Adapting Project Management Standards – Deriving Guidance from Reference Modelling

Project management standards provide an inventory of commonly accepted processes and tools which claim to be applicable in most cases. Project success largely depends on the suitability of the project management method and thus requires an adaptation of these standards for specific project types and contextual factors. This can be supported through the development of detailed, re-usable guidelines on how to “customize” standards. The goal of this paper is to analyse the potential offered by the field of reference modelling for this purpose. Here, design principles support the transfer and extension of knowledge from a reference model into an application model and can in principle all be transferred into project management. However, this paper shows that limitations occur due to the current design of project management standards. This topic is of utmost importance for IT projects, as they are differ from more conventional project types and thus call for larger alterations

Towards A Situational Approach In Managing Collaborative Research Projects In IS – Finding The Right Contigency Factors

Organisations that engage in research activities with industry and academic partners face many challenges in the effective management of such collaborative projects. These projects have different facets which even change over time. Examples are explorative and creative phases in which innovative research ideas and results are investigated, followed by concrete development tasks that aim at validating and prototyping these ideas. Different project management approaches are required to address each situation adequately. Building on organisational contingency theory, we argue that the project management (PM) approach needs to consider specific contingency factors characterising different context situations of a project. We analyse relevant characteristics by means of a structured literature review and summarise our findings in a morphological framework. We distinguish resource related, outcome-related and process-related contingency factors which can be used to develop PM contingency profiles for collaborative research projects. The profiles describe a certain project situation together with the most suited management style. Application scenarios are given to illustrate the impact of our results for project managers in a collaborative research project

Towards Creativity-Aware Project Management – An Initial Study on Creativity in Research Projects

Creativity is a key resource in research projects where uncertainty is high and working methods and outcomes are only loosely defined. Project management has to ensure that it encourages, channels and manages creativity, while, at the same time, optimises the typical constraints of resources, time and scope. This can only be successfully done if emphasis is put on understanding the core of any creative project: the occurrence and nature of creativity. This paper documents an exploratory case study which analyses how creative work is distributed along various project phases and how it can be characterised and attributed. Two types of creativity within research projects have been identified: Creativity of the technical project lead to create and manage the project vision and creativity of the subject matter experts to generate research results. An understanding of their differences and implications helps project managers in the definition of a suitable management approach for research projects

A conceptualisation of management situations relevant for collaborative IS research projects

Collaborative research projects as a means to organise Information Systems research and prototyping activities become increasingly widespread. Their management is challenged by a multiplicity of different partners, activities and results. Required is a project management approach that allows for flexibility within the project life-cycle to address changing needs. We present research in progress aimed at conceptualising the notion of project management relevant situations in this context. This discriminates the conditions and circumstances under which management involvement becomes necessary and thus enables the definition of a suitable management approach. We identify a set of constituent factors to describe different situations based on a literature review and interviews with project managers involved in collaborative research projects. Future research is presented with respect to completing the full analysis cycle of our thematic analysis and the development of a situation-specific project management approach

A framework of issues in large process modeling projects

As process management projects have increased in size due to globalised and company-wide initiatives, a corresponding growth in the size of process modeling projects can be observed. Despite advances in languages, tools and methodologies, several aspects of these projects have been largely ignored by the academic community. This paper makes a first contribution to a potential research agenda in this field by defining the characteristics of large-scale process modeling projects and proposing a framework of related issues. These issues are derived from a semi-structured interview and six focus groups conducted in Australia, Germany and the USA with enterprise and modeling software vendors and customers. The focus groups confirm the existence of unresolved problems in business process modeling projects. The outcomes provide a research agenda which directs researchers into further studies in global process management, process model decomposition and the overall governance of process modeling projects. It is expected that this research agenda will provide guidance to researchers and practitioners by focusing on areas of high theoretical and practical relevance

Nanoemulsions as delivery systems of hydrophobic silybin from silymarin extract: Effect of oil type on silybin solubility, invitro bioaccessibility and stability

The potential of nanoemulsion delivery systems to carry silybin from silymarin extract was studied. To this purpose, sunflower oil, extra virgin olive oil and castor oil were used to prepare silymarin loaded nanoemulsions. The effect of oil type on the silybin solubility and i. n vitro bioaccessibility was evaluated. Moreover, the changes in particle size, silybin concentration, oxygen consumption and hydroperoxide concentration were studied in nanoemulsions during storage at 20\ub0C. Results showed that silybin can be successfully incorporated into physically stable nanoemulsions prepared with the different oils. The oil type slightly influenced the silybin invitro bioaccessibility, while it affected the nanoemulsion particle size as well as silybin stability during storage. In particular, silybin underwent degradation, showing lower stability in extra virgin oil and sunflower oil than in castor oil. Results also showed that the presence of the silymarin extract containing silybin did not affect the oxidation kinetics of the carrier oils. \ua9 2015 Elsevier Ltd

Properties of the permeability transition of pea stem mitochondria

In striking analogy with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, etiolated pea stem mitochondria did not show appreciable Ca2+ uptake. Only treatment with the ionophore ETH129 (which allows electrophoretic Ca2+ equilibration) caused Ca2+ uptake followed by increased inner membrane permeability, membrane depolarization and Ca2+ release. Like the permeability transition (PT) of mammals, yeast and Drosophila, the PT of pea stem mitochondria was stimulated by diamide and phenylarsine oxide and inhibited by MgADP and Mg-ATP, suggesting a common underlying mechanism; yet, the plant PT also displayed distinctive features: (i) as in mammals it was desensitized by cyclosporin A, which does not affect the PT of yeast and Drosophila; (ii) similarly to S. cerevisiae and Drosophila it was inhibited by Pi, which stimulates the PT of mammals; (iii) like in mammals and Drosophila it was sensitized by benzodiazepine 423, which is ineffective in S. cerevisiae; (iv) like what observed in Drosophila it did not mediate swelling and cytochrome c release, which is instead seen in mammals and S. cerevisiae. We find that cyclophilin D, the mitochondrial receptor for cyclosporin A, is present in pea stem mitochondria. These results indicate that the plant PT has unique features and suggest that, as in Drosophila, it may provide pea stem mitochondria with a Ca2+ release channel

EP4 receptor stimulation down-regulates human eosinophil function

Accumulation of eosinophils in tissue is a hallmark of allergic inflammation. Here we observed that a selective agonist of the PGE2 receptor EP4, ONO AE1-329, potently attenuated the chemotaxis of human peripheral blood eosinophils, upregulation of the adhesion molecule CD11b and the production of reactive oxygen species. These effects were accompanied by the inhibition of cytoskeletal rearrangement and Ca2+ mobilization. The involvement of the EP4 receptor was substantiated by a selective EP4 antagonist, which reversed the inhibitory effects of PGE2 and the EP4 agonist. Selective kinase inhibitors revealed that the inhibitory effect of EP4 stimulation on eosinophil migration depended upon activation of PI 3-kinase and PKC, but not cAMP. Finally, we found that EP4 receptors are expressed by human eosinophils, and are also present on infiltrating leukocytes in inflamed human nasal mucosa. These data indicate that EP4 agonists might be a novel therapeutic option in eosinophilic diseases

Do dimers of ATP synthase form the PTP in pea stem mitochondria?

In animal cells Ca2+ and ROS induce a sudden change in the inner mitochondrial membrane permeability, which has been named Permeability Transition (PT). Recently, it has been proposed that dimers of F-ATP synthase form the Permeability Transition Pore (PTP), the megachannel involved in this phenomenon [1]. This feature has not yet been characterized in plants, even if their mitochondria possess the candidate components for PTP formation. Therefore, wecharacterized the functional properties of PTP in plant mitochondria and verified if F-ATP synthase possesses channel function in electrophysiology experiments. Mitochondria isolated from pea stem underwent PT when Ca2+ was added in the presence of the ionophore ETH129. The membrane electrical potential was then collapsed and the phenomenon matched by Ca2+ release but not by mitochondrial swelling. As is observed with the PT of animal mitochondria, Cyclosporin A (CsA) significantly delayed occurrence of PT, which was inhibited by Mg2+-nucleotides and favored by benzodiazepine Bz-423 and oxidants, such as phenylarsine oxide and diamide. In electrophysiology experiments, F-ATP synthase dimers inserted into an artificial bilayer showed channel activity characterized by a rather small conductance, which could explain the inability of plant PTP to mediate mitochondrial swelling. These data suggest that F-ATP synthase is involved in PTP formation also in plant mitochondria

Burden of disease attributable to risk factors in European countries: a scoping literature review

Objectives: Within the framework of the burden of disease (BoD) approach, disease, and injury burden estimates attributable to risk factors are a useful guide for policy formulation and priority setting in disease prevention. Considering the important differences in methods, and their impact on burden estimates, we conducted a scoping literature review to: (1) map the BoD assessments including risk factors performed across Europe, and (2) identify the methodological choices in comparative risk assessment (CRA) and risk assessment methods. Methods: We searched multiple literature databases, including grey literature websites, and targeted public health agencies' websites. Results: A total of 113 studies were included in the synthesis and further divided into independent BoD assessments (54 studies) and studies linked to the Global Burden of Disease (59 papers). Our results showed that the methods used to perform CRA varied substantially across independent European BoD studies. While there were some methodological choices that were more common than others, we did not observe patterns in terms of country, year, or risk factor. Each methodological choice can affect the comparability of estimates between and within countries and/or risk factors since they might significantly influence the quantification of the attributable burden. From our analysis, we observed that the use of CRA was less common for some types of risk factors and outcomes. These included environmental and occupational risk factors, which are more likely to use bottom-up approaches for health outcomes where disease envelopes may not be available. Conclusions: Our review also highlighted misreporting, the lack of uncertainty analysis, and the under-investigation of causal relationships in BoD studies. Development and use of guidelines for performing and reporting BoD studies will help understand differences, and avoid misinterpretations thus improving comparability among estimates.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio