Assessing through Interviews the Data Management Behaviors and Needs of an Earth and Environmental Sciences Academic Department

A post-doctoral CLIR fellow, Ting Wang, has been investigating the data management (DM) and curation behaviors and needs of faculty members in Lehigh University's Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) department. Many EES faculty members have participated in detailed interviews as part of this investigation. The interviews have revealed a variety of data-related challenges. Some can be readily addressed by Lehigh's Library and Technology Services, while others pose new challenges. The interviewing process provides a model for similar initiatives at other university earth science programs, as well as a potential model for exploring data needs in other research venues and subject areas

The history and evolution of the residential mortgage market in Mexico : a look at its future

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture; and, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-98).Research was conducted in Mexico in order to determine the size, future growth and current status of the Mexican residential mortgage market, and to assess the potential for securitization. Securitization offers good prospects of liquifying the mortgage loans enabling these funds to be reinvested into the housing market. In the long run, securitization can also attract other sources of capital, both foreign and domestic, to the housing market. The key elements of structuring these securities lie in the underwriting standards and loan origination systems that are effectuated. Poor origination and collecting practices will hinder the success of securitization. The development of an efficient primary market would facilitate the sale of loans in the secondary market, increasing capital flow efficiencies. Interviews with private and Federal authorities confirmed that securitization is being actively pursued and encouraged by the Mexican government. Some of the important questions to be answered are; how quickly can the primary market be developed, what impact will the new foreclosure laws have on recovery rates, what demand will the domestic markets have for these securities, and how quickly can foreign investment be attracted. But at this moment, the most important question to be answered is to what degree the government should be involved in developing the secondary market. It was found that FOVI will be further developed to act as an originating agency since it is currently one of the only sources of funding for residential mortgages in Mexico. The immediate future for securitizing mortgages rests on the precedent set by these new FOVI loans.by Marcela Fernandez Martinez and Anthony James Simboli.S.M

Rapid culture-based methods for drug-resistance detection in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis still represents a major public health problem, especially in low-resource countries where the burden of the disease is more important. Multidrug-resistant and extensively drug drug-resistant tuberculosis constitute serious problems for the efficient control of the disease stressing the need to investigate resistance to first- and second-line drugs. Conventional methods for detecting drug-resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis are slow and cumbersome. The most commonly used proportion method on Löwenstein-Jensen medium or Middlebrook agar requires a minimum of 3-4 weeks to produce results. Several new approaches have been proposed in the last years for the rapid and timely detection of drug-resistance in tuberculosis. This review will address phenotypic culture-based methods for rapid drug susceptibility testing in M. tuberculosis

Promoting Industrial Symbiosis: Using the Concept of Proximity to Explore Social Network Development

Industrial symbiosis (IS) has been identified as a strategy for promoting industrial sustainability. IS has been defined as the development of close working agreements between industrial and other organizations that, through the innovative reuse, recycling, or sharing of resources, leads to resource efficiency. Key to IS are innovation and social network development. This article critically reviews IS literature and concludes that, to inform proactive strategies for promoting IS, the understanding of the social processes leading to resource innovation needs to be improved. Industrial ecologists generally believe that close geographical proximity and trust are essential to the development of IS. This article argues, however, that there is a need to learn more about the meaning of, need for, and specific role of geographical proximity and trust in IS and, additionally, that other potentially important social factors have remained underexplored. To move IS research forward, this article suggests to engage with research in economic geography on the concept of ‘proximity,’ which draws attention to the ways in which geographical, cognitive, institutional, social, and organizational distances between actors might affect innovation. Arguably, the analytically distinct, but flexible, dimensions of proximity can be useful to explore how and why IS develops. The resulting qualitative knowledge would form a basis for researching whether general patterns for IS development exist and, more important, could inform public and private strategies that indicate which actions could be taken, as well as when and in what way to promote resource synergies and sustainable industrial development

A dynamic capabilities perspective on implementing the Circular Transition Indicators: A case study of a multi-national packaging company

The use of life cycle-based assessment has been defined a crucial microfoundation to implement circular business models from a dynamic capabilities perspective. Through a case study of a multi-national packaging corporation in the plastics sector, the application of an industry-developed circularity assessment, the Circular Transition Indicators (CTI), is analysed in two manufacturing locations (Italy and China). The aim is to identify how this life cycle-based assessment can amplify the company's capability to sense, seize and reconfigure its resources. Data were collected from a company placement, interviews, and sustainability reports. The CTI mainly contributed to the sensing microfoundations concerning the company's life cycle-based perspective and the use of environmental management tools. It also proved to complement existing life cycle-based approaches because it does not identify sustainability impacts, but only captures material flows. Furthermore, the results showed how the CTI implementation benefitted from existing microfoundations, such as the strategic collaboration with knowledge partners and previously collected sustainability and process efficiency data. Finally, it was also discussed for which microfoundations the CTI results could be most useful: to improve internal resource management processes and to support external circularity pledges. This paper contributes an empirical example to connect dynamic capabilities with life cycle management literature in a circular economy context