A Critique of the Use of the Balanced Scorecard in Multi-Enterprise Family Farm Businesses

Business strategy is very important to small and medium family businesses as many are both fragile and vulnerable; strategy provides a solid foundation for survival. Various studies have identified that businesses that engage in strategic management outperform those that do not. Despite this knowledge the uptake of many aspects of strategic management by farm businesses has been slow. Although the development of business plans is now common there is often a disconnect between monitoring and strategy. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) was applied to case study farms during both the planning process and as they implemented and controlled their strategic choices to determine areas of difference that restrict or enhance it as a management tool for both family and farming businesses. The BSC was immediately applicable in the strategic management process for those businesses with current business plans. It could be used to test the degree of balance between the goals already identified in their plans. It was able to be used to critique the control measures they had in place and to determine how well they could be used to derive the causal chain from the operational level to family goals. In some instances either outcome or driver measures were recognized as being missing, in others the wiring within the balanced scorecard revealed some strategic measures without linkages.Farm Management,

Efficient Entropy Estimation for Mutual Information Analysis Using B-Splines

International audienceThe Correlation Power Analysis (CPA) is probably the most used side-channel attack because it seems to fit the power model of most standard CMOS devices and is very efficiently computed. However, the Pearson correlation coefficient used in the CPA measures only linear statistical dependences where the Mutual Information (MI) takes into account both linear and nonlinear dependences. Even if there can be simultaneously large correlation coefficients quantified by the correlation coefficient and weak dependences quantified by the MI, we can expect to get a more profound understanding about interactions from an MI Analysis (MIA). We study methods that improve the non-parametric Probability Density Functions (PDF) in the estimation of the entropies and, in particular, the use of B-spline basis functions as pdf estimators. Our results indicate an improvement of two fold in the number of required samples compared to a classic MI estimation. The B-spline smoothing technique can also be applied to the rencently introduced Cramér-von-Mises test

Анализ эффективности эксплуатации системы регенерации высокого давления на Ростовской атомной станции

Объектом исследования является система регенерации высокого давления энергоблока АЭС с реактором ВВЭР-1000. Цель работы – проанализировать эффективность работы системы регенерации высокого давления Ростовской АЭС. В процессе расчетов проведен тепло-гидравлический и конструкторский расчеты подогревателя высокого давления. В результате расчета определены оптимальные геометрические размеры поверхности теплообмена подогревателя. Основные конструктивные, технологические и технико-эксплуатационные характеристики: теплоноситель - влажный пар с давлением 2.785 МПа и степенью сухости 0.919, рабочее тело - питательная во-да с давлением 8.922 МПа, температурой на входе 200.4 на выходе 225 .The object of research is the system of high-pressure regeneration NPP with VVER-1000 reactor. Objective - To analyze the efficiency of regeneration system of Rostov NPP high pressure. In the process of calculation performed heat-hydraulic calculations and design of high pressure heater. As a result of calculating the optimal geometric dimensions heater heat exchange surface. The basic constructive, technological and technical and operational characteristics: coolant - wet steam with pressures-tion 2.785 MPa and the degree of dryness of 0.919, working body - the food first, but with the pressure of 8,922 MPa, inlet temperature of 200.4 at the output 225

Analysis and Improvement of the Random Delay Countermeasure of CHES 2009

Random delays are often inserted in embedded software to protect against side-channel and fault attacks. At CHES 2009 a new method for generation of random delays was described that increases the attacker's uncertainty about the position of sensitive operations. In this paper we show that the CHES 2009 method is less secure than claimed. We describe an improved method for random delay generation which does not suffer from the same security weakness. We also show that the paper's criterion to measure the security of random delays can be misleading, so we introduce a new criterion for random delays which is directly connected to the number of acquisitions required to break an implementation. We mount a power analysis attack against an 8-bit implementation of the improved method verifying its higher security in practice

A Formal Library for Elliptic Curves in the Coq Proof Assistant

International audienceA preliminary step towards the verification of elliptic curve cryptographic algorithms is the development of formal libraries with the corresponding mathematical theory. In this paper we present a formaliza-tion of elliptic curves theory, in the SSReflect extension of the Coq proof assistant. Our central contribution is a library containing many of the objects and core properties related to elliptic curve theory. We demonstrate the applicability of our library by formally proving a non-trivial property of elliptic curves: the existence of an isomorphism between a curve and its Picard group of divisors

Confirmation of TNIP1 and IL23A as susceptibility loci for psoriatic arthritis

Objectives: To investigate a shared genetic aetiology for skin involvement in psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) by genotyping single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), reported to be associated in genome-wide association studies of psoriasis, in patients with PsA. Methods: SNPs with reported evidence for association with psoriasis were genotyped in a PsA case and control collection from the UK and Ireland. Genotype and allele frequencies were compared between PsA cases and controls using the Armitage test for trend. Results: Seven SNPs mapping to the IL1RN, TNIP1, TNFAIP3, TSC1, IL23A, SMARCA4 and RNF114 genes were successfully genotyped. The IL23A and TNIP1 genes showed convincing evidence for association (rs2066808, p = 9.1 x 10 ?7 ; rs17728338, p = 3.5 x 10 ?5 , respectively) whilst SNPs mapping to the TNFAIP3, TSC1 and RNF114 genes showed nominal evidence for association (rs610604, p = 0.03; rs1076160, p = 0.03; rs495337, p = 0.0025). No evidence for association with IL1RN or SMARCA4 was found but the power to detect association was low. Conclusions: SNPs mapping to previously reported psoriasis loci show evidence for association to PSA, thus supporting the hypothesis that the genetic aetiology of skin involvement is the same in both PsA and psoriasi

Block of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors by philanthotoxins is strongly dependent on their subunit composition

Philanthotoxin-433 (PhTX-433) is an active component of the venom from the Egyptian digger wasp, Philanthus triangulum. PhTX-433 inhibits several excitatory ligand-gated ion channels, and to improve selectivity two synthetic analogues, PhTX-343 and PhTX-12, were developed. Previous work showed a 22-fold selectivity of PhTX-12 over PhTX-343 for embryonic muscle-type nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in TE671 cells. We investigated their inhibition of different neuronal nAChR subunit combinations as well as of embryonic muscle receptors expressed in Xenopus oocytes. Whole-cell currents in response to application of acetylcholine alone or co-applied with PhTX analogue were studied by using two-electrode voltage-clamp. α3β4 nAChRs were most sensitive to PhTX-343 (IC50=12 nM at −80 mV) with α4β4, α4β2, α3β2, α7 and α1β1γδ being 5, 26, 114, 422 and 992 times less sensitive. In contrast α1β1γδ was most sensitive to PhTX-12 along with α3β4 (IC50values of 100 nM) with α4β4, α4β2, α3β2 and α7 being 3, 3, 26 and 49 times less sensitive. PhTX-343 inhibition was strongly voltage-dependent for all subunit combinations except α7, whereas this was not the case for PhTX-12 for which weak voltage dependence was observed. We conclude that PhTX-343 mainly acts as an open-channel blocker of nAChRs with strong subtype selectivity