Structural Capital Management: A Guide For Indicators

Intellectual Capital is of vital importance, both for the scientific community and business reality. For this reason, over the past decades its relevance has rapidly increased. Within Intellectual Capital (from here on IC), Structural Capital (from here on, SC) plays an outstanding paper, given that is represents the part of knowledge that the organization is able to explicit, systematize and internalize and that, initially, is latent in employees or teams. This type of capital allows for organizational effectiveness improvement through the transmission of knowledge.The objectives of this paper is, first, to identify the elements of IC that help to guarantee the success of companies belonging to a given sector, paying special attention to the contributions of SC to IC. Second, and after observing that most existing papers are centered only on the measurement of SC and, therefore, leave aside elements regarding its management, our proposal fills this gap and includes various general indicators for SC that may help to manage it adequately. The basic aim is to allow managers themselves to choose the most adequate indicators within those presented, taking into account, of course, characteristics, objectives and strategies of the companies they manage

Agro-Ecological Zoning for Tall Wheatgrass (Thinopyrum Ponticum) as a Potential Energy and Forage Crop in Salt-Affected and Dry Lands of Argentina

Thinopyrum ponticum, is the most disseminated halophyte speciescultivated for forage on hydro-halomorphic soils in the world. Theobjective of the present work was to identify the geographicareas fordevelopment of tall wheatgrass on halomorphic soils in Argentina, for forageand as feedstock for bioenergy. To define the agroclimate in Argentina, we considered the thermal and hydric limits of the species in its place of originand in locations where it is successfully cultivated around the world. The maps corresponding to the bioclimatic indices were drawn using a GIS, andthe map obtained by overlaying them defined the agroclimatic suitability. Thiszoning was finally superimposed on the drylands saline and alkaline soils inthecountry, thus defining the agro-ecological suitability of Argentina forthis species under different moisture regimes: moist-subhumid,dry-subhumid, semiarid to arid climate. The the agro-ecological zoning showsthe potential growing areas for tall wheatgrass in Argentina on soils withhalomorphism processes under dry climates.Fil: Falasca, Silvia Liliana. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación de Recursos Naturales. Instituto de Clima y Agua; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Miranda del Fresno, Ma. Carolina. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Humanas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Pitta-alvarez, Sandra Irene. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Micología y Botánica. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Micología y Botánica; Argentin

An Atlas of Praxes and Political Possibilities: Radical Collective Action and Urban Transformations

Cities are now front and centre of many community-led radical urban transition and transformation initiatives. They are breeding grounds for multidimensional societal problems spanning environmental degradation, massive greenhouse gas emissions, dispossession and exclusion. As nests of development and crises, they function as arenas of contestation over neoliberal policies that commodify and privatise space and life which in turn reproduce marginality and injustice. Yet at the same time, cities invite a radical openness to transformation (see Yiftachel 2015). This chapter offers a survey of existing transnational initiatives promoting urban trans- formation. Drawing mostly from the Transformative Cities Atlas of Utopias (henceforth TC Atlas) and Fearless Cities, we present cases of community action across the world and consider different praxes that emerge from local movements. In what follows, we highlight that these growing transnational initiatives and trans-solidarity platforms are deeply rooted in local and national movements, and share a fundamental desire to envisage and create people-centred places. Hence, we regard the ‘urban commons’ and transformative cities as praxes of radical urban transformation. But rather than underlining the prospects of replicability and upscaling, we choose instead to unravel parallels between and draw lessons from these praxes. We anchor our analysis of radical urban transformations and alternatives in a critique of capitalism, patriarchy and growth-centred economy

Heavy Triplet Leptons and New Gauge Boson

A heavy triplet of leptons $(\Sigma^+, \Sigma^0, \Sigma^-)_R$ per family is proposed as the possible anchor of a small seesaw neutrino mass. A new U(1) gauge symmetry is then also possible, and the associated gauge boson $X$ may be discovered at or below the TeV scale. We discuss the phenomenology of this proposal, with and without possible constraints from the NuTeV and atomic parity violation experiments, which appear to show small discrepancies from the predictions of the standard model.Comment: 20 pages including 4 figure

Using Flow Cytometry to Analyze Cryptococcus Infection of Macrophages.

Flow cytometry is a powerful analytical technique, which is increasingly being used to study the interaction between host cells and intracellular pathogens. Flow cytometry is capable of measuring a greater number of infected cells within a sample compared to alternative techniques such as fluorescence microscopy. This means that robust quantification of rare events during infection is possible. Our lab and others have developed flow cytometry methods to study interactions between host cells and intracellular pathogens, such as Cryptococcus neoformans, to quantify phagocytosis, intracellular replication, and non-lytic expulsion or "vomocytosis" from the phagosome. Herein we describe these methods and how they can be applied to the study of C. neoformans as well as other similar intracellular pathogens

Using Flow Cytometry to Analyze Cryptococcus Infection of Macrophages.

Flow cytometry is a powerful analytical technique, which is increasingly being used to study the interaction between host cells and intracellular pathogens. Flow cytometry is capable of measuring a greater number of infected cells within a sample compared to alternative techniques such as fluorescence microscopy. This means that robust quantification of rare events during infection is possible. Our lab and others have developed flow cytometry methods to study interactions between host cells and intracellular pathogens, such as Cryptococcus neoformans, to quantify phagocytosis, intracellular replication, and non-lytic expulsion or "vomocytosis" from the phagosome. Herein we describe these methods and how they can be applied to the study of C. neoformans as well as other similar intracellular pathogens

Latent Variable Multi-output Gaussian Processes for Hierarchical Datasets

Multi-output Gaussian processes (MOGPs) have been introduced to deal with multiple tasks by exploiting the correlations between different outputs. Generally, MOGPs models assume a flat correlation structure between the outputs. However, such a formulation does not account for more elaborate relationships, for instance, if several replicates were observed for each output (which is a typical setting in biological experiments). This paper proposes an extension of MOGPs for hierarchical datasets (i.e. datasets for which the relationships between observations can be represented within a tree structure). Our model defines a tailored kernel function accounting for hierarchical structures in the data to capture different levels of correlations while leveraging the introduction of latent variables to express the underlying dependencies between outputs through a dedicated kernel. This latter feature is expected to significantly improve scalability as the number of tasks increases. An extensive experimental study involving both synthetic and real-world data from genomics and motion capture is proposed to support our claims.Comment: 29 page

Gaussian Process Latent Force Models for Learning and Stochastic Control of Physical Systems

© 1963-2012 IEEE. This paper is concerned with learning and stochastic control in physical systems that contain unknown input signals. These unknown signals are modeled as Gaussian processes (GP) with certain parameterized covariance structures. The resulting latent force models can be seen as hybrid models that contain a first-principle physical model part and a nonparametric GP model part. We briefly review the statistical inference and learning methods for this kind of models, introduce stochastic control methodology for these models, and provide new theoretical observability and controllability results for them.The work of S. Sarkka was financially supported by the Academy of Finland. The work of M. A. Alvarez was supported in part by the EPSRC under Research Project EP/N014162/1

A Systems Dynamics Model To Analyze The Influence Of Financial Resources On The Percentage Of Franchised Units

In this paper, we analyze the evolution of the percentage of franchised units. For this purpose, the sample includes Spanish chains that were already franchising in 1997 and continue to do so in 2005 a nine year period-. Specifically, we study the influence of the availability/constraints of financial resources on the decision of the franchisor to invest in an additional chain unit or to franchise it. For this, we develop a simulation model using the Systems Dynamics methodology

A graduate’s employability study of bachelor of science in entrepreneurship of Isabela State University, Philippines

The bachelor of science in entrepreneurship (BSE) program is offered to address the needs of learners who want to obtain a degree adapted to their talents and abilities to contribute to the industrialization of the country. To assess transparency, the college has the responsibility to keep track of the success of its graduates and whether their curriculum has affected the person, the society, or the country. The graduate tracer analysis will aid in evaluating the employability of the graduate and define the multiple variables that will act as a framework for optimizing students’ college instruction and facilities. In this tracer study, 69 alumni who graduated from 2013 to 2017 were surveyed using a modified graduate tracer study (GTS) instrument, administered using social media and other digital platforms. The contribution to alumni employability of factors: curriculum, student services, facilities, faculty competence, methods of instruction, and career guidance-were quantified and ranked. Based on the results, the most significant factors contributing to alumni employability were course content/curriculum, student services (training, seminars), and facilities. As such, the researchers recommend strengthening the BSE curriculum, conducting employee training and seminars, and streamlining administrative facilities