Improving Negotiation Outcomes Between American And Chinese Partners: A Framework For Practice

Cross-cultural negotiations between the United States and China at government level, business level as well as individual level are important for both countries. However, current empirical findings about the cross-cultural negotiations outcomes indicate that they tend to be inferior to those obtained in intra-cultural negotiations due to various barriers, which include differences of language, ethical systems, and a range of cultural traits from risk-propensity to individualism. For Americans bargaining with persons from collectivist cultures such as China can be especially difficult, compounded by group dynamics such as in-group favoritism, inter-group attributions, as well as, histories of conflict and suspicion of foreigners. Attaining to effective positive-sum bargaining requires, among other factors, a perception of one’s counterpart as ethical, a predictable process of information disclosure and the building of trust. These are especially important in cross-cultural negotiations involving Chinese partners. In this paper we review the barriers to effective cross-cultural bargaining between Americans and Chinese partners and provide a framework for improved outcomes, with a special focus on factors such as group dynamics, information disclosure and Confucian ethical framing. The framework could be useful tool for improving bargaining practices between government officials and business managers between the countries

Genetics of Type 2 Diabetes - Pitfalls and Possibilities

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a complex disease that is caused by a complex interplay between genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors. While the major environmental factors, diet and activity level, are well known, identification of the genetic factors has been a challenge. However, recent years have seen an explosion of genetic variants in risk and protection of T2D due to the technical development that has allowed genome-wide association studies and next-generation sequencing. Today, more than 120 variants have been convincingly replicated for association with T2D and many more with diabetes-related traits. Still, these variants only explain a small proportion of the total heritability of T2D. In this review, we address the possibilities to elucidate the genetic landscape of T2D as well as discuss pitfalls with current strategies to identify the elusive unknown heritability including the possibility that our definition of diabetes and its subgroups is imprecise and thereby makes the identification of genetic causes difficult.Peer reviewe

AC to DC Converter Using Microcontroller

The aim of the project is to obtain a controlled DC output from a standard single phase 230V, 50Hz power supply. For this we first rectified the ac voltage using four diodes. Then the rectified DC voltage is used to get controlled DC voltage output using an IGBT with a pulse of variable duty cycle, generated by a microcontroller. By varying the duty cycle of the square wave pulse the average output DC voltage is regulated. For user interfacing, a knob is used to set the required voltage. This is achieved by converting the analog signal input, from the knob, to digital signal by using the internal Analog to Digital converter present in the microcontroller. The microcontroller sets the duty cycle of the PWM wave according to the ADC value obtained. This PWM wave is given as input to the IGBT to regulate its duty cycle, and hence the average output voltage is regulated. This is basically the open loop regulation of voltage. If the load varies, then we have to use closed loop control to automatically increase the duty cycle of the gate pulse to the IGBT if the output voltage falls below a set point and vice versa. The negative feedback loop is based on PID loop control. Thus the output voltage is continuously tuned with the set point voltage

Determinants of maternal near miss at tertiary care hospital: a retrospective study

Background: A woman who experienced a severe complication and she nearly died, but she survived the severe health condition during pregnancy, childbirth or postpartum is considered as maternal near miss. The investigation of near miss cases not only gives the superior information about disease burden but also the quality of care received by the mother. Methods: A hospital based retrospective study carried out on 120 pregnant women seeking treatment at the hospital were included in the study. Mothers who met the criteria for maternal near miss were identified by review of records. Results: In the present study, out of the 120 near miss cases studied, 60 (50.0%) cases belonged to the age group 18-24 years which forms about half of the population studied. 38 (31.66%) cases belonged to 25-29 years group, 15 (12.50%) cases in 30-34 years group and 7 (5.83%) cases in 35 years and above age group. Also, 104 (86.66%) cases from rural area whereas only 16 (13.33%) cases came from urban area. Conclusions: In this study, the most common causes of maternal near misses were haemorrhage (48.33%), hypertension (20%), severe anaemia (13.33%), sepsis (10%), cardiac dysfunction (3.33%), renal dysfunction (0.83%), respiratory dysfunction (0.83%) and liver dysfunction (0.83%)

Energy spectra of buoyancy-driven bubbly flow in a vertical Hele-Shaw cell

We present direct numerical simulations (DNS) study of confined buoyancy-driven bubbly flows in a Hele-Shaw setup. We investigate the spectral properties of the flow and make comparisons with experiments. The energy spectrum obtained from the gap-averaged velocity field shows $E(k) \sim k$ for $k k_d$, and an intermediate scaling range with $E(k) \sim k^{-3}$ around $k \sim k_d$. We perform an energy budget analysis to understand the dominant balances and explain the observed scaling behavior. We also show that the Navier-Stokes equation with a linear drag can be used to approximate large scale flow properties of bubbly Hele-Shaw flow