Using a knowledge management evaluation framework for improving an ERP system - a Hong Kong construction industry case study

Organisations need to rely on leadership, information support and human capital in order to ensure a knowledge advantage over their competitors. Knowledge management (KM) provides organisations with sustainable competitive advantage, because it becomes extremely difficult for an organisation to cut expenditure and increase revenue by simply reengineering its business model. Project delivery and success has been traditionally viewed and measured as management of a three-legged stool, with the legs defined as cost, schedule and quality. However, KM can be linked to success by organisations becoming more effective as well as being more efficient.This paper uses a KM framework, the Knowledge Advantage (K-Adv), developed initially for use by construction organisations. It assesses the impact of leadership and its supporting information communication technology infrastructure on the ability of people (by effectively creating, sharing, disseminating and using knowledge) to facilitate sustainable competitive advantage.A case study that is presented is based upon the experience of a leading construction company using an Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) system to demonstrate the effectiveness of KM from a cost management business unit perspective. Results are evaluated using a capability maturity model (CMM) - that forms the core of the K-Adv tool - to help improve processes that meet the needs of the organisation operating in a highly dynamic business environment. The case study is part of a broader doctoral research project that uses action learning to facilitate and measure ERP improvement.<br /

Improve construction knowledge management system by using the soft system methodology

The construction industry has a poor record in the management of its knowledge and results into huge wastage of resources and detrimental effect to quality. Research has shown that data and information management system plus knowledge management are a critical part of today\u27s project management practice for construction projects. Few people will deny that \u27quality information\u27 and \u27useful knowledge\u27 are extremely important to any decision-making. However, the current processes of handling information and knowledge in the construction industry and increasingly costly. One of the major reasons is the nature of this industry is not conducive to good knowledge management and the traditional data/information systems used in the industry has long been critisized. It is very common that information is often duplicated, inconsistent and not current. In turn, making knowledge becomes difficult to manage properly. Project managers have in the past found it very difficult to source and analyse data in order to make sound decisions. This paper is part of a doctoral research project which summarizes three exploratory surveys; namely ERP system, Partnering strategy and Leadership impact of a knowledge management system in a construction company. Those findings are described by using the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) which later becomes the basis for actions research. SSM is useful to reveal complexities of the knowledge management situations that occur in construction industry. The first stage was to conduct interviews of the different practices in knowledge and reporting process. Then, the SSM rich picture was developed to present the problematic areas including difficulties in inputting data to enable the knowledge platform in place. The research then develops root definition and CATWOE, and a conceptual model was formed. Interviewees were conducted with structured questions to identify prioritized actions and activities that can be undertaken to improve and manage the knowledge platform

Randomized trial of acupoints herbal patching in Sanfu Days for asthma in clinical remission stage

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Radiative falloff in Einstein-Straus spacetime

The Einstein-Straus spacetime describes a nonrotating black hole immersed in a matter-dominated cosmology. It is constructed by scooping out a spherical ball of the dust and replacing it with a vacuum region containing a black hole of the same mass. The metric is smooth at the boundary, which is comoving with the rest of the universe. We study the evolution of a massless scalar field in the Einstein-Straus spacetime, with a special emphasis on its late-time behavior. This is done by numerically integrating the scalar wave equation in a double-null coordinate system that covers both portions (vacuum and dust) of the spacetime. We show that the field's evolution is governed mostly by the strong concentration of curvature near the black hole, and the discontinuity in the dust's mass density at the boundary; these give rise to a rather complex behavior at late times. Contrary to what it would do in an asymptotically-flat spacetime, the field does not decay in time according to an inverse power-law.Comment: ReVTeX, 12 pages, 14 figure

The use of smart phones and their mobile applications among older adults in Hong Kong: An exploratory study

The purpose of this study was to explore social participation using smart phones by the older population in Hong Kong. The present study was conducted from 10-June-2013 to 16-August-2013. It was a cross-sectional survey study, and data were collected from street interviews. Potential participants were approached and invited to respond to a questionnaire. The locations for collecting data were evenly distributed on Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. The size of the samples for Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories were calculated based on their respective proportion of the Hong Kong population in 2011. The estimated time to complete the questionnaire was approximately 10 minutes. The questionnaire included questions on demographic data and the use of smart phones and their related features. A total of 982 participants were interviewed, 46% of whom were male and 54% female. The participants were divided into the following two groups: the young-old (age 50-69) and the old-old (age 70 or above). The mean age was 67.93±10.386. The findings showed that, in comparison with the young-old group (age 50 to 69), a smaller percentage of the old-old group (70 and over) used smart phones and mobile messaging applications to communicate with others. There were no differences in patterns with regard to the type and frequency of the mobile applications being used. However, a smaller percentage of the old-old group had installed the mobile app by themselves and introduced the mobile app to others. This study reveals the behavioral patterns of the young-old and the old-old groups in the use of mobile devices to communicate. The young-old and old-old groups exhibited the same patterns in terms of the types and frequency of the mobile apps used; however, a smaller percentage of the old-old group used mobile apps to communicate. Different educational programs on the importance of social support should be established, and the promotional strategies for these programs need to be tailored to older adults

Activated lymphocyte recruitment into the tumor microenvironment following preoperative sipuleucel-T for localized prostate cancer.

BackgroundSipuleucel-T is a US Food and Drug Administration-approved immunotherapy for asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Its mechanism of action is not fully understood. This prospective trial evaluated the direct immune effects of systemically administered sipuleucel-T on prostatic cancer tissue in the preoperative setting.MethodsPatients with untreated localized prostate cancer were treated on an open-label Phase II study of sipuleucel-T prior to planned radical prostatectomy (RP). Immune infiltrates in RP specimens (posttreatment) and in paired pretreatment biopsies were evaluated by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Correlations between circulating immune response and IHC were assessed using Spearman rank order.ResultsOf the 42 enrolled patients, 37 were evaluable. Adverse events were primarily transient, mild-to-moderate and infusion related. Patients developed T cell proliferation and interferon-γ responses detectable in the blood following treatment. Furthermore, a greater-than-three-fold increase in infiltrating CD3(+), CD4(+) FOXP3(-), and CD8(+) T cells was observed in the RP tissues compared with the pretreatment biopsy (binomial proportions: all P &lt; .001). This level of T cell infiltration was observed at the tumor interface, and was not seen in a control group consisting of 12 concurrent patients who did not receive any neoadjuvant treatment prior to RP. The majority of infiltrating T cells were PD-1(+) and Ki-67(+), consistent with activated T cells. Importantly, the magnitude of the circulating immune response did not directly correlate with T cell infiltration within the prostate based upon Spearman's rank order correlation.ConclusionsThis study is the first to demonstrate a local immune effect from the administration of sipuleucel-T. Neoadjuvant sipuleucel-T elicits both a systemic antigen-specific T cell response and the recruitment of activated effector T cells into the prostate tumor microenvironment

Far-ultraviolet Spectroscopy of Venus and Mars at 4 A Resolution with the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope on Astro-2

Far-ultraviolet spectra of Venus and Mars in the range 820-1840 A at 4 A resolution were obtained on 13 and 12 March 1995, respectively, by the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT), which was part of the Astro-2 observatory on the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Longward of 1250 A, the spectra of both planets are dominated by emission of the CO Fourth Positive band system and strong OI and CI multiplets. In addition, CO Hopfield-Birge bands, B - X (0,0) at 1151 A and C - X (0,0) at 1088 A, are detected for the first time, and there is a weak indication of the E - X (0,0) band at 1076 A in the spectrum of Venus. The B - X band is blended with emission from OI 1152. Modeling the relative intensities of these bands suggests that resonance fluorescence of CO is the dominant source of the emission, as it is for the Fourth Positive system. Shortward of Lyman-alpha, other emission features detected include OII 834, OI lambda 989, HI Lyman-beta, and NI 1134 and 1200. For Venus, the derived disk brightnesses of the OI, OII, and HI features are about one-half of those reported by Hord et al. (1991) from Galileo EUV measurements made in February 1990. This result is consistent with the expected variation from solar maximum to solar minimum. The ArI 1048, 1066 doublet is detected only in the spectrum of Mars and the derived mixing ratio of Ar is of the order of 2%, consistent with previous determinations.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ, July 20, 200

Radiative falloff of a scalar field in a weakly curved spacetime without symmetries

We consider a massless scalar field propagating in a weakly curved spacetime whose metric is a solution to the linearized Einstein field equations. The spacetime is assumed to be stationary and asymptotically flat, but no other symmetries are imposed -- the spacetime can rotate and deviate strongly from spherical symmetry. We prove that the late-time behavior of the scalar field is identical to what it would be in a spherically-symmetric spacetime: it decays in time according to an inverse power-law, with a power determined by the angular profile of the initial wave packet (Price falloff theorem). The field's late-time dynamics is insensitive to the nonspherical aspects of the metric, and it is governed entirely by the spacetime's total gravitational mass; other multipole moments, and in particular the spacetime's total angular momentum, do not enter in the description of the field's late-time behavior. This extended formulation of Price's falloff theorem appears to be at odds with previous studies of radiative decay in the spacetime of a Kerr black hole. We show, however, that the contradiction is only apparent, and that it is largely an artifact of the Boyer-Lindquist coordinates adopted in these studies.Comment: 17 pages, RevTeX

Investigations of Aerobic Methane Oxidation in Two Marine Seep Environments: Part 1—Chemical Kinetics

Microbial aerobic oxidation is known to be a significant sink of marine methane (CH4), contributing to the relatively minor atmospheric release of this greenhouse gas over vast stretches of the ocean. However, the chemical kinetics of aerobic CH4 oxidation are not well established, making it difficult to predict and assess the extent that CH4 is oxidized in seawater following seafloor release. Here we investigate the kinetics of aerobic CH4 oxidation using mesocosm incubations of fresh seawater samples collected from seep fields in Hudson Canyon, U.S. Atlantic Margin and MC118, Gulf of Mexico to gain a fundamental chemical understanding of this CH4 sink. The goals of this investigation were to determine the response or lag time following CH4 release until more rapid oxidation begins, the reaction order, and the stoichiometry of reactants utilized (i.e., CH4, oxygen, nitrate, phosphate, trace metals) during CH4 oxidation. The results for both Hudson Canyon and MC118 environments show that CH4 oxidation rates sharply increased within less than one month following the CH4 inoculation of seawater. However, the exact temporal characteristics of this more rapid CH4 oxidation varied based on location, possibly dependent on the local circulation and biogeochemical conditions at the point of seawater collection. The data further suggest that methane oxidation behaves as a first‐order kinetic process and that the reaction rate constant remains constant once rapid CH4 oxidation begins

Investigations of Aerobic Methane Oxidation in Two Marine Seep Environments: Part 2—Isotopic Kinetics

During aerobic oxidation of methane (CH4) in seawater, a process which mitigates atmospheric emissions, the 12C‐isotopologue reacts with a slightly greater rate constant than the 13C‐isotopologue, leaving the residual CH4 isotopically fractionated. Prior studies have attempted to exploit this systematic isotopic fractionation from methane oxidation to quantify the extent that a CH4 pool has been oxidized in seawater. However, cultivation‐based studies have suggested that isotopic fractionation fundamentally changes as a microbial population blooms in response to an influx of reactive substrates. Using a systematic mesocosm incubation study with recently collected seawater, here we investigate the fundamental isotopic kinetics of aerobic CH4 oxidation during a microbial bloom. As detailed in a companion paper, seawater samples were collected from seep fields in Hudson Canyon, U.S. Atlantic Margin, and atop Woolsey Mound (also known as Sleeping Dragon) which is part of lease block MC118 in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and used in these investigations. The results from both Hudson Canyon and MC118 show that in these natural environments isotopic fraction for CH4 oxidation follows a first‐order kinetic process. The results also show that the isotopic fractionation factor remains constant during this methanotrophic bloom once rapid CH4 oxidation begins and that the magnitude of the fractionation factor appears correlated with the first‐order reaction rate constant. These findings greatly simplify the use of natural stable isotope changes in CH4 to assess the extent that CH4 is oxidized in seawater following seafloor release