Demographic change: towards a framework to manage IT- personnel in times of scarcity of talent

En un entorno en el que el crecimiento demográfico negativo es una realidad en la mayoría de los estados europeos, las organizaciones deben enfrentar necesidades incrementos de la productividad laboral y una menor disponibilidad de empleados competentes. Uno de los sectores en que la situación expuesta es más evidente es el de las Tencnologías de la Información. Las teconologías de la información son cruciales para casi cualquier organización en cualquier sector y para cualquier persona. En un entorno socioeconómico en continuo cambio las organizaciones y sus departamentos de tecnologías de la información deben asumir los cambios en el mercado y ser capaces de desenvolverse de una forma ágil y con una orientación al cliente sin precedentes. Para las organizaciones, y en particular para sus elementos organizacionales más relacionados con las tecnologías de la información, la productividad de los empleados es un componente clave. De esta forma, la gestión de los recursos humanos, abarcando aspectos como su selección, desarrollo y retención es un aspecto clave para las organizaciones. El reto para las organizaciones es lograr la mejora en el ámbito de los procesos corporativos incluyendo como una parte importante de los mismos la gestión de los recursos humanos. La simbiosis de disciplinas como las tecnologías de la información, la economía, la psicología y la gestión puede lograr el incremento de la lealtad de los empleados. Para los profesionales modernos, los cambios de empleador se consideran dentro de la normalidad hasta encontrar un entorno adecuado que colme sus expectativas y necesidades. Dichas expectativas no se encuentran basadas únicamente en incentivos económicos, por lo que las organizaciones deben anticipar las expectativas y alinear sus estrategias a las expectativas de su fuerza laboral. La temática de este trabajo ha tenido repercusión en la literatura científica, sin embargo, no existe un estudio que identifique los factores que se presentan y determinan la retención de los trabajadores de las tecnologías de la información en los entornos organizacionales. Este es el objetivo de la presente tesis doctoral. Para ello, el primer paso que se pretende dar es concretar los aspectos organizacionales que son relevantes para el estudio del fenómeno. A partir de esta identificación, el autor diseña un marco en el que las partes identificadas se encuentran conectadas. El citado marco de trabajo presenta cinco niveles. Estos cinco niveles son: los salarios, la educación y capacidad de fuerza laboral, salud psicológica, salud fisiológica y balance de la vida laboral y profesional. Adicionalmente, el marco de trabajo presenta una aproximación jerárquica. Cada nivel presenta diferentes factores y métricas para definir y medir la situación organizacional ofreciendo oportunidades de derivar medidas para mejorar la situación. El marco de trabajo presenta 22 factores y 44 métricas. Adicionalmente, se ha desarrollado un modelo de implantación para el método propuesto. Con vistas a refinar el marco de trabajo y su modelo de implantación, se han llevado a cabo pruebas cualitativas y cuantitativas en el seno de un departamento de tecnologías de la in-formación perteneciente a una organización dedicada a los servicios financieros en Alemania. Se formularon y respondieron diversas preguntas de investigación en relación a ámbitos como el cambio demográfico, el estrés y los factores para el rendimiento laboral. Los resultados demuestran que el estrés está determinado por diferentes factores y que la mayoría de ellos deben ser tomados en consideración en la asignación de tareas y en el diseño de los entornos de trabajo. De la misma forma, se presentan diversos factores que incrementan la productividad laboral. Algunos de ellos como la conciliación de la vida laboral y la personal, la cultura organizacional o el salario deben ser tomados en consideración en las estrategias de gestión de recursos humanos en ámbitos organizacionales. Una estrategia de gestión de recursos humanos debe incluir adicionalmente aspectos relativos al reclutamiento, teniendo en cuenta la complentaridad con los factores anteriormente expuestos. Los resultados obtenidos también revelan que no existen evidencias de diferencias de género o de edad en la importancia de los factores de productividad o en los factores de estrés.Due to an unsatisfying demographic development in most European states, companies have to solve a trade-off between a needed increase of productivity on the one hand and fewer highly skilled employees on the other hand. One of the first sectors that will be influenced by this development is the Information Technology-industry (IT). Information technology is crucial for every company in every industry and for the people itself. In a permanently changing business environment, companies and especially their IT-departments must adapt to changes in the market and be more agile and customer oriented than ever before. To succeed in the IT sector, the productivity of employees is the key comonent. Therefore, the allocation and retention of these scarce resources in the best possible way is even more important. The challenge for companies is to improve the enterprise not only on the side of the organizational and process level, but to develop new strategies and approaches in human resource management. Only a symbiosis of the disciplines information technology, economics, psychology and management will enable relevant and indispensable employees to promote loyalty to the company. For a well-trained professional, frequent change of the employer, is as long associated with normality until the employees find the most suitable environment for fulfilling their needs and expectations. These expectations are no longer just based on financial incentives, consequently companies need to anticipate these expectations and align their strategies to them. Although the topic is quite popular in scientific literature, there is not a study devoted to identify these factors in organizational contexts. This Thesis is aimed to bridge this gap. The first step to achieve this goal is creating transparency over all parts of an organisation that are relevant to this topic. The author created a method that connects these relevant parts in one holistic framework. The framework consists of five layers. These layers are baseline wages, education and employee pool, psychological healthiness, physiological healthiness and work live balance. Also, the framework follows a hierarchical approach. Every layer has distinct factors and metrics to define and measure the status of the company and offers opportunities to derive measures to improve this situation. In total the framework consist of 22 factors and 44 metrics. Besides the framework, the author developed an implementation model for the proposed method. To refine the developed framework and implementation model, qualitative and quantitative tests were conductedn the IT-department of a financial service company in Germany. X Several research questions regarding demographic change, psychological stress and factors for employee performance were analysed and answered. The results show, that stress is influenced by several different stressors and the most of them need to be considered by companies when they allocate work or design workspaces. On the other side, there are several factors that promote employee productivity. Some of them, like work-life balance, company culture or salary are more important and should be a relevant part of every human resource management (HRM) strategy. A HRM strategy should involve proper measures for the recruiting and the development of employees because they complement each other and should be considered with the same importance. The results also show, that there is no evidence suggesting an age or gender related difference of the importance or the impact of productivity factors or psychological stressors.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología InformáticaPresidente: Antonio de Amescua Seco.- Secretario: Edmundo Tov0ar Carlo.- Vocal: Cristina Casado Lumbrera

Creating Efficiencies Through Process Improvement

As a college, our primary mission is to serve students enrolled in our programs. To ensure our students are receiving a quality education complete with rewarding research opportunities, we need to hire exceptional faculty and provide those faculty members with the resources they need. Our college funds are allocated annually, these funds provide for: graduate assistantships, part-time instructors, research expenses as well as new faculty start-up packages. As the largest of the seven colleges which comprise Western Michigan University, the College of Arts and Sciences must make decisions strategically, with regard to the allocation of resources among our twenty-six departments and schools. These resources, once allocated, must be accurately and efficiently monitored to ensure fiscal responsibility and program sustainability. State of Michigan allocations are limited, often resulting in budget reductions for our college, which makes tracking our budgets increasingly more important. When I arrived in the college, I saw an opportunity for process improvement in the way we were tracking our resources and I used the total performance system to initiate those improvements

Food Habits of Young-of-the-Year Fishes in Abbey Pond, South Dakota

Food habits of young-of-the-year largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides), bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus), black crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus), yellow bullhead (Ictalurus natalis), and yellow perch (Perca flavescens) were studied during 1973 and 1974 in Abbey Pond, South Dakota. Organisms found in young-of-the-year fish stomachs and in plankton samples were identified and counted in the laboratory. Zooplankton, aquatic insects and fish were the most important food organisms consumed by young fishes. Using Ivlev’s electivity index food electivity by the fishes for zooplankton was calculated. The size-specific food habits of young-of-the-year largemouth bass progressed from entomostracans to aquatic insects to fish. In most cases zooplanktons were negatively elected for after mid August, 1973, and after the end of July 1974. During the first half of the 1973 summer Chydorus sp. was positively elected for, while during the early summer of 1974, cyclopoid copepods were positively elected. Young-of-the-year bluegill indicated that Chydorus sp. was positively elected and that Bosmina longirostris and Ceriodaphnia sp. were negatively elected. Entomostracans were the dominant food organisms for young black crappie throughout their first summer of life. Young black crappie exhibited positive electivity indices for cyclopoid copepods and negative electivity indices for Bosmina longirostris. Young-of-the-year yellow bullheads fed primarily on small curstaceans and immature insects. Hyalella sp. was a major food organism for young yellow bullheads of all sizes. Young-of-the-year yellow bullheads had positive electivity indices, in most cases, for Chydorus sp. and ostracods and negative indices for Caphnia ambigua, Ceriodaphnia sp. and Bosmina longirostris. Yellow perch young-of-the-year fed primarily on zooplankton and aquatic insects. Utilization of food organism by yellow perch indicated a progression from microcrustaceans to aquatic insects. Young-of-the-year yellow perch had negative electivity indices for Daphmia galeata and D. ambigua and, with one exception, positive indices for Chydorus sp. Larval yellow perch fed almost exclusively on chlamydomonads and rotifers. Larval bluegill utilized cladocerans, copepods, rotifers, and chlamydomonads as food. Analysis of species food habits did not indicate niche segregation. The degree of overlapping food habits existing in Abbey Pond may be an important protection against overpopulation and may result in a more stable fish population

Digitale Bildanalyse von Proliferations- und Differenzierungsmarkern in der Epidermis gesunder, entzündlich veränderter oder aktinisch geschädigter Haut

Einleitung: Digitale Bildanalyseverfahren werden in jüngster Zeit zunehmend eingesetzt, um immunhistochemisch angefärbte Strukturen zu quantifizieren. Der Vorteil, der sich gegenüber manuellen Zählverfahren abzeichnet, ist eine aufgrund des relativ geringeren Arbeits- und Zeitaufwandes besonders ökonomische Datenerhebung. Sowohl bei der Digitalisierung als auch bei der Entwicklung und Anwendung solcher Verfahren sollten jedoch bestimmte Grundregeln beachtet werden, da sonst leicht Methodenartefakte entstehen, die die Qualität der Messungen negativ beeinflussen können. Auf wesentliche Grundregeln wird in der Arbeit näher eingegangen. Methodik: Im Mittelpunkt der Arbeit steht die Quantifizierung der Expression von Proliferations- und Differenzierungsmarkern in gesunder Haut (n=20), entzündlich veränderter (Psoriasis vulgaris n=22, Lichen ruber n=23) und aktinisch geschädigter Haut (aktinische Keratosen n=18) mit Hilfe eines digitalen Bildanalyseverfahrens. Dabei wurden Serienschnitte paraffineingebetteter Haut mit Antikörpern gegen den Proliferationsmarker Ki-67 und mit Antikörpern gegen die Differenzierungsmarker Filaggrin, Cytokeratin 10 und Involucrin inkubiert und angefärbt. Zudem wurde in weiteren Serienschnitten die Expression eines kürzlich in der Epidermis nachgewiesenen ionotropen Glutamatrezeptors vom Typ des N-Methyl-D-Aspartat-Rezeptors (NMDA-Rezeptor) untersucht. Die digitale Bildanalyse erfolgte unter Verwendung der Software Adobe Photoshop® und Image Processing Tool Kit®. Ergebnisse und Diskussion: Mit der verwendeten Methode konnten die in der Literatur beschriebenen typischen Verteilungsmuster der genannten Proliferations-und Differenzierungsmarker in den unterschiedlichen Diagnosen größtenteils repliziert werden. Deshalb ist anzunehmen, dass die Expression der verwendeten immunhistochemischen Marker mit dieser Methode zuverlässig quantifiziert werden kann. Ein Zusammenhang zwischen der Ausprägung des NMDA-Rezeptors und der Expression der einzelnen Marker ließ sich nicht herstellen, es zeigte sich jedoch eine deutlich verminderte Expression des NMDA-Rezeptors bei Auftreten einer Parakeratose.Introduction: During the last years digital image analysis has been more and more applied to quantify structures identified by immunostaining. The digital image analysis is less time consuming and operator intensive than manual counting procedures for tissue quantification. To prevent mistakes certain rules should be considered in image digitalisation, development and use of such methods. The most important of these rules are discussed in this study. Method: The study is focused on the quantification of different markers of keratinocyte proliferation and differentiation in cases of healthy skin (n=20), inflammatory skin diseases (psoriasis vulgaris n=22, lichen planus n=23) and actinic skin diseases (aktinic keratosis n=18). Serial sections of paraffine embedded skin samples were incubated with monoclonal antibodies against the proliferation marker Ki-67 and the differentiation markers filaggrin, cytokeratin 10 and involucrin. Furthermore the expression of an ionotrope glutamate receptor of the type N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) was analysed which was detected in epidermis recently. The software Adobe Photoshop® and Image Processing Tool Kit® were used for digital image analyses. Results and conclusion: With the method developed in this study typical distribution patterns of the above mentioned proliferation and differentiation markers could be shown in accordance with former results reported in the literature. Therefore the digital procedure seems to deliver reliable results of the expression of the used immunohistochemical markers. We could not found any relations between the expression of the NMDA receptor and the different markers. Nevertheless the expression of this receptor was significantly decreased in cases of parakeratosis.von Katrin Radan

Gender Mainstreaming in Dortmunder Jugendfreizeitstätten: eine qualitative vergleichende Studie

"Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich auf Grundlage eines theoretischen Teils sowie eines empirischen Teils mit der Frage nach der Umsetzung von Gender Mainstreaming in drei Dortmunder Jugendfreizeitstätten. Sie bezieht dabei die Trägerstrukturen mit ein, um einen möglichen Einfluss der Trägerorganisationen auf die Umsetzung herauszuarbeiten. Gleichzeitig wird der Frage nachgegangen, welche förderlichen und hinderlichen Faktoren bei der Einführung und Umsetzung von Gender Mainstreaming auftauchen können. Der theoretische Teil der vorliegenden Arbeit geht auf Gender Mainstreaming in der Sozialen Arbeit und in der Kinder- und Jugendarbeit sowie auf die Situation der Jugendfreizeitstätten in Dortmund ein. Der empirische Teil stützt sich auf die Ergebnisse von mit MitarbeiterInnen und LeiterInnen von Jugendfreizeitstätten geführten qualitativen Interviews und bereitgestellten Dokumenten der Träger und Jugendfreizeitstätten." (Autorenreferat

Characterization of neurophysiologic and neurocognitive biomarkers for use in genomic and clinical outcome studies of schizophrenia.

BackgroundEndophenotypes are quantitative, laboratory-based measures representing intermediate links in the pathways between genetic variation and the clinical expression of a disorder. Ideal endophenotypes exhibit deficits in patients, are stable over time and across shifts in psychopathology, and are suitable for repeat testing. Unfortunately, many leading candidate endophenotypes in schizophrenia have not been fully characterized simultaneously in large cohorts of patients and controls across these properties. The objectives of this study were to characterize the extent to which widely-used neurophysiological and neurocognitive endophenotypes are: 1) associated with schizophrenia, 2) stable over time, independent of state-related changes, and 3) free of potential practice/maturation or differential attrition effects in schizophrenia patients (SZ) and nonpsychiatric comparison subjects (NCS). Stability of clinical and functional measures was also assessed.MethodsParticipants (SZ n = 341; NCS n = 205) completed a battery of neurophysiological (MMN, P3a, P50 and N100 indices, PPI, startle habituation, antisaccade), neurocognitive (WRAT-3 Reading, LNS-forward, LNS-reorder, WCST-64, CVLT-II). In addition, patients were rated on clinical symptom severity as well as functional capacity and status measures (GAF, UPSA, SOF). 223 subjects (SZ n = 163; NCS n = 58) returned for retesting after 1 year.ResultsMost neurophysiological and neurocognitive measures exhibited medium-to-large deficits in schizophrenia, moderate-to-substantial stability across the retest interval, and were independent of fluctuations in clinical status. Clinical symptoms and functional measures also exhibited substantial stability. A Longitudinal Endophenotype Ranking System (LERS) was created to rank neurophysiological and neurocognitive biomarkers according to their effect sizes across endophenotype criteria.ConclusionsThe majority of neurophysiological and neurocognitive measures exhibited deficits in patients, stability over a 1-year interval and did not demonstrate practice or time effects supporting their use as endophenotypes in neural substrate and genomic studies. These measures hold promise for informing the "gene-to-phene gap" in schizophrenia research

Abnormal Morphology and Synaptogenic Signaling in Astrocytes Following Prenatal Opioid Exposure

In recent decades, there has been a dramatic rise in the rates of children being born after in utero exposure to drugs of abuse, particularly opioids. Opioids have been shown to have detrimental effects on neurons and glia in the central nervous system (CNS), but the impact of prenatal opioid exposure (POE) on still-developing synaptic circuitry is largely unknown. Astrocytes exert a powerful influence on synaptic development, secreting factors to either promote or inhibit synapse formation and neuronal maturation in the developing CNS. Here, we investigated the effects of the partial µ-opioid receptor agonist buprenorphine on astrocyte synaptogenic signaling and morphological development in cortical cell culture. Acute buprenorphine treatment had no effect on the excitatory synapse number in astrocyte-free neuron cultures. In conditions where neurons shared culture media with astrocytes, buprenorphine attenuated the synaptogenic capabilities of astrocyte-secreted factors. Neurons cultured from drug-naïve mice showed no change in synapses when treated with factors secreted by astrocytes from POE mice. However, this same treatment was synaptogenic when applied to neurons from POE mice, indicating a complex neuroadaptive response in the event of impaired astrocyte signaling. In addition to promoting morphological and connectivity changes in neurons, POE exerted a strong influence on astrocyte development, disrupting their structural maturation and promoting the accumulation of lipid droplets (LDs), suggestive of a maladaptive stress response in the developing CNS

Association Analysis of 94 Candidate Genes and Schizophrenia-Related Endophenotypes

While it is clear that schizophrenia is highly heritable, the genetic basis of this heritability is complex. Human genetic, brain imaging, and model organism studies have met with only modest gains. A complementary research tactic is to evaluate the genetic substrates of quantitative endophenotypes with demonstrated deficits in schizophrenia patients. We used an Illumina custom 1,536-SNP array to interrogate 94 functionally relevant candidate genes for schizophrenia and evaluate association with both the qualitative diagnosis of schizophrenia and quantitative endophenotypes for schizophrenia. Subjects included 219 schizophrenia patients and normal comparison subjects of European ancestry and 76 schizophrenia patients and normal comparison subjects of African ancestry, all ascertained by the UCSD Schizophrenia Research Program. Six neurophysiological and neurocognitive endophenotype test paradigms were assessed: prepulse inhibition (PPI), P50 suppression, the antisaccade oculomotor task, the Letter-Number Span Test, the California Verbal Learning Test-II, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test-64 Card Version. These endophenotype test paradigms yielded six primary endophenotypes with prior evidence of heritability and demonstrated schizophrenia-related impairments, as well as eight secondary measures investigated as candidate endophenotypes. Schizophrenia patients showed significant deficits on ten of the endophenotypic measures, replicating prior studies and facilitating genetic analyses of these phenotypes. A total of 38 genes were found to be associated with at least one endophenotypic measure or schizophrenia with an empirical p-value<0.01. Many of these genes have been shown to interact on a molecular level, and eleven genes displayed evidence for pleiotropy, revealing associations with three or more endophenotypic measures. Among these genes were ERBB4 and NRG1, providing further support for a role of these genes in schizophrenia susceptibility. The observation of extensive pleiotropy for some genes and singular associations for others in our data may suggest both converging and independent genetic (and neural) pathways mediating schizophrenia risk and pathogenesis

Is There an Association between Advanced Paternal Age and Endophenotype Deficit Levels in Schizophrenia?

The children of older fathers have increased risks of developing schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and among those who develop these disorders, those with older fathers present with more severe clinical symptoms. However, the influence of advanced paternal age on other important domains related to schizophrenia, such as quantitative endophenotype deficit levels, remains unknown. This study investigated the associations between paternal age and level of endophenotypic impairment in a well-characterized family-based sample from the Consortium on the Genetics of Schizophrenia (COGS). All families included at least one affected subject and one unaffected sibling. Subjects met criteria for schizophrenia (probands; n = 293) or were unaffected first-degree siblings of those probands (n = 382). Paternal age at the time of subjects’ birth was documented. Subjects completed a comprehensive clinical assessment and a battery of tests that measured 16 endophenotypes. After controlling for covariates, potential paternal age–endophenotype associations were analyzed using one model that included probands alone and a second model that included both probands and unaffected siblings. Endophenotype deficits in the Identical Pairs version of the 4-digit Continuous Performance Test and in the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery verbal memory test showed significant associations with paternal age. However, after correcting for multiple comparisons, no endophenotype was significantly associated with paternal age. These findings suggest that factors other than advanced paternal age at birth may account for endophenotypic deficit levels in schizophrenia

The incidence of unpleasant dreams after sub-anaesthetic ketamine

Ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)receptor antagonist with psychotogenic effects and for whichthere are diverse reports of whether pleasant or unpleasantdreams result during anaesthesia, post-operatively or aftersub-anaesthetic use. The aim was to assess in healthy volunteers the incidence ofunpleasant dreams over the three nights after receiving asub-anaesthetic dose of ketamine, in comparison to placebo,and with retrospective home nightmare frequency as acovariate.Thirty healthy volunteers completed questionnairesabout retrospective home dream recall and were then giveneither ketamine or placebo. Ketamine resulted in significantly more meandream unpleasantness relative to placebo and caused athreefold increase in the odds ratio for the incidence of anunpleasant dream. The number of dreams reported over thethree nights did not differ between the groups. Theincidence of unpleasant dreams after ketamine use waspredicted by retrospectively assessed nightmare frequencyat home.Ketamine causes unpleasant dreams over thethree post-administration nights. This may be evidence of aresidual psychotogenic effect that is not found on standardself-report symptomatology measures or a result of disturbedsleep electrophysiology. The results have theoretical implications for the relationship between nightmares and schizotypy