Can IT Resources Lead to Sustainable Competitive Advantage?

Gaining sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) is a desire for almost every organization; however, acquiring such advantage is not an easy task. Many organizations implement information technology (IT) systems to be competitive in the market, and many researchers have examined the link between IT and SCA. Organizations need to focus not only on IT resources but also on how to manage these resources to be competitive in the marketplace. In this paper, a new model is proposed based on resource-based view and strategic alignment model. By linking strategic IT resources to alignment mechanisms, this model shows the ability of IT as a facilitator in gaining competitive advantage

In Vitro Evaluation oF Aerosol Drug Delivery With And Without High Flow Nasal Cannula Using Pressurized Metered Dose Inhaler And Jet Nebulizer in Pediatrics

Background: HFNC system is a novel device used with aerosol therapy and seems to be rapidly accepted. Although there are some studies conducted on HFNC and vibrating mesh nebulizer, the effect of HFNC on aerosol delivery using jet nebulizer or pressurized metered-dose inhaler (pMDI) has not been reported. In an effort to examine the effect of HFNC on aerosol deposition, this study was conducted to quantify aerosol drug delivery with or without a HFNC using either pMDI or jet nebulizer. Methodology: The SAINT model, attached to an absolute filter (Respirgard II, Vital Signs Colorado Inc., Englewood, CO, USA) for aerosol collection, was connected to a pediatric breathing simulator (Harvard Apparatus, Model 613, South Natick, MA, USA). To keep the filter and the SAINT model in upright position to collect aerosolized drug, an elbow adapter was connected between the absolute filter and the breathing simulator. An infant HFNC (Optiflow, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare LTD., Auckland, New Zealand) ran at 3 l/min O2 was attached to the nares of the SAINT model. Breathing parameters used in this study were Vt of 100 mL, RR of 30 breaths/min, and I:E ratio of 1: 1.4. Aerosol drug was administered using: 1) Misty-neb jet nebulizer (Allegiance Healthcare, McGaw Park, Illinois, USA) powered by air at 8 l/min using pediatric aerosol facemask (B&F Medical, Allied Healthcare Products, Saint Louis, MO, USA) to deliver albuterol sulfate (2.5 mg/3 mL NS), and 2) Four actuations of Ventolin HFA pMDI (90 μg/puff) (GlaxoSmithKline, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA) combined with VHC (AeroChamber plus with Flow-Vu, Monaghan Medical, Plattsburgh, NY, USA). Aerosol was administered to the model with and without the HFNC and another without (n=3). Drug was collected on an absolute filter, eluted and measured using spectrophotometry. Independent t tests were performed for data analysis. Statistical significance was determined with a p value of \u3c0.05. Results: The mean inhaled mass percent was greatest for pMDI with (p = 0.0001) or without HFNC (p = 0.003). Removing HFNC from the nares before aerosol treatment trended to increase drug delivery with the jet nebulizer (p = 0.024), and increased drug delivery by 6 fold with pMDI (p = 0.003). Conclusions: Aerosol drug may be administered in pediatrics receiving HFNC therapy using either jet nebulizer or pMDI. However, using pMDI, either with or without HFNC, is the best option. When delivering medical aerosol by mask, whether by jet nebulizer or pMDI, removing HFNC led to an increase in inhaled mass percent. However, the benefit of increased aerosol delivery must be weighed against the risk of lung derecruitment when nasal prongs are removed

A linear algebra approach to graph melting

Robustness is often regarded as the ability of a given system to maintain its functionality when faced with some external perturbation or when some of its parts fail to operate. The ability of the system to cope with disturbances vary from system to system, and there are many examples in daily life which illustrate this concept. Communication networks, for example, transportation and telephone networks, or the internet, often manage to cope with errors or damage within some of their components without leading to the system failing entirely. As an example, within a social network of employees within a company, the absence of some employees within some given threshold will not lead to failure of the company. However, in a financial network, economic failure in some parts of the system could lead to the complete failure of the entire system. In order to understand how external perturbations or failures within particular parts of the system affect a network we can study the robustness of the network. The robustness of a complex system in graph theory, is the ability of the network to maintain its connectivity after the removal of some nodes or edges. The process of changing of a graph from being connected to being disconnected, via deletion of nodes or edges, is called graph melting. We introduce a melting phase transition for simple connected graphs and networks faced with external perturbations with positive second largest eigenvalue λ2 > 0. In order to calibrate our method of studying network robustness, we consider the network-theoretic representation of some materials which, in the real-world, are affected by melting. In particular, we will consider granular materials. A granular material is a material which is composed of discrete macroscopic solid particles, for example, sand, rice, and coffee. Granular materials are commonly used in a wide range of real world applications. There are already various models of granular materials within network theory, which has allowed us to study the structure and physical behaviour of such systems when they have an external perturbations applied to them. In this thesis, we represent granular solids by simple graphs capturing their topological structure and ordering, in order to study their robustness and the melting process. The melting process is related to the algebraic structure of the adjacency matrix of the graph and the concept of network communicability. At the melting phase transition, a graph in question transfers from being connected to being disconnected. We study melting in graphs with the second largest eigenvalue being positive, namely, in windmill graphs, dumbbell graphs and cycle graphs. Also, we investigate melting in complete multipartite graphs where the second largest eigenvalue is non-positive. We found a melting phase transition in simple connected graphs with λ2 > 0 and λ2 � λ3, which resembles the melting process of a given system. We found that there is no melting phase transition in complete multipartite graphs. Also, we found the spectral decomposition for dumbbell graphs and complete multipartite graphs, which until now have not been done. Moreover, in this thesis, we show that crystalline-like granular materials melt at lower temperatures and display a sharper transition between solid to liquid phases than amorphous granular materials. In addition, we show the evolution mechanism of melting in these granular materials with tools from network theory. In the particular case of crystalline materials, the process starts by melting the central core of the crystal network, then melting spreads out from the central core until the whole network (material) transfers into a liquid. We also investigate computationally the melting process in some real-world networks. We found that the melting process of a network correlates well with the topological structure of the network.Robustness is often regarded as the ability of a given system to maintain its functionality when faced with some external perturbation or when some of its parts fail to operate. The ability of the system to cope with disturbances vary from system to system, and there are many examples in daily life which illustrate this concept. Communication networks, for example, transportation and telephone networks, or the internet, often manage to cope with errors or damage within some of their components without leading to the system failing entirely. As an example, within a social network of employees within a company, the absence of some employees within some given threshold will not lead to failure of the company. However, in a financial network, economic failure in some parts of the system could lead to the complete failure of the entire system. In order to understand how external perturbations or failures within particular parts of the system affect a network we can study the robustness of the network. The robustness of a complex system in graph theory, is the ability of the network to maintain its connectivity after the removal of some nodes or edges. The process of changing of a graph from being connected to being disconnected, via deletion of nodes or edges, is called graph melting. We introduce a melting phase transition for simple connected graphs and networks faced with external perturbations with positive second largest eigenvalue λ2 > 0. In order to calibrate our method of studying network robustness, we consider the network-theoretic representation of some materials which, in the real-world, are affected by melting. In particular, we will consider granular materials. A granular material is a material which is composed of discrete macroscopic solid particles, for example, sand, rice, and coffee. Granular materials are commonly used in a wide range of real world applications. There are already various models of granular materials within network theory, which has allowed us to study the structure and physical behaviour of such systems when they have an external perturbations applied to them. In this thesis, we represent granular solids by simple graphs capturing their topological structure and ordering, in order to study their robustness and the melting process. The melting process is related to the algebraic structure of the adjacency matrix of the graph and the concept of network communicability. At the melting phase transition, a graph in question transfers from being connected to being disconnected. We study melting in graphs with the second largest eigenvalue being positive, namely, in windmill graphs, dumbbell graphs and cycle graphs. Also, we investigate melting in complete multipartite graphs where the second largest eigenvalue is non-positive. We found a melting phase transition in simple connected graphs with λ2 > 0 and λ2 � λ3, which resembles the melting process of a given system. We found that there is no melting phase transition in complete multipartite graphs. Also, we found the spectral decomposition for dumbbell graphs and complete multipartite graphs, which until now have not been done. Moreover, in this thesis, we show that crystalline-like granular materials melt at lower temperatures and display a sharper transition between solid to liquid phases than amorphous granular materials. In addition, we show the evolution mechanism of melting in these granular materials with tools from network theory. In the particular case of crystalline materials, the process starts by melting the central core of the crystal network, then melting spreads out from the central core until the whole network (material) transfers into a liquid. We also investigate computationally the melting process in some real-world networks. We found that the melting process of a network correlates well with the topological structure of the network

An Enhanced Source Location Privacy based on Data Dissemination in Wireless Sensor Networks (DeLP)

open access articleWireless Sensor Network is a network of large number of nodes with limited power and computational capabilities. It has the potential of event monitoring in unattended locations where there is a chance of unauthorized access. The work that is presented here identifies and addresses the problem of eavesdropping in the exposed environment of the sensor network, which makes it easy for the adversary to trace the packets to find the originator source node, hence compromising the contextual privacy. Our scheme provides an enhanced three-level security system for source location privacy. The base station is at the center of square grid of four quadrants and it is surrounded by a ring of flooding nodes, which act as a first step in confusing the adversary. The fake node is deployed in the opposite quadrant of actual source and start reporting base station. The selection of phantom node using our algorithm in another quadrant provides the third level of confusion. The results show that Dissemination in Wireless Sensor Networks (DeLP) has reduced the energy utilization by 50% percent, increased the safety period by 26%, while providing a six times more packet delivery ratio along with a further 15% decrease in the packet delivery delay as compared to the tree-based scheme. It also provides 334% more safety period than the phantom routing, while it lags behind in other parameters due to the simplicity of phantom scheme. This work illustrates the privacy protection of the source node and the designed procedure may be useful in designing more robust algorithms for location privac

Resource Efficient Authentication and Session Key Establishment Procedure for Low-Resource IoT Devices

open access journalThe Internet of Things (IoT) can includes many resource-constrained devices, with most usually needing to securely communicate with their network managers, which are more resource-rich devices in the IoT network. We propose a resource-efficient security scheme that includes authentication of devices with their network managers, authentication between devices on different networks, and an attack-resilient key establishment procedure. Using automated validation with internet security protocols and applications tool-set, we analyse several attack scenarios to determine the security soundness of the proposed solution, and then we evaluate its performance analytically and experimentally. The performance analysis shows that the proposed solution occupies little memory and consumes low energy during the authentication and key generation processes respectively. Moreover, it protects the network from well-known attacks (man-in-the-middle attacks, replay attacks, impersonation attacks, key compromission attacks and denial of service attacks)

Two Siblings with Familial Chylomicronemia Syndrome: Disease Course and Effectiveness of Early Treatment

There are no adequate data that evaluate the safety and effectiveness of lowering triglyceride levels in very young children. The authors report a family with two male siblings, 7 and 4 years old, affected by familial hyperchylomicronemia. The oldest was diagnosed at birth during evaluation of jaundice, and the youngest showed asymptomatic hypertriglyceridemia by 6 months of age. Due to high triglyceride levels, Gemfibrozil (a fibric acid derivative) was started at diagnosis. Close clinical followup and laboratory monitoring of these children showed no side effects from the drug, and the risk of acute pancreatitis was significantly reduced

The Impact of Climate Change on Agricultural Operations: an Applied Study on Crops in the Jordan Valley

Climate change, as manifested through its multifaceted dimensions encompassing economic, social, and security effects, on agricultural activities within the Jordan Valley region. The research sample encompassed a group of 9000 agricultural practitioners residing in the Jordan Valley region. Employing the well-established Morgan model, a representative subset of 368 individuals was selected through a random sampling technique. The questionnaires were disseminated among the participants of the study, resulting in the retrieval of a total of 350 questionnaires. Upon careful examination, it was determined that 340 of these questionnaires were deemed valid and suitable for analysis. A meticulously crafted survey instrument was devised to systematically gather firsthand information. The research employed a quantitative (descriptive analytical) methodology to examine the data and evaluate hypotheses by employing suitable statistical techniques available in the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).  The findings of the study indicate a noteworthy and statistically significant relationship between climate change and agricultural operations. The analysis yielded a substantial coefficient of determination (R²=68.5%), suggesting that approximately 68.5% of the changes observed in agricultural operations can be attributed to the influence of climate change. The study proposes a strategic approach to enhance farmers' understanding of the indirect impact of climate change on various economic sectors, including manufacturing, energy production, transportation, and other services. This can be achieved through the implementation of educational initiatives, such as seminars and awareness sessions, which actively engage farmers in the learning process

Decision Support Capabilities of Enterprise Content Management: A Framework

Enterprise content management (ECM) systems help firms deal with the increasing amounts and complexity of structured and unstructured organizational data. However the ECM literature shows that many organizations focus on the short-term benefits of ECM while the potential strategic decision-making benefits are rarely considered. Therefore, the objective of this research-in-progress paper is to investigate the association between ECM and decision support and to draw attention to the potential application of ECM technology for decision-making activities. This study introduces a framework linking ECM to decision-making activities, and presents five propositions based on the published literature

Research-in-Progress: Strategic Information Systems Planning in Saudi Arabian Educational Institutions

Strategic information systems planning (SISP) is important as it allows organizations to more effectively deploy information systems. Although this importance of SISP is brought to attention in the information systems literature, findings from several studies indicate the need for a holistic strategic plan for information technology in educational institutions. The literature also shows limited evidence of existing SISP influence in Arab countries. Therefore, the focus of this research-in-progress paper is on the current status of SISP in Saudi Arabian educational institutions. The theoretical background and the research instrument are presented here