The Socio-technical Balanced Scorecard: A Framework for Assessing a Public University

The socio-technical theory is concerned with human well-being; it is democratic, humanistic and provides both freedom and knowledge to those who are part of it. Balanced scorecard is an approach that assesses whether the organization is meeting its objectives in terms of vision and strategy. It measures four perspectives: financial, customer, internal business processes and innovation & learning. Although the balanced scorecard has proven to be fruitful in the for-profit organizations of the past, most non-profit organizations had difficulty applying the balanced scorecard. The original configuration of balanced scorecard placed financial goals on the top of the hierarchy and since maximizing shareholder wealth is not the main objective for most non-profit organizations, it was not widely applied by these organizations. As non-profit organizations commonly operate on humanistic welfare paradigm and well-being of the society, the ideas of socio-technical work design may receive a greater acceptance in these organizations than in for-profit organizations. Hence, a socio-technical balanced scorecard for the non-profit organizations will be developed with an emphasis on employee perspective. More specifically, a public university wide assessment will be proposed in this paper

Birth Weight, Cord Blood Lipoprotein and Apolipoprotein Levels in Indian Newborns

Objectives: Primordial prevention of chronic disease is of clinical and public health importance. Considering the fetal onset of atherosclerosis, we aimed to determine the cord blood level of lipoproteins and apolipoproteins as well as their correlation with birth weight and gestational age. Methods: This cross-sectional study comprised 100 healthy Indian newborns. Ten ml. of cord blood was collected from placental end of umbilical vein. Serum was separated by centrifugation and ana-lyzed on the same day for lipid profile including total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high density lipoprotein- cholesterol (HDL-C), very low density lipoproteincholesterol (VLDL) and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), apolipoproteins A-I and B (ApoA-I, ApoB). Atherogenic index (AI) was calculated as the ratio of ApoB to ApoA-I. Results: Cord blood of female newborns had higher TC, HDL-C, LDL-C, Apo A-I, Apo B and AI as compared to male newborns, whereas TG and VLDL-C were higher in male than in female newborns. Significant positive correlation was observed between cord blood Apo A-I and HDL-C (r= 0.45, p<0.01), and between cord blood Apo-B and LDL-C (r= 0.44, p<0.01). Non-significant inverse correlation was observed between Apo A-I and ApoB with gestational age. There was a significant inverse correlation be-tween TG and gestational age (r= -0.197, p <0.05). Positive non-significant correlation was observed between AI and birth weight (r=0.046, p>0.05). Conclusions: These findings are another confirmatory evidence for the association of prenatal factors with cord blood lipid pro-file, and can serve as starting point for studying lipid transport system changes during early life

Sequential herbicide application coupled with mulch enhances the productivity and quality of winter onion (Allium cepa L.) while effectively controlling the mixed weed flora

Weed control poses substantial difficulties for winter season onion (Allium cepa L.) cultivation in the north-western Indo-Gangetic Plains, primarily due to the constrained efficacy of the existing herbicides. To address this issue, a 2-year field study was conducted to assess the efficacy of pre- and post-emergence herbicides (pendimethalin, ethoxysulfuron, imazethapyr, and quizalofop-p-ethyl) individually and in combination with crop residue mulch for weed control in winter onion. The results revealed that using herbicides or mulches in isolation did not provide satisfactory weed control. However, the integration of natural mulch with pendimethalin followed by quizalofop-p-ethyl application proved to be the most effective weed control strategy, resulting in the least reduction in bulb yield (10.3%) compared to other treatments. On the contrary, combinations of pendimethalin with ethoxysulfuron or imazethapyr showed adverse effects on the onion crop and inflicted the highest yield losses among all treatments (78.6 and 83.4%, respectively). However, the combination of pendimethalin with quizalofop-p-ethyl coupled with crop mulch resulted in season-long weed control and over 80% bulb yield (36.58 t/ha) gains compared to the weed-free condition. These findings emphasize the efficacy of combining herbicides and mulches as an integrated weed management strategy for onions. By adopting such integrated approaches, farmers could improve weed control while maintaining bulb yield and quality, reducing the risks associated with herbicide resistance, and promoting sustainable onion production in the north-western Indo-Gangetic Plains

Evaluation and Ranking of Ontology Construction Tools

The emphasis of reusing domain knowledge in system development makes ontology the most important disciplines in the information system industry at present. Many domain specific ontology editors are currently available for developing ontologies. However, selecting the most appropriate editor is a challenge because each ontology construction initiative requires its own budget, time, and resources. Therefore, to overcome this challenge, we propose a criterion to evaluate ontology construction tools. We define evaluation criteria such as functionality, reusability, data storage, complexity, association, scalability, resilience, reliability, robustness, learnability, availability, efficiency, and visibility. Then, on the basis of criteria, we propose a technique to rank ontology tools and finally, we evaluate three ontology construction editors based on the ranking technique

Individual & organizational consequences and threats of utilizing wireless technology in a work setting

Knowledge work can be defined as intellectual work performed to generate valuable information and knowledge. Since an important part of knowledge work consists of nomadic computing, the positive and negative impacts on productivity are subject to the work processes of knowledge workers. When compared to traditional ways of working. nomadic work provides greater flexibility while freeing the knowledge worker from time and place constraints. Even though nomadic work may increase knowledge workers' productivity, it may also have unintended and undesirable consequences. Thus, the identification of social consequences and threats of nomadic working with respect to the use of wireless technologies such as laptops, pockets PCs, PDAs, and cell phones was investigated in this research.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo