of an Open-Loop Sun-Tracking System

A novel on-axis general sun-tracking formula has been integrated in the algorithm of an open-loop sun-tracking system in order to track the sun accurately and cost effectively. Sun-tracking errors due to installation defects of the 25 m2 prototype solar concentrator have been analyzed from recorded solar images with the use of a CCD camera. With the recorded data, misaligned angles from ideal azimuth-elevation axes have been determined and corrected by a straightforward changing of the parameters' values in the general formula of the tracking algorithm to improve the tracking accuracy to 2.99 mrad, which falls below the encoder resolution limit of 4.13 mrad

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

Comprehensive analysis of chromothripsis in 2,658 human cancers using whole-genome sequencing

Chromothripsis is a mutational phenomenon characterized by massive, clustered genomic rearrangements that occurs in cancer and other diseases. Recent studies in selected cancer types have suggested that chromothripsis may be more common than initially inferred from low-resolution copy-number data. Here, as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), we analyze patterns of chromothripsis across 2,658 tumors from 38 cancer types using whole-genome sequencing data. We find that chromothripsis events are pervasive across cancers, with a frequency of more than 50% in several cancer types. Whereas canonical chromothripsis profiles display oscillations between two copy-number states, a considerable fraction of events involve multiple chromosomes and additional structural alterations. In addition to non-homologous end joining, we detect signatures of replication-associated processes and templated insertions. Chromothripsis contributes to oncogene amplification and to inactivation of genes such as mismatch-repair-related genes. These findings show that chromothripsis is a major process that drives genome evolution in human cancer

A DESIGN SCIENCE APPROACH TO BUILD AND EVALUATE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In E-Government research, there is a growing literature on E-Government best practices and implementation cases. However, research is needed to address how E-Government service is being evaluated. In the literatures reviews, there is a range of quantitative evaluation tools that can be used to assess E-Government services, but there is lack of qualitative evaluation tools. This paper seeks to address this problem and it uses design science approach to build a qualitative return on investment (ROI) vs return on relationship (ROR) matrix, a customer satisfaction theoretical framework, to evaluate E-Government services by classifying customer experiences into categories of customer satisfactions. Logical scenario building approach is used to evaluate the theoretical framework. Drawing on recent research on customer relationship management in E-Government developments, customer satisfaction evaluation tools, and the author own research experience, this paper discusses the need for a qualitative evaluation tool to evaluate the quality of E-Government services. This design science approach is expected to reveal insights that can help researchers to build and evaluate a theoretical framework, and demonstrate how the new theoretical framework can be used to assess E-Government services