The role of stakeholders and their relationships in the sustainability of telecentres

Purpose This paper aims to examine the role of stakeholders and their relationships in the sustainability of telecentres in Vietnam through the lens of stakeholder theory. Design/methodology/approach This study methodologically adopted a qualitative case study to identify stakeholders that have been involved in telecentres in Vietnam. It then categorizes those stakeholders’ salience through the lens of stakeholder identification and salience theory. Secondary data and interviews were used as data sources for the present paper. Findings The authors identify six main stakeholders that have been involved in telecentres, including the government, entrepreneurs, international donors, telecommunications providers, civil society organisations and individual community members/users. Among these stakeholders, the government, entrepreneurs and users belong to definitive stakeholders, which have the greatest impact on the sustainability of telecentres in comparison to other groups of stakeholders (e.g. dominant, dependent and dormant stakeholders). Moreover, the authors propose a model to identify the relationships of stakeholders towards the sustainability of telecentres. In particular, the authors indicate that each group of stakeholders has its own role in contributing to sustainable telecentres and they also influence others in either direct or indirect ways. Originality/value This study provides an additional approach for managers to make judgments in prioritizing the interests of some of their stakeholders while still maintaining a level of satisfaction among other stakeholders. For example, stakeholders that should be of the highest concern to the sustainability of telecentres are the government, entrepreneurs and users, while civil society organisations can be maintained in lower priority to other stakeholders. In addition, we propose the model of interactions and relationships of stakeholders, which can be seen as a starting point for a study on the roles of stakeholders in sustainability not only in telecentres, but also in other fields, such as digital transformation, cyber security and e-government.©2023 Emerald Publishing Limited. This manuscript version is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY–NC 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Optical properties of Eu3+ ions in boro-tellurite glass

The excitation, emission spectra and and lifetime of Eu-doped borotellurite glasses (BTe) have been investigated. The sideband phonon energy and electron-phonon coupling strength (g) have been found. The intensity parameters Ωλ were calculated from the emission spectrum. These parameters were used to predict radiative properties such as transition probabilities (AR), calculated branching ratios (βR) and stimulated emission cross-sections (σλp) for 5D0→7HJHFJ transitions

Detection of Luminescence Centers in Colloidal Cd0.3_{0.3}Zn0.7_{0.7}S Nanocrystals by Synchronous Luminescence Spectroscopy

With the advantages of selectivity, spectral resolution and reduction of interference on account of light scattering, synchronous luminescence spectroscopy (SLS) is successfully applied to analyze complex mixtures with overlapped emission and/or excitation spectra. In fact, it is difficult to clearly distinguish the contributions of various luminescence centers to low-energy band of semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs). Herein, we report the application of SLS method to detect luminescence centers in colloidal Cdsub0.3/subZnsub0.7/subS NCs. Their conventional luminescence and synchronous luminescence spectra were comparatively investigated. Differently from conventional luminescence spectrum, the emission peaks at 460 and 515 nm were found using SLS method. They are attributed to the emission transitions related to sulfur and zinc/cadmium vacancies. The obtained results are useful to clarify the nature of luminescence centers as well as relaxation mechanism in Cdsubx/subZnsub1-x/subS NCs

Clinically and microbiologically derived azithromycin susceptibility breakpoints for Salmonella enterica serovars Typhi and Paratyphi A.

Azithromycin is an effective treatment for uncomplicated infections with Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi and serovar Paratyphi A (enteric fever), but there are no clinically validated MIC and disk zone size interpretative guidelines. We studied individual patient data from three randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of antimicrobial treatment in enteric fever in Vietnam, with azithromycin used in one treatment arm, to determine the relationship between azithromycin treatment response and the azithromycin MIC of the infecting isolate. We additionally compared the azithromycin MIC and the disk susceptibility zone sizes of 1,640 S. Typhi and S. Paratyphi A clinical isolates collected from seven Asian countries. In the RCTs, 214 patients who were treated with azithromycin at a dose of 10 to 20 mg/ml for 5 to 7 days were analyzed. Treatment was successful in 195 of 214 (91%) patients, with no significant difference in response (cure rate, fever clearance time) with MICs ranging from 4 to 16 μg/ml. The proportion of Asian enteric fever isolates with an MIC of ≤ 16 μg/ml was 1,452/1,460 (99.5%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 98.9 to 99.7) for S. Typhi and 207/240 (86.3%; 95% CI, 81.2 to 90.3) (P 16 μg/ml and to determine MIC and disk breakpoints for S. Paratyphi A

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

A MINLP model for optimal localization of pumps as turbines in water distribution systems considering power generation constraints

Pressure reducing valves (PRVs) are commonly used for pressure control in water distribution systems (WDSs) by means of dissipating the pressure excess. The use of pumps as turbines (PATs) is an alternative and more favorable system since they not only control the system pressure to decrease water leakage, but also utilize the pressure excess to generate electrical energy. The optimal localization of PATs can be casted into a mixed-integer nonlinear program (MINLP) where binary variables are used to represent the presence of PATs on links. Most of the available MINLP models for optimal PAT localization adopted the optimization approaches for PRV localization without considering the bound constraints on flow rates and heads of PATs. As a result, such an optimization model may make PATs delivering a non-desired output. In this paper, we propose a new MINLP model for optimal PAT localization. Instead of using a constraint on the maximum number of PATs to be placed in a WDS, new constraints relating to the minimum power generated by PAT are introduced to find links having adequate flows and head drops for placing PATs. Moreover, constraints are used to restrict flows and heads of PATs to their feasible operating range, so that the problem can be efficiently solved. The proposed MINLP model is applied to the optimal localization of PATs for a WDS benchmark and a real-world WDS in Vietnam. The results demonstrate that the new MINLP model can efficiently identify optimal locations for PAT placement where the specified working range and minimum power generated by the PATs are ensured

Closed-Form Solution and Reliability Analysis of Deep Tunnel Supported by a Concrete Liner and a Covered Compressible Layer Within the Viscoelastic Burger Rock

International audienc

Modified AK-MCS method and its application on the reliability analysis of underground structures in the rock mass

This work aims at proposing the methodology on the basis of the extension of the famous reliability analysis, joining the Kriging and Monte Carlo Simulation (AK-MCS) metamodeling technique for analyzing the long-term stability of deep tunnel support constituted by two layers (a concrete liner covered with a compressible layer). A novel active learning function for selecting new training points enriches the Design of Experiment (DoE) of the built surrogate. This novel learning function, combined with an appropriate stopping criterion, improves the original AK-MCS method and significantly reduces the number of calls to the performance function. The efficiency of this modified AK-MCS method is demonstrated through two examples (a well-known academic problem and the case of a deep tunnel dug in the rock working viscoelastic Burgers model). In these examples, we illustrate the accuracy and performance of our method by comparing it with direct MCS and well-known Kriging metamodels (i.e., the classical AK-MCS and EGRA methods)

Kriging-based reliability analysis of the long-term stability of a deep drift constructed in the Callovo-Oxfordian claystone

International audienc

Effect of spatial variability of creep rock on the stability of a deep double-lined drift

International audienceThis work aims at investigating the effect of aleatoric uncertainty of creep rock properties on the stability of an underground structure. This uncertainty relates to the spatial variability of the mechanical parameters representing the time-dependent behavior of geological rock formation due to the change in its mineralogy. The chosen methodology consists of representing the aleatoric uncertainty of rock properties by random fields, written as correlation functions with respect to the spatial correlation length. The adaptation of the well-known Expansion Optimal Linear Estimationmethod (EOLE) is performed to account for the cross-correlation of the random fields of the viscoplastic parameters of the host rock. Then, the Kriging-based reliability analysis is undertaken with respect to the discretized random fields, which allows elucidating the effect of spatial variability. As an application, the proposed approach is chosen to study the stability in the long-term of a deep double-lined drift within the geological disposal facilities (Cigeo project) conducted by the French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency (Andra). The drift will be excavated in Callovo-Oxfordian (COx) claystone (if the Cigeo project is licensed), considered as a potential host rock for the deep geological nuclear waste disposal in France. The results show that the chosen Kriging metamodel for the reliability analysis can be appropriate for the case of high correlation length represented by a moderate number of random variables (up to about 50) after the discretization of random fields. Further, the consideration of aleatoric uncertainty exhibits a lower probability of exceedance in comparison with the case where spatial variability is ignored. Still, more investigations need to be conducted in the future to conclude this observation