Using the Delphi Technique to Identify BPM Capability Areas

Organizations increasingly recognize the need to adopt a process orientation as a means of approaching challenges such as globalization, Enterprise Systems implementations or alternative improvement perspectives. A comprehensive understanding of the operational capacity to support and extend BPM strategies is critical to this endeavour. To this end, organizations require appropriate frameworks, which assist in identifying and evaluating their BPM capabilities. The development of maturity models has long been recognized as a means of assessing capabilities within a given domain. However, due to the idiosyncratic structure of many of the more than 150 available maturity models they can not be translated into tools that are embraced and applied by practitioners. To address this issue, the Delphi technique has been adopted during the development of a maturity model for Business Process Management. This paper presents the design and conduct of the Delphi Study series including the major outcomes being definitions of the six factors critical to BPM (i.e. Strategic Alignment, Governance, Methods, Information Technology, People and Culture) and the identification of capability areas whose measurement is seen to be necessary for assessing the maturity of these factors

A Review of Indigenous Food Crops in Africa and the Implications for more Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems

Indigenous and traditional foods crops (ITFCs) have multiple uses within society, and most notably have an important role to play in the attempt to diversify the food in order to enhance food and nutrition security. However, research suggests that the benefits and value of indigenous foods within the South African and the African context have not been fully understood and synthesized. Their potential value to the African food system could be enhanced if their benefits were explored more comprehensively. This synthesis presents a literature review relating to underutilized indigenous crop species and foods in Africa. It organizes the findings into four main contributions, nutritional, environmental, economic, and social-cultural, in line with key themes of a sustainable food system framework. It also goes on to unpack the benefits and challenges associated with ITFCs under these themes. A major obstacle is that people are not valuing indigenous foods and the potential benefit that can be derived from using them is thus neglected. Furthermore, knowledge is being lost from one generation to the next, with potentially dire implications for long-term sustainable food security. The results show the need to recognize and enable indigenous foods as a key resource in ensuring healthy food systems in the African continent

Creating space for biodiversity by planning swath patterns and field marging using accurate geometry

Potential benefits of field margins or boundary strips include promotion of biodiversity and farm wildlife, maintaining landscape diversity, exploiting pest predators and parasites and enhancing crop pollinator populations. In this paper we propose and demonstrate a method to relocate areas of sub-efficient machine manoeuvring to boundary strips so as to optimise the use of available space. Accordingly, the boundary strips will have variable rather than fixed widths. The method is being tested in co-operation with seven farmers in the Hoeksche Waard within the province of Zuid Holland, The Netherlands. In a preliminary stage of the project, tests were performed to determine the required accuracy of field geometry. The results confirmed that additional data acquisition using accurate measuring devices is required. In response, a local contracting firm equipped a small all-terrain vehicle (quad) with an RTK-GPS receiver and set up a service for field measurement. Protocols were developed for requesting a field measurement and for the measurement procedure itself. Co-ordinate transformation to a metric system and brute force optimization of swath patterns are achieved using an open source geospatial library (osgeo.ogr) and Python scripting. The optimizer basically tests all orientations and relevant intermediate angles of input field boundaries and tries incremental positional shifts until the most efficient swath pattern is found. Inefficient swaths intersecting boundary areas are deleted to create space for field margins. The optimised pattern can be forwarded to an agricultural navigation system. At the time of the conference, the approach will have been tested on several farm fields

Equilibrium states for potentials with \sup\phi - \inf\phi < \htop(f)

In the context of smooth interval maps, we study an inducing scheme approach to prove existence and uniqueness of equilibrium states for potentials $\phi$ with he `bounded range' condition \sup \phi - \inf \phi < \htop, first used by Hofbauer and Keller. We compare our results to Hofbauer and Keller's use of Perron-Frobenius operators. We demonstrate that this `bounded range' condition on the potential is important even if the potential is H\"older continuous. We also prove analyticity of the pressure in this context.Comment: Added Lemma 6 to deal with the disparity between leading eigenvalues and operator norms. Added extra references and corrected some typo

Equilibrium and transport properties of CO2+N2O and CO2+NO mixtures : a molecular simulation and equation of state modelling study.

International audienceIn the present study, the thermodynamic behaviour and transport properties of CO2+N2O and CO2+NO mixtures have been investigated using molecular simulation and equation of state modelling. Molecular simulations were based on Monte Carlo and Molecular Dynamics calculations using force fields calibrated from pure component properties and no adjustment of mixture properties was performed. Original force fields were proposed for N2O, NO and N2O2 molecules. Special attention must be paid when studying nitric oxide containing systems because this compound can exist as a mixture of monomers (NO) and dimers (N2O2) under certain pressure and temperature conditions. Liquid-vapour coexistence properties of the reacting NO-N2O2 system were thus first investigated using combined reaction ensemble and Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlo methods. Using the new force fields proposed, phase compositions, phase densities and phase viscosities were determined for CO2+NOx mixtures. Due to the strong similarities between carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide (Tc(CO2) = 304.21 K; Tc(N2O) = 309.57 K; Pc(CO2) = 7.38 MPa; Pc(N2O) = 7.24 MPa), the obtained thermodynamic and transport properties for a CO2+N2O mixture with 10 mol% of N2O are similar to pure CO2 properties in the whole range of studied temperatures (273 - 293 K), in agreement with available experimental data. Calculations of CO2+NO equilibrium and transport properties were also performed at three different temperatures in the range of 253 - 273 K. At these temperatures, only the monomer form of the nitric oxide (NO) has to be accounted for. The performed calculations are pure predictions since no experimental data are available in the open literature for this system. For a mixture containing 10 mol% of NO, the simulation results show a decrease of the liquid densities and viscosities of 9% and 24% with respect to corresponding pure CO2 values, respectively. The new pseudo-experimental data generated in this work were finally used to calibrate binary interaction parameters required in standard cubic equations of states. Both Peng-Robinson and Soave-Redlich-Kwong equations of state have been considered and after the regression, they display a decent match with experimental and pseudo-experimental data of the vapour-liquid equilibrium for the two studied mixtures

Comparing consumer perceptions of appliances' electricity use to appliances' actual direct-metered consumption

Many strategies for reducing residential energy consumption—including product labelling programs, subsidies for the purchase of efficient devices, behavioral programs that encourage efficient energy use, and others—rely on building owners and end users to make informed investment and operational decisions. These strategies may be ineffective if consumers are unaware of how much electricity is used by different devices in their homes and buildings. This study therefore compares consumers' perceptions of their appliances' electricity use to these appliances' actual direct-metered electricity consumption. Using an online survey, 118 homeowners from Austin, Texas were asked to estimate the energy consumption of six household devices which were monitored in the participants' homes. Homeowners were randomly assigned to assess their appliance-specific electricity use in terms of energy units (kWh/month) or energy cost units ($/month) for an average summer month. Consistent with previous studies, participants overestimated the energy consumed by their low energy consuming devices and slightly underestimated that of their most energy-consuming device. Results also showed that responses of the experimental groups estimating their consumption in energy units and energy cost units were similar, the accuracy of the two groups' perceptions was similar, and levels of confidence in the two groups were similar. These results suggest that targeted information campaigns focused on air conditioning energy consumption and device power reduction opportunities could improve consumer decision-making to save energy and reduce demand

Contrast in Terahertz Images of Archival Documents—Part I: Influence of the Optical Parameters from the Ink and Support

This study aims to objectively inform curators when terahertz time-domain (TD) imaging set in reflection mode is likely to give well-contrasted images of inscriptions in a complex archival document and is a useful non-invasive alternative to current digitisation processes. To this end, the dispersive refractive indices and absorption coefficients from various archival materials are assessed and their influence on contrast in terahertz images from historical documents is explored. Sepia ink and inks produced with bistre or verdigris mixed with a solution of Arabic gum or rabbit skin glue are unlikely to lead to well-contrasted images. However, dispersions of bone black, ivory black, iron gall ink, malachite, lapis lazuli, minium and vermilion are likely to lead to well-contrasted images. Inscriptions written with lamp black, carbon black and graphite give the best imaging results. The characteristic spectral signatures from iron gall ink, minium and vermilion pellets between 5 and 100 cm−1 relate to a ringing effect at late collection times in TD waveforms transmitted through these pellets. The same ringing effect can be probed in waveforms reflected from iron gall, minium and vermilion ink deposits at the surface of a document. Since TD waveforms collected for each scanning pixel can be Fourier-transformed into spectral information, terahertz TD imaging in reflection mode can serve as a hyperspectral imaging tool. However, chemical recognition and mapping of the ink is currently limited by the fact that the morphology of the document influences more the terahertz spectral response of the document than the resonant behaviour of the ink

Extracellular Vesicles:Novel Opportunities to Understand and Detect Neoplastic Diseases

With a size range from 30 to 1000 nm, extracellular vesicles (EVs) are one of the smallest cell components able to transport biologically active molecules. They mediate intercellular communications and play a fundamental role in the maintenance of tissue homeostasis and pathogenesis in several types of diseases. In particular, EVs actively contribute to cancer initiation and progression, and there is emerging understanding of their role in creation of the metastatic niche. This fact underlies the recent exponential growth in EV research, which has improved our understanding of their specific roles in disease and their potential applications in diagnosis and therapy. EVs and their biomolecular cargo reflect the state of the diseased donor cells, and can be detected in body fluids and exploited as biomarkers in cancer and other diseases. Relatively few studies have been published on EVs in the veterinary field. This review provides an overview of the features and biology of EVs as well as recent developments in EV research including techniques for isolation and analysis, and will address the way in which the EVs released by diseased tissues can be studied and exploited in the field of veterinary pathology. Uniquely, this review emphasizes the important contribution that pathologists can make to the field of EV research: pathologists can help EV scientists in studying and confirming the role of EVs and their molecular cargo in diseased tissues and as biomarkers in liquid biopsies