A Model for the Study of Knowledge Management Support Systems

Knowledge markets have been proposed as an organizational structure to promote knowledge exchange for increased organizational profitability and survivability. However, the economics and organizational behavior literatures in administered hierarchies suggest that knowledge markets and their component reward systems could suffer from a variety of abuses, inequities, and inefficiencies. These literatures, and the information systems investigations they have spawned, are parlayed into a model for knowledge management research

The overlapping burden of the three leading causes of disability and death in sub-Saharan African children

Despite substantial declines since 2000, lower respiratory infections (LRIs), diarrhoeal diseases, and malaria remain among the leading causes of nonfatal and fatal disease burden for children under 5 years of age (under 5), primarily in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The spatial burden of each of these diseases has been estimated subnationally across SSA, yet no prior analyses have examined the pattern of their combined burden. Here we synthesise subnational estimates of the burden of LRIs, diarrhoea, and malaria in children under-5 from 2000 to 2017 for 43 sub-Saharan countries. Some units faced a relatively equal burden from each of the three diseases, while others had one or two dominant sources of unit-level burden, with no consistent pattern geographically across the entire subcontinent. Using a subnational counterfactual analysis, we show that nearly 300 million DALYs could have been averted since 2000 by raising all units to their national average. Our findings are directly relevant for decision-makers in determining which and targeting where the most appropriate interventions are for increasing child survival

Towards a Taxonomy of Information Security Policy Non-Compliance Behavior

Due to the increasing digitalization of our society, IT security professionals must implement even more effective security measures to meet the growing information security requirements of their organizations. To target and effectively deploy these measures in the best possible way, they must consider different types of behaviors that might lead to information security threats. Regarding this issue, current research offers little for clarity to security professionals when it comes to understanding and differentiating the various types of behavior. Therefore, this research aims to develop a taxonomy to classify different types of information security policy non-compliance behavior. Our results present a taxonomy with five dimensions, each containing mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive characteristics. Our results provide a basis for a more specific analysis of different types of information security policy non-compliance behavior and can be used for more comprehensive development and analysis of appropriate security measures

Evolution of three Pyrenophora cereal pathogens: recent divergence, speciation and evolution of non-coding DNA

Three of the most important fungal pathogens of cereals are Pyrenophora tritici-repentis, the cause of tan spot on wheat, and Pyrenophora teres f. teres and Pyrenophora teres f. maculata, the cause of spot form and net form of net blotch on barley, respectively. Orthologous intergenic regions were used to examine the genetic relationships and divergence times between these pathogens. Mean divergence times were calculated at 519 kya (±30) between P. teres f. teres and P. teres f. maculata, while P. tritici-repentis diverged from both Pyrenophora teres forms 8.04 Mya (±138 ky). Individual intergenic regions showed a consistent pattern of co-divergence of the P. teres forms from P. tritici-repentis, with the pattern supported by phylogenetic analysis of conserved genes. Differences in calculated divergence times between individual intergenic regions suggested that they are not entirely under neutral selection, a phenomenon shared with higher Eukaryotes. P. tritici-repentis regions varied in divergence time approximately 5–12 Mya from the P. teres lineage, compared to the separation of wheat and barley some 12 Mya, while the P. teres f. teres and P. teres f. maculata intergenic region divergences correspond to the middle Pleistocene. The data suggest there is no correlation between the divergence of these pathogens the domestication of wheat and barley, and show P. teres f. teres and P. teres f. maculata are closely related but autonomous. The results are discussed in the context of speciation and the evolution of intergenic regions

Discriminating Pulmonary Hypertension Caused by Monocrotaline Toxicity from Chronic Hypoxia by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy and Multivariate Methods of Analysis

A new method has been developed for the determination of tissue pathology caused by chronic hypoxia and monocrotaline toxicity. The method is based on the use of near-infrared (NIR) spectrophotometry to measure spectra of lung tissue from normal chronic hypoxia (CH) and monocrotaline (MCT) models of pulmonary hypertension (PH), followed by analysis using multivariate methods, that is, principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS). Synergistic use of NIR with the PCA/PLS method makes it possible, for the first time, not only to divide different lung tissue samples into their respective groups (normal, CH, and MCT) but also to gain insight into mechanisms of PH caused by CH and MCT toxicity. Specifically, MCT metabolites and other hypertensive conditions are known to produce subtle and minor chemical changes in the compositions of tissue (e.g., proteins, carbohydrates, lipids). Although these changes were detected by the NIR technique, they were too small to be discerned through visual inspection of the spectra. However, they can be accurately classified and properly assigned by the PCA/PLS method. The fact that different tissue types can be accurately divided into their corresponding groups by the NIR and PCA/PLS methods suggests that chemical alterations and mechanisms of pulmonary vascular remodeling and PH induced by MCT are different from those induced by CH