Coordination and control in project-based work: digital objects and infrastructures for delivery

A major infrastructure project is used to investigate the role of digital objects in the coordination of engineering design work. From a practice-based perspective, research emphasizes objects as important in enabling cooperative knowledge work and knowledge sharing. The term ‘boundary object’ has become used in the analysis of mutual and reciprocal knowledge sharing around physical and digital objects. The aim is to extend this work by analysing the introduction of an extranet into the public–private partnership project used to construct a new motorway. Multiple categories of digital objects are mobilized in coordination across heterogeneous, cross-organizational groups. The main findings are that digital objects provide mechanisms for accountability and control, as well as for mutual and reciprocal knowledge sharing; and that different types of objects are nested, forming a digital infrastructure for project delivery. Reconceptualizing boundary objects as a digital infrastructure for delivery has practical implications for management practices on large projects and for the use of digital tools, such as building information models, in construction. It provides a starting point for future research into the changing nature of digitally enabled coordination in project-based work

Mäntsäläläisten suuryritysten käyttämät paikalliset B2B -palvelut

Tämän opinnäytetyön päätarkoituksena oli tutkia yritysten näkökulmasta, mitä palveluja Mäntsälän pitäisi pystyä tarjoamaan siellä jo toimiville sekä sinne mahdollisesti sijoittuville yrityksille. Lisäksi tarkoituksena oli myös selvittää, miten tarpeet eroavat. Tutkimuksen toimeksiantajana oli Mäntsälän Yrityskehitys Oy, jonka tavoitteena oli ottaa selville, tarvitaanko toimenpiteitä, joilla voidaan parantaa Mäntsälän Yrityskehityksen suurempien sidosryhmien toimintaedellytyksiä. Tämän tutkimuksen pääongelmana oli selvittää, mitä ovat ne palvelut, joita Mäntsälän kunnan alueella olevat suuremmat yritykset tällä hetkellä käyttävät, ja mitä palveluja he vielä tarvitsevat. Opinnäytetyö koostuu teoriaosuudesta sekä empiirisestä osuudesta, joka sisältää neljä eri tapausyritystä, jotka ovat Comforta Oy, Rexam Beverage Can Mäntsälä Oy, Tokmanni Oy ja Yandex Oy. Teoriaosuus keskittyy palveluihin ja niiden laatuun, joiden lisäksi luodaan katsaus B2B –markkinoiden erityispiirteisiin. Koska tutkimuksen kohteena on Mäntsälä, käsitellään myös Mäntsälän kehittämiseen vaikuttavaa alueen kilpailukykyä ja elinkeinopolitiikkaa. Tutkimus toteutettiin kvalitatiivisena eli laadullisena tutkimuksena, ja menetelmänä käytettiin puolistrukturoitua teemahaastattelua. Opinnäytetyön tuloksissa nousee esiin selkeä tarve vuokra-asunnoille sekä autohuollon merkkiliikkeille. Lisäksi merkittävää on, että Mäntsälässä pisimpään toiminut Comforta Oy on tulosten mukaan unohdettu, ja heidän mielestään Comfortan tärkeä yhteistyökumppani Mäntsälän Sähkö keskittyy vain uusien yritysten kanssa toimimiseen. Yritykset pyrkivät aina käyttämään paikallisia palveluntoimittajia, mikäli siihen on mahdollisuus. Lisäksi yritykset hankkivat tarvitsemansa palvelut nopeasti, sillä 1993 aloittanut Comforta Oy käyttää kaikkia haastattelussa kysyttyä 20 palvelua ja 2008 aloittanut Tokmanni Oy sekä 2013 aloittanut Rexam Beverage Can Mäntsälä Oy kaikkia lukuun ottamatta yhtä. Sen sijaan vasta toimitilojaan rakentava Yandex Oy ei luonnollisesti vielä käytä juuri mitään palveluja, mistä syystä se tulee tarvitsemaan niitä paljon ja pian riippuen toiminnan käynnistymisestä. Yritykset tarvitsevat vain joitain yksittäisiä palveluja haastattelussa kysyttyjen lisäksi, mitkä ne kaikki olivat myös hankkineet.Local B2B Services Used by Mäntsälä Large Companies. Case: Comforta, Rexam, Tokmanni, Yandex The main purpose of this Master’s thesis was to find out the business perspectives which are the B2B services Mäntsälä should be able to provide for businesses that already operate in its area and also for potential businesses. In addition the aim was also to find out how the service needs differ. The study was carried out by order of Mäntsälän Yrityskehitys, whose aim was to find out if there was any need for any actions to improve the operating conditions of their larger stakeholders. The main research problem of this study was to find out what are the services that larger companies in Mäntsälä region are currently using, and what do they still need. The thesis consists of a theoretical part and an empirical section that deals with services of four case companies which are Comforta Plc, Rexam Beverage Can Mäntsälä Plc, Tokmanni Plc, and Yandex Plc. The theoretical part focuses on services and their quality in addition to an overview of B2B markets. Since the area of the study is Mäntsälä also the regional competitiveness and local industry policy are discussed in connection with development of Mäntsälä. The study was conducted as a qualitative study, and method used was a semi-structured theme interview. The results of the thesis emerge a clear need for rental housing, as well as brand car maintenance companies. In addition, it is noteworthy that the longest period in Mäntsälä operating Comforta Plc has been forgotten, and according to their opinion Comforta’s very important partner Mäntsälän Sähkö only focuses on new businesses for working with. Companies will always try to use local service providers, if given the opportunity. Companies also acquire services needed quickly, as in 1993 started Comforta Plc uses all of the 20 services asked in interview, in 2008 started Tokmanni Plc and in 2013 started Rexam Beverage Can Mäntsälä Plc all except one. In contrast Yandex Plc, just constructing their premises uses hardly any of the services and therefore will need a lot of them and soon depending on the date of their launch. Companies only need a few individual services in addition what was asked which they also had acquired

Investment and oil price volatility

In this note, we consider the relationship between oil price volatility and firm returns for 560 firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Using daily time series data from 2000 to 2008, we find that oil price volatility increases firm returns for the majority of the firms in our sample.Investment, oil price, volatility,

Usual Tumor at an Unusual Site - A Leiomyoma Masquerading as a Urethral Polyp.

Polyps and papillomas encompass the most common benign tumors of the urethra.Leiomyoma of urethra is a rare clinical entity which can be diagnosed only with histopathological examination and only around 35 such cases have been reported worldwide

The BlackBerry veil: mobile use and privacy practices by young female Saudis

Privacy concerns in the digital economy are increasingly a global matter. The possible revival of the Communications Data Bill in the UK amidst fears over the vulnerability of the nation to terrorism highlights the topicality of this piece and the potential risks associated to ceding individual-to-government privacy for the sake of national security. In this post, Sunila Lobo presents the summary of an award winning paper coauthored with LSE Tech Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood, which suggests that Saudi Arabian female youth share similarities with youth around the world in their use of mobile phones, but negotiate privacy in a unique way. Therefore, universal notions of privacy are challenged

WHICH VARIABLES PREDICT INDONESIA'S INFLATION?

We use an exhaustive list of Indonesia’s macroeconomic variables in a comparative analysis to determine which predictor variables are most important in forecasting Indonesia’s inflation rate. We use monthly time-series data for 30 macroeconomic variables. Using both in-sample and out-of-sample predictability evaluations, we report consistent evidence of inflation rate predictability using 11 out of 30 macroeconomic variables.We use an exhaustive list of Indonesia’s macroeconomic variables in a comparative analysis to determine which predictor variables are most important in forecasting Indonesia’s inflation rate. We use monthly time-series data for 30 macroeconomic variables. Using both in-sample and out-of-sample predictability evaluations, we report consistent evidence of inflation rate predictability using 11 out of 30 macroeconomic variables

The Literary Elegance of Kurunthokai

Literature focuses on human life. It is a feast for human thought, feeling, and imagination. It is related to human language. It has the power to stir the mind of the learner and blossom in the heart. Literature is an art form that reflects social sentiments. Literature expresses the spiritual feelings and worldly attachments, successes and failures, and likes and dislikes of mankind. Kurunthokai is one of the Ettutthokai texts in the Sangam love genre of songs. It is described as a "good kurunthokai". It is known as Kurunthokai because it is a collection of songs with fewer lines. This book is explained by the beauty of words, the beauty of meaning, the beauty of sentence construction, the beauty of explanation, and the beauty of literary style. There are so many parables that it is said to be a parable repository. They express the thoughts and memories of the people and the moods of the poets. The ideas on the life of the Tamils of the Sangam age, as well as the poets' skills on literary qualities, captivate the minds of the readers. Due to its poetry, Kurunthokai is a book that is quoted by all writers and has the power to confront the realities of life. The simile, the description, the imagination, the theme, the iraichi, the rhyme, and the alliteration draw the reader's heart and entertain the thoughts, revealing the beauty. This research paper also aims to explore the features of such subtle literary techniques in short songs

Effects of Surface Properties on the Charge Regulated Bioenergetic response of Attached Bacteria: Exploration within the Framework of the Chemiosmotic Theory

Microbial adhesion is critical to natural and engineered systems due to the ubiquitous presence of bacteria, their tendency to attach to biotic and abiotic surfaces and their ability to survive in habitats not suitable for most life. Many processes benefit from microbial adhesion, such as attached-growth wastewater treatment and symbiotic nitrogen fixation. In other scenarios, microbial adhesion is highly detrimental and examples include pathogenic biofilm infections on medical implants and devices and bio-corrosion of pipelines and ship hulls. Studies have demonstrated that the metabolic state of adhered bacteria can vary based on the physiochemical properties of the solid surface, but the reasons for this remained ambiguous until recent work by Hong and Brown. They proposed a hypothesis linking the charge regulation effect, which causes the local pH to vary as two surfaces with acid/base functional groups approach each other, and cellular bioenergetics, which stores energy in the form of a proton gradient across the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane. In their initial study, Hong and Brown proposed the hypothesis and demonstrated it for bacteria attachment to glass beads.Here, we demonstrate the validity of this hypothesis for a range of surfaces with different functional groups using experimental and modelling methods. Initial work focused on depicting that cellular bioenergetics of neutrophilic bacteria is influenced by changes in surface pH. Second, the effect of adhesion on metabolic activity of Escherichia coli was studied using a negatively-charged sand surface and a positively-charged goethite-coated sand surface. It was shown that the energy level of E.coli wasenhanced upon adhesion to the untreated sand and it was reduced upon adhesion to the coated sand, thus demonstrating the effect of solid surface functional groups on the metabolic activity of attached bacteria.The hypothesis was extended to study the impact of a range of acidic and basic surfaces on the bacterial metabolic activity making it possible to investigate a wide spectrum of attachment induced surface pH conditions. Adhesion experiments were performed with the Gram-negative E. coli and the Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis employing various surfaces in granular form. Surface characterization experiments and numerical modelling enabled the identification of the dissociation constants associated with functional groups on the bacterial surface and the solid surface which facilitated demonstration of a direct link between bacterial surface pH and cellular ATP levels.The results of the study indicated an overall relationship between solid surface functional group properties and bioenergetics of sessile bacteria. To summarize, upon adhesion to negatively-charged (acidic) surfaces, the charge regulated interface results in a proton-rich environment that stimulates ATP synthesis via chemiosmosis. The finite and rapid increase in ATP experimentally observed over the first 48 hours was followed by bacteria exhibiting an enhanced metabolic state through the course of the experiment. Attachment to basic surfaces results in a proton-deficit interface resulting in the depletion of intracellular ATP. The positive surfaces induced a declined metabolic state upon bacterial adhesion resulting in continual depletion of energy reserves over the experiment period.These findings can serve as the basis in the selection of surfaces and coatings to bring about a desired metabolic activity in attached bacteria based on requirements for the system at hand

Communication skills 2015 : Question bank

AIKTC Pharmacy first year ­ Communication skills\ud \ud 201