An analysis of the effect of logistics involvement in cross-functional integrated new product development projects

The primary purpose of this dissertation was to empirically test the relationship between logistics involvement in new product development and improvements in new product development project performance and logistics performance. A logistics involvement new product model was developed that contained seven first order constructs: environmental uncertainty, improving information technology, time and quality based competition, global factors, cross-functional integration, new product development project performance, and logistics performance; and two second order constructs, logistics functional salience and logistics involvement

Investigations on fishery and biology of nine species of rays in Mumbai waters

Annual landings of rays by trawlers operating from New Ferry Wharf, Mumbai during 1990-2004 ranged from 205.7 t to 765.1 t with an average of 502.8 t constituting nearly 1 % of trawl catches. The trawling effort increased from 0.95 million hours (mh) in 1990 to 1.73 mh in 2004, whereas the catch rate declined from 0.65 kg h-1 in 1990 to 0.24 kg h-1 in 2004. There were two peak periods of abundance, September-December and February-April. Fourteen species of rays constituted the fishery, of which Himantura alcockii (50.1 %), Himantura bleekari (13.9 %), Amphotistius imbricatus (8.5 %) and Himantura uarnak (8.1 %) formed the mainstay of the fishery. Information on biology of H. alcockii, H. bleekeri, A. imbricatus, Pastinacus sephen, Dasyatis zugei, Gymnura japonica, G. poecilura and Mobula diabolus is also presented. It appears that the resource of rays off Mumbai may not be able to withstand any further increase in fishing effort. Innate biological characteristics such as limited brood size, late maturation and capture of spawning stock are the causes of continuous decline. Conservation measures are required to protect this resource from further depletion

Fishery and biology of threadfin bream, Nemipterus mesoprion from Mangalore-Malpe

The landings of threadfin breams recorded 8 fold increase during 1989 – 1998 period while the catch rate showed three-fold increase. Maximum catch and catch rate was observed in September-October. N. mesoprion has taken over the place of N. japonicus by forming 64% of the fishery. The mean size increased from 127 to 164 mm. Significant differences were found in the length-weight relationship between sexes. Males outnumbered females in all the months and the overall sex ratio was M-1: F-0.70, which significantly departs from the expected 1:1 ratio. The minimum size at first maturity of males was 145 mm and female, 125 mm. Spawning was prolonged with peak during August-November. The peak spawning indicated by GSI, is in general agreement with the percentage occurrence of maturity stages in different months. The fecundity ranged from 7,444 to 49,689 eggs. The stomach content analysis revealed that the species feed mainly on crustaceans

Intra-Pelvic Migration of Sliding Hip Screw During Osteosynthesis of Hip Fracture: A Rare Avoidable Intraoperative Complication.

Hip fractures, which are common among old patients, are classified into two groups: intracapsular and extracapsular fractures. Extracapsular fractures can be treated with extramedullary implants [e.g. dynamic hip screw (DHS)] or intramedullary nails. Dynamic hip screw is the treatment of choice in stable pertrochanteric fractures. Intrapelvic migration of the sliding screw is a very rare complication

Coral reef ecosystem - Monitoring and assessment using satellite data sets

Remaining in splendid isolation, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have a great relevance in the study of marine ecosystems. The islands, though remotely located in an ostensibly pristine environment have born witness to serious issues with regard to their ecosystem health. There are significant changes in the temperature and rain fall pattern in the islands and predictive modelling has forecasted further damage in the near future. The inundation of saline water into inland terrestrial ecosystems has created salinity stress to freshwater species while reducing the water available for domestic consumption. Terrestrial flora and fauna are vulnerable to the intruding saline waters. The marine ecosystem also faces grave challenges. There are issues of anthropogenic pollution resulting in damage of corals, regime shifts in community structure, water quality deterioration and other damage to marine fauna

Network-aware Evaluation Environment for Reputation Systems

Parties of reputation systems rate each other and use ratings to compute reputation scores that drive their interactions. When deciding which reputation model to deploy in a network environment, it is important to find the most suitable model and to determine its right initial configuration. This calls for an engineering approach for describing, implementing and evaluating reputation systems while taking into account specific aspects of both the reputation systems and the networked environment where they will run. We present a software tool (NEVER) for network-aware evaluation of reputation systems and their rapid prototyping through experiments performed according to user-specified parameters. To demonstrate effectiveness of NEVER, we analyse reputation models based on the beta distribution and the maximum likelihood estimation

High abundance of large sized rock cods (Epinephelus spp.) off Karnataka coast during the postmonsoon month of September

some of the multi-day units ventured into deeper waters (60-80 m) and obtained good catches of reef cods (Fig: 1) along with threadfin breams and cuttle fishes. Encouraged by this, more number of multi-day units were put into operation in September of the following year (1995) and got still better catches of reef cods

Climate change impact on the feeding habits of Indian mackerel observed along the Kerala coast

While most food and feeding research in fisheries emphasize the feeding habits and diet components of the fish, the aim of the present work was to assess any change in the diet composition of Indian mackerel Rastrelliger kanagurta (Cuvier, 1816) and identify the role of climate change in effecting it. Non-parametric statistical technique, the Generalized Additive Model (GAMs) was used for modeling the causal link of diet changes in relation to climate change using mgcv package of R software. Monthly Index of Relative Importance (IRI) was calculated for 36 months from January 2013 to December 2015 and major prey items in the diet were identified. Climatic variables - Sea Surface Temperature (SST), precipitation (Pr), Chlorophyll a (Chl a), salinity and Ekman transport or coastal upwelling index (CUI)) pertaining to the study area were extracted for the period. Length-wise IRI was compared to check the existing patterns in the feeding habits of the fish. The dominant prey items observed in the gut of Indian mackerel during the study period were diatoms ( Fragillaria sp., Nitzchia sp., Thalassiothrix sp., Thalassiosira sp. and Coscinodiscus sp.), dinoflagellates (Ceratium sp., Ornothocercus sp., Dinophysis sp. and Prorocentrum sp.), copepods (Calanoida, Cyclopoida and Harpacticoida), decapods (Acetes) and tintinnids (Tintinnopsis sp., Codenellopsis sp. and Flavella sp). GAM models were fitted with monthly IRI of the major prey items (copepods, diatoms, dinoflagellates, Acetes and tintinnids) in the gut and climatic variables. Model selection was done in terms of sharpening the relation between the predictors and the response variable using Akaike information criterion, R-squared and F-statistics. GAM model results revealed that occurrence of prey items in the diet of Indian mackerel were influenced by environmental variables. An increase in the relative importance of dinoflagellates, Acetes and tintintids in the diet over the historic period was observed. The study also revealed a shift in the diet composition of younger fishes. The results of the current study provide a more in-depth assessment of the nonlinear relationship between climatic variables and diet composition of Indian mackerel

Marine catfish resources of India

The marine catfish production showed a continuously declining trend all along the Indian Coast, from 67,666 t (1982) to 37,518 t (1995), while the situation is alarming along the SW and SE coast. This group is one of the most vulnerable resources for irrational harvest during their migratory and breeding phase. With the advent of mass harvesting gear like purse seine and trawlers, there has been a continuous onslaught on this resource during the periods of south bound or north bound migrations parallel to the coast. The damage is further aggravated when their spawning shoals are exploited from the surface often causing large scale destruction of parents and egg / embryos, leading to overfishing affecting the recruitment to the population. The paper gives the possible migratory route, seasons of vulnerability and impact of fishing gear on the resources. It is attempted to corelate the surface drift with the seasonal migrations. Various management practices are proposed to conserve the threatened species and suggested possible lines of exploitation preferably on the non-migratory species from distant waters in the middle shelf