Population Firm Interaction and the Dynamics of Assimilation Gap

The paper shows that the interaction between population and firm knowledge produces a non-monotonic change in the assimilation gap. The assimilation gap follows a convex curve experiencing an upward slope driven by imitation and the downward slope by knowledge spillovers. Changes in the characteristics of innovation shift its peak across time. The relative advantage and compatibility shift the peak towards the left and the complexity shifts it to the right. The model is tested in a simulated environment and offers insights into the differences in temporal trajectories of the various adopter groups

Profiling Quality Management in Systems Development: An Empirically Study

The critical role of information systems in organizations has focussed attention on the need to manage quality in systems development. Existing quality management practices have been found inadequate to meet the escalating demands in systems delivery performance (Cusumano, 1991; Matsumoto, 1987). Problems such as poor quality,low productivity, cost over runs, late deliveries and user dissatisfaction have become common in systems development (Hamid & Madnick, 1989). These problems highlight the critical need to reengineer the systems delivery process (Rockart & Hofman, 1992). Several IS organizations have responded to this challenge by adopting Total Quality Management (TQM) practices. Success of TQM initiatives in organizations like Corning Inc (Shrendick et al, 1993) and Dun & Bradstreet suggests a positive relationship between quality management practices and quality performance. However, the reported failures of TQM programs in organizations like Florida Power and Kodak (Grant et al, 1994) suggest that systematic study is necessary to develop a richer understanding of how TQM works and when it is effective. The quality management literature adopts an universalistic perspective that TQM involves a set of principles and practices that are applicable across organizations (Juran, 1986). However, recent empirical studies (Bensen et al, 1991; Flynn et al, 1994) and theoretical work (Sitkin et al, 1994) highlight that quality management is context-dependent and organizations that have recognized this have been relatively successful in implementing TQM programs (Ernst & Young, 1992).This contingent perspective which is rooted in systems theory suggests that quality management practices vary across organizations. Understanding these variations is perhaps the first step towards theory development in this area. Accordingly, this study focuses on developing a descriptive profile of quality management practices in the context of systems development. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: first, a description of the empirical study is presented; this is followed by a discussion of the data analysis; next the results and findings of the study are presented and their implications are discussed

Adoption of Vertical Standards

Over the past decade, the theories of Diffusion of Innovations and of Economics of Standards have been integrated to explain the Diffusion of Standards in Information Technologies. More recently, complex networked technologies unique to particular industries have been identified as a separate category called vertical standards, and the study of their adoption within and across industries has begun. This paper adds to the discourse by developing a theory-based model to explain variance in the adoption of vertical standards by firms. We posit that vertical standards adoption will be influenced by firm-level factors and adopter community-level factors. Key firm-level factors such as prior technology drag, knowledge barriers, and expected benefits, and adopter community-level factors such as standard legitimization and orphaning risk are identified as antecedents of vertical standards adoption. We also identify factors that impact each of these antecedents and put forth a research model interrelating these factors to vertical standards adoption. We expect to test our research model using data collected through a web-based survey of OASIS member firms

Bay of Bengal: From monsoons to mixing

The Bay of Bengal has a surprisingly large influence on the world. It nurtures the South Asian summer monsoon, a tremendous ocean-atmosphere-land phenomenon that delivers freshwater to more than a third of the human population on this planet. During summer, southwesterly winds gather moisture from the ocean and carry it deep inland over the Indian subcontinent, bringing welcome rains to a parched land. During winter, the winds reverse to northeasterly, and the ocean circulation responds by dispersing the terrestrial freshwater run off concentrated in the northern part of the bay

Enhancement of Structural, Optical and Bumpy Surface Effect of Cu2O Thin Films Through Sn Doping by Modified SILAR Technique

Undoped and Sn doped Cu2-xSnxO (x = 0, 5.0, 10.0, 15.0 and 20.0) thin films have been deposited into glass substrates by hire a fee powerful method of M-SILAR (Modified-Successive Ionic Layer Adsorption and Reaction). The Sn doping level in the starting solution become numerous from 0 to 20.0 mol.% in steps of 5.0 mol.%. The deposited films were characterized for their structural, optical, morphological and topography properties with respective instrumentation. X-ray diffraction (XRD) evaluation found out the orientation of crystalline increase of Cu2-xSnxO films, and all the films showcase single crystalline. The preferential orientation was retained in favor of (111) plane even at the highest doping level. The presence of copper in the films turned into showed by way of energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer. Average optical transmittance (UV-vis-NIR and Photoluminescence (PL)) are varied with effect of doping concentration. The stretching vibrations of Cu-O, Sn-O and O-Cu-O have been showed by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The morphological observe has been achieved by using a Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) has display as decrease the particle length with increase of doping concentration. From High resolution transition electron microscopy (HR-TEM) the crystalline growth of each line are excellent within the Sn doping of 10.0 mol.%. The atomic force microscopy method changed into employed to investigate the roughness of the films and the bumpy surface revealed at 10.0 mol.% of Sn doping level

Assessment of seedling traits of rice landraces under different saline conditions

Salinity is one of the major abiotic stresses affecting rice growth and yield worldwide. In rice, the most critical stages which affect salinity at a greater level are germination, vegetative and reproductive stages.It is very important to know the genotypic variation among landraces under saline conditions at the seed germination stage to reduce the harmful effect of salinity. The present study conducted on Petri plate was mainly for assessing germination, relative water content and seedling parameters of eleven rice landraces with check landrace Pokali under three different salt concentrations (75mM, 125mM and 150mM). Two-way ANOVA gave the variations among the genotypes, treatments and their interactions. The present study showed that Mundan, Odiyan, Muttadan, Kallimadiyan and Vellimuthu had less percentage reduction in growth parameters at the germination stage. Odiyan and Mundan showed less percentage reduction in fresh weight (36.09%) and  shoot length (25.61%) respectively, in relative water content  (10.70% and 16.07%, respectively) at higher concentrations of salinity (150mM) compared to control. Pokali, Chembakam and Odiyan showed good germination parameters under three different saline treatments compared to other genotypes. Biplot analysis showed 65.4% variation between the treatments, whereas the variation between the genotypes was around 13.3%. Screening of landraces for salinity tolerance at the seed germination stage is the most reliable method to identify the salt tolerant line at the early seedling stage. The present study can be used for further screening programme at the vegetative stage for the identification of potential salt tolerant lines to improve breeding and gene introgression studies

Development of a small scale semi-intensive prawn hatchery and its role in the development of brakishwater prawn farming in Orissa

To develop a continuous seed production technology, particularly of Penaeus monodon, which has maximum demand in brackishwater culture system, a small scale hatchery was designed at Purl Centre In l984-'85 under a semi-intensive system and operated using recirculated water through a biological filtration system. The details of hatchery lay out, tanks, filters, water and air systems, maintenance of breeders, and feeds are given. The system is semi-intensive in the sense that developed feeds were used and salinity and pH were controlled to suit the hatchery needs. The problems encountered in the hatchery such as spawner availability, transportation stress, impact of environmental factors, water quality etc are discussed. The system and its cost of management are brought out with a view towards its suitability as a small scale operation under Indian conditions

Plastic Deformation in Laser-Induced Shock Compression of Monocrystalline Copper

Copper monocrystals were subjected to shock compression at pressures of 10–60 GPa by a short (3 ns initial) duration laser pulse. Transmission electron microscopy revealed features consistent with previous observations of shock-compressed copper, albeit at pulse durations in the µs regime. The results suggest that the defect structure is generated at the shock front. A mechanism for dislocation generation is presented, providing a realistic prediction of dislocation density as a function of pressure. The threshold stress for deformation twinning in shock compression is calculated from the constitutive equations for slip, twinning, and the Swegle-Grady relationship

Single-cell analysis of cardiogenesis reveals basis for organ-level developmental defects.

Organogenesis involves integration of diverse cell types; dysregulation of cell-type-specific gene networks results in birth defects, which affect 5% of live births. Congenital heart defects are the most common malformations, and result from disruption of discrete subsets of cardiac progenitor cells1, but the transcriptional changes in individual progenitors that lead to organ-level defects remain unknown. Here we used single-cell RNA sequencing to interrogate early cardiac progenitor cells as they become specified during normal and abnormal cardiogenesis, revealing how dysregulation of specific cellular subpopulations has catastrophic consequences. A network-based computational method for single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis that predicts lineage-specifying transcription factors2,3 identified Hand2 as a specifier of outflow tract cells but not right ventricular cells, despite the failure of right ventricular formation in Hand2-null mice4. Temporal single-cell-transcriptome analysis of Hand2-null embryos revealed failure of outflow tract myocardium specification, whereas right ventricular myocardium was specified but failed to properly differentiate and migrate. Loss of Hand2 also led to dysregulation of retinoic acid signalling and disruption of anterior-posterior patterning of cardiac progenitors. This work reveals transcriptional determinants that specify fate and differentiation in individual cardiac progenitor cells, and exposes mechanisms of disrupted cardiac development at single-cell resolution, providing a framework for investigating congenital heart defects

False positive probabilties for all Kepler Objects of Interest: 1284 newly validated planets and 428 likely false positives

We present astrophysical false positive probability calculations for every Kepler Object of Interest (KOI)---the first large-scale demonstration of a fully automated transiting planet validation procedure. Out of 7056 KOIs, we determine that 1935 have probabilities <1% to be astrophysical false positives, and thus may be considered validated planets. 1284 of these have not yet been validated or confirmed by other methods. In addition, we identify 428 KOIs likely to be false positives that have not yet been identified as such, though some of these may be a result of unidentified transit timing variations. A side product of these calculations is full stellar property posterior samplings for every host star, modeled as single, binary, and triple systems. These calculations use 'vespa', a publicly available Python package able to be easily applied to any transiting exoplanet candidate.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures. Published in ApJ. Instructions to reproduce results can be found at https://github.com/timothydmorton/koi-fp