The Fit between Client IT Capability and Vendor Competence and Its Impact on Outsourcing Success

This study investigates the impact of client firm’s IT capability, vendor firm’s competence and their fit on the outsourcing success. In theory building, by concretizing the concepts of IT capability and competence based on the resource-based view, the importance of fit between the client’s IT capability and the vendor’s competence is emphasized. We then hypothesize that both factors are stronger together than the individual impact of either the client’s IT capability or the vendor’s competence. For validation, 267 client-vendor-matched-pair data were collected. To avoid potential imbalance caused by the bilateral perspective, an exploratory approach, all-possible-subsets-regression method was adopted. The results reveal that the vendor’s competence is the most significant factor in outsourcing success, but interestingly, the fit between vendor competence and the client’s IT capability is the second most important. The client’s IT capability also has a positive impact on outsourcing success but with the smallest explanation power

Structural dynamics and divergence of the polygalacturonase gene family in land plants

A distinct feature of eukaryotic genomes is the presence of gene families. The polygalacturonase (PG) (EC3.2.1.15) gene family is one of the largest gene families in plants. PG is a pectin-digesting enzyme with a glycoside hydrolase 28 domain. It is involved in numerous plant developmental processes. The evolutionary processes accounting for the functional divergence and the specialized functions of PGs in land plants are unclear. Here, phylogenetic and gene structure analysis of PG genes in algae and land plants revealed that land plant PG genes resulted from differential intron gain and loss, with the latter event predominating. PG genes in land plants contained 15 homologous intron blocks and 13 novel intron blocks. Intron position and phase were not conserved between PGs of algae and land plants but conserved among PG genes of land plants from moss to vascular plants, indicating that the current introns in the PGs in land plants appeared after the split between unicellular algae and multicelluar land plants. These findings demonstrate that the functional divergence and differentiation of PGs in land plants is attributable to intronic loss. Moreover, they underscore the importance of intron gain and loss in genomic adaptation to selective pressure

Multi-view Cross-Modality MR Image Translation for Vestibular Schwannoma and Cochlea Segmentation

In this work, we propose a multi-view image translation framework, which can translate contrast-enhanced T1 (ceT1) MR imaging to high-resolution T2 (hrT2) MR imaging for unsupervised vestibular schwannoma and cochlea segmentation. We adopt two image translation models in parallel that use a pixel-level consistent constraint and a patch-level contrastive constraint, respectively. Thereby, we can augment pseudo-hrT2 images reflecting different perspectives, which eventually lead to a high-performing segmentation model. Our experimental results on the CrossMoDA challenge show that the proposed method achieved enhanced performance on the vestibular schwannoma and cochlea segmentation.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Fully Unsupervised Training of Few-shot Keyword Spotting

For training a few-shot keyword spotting (FS-KWS) model, a large labeled dataset containing massive target keywords has known to be essential to generalize to arbitrary target keywords with only a few enrollment samples. To alleviate the expensive data collection with labeling, in this paper, we propose a novel FS-KWS system trained only on synthetic data. The proposed system is based on metric learning enabling target keywords to be detected using distance metrics. Exploiting the speech synthesis model that generates speech with pseudo phonemes instead of texts, we easily obtain a large collection of multi-view samples with the same semantics. These samples are sufficient for training, considering metric learning does not intrinsically necessitate labeled data. All of the components in our framework do not require any supervision, making our method unsupervised. Experimental results on real datasets show our proposed method is competitive even without any labeled and real datasets.Comment: Accepted by IEEE SLT 202

Development of Freeze-Thaw Tolerant Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG by Adaptive Laboratory Evolution

The industrial application of microorganisms as starters or probiotics requires their preservation to assure viability and metabolic activity. Freezing is routinely used for this purpose, but the cold damage caused by ice crystal formation may result in severe decrease in microbial activity. In this study, adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) technique was applied to a lactic acid bacterium to select tolerant strains against freezing and thawing stresses. Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG was subjected to freeze-thaw-growth (FTG) for 150 cycles with four replicates. After 150 cycles, FTG-evolved mutants showed improved fitness (survival rates), faster growth rate, and shortened lag phase than those of the ancestor. Genome sequencing analysis of two evolved mutants showed genetic variants at distant loci in six genes and one intergenic space. Loss-of-function mutations were thought to alter the structure of the microbial cell membrane (one insertion in cls), peptidoglycan (two missense mutations in dacA and murQ), and capsular polysaccharides (one missense mutation in wze), resulting in an increase in cellular fluidity. Consequently, L. rhamnosus GG was successfully evolved into stress-tolerant mutants using FTG-ALE in a concerted mode at distal loci of DNA. This study reports for the first time the functioning of dacA and murQ in freeze-thaw sensitivity of cells and demonstrates that simple treatment of ALE designed appropriately can lead to an intelligent genetic changes at multiple target genes in the host microbial cell

Fabrication of pyramidal probes with various periodic patterns and a single nanopore

The nanometer-scale patterned pyramidal probe with an electron beam-induced nanopore on the pyramid apex is an excellent candidate for an optical biosensor. The nanoapertures surrounded with various periodic groove patterns on the pyramid sides were fabricated using a focused ion beam technique, where the optical characteristics of the fabricated apertures with rectangular, circular, and elliptical groove patterns were investigated. The elliptical groove patterns on the pyramid were designed to maintain an identical distance between the grooves and the apex for the surface waves and, among the three patterns, the authors observed the highest optical transmission from the elliptically patterned pyramidal probe. A 103-fold increase of the transmitted optical intensity was observed after patterning with elliptical grooves, even without an aperture on the pyramid apex. The nanopore on the apex of the pyramid was fabricated using electron beam irradiation and was optically characterized

Ginseng total saponin attenuates myocardial injury via anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory properties

AbstractBackgroundGinseng total saponin (GTS) contains various ginsenosides. These ginsenosides are widely used for treating cardiovascular diseases in Asian communities. The aim of this study was to study the effects of GTS on cardiac injury after global ischemia and reperfusion (I/R) in isolated guinea pig hearts.MethodsAnimals were subjected to normothermic ischemia for 60 minutes, followed by 120 minutes of reperfusion. GTS significantly increased aortic flow, coronary flow, and cardiac output. Moreover, GTS significantly increased left ventricular systolic pressure and the maximal rate of contraction (+dP/dtmax) and relaxation (−dP/dtmax). In addition, GTS has been shown to ameliorate electrocardiographic changes such as the QRS complex, QT interval, and RR interval.ResultsGTS significantly suppressed the biochemical parameters (i.e., lactate dehydrogenase, creatine kinase-MB fraction, and cardiac troponin I levels) and normalized the oxidative stress markers (i.e., malondialdehyde, glutathione, and nitrite). In addition, GTS also markedly inhibits the expression of interleukin-1β (IL-1β), IL-6, and nuclear factor-κB, and improves the expression of IL-10 in cardiac tissue.ConclusionThese data indicate that GTS mitigates myocardial damage by modulating the biochemical and oxidative stress related to cardiac I/R injury