Analysing B2B electronic procurement benefits – Information systems perspective

This paper presents electronic procurement benefits identified in four case companies. The benefits achieved in the case companies were classified according to taxonomies from the Information Systems discipline. Existing taxonomies were combined into a new taxonomy which allows evaluation of the complex e-procurement impact. Traditional financial-based methods failed to capture the nature of e-procurement benefits. In the new taxonomy, eprocurement benefits are classified using scorecard dimensions (strategic, tactical and operational), which allows the identification of areas of e-procurement impact, in addition the benefits characteristic is captured (tangible, intangible, financial and non-financial)

Overcoming Barriers in Supply Chain Analytics—Investigating Measures in LSCM Organizations

While supply chain analytics shows promise regarding value, benefits, and increase in performance for logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) organizations, those organizations are often either reluctant to invest or unable to achieve the returns they aspire to. This article systematically explores the barriers LSCM organizations experience in employing supply chain analytics that contribute to such reluctance and unachieved returns and measures to overcome these barriers. This article therefore aims to systemize the barriers and measures and allocate measures to barriers in order to provide organizations with directions on how to cope with their individual barriers. By using Grounded Theory through 12 in-depth interviews and Q-Methodology to synthesize the intended results, this article derives core categories for the barriers and measures, and their impacts and relationships are mapped based on empirical evidence from various actors along the supply chain. Resultingly, the article presents the core categories of barriers and measures, including their effect on different phases of the analytics solutions life cycle, the explanation of these effects, and accompanying examples. Finally, to address the intended aim of providing directions to organizations, the article provides recommendations for overcoming the identified barriers in organizations

Small heat-shock proteins: important players in regulating cellular proteostasis

Small heat-shock proteins (sHsps) are a diverse family of intra-cellular molecular chaperone proteins that play a critical role in mitigating and preventing protein aggregation under stress conditions such as elevated temperature, oxidation and infection. In doing so, they assist in the maintenance of protein homeostasis (proteostasis) thereby avoiding the deleterious effects that result from loss of protein function and/or protein aggregation. The chaperone properties of sHsps are therefore employed extensively in many tissues to prevent the development of diseases associated with protein aggregation. Significant progress has been made of late in understanding the structure and chaperone mechanism of sHsps. In this review, we discuss some of these advances, with a focus on mammalian sHsp hetero-oligomerisation, the mechanism by which sHsps act as molecular chaperones to prevent both amorphous and fibrillar protein aggregation, and the role of post-translational modifications in sHsp chaperone function, particularly in the context of disease.SM was supported by a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship, HE is supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT110100586) and JC is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Project Grant (#1068087)

Особливості визначення конструкційної міцності крихких матеріалів

The subject area "structural strength of materials" is defined as а complex of strength characteristics of materials and structures, taking into account physical and mechanical properties of the material, the methods of its production, blank processing, purpose, shape and size of elements, operating conditions. To determine the structural strength of brittle materials the technical approach is developed

Personality, Foreign Policy and National Transformation: An Assessment of the Olusegun Obasanjo’s Administration (1999-2007)

Since independence in 1960, Nigeria has played various significant roles in world affairs beginning with her immediate neighbors in the West African sub region and the world at large. Leadership and personality have been central in these dynamic roles. For instance, between 1999 and 2007, Nigeria‟s foreign relations and domestic policies were creative and eventful, which have been linked to the personality and leadership of Olusegun Obasanjo, the president of Nigeria at that time. Utilizing secondary data, the paper shows that Obasanjo‟s personality and leadership traits launched Nigeria from isolationism to diplomatic influence and relevance in world affairs. The paper further submits that Nigeria earned a positive international image, the removal of the pariah status as well as economic re-invigoration. It thus recommends amongst others, the need for both current and future leaders of Nigeria to exhibit outstanding personality and leadership in the face of festering socio-political as well as economic challenges. By such unusual display of effective leadership, Nigeria will regain its position in effectively contributing to global development and also record success in her national transformation agend

Experiencing a probabilistic approach to clarify and disclose uncertainties when setting occupational exposure limits.

Assessment factors (AFs) are commonly used for deriving reference concentrations for chemicals. These factors take into account variabilities as well as uncertainties in the dataset, such as inter-species and intra-species variabilities or exposure duration extrapolation or extrapolation from the lowest-observed-adverse-effect level (LOAEL) to the noobserved- adverse-effect level (NOAEL). In a deterministic approach, the value of an AF is the result of a debate among experts and, often a conservative value is used as a default choice. A probabilistic framework to better take into account uncertainties and/or variability when setting occupational exposure limits (OELs) is presented and discussed in this paper. Each AF is considered as a random variable with a probabilistic distribution. A short literature was conducted before setting default distributions ranges and shapes for each AF commonly used. A random sampling, using Monte Carlo techniques, is then used for propagating the identified uncertainties and computing the final OEL distribution. Starting from the broad default distributions obtained, experts narrow it to its most likely range, according to the scientific knowledge available for a specific chemical. Introducing distribution rather than single deterministic values allows disclosing and clarifying variability and/or uncertainties inherent to the OEL construction process. This probabilistic approach yields quantitative insight into both the possible range and the relative likelihood of values for model outputs. It thereby provides a better support in decision-making and improves transparency. Int J Occup Med Environ Health 2018;31(4):475-489

How the Legal Environment Affects the Structure of Employment

The quality of the institutional environment is considered a crucial determinant of economic growth. Low quality of the formal institutional environment can slow down economic development via various mechanisms described in the literature. The present paper will analyse formal institutional factors leading to the structure of employment that Murphy, Shleifer and Vishny (The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1991) found to be associated with lower rate of economic growth. They assumed that a high proportion of lawyers in the country may be associated with slower economic development. Thus, the aim of the paper is to examine some of the parameters of institutional environment that can lead to such a distribution. Results show that quality of law measured by the World Bank (Doing Business database) and the Corruption Perception Index obtained from Transparency International may have some explanatory abilities regarding the structure of employment

Assessing the Influence of Strategic Resources on the Quality of Life in Spanish Cities

[Abstract] Quality of life (QoL) is both a main concern of good local governance and an indicator of city performance. A key question to answer is that of what resources have the potential to enhance city performance, thus providing added value to stakeholders. By adopting a resource-based view (RBV), this paper explores the relationships between a group of strategic resources (e-government, transparency, and reputation) and QoL in a sample of 78 Spanish municipalities. Our study makes a contribution by providing an original design of a set of relations among our own selected resources and between them and quality of life. In order to test those relations, we define and create four constructs by using four different data sources and structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show a positive influence of resources on QoL, which is supported by a number of positive direct and indirect interactions among them. This means that municipalities with better strategic resources in local governments exhibit a higher level of quality of life

Status index of optimal water variables for biodiversity conservation in the Lagoon of Sonso in Colombia

In order to determine an index of the status of optimal water variables for biodiversity conservation in the Sonso Lagoon, the data obtained from 2004 to 2018 were used. To determine the index, a methodology based on a multivariate analysis of the physical-chemical water variables was used, as well as a correlation analysis for their delimitation. Subsequently, the definition of weights and the parameterization of the variables for the final construction of the index were made. As a result, it was found that the lagoon is in an adequate state with a value index of 0.65, with a highly vulnerable tendency to be in an acceptable state and go to a critical state, depending on the anthropic pressure it has. As a conclusion, it was obtained that variables such as dissolved oxygen, total phosphorus and electrical conductivity are determining factors in establishing the index

Political Will for Effective Reform Management and Sustainable Development Goals Achievement in Nigeria

Political will is important for effective and sustainable reform management because anticorruption reforms must focus on the internal management of public sector resources to reduce incentives and opportunities for corruption and mismanagement. It is the driver of a robust private sector, resilient media, vibrant civil society, transparent judiciary and good administrative reforms that lead to national integrity and sustainable development. The absence of political will is responsible for a situation where it is estimated that one out of every six out-of-school children worldwide is a Nigerian, and which brings to more than 10 million, the number of Nigerian children that are out-of-school. Consequently, the ranking of Nigeria as 39th out of 54 African countries in overall governance is a reflection of lack of political will, weak leadership and overall governance. This must be overcome as the world heads towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 Agenda. The sample comprised of 494 participants generated from a cross section of the population in Nigeria. Data were analyzed through descriptive and Chi-Square statistical methods. It was found that effective reform management in Nigeria requires political will