Integrating sustainability into new product development: The role of organizational leadership and culture

While corporate sustainability research continues to grow, we contend that key organizational factors influence the ability of firms to strategically integrate sustainability orientation to the performance of new products. Using data from 349 product developers, this paper examines organizational factors that instill a sustainability orientation leading to market performance of new products. Specifically, we construct a model where organizational leadership (i.e., leadership practices, employee incentives, and a focus on patents), and culture (i.e., innovation culture and geocentricity) lead to sustainability orientation that results in the translation of firm resources into improved new product development outcomes. Our results support our contention; sustainability orientated firms are likely to realize improved market performance of new products as these firms benefit from an innovative organizational culture exposed to the global environment with complementary leadership that provides focus and reward mechanisms for employees

Whom Should We Talk to? Investigating the Varying Roles of Internal and External Relationship Quality on Radical and Incremental Innovation Performance

Research suggests that close relationships with internal and external partners are likely to have a significant impact on new product development (NPD). What is unclear is how the effects of internal and external relationships influence development paths for different types of innovations. Prior literature indicates that the pathways for developing incremental innovations differ considerably from those for radical innovations. Thus it is plausible that the effects of external versus internal relationships vary across these two innovation types. This paper uses the 2012 Comparative Performance Assessment Study (CPAS) data set to investigate the roles of internal and external relationship quality on the development of both incremental and radical innovations. The results find that internal and not external relationship quality is beneficial for the development of incremental innovations. When driven by internal relationships, a flexible NPD process is advantageous for the financial performance of incremental innovations. Meanwhile external and not internal relationship quality is valuable for developing radical innovations. External relationship quality results in process flexibility, leading to project execution success and subsequent financial performance for radical innovations. As expected, project execution success consistently leads to increased financial performance. These findings indicate the critical differences in types of relationship quality required when developing new products based on radical versus incremental innovations. © 2016 Product Development & Management Associatio

The Role of Market Knowledge Type on Product Innovation Performance

While it is understood that market knowledge can positively impact product innovation performance (PIP), a better understanding on the nuanced roles of different aspects of market knowledge is needed. More specifically, we aim to gain an understanding of how different types of market knowledge, such as tacit knowledge, are developed and utilised, especially in high uncertainty environments. This research was conducted with a sample of in-depth interviews with industry experts in new product development in the UK grocery sector (N=8) followed up by a survey of 193 companies from the UK grocery sector. The study proposes two measures of market information-gathering activities (MIGA) and market knowledge volume informed by input from experts in the UK grocery sector. Results show that MIGA have a positive effect on market knowledge volume and specificity. Market knowledge volume and specificity consequently have a direct effect on PIP. Finally, market knowledge tacitness is positively moderated by market uncertainty. That is, market knowledge tacitness is most impactful in high uncertainty environments, but offers limited benefit in low uncertainty environments. This study provides evidence of how market knowledge-gathering activities and types can positively impact new product performance, especially in high uncertainty environments

Exercise-Induced Changes in Glucose Metabolism Promote Physiological Cardiac Growth

Background: Exercise promotes metabolic remodeling in the heart, which is associated with physiological cardiac growth; however, it is not known whether or how physical activity–induced changes in cardiac metabolism cause myocardial remodeling. In this study, we tested whether exercise-mediated changes in cardiomyocyte glucose metabolism are important for physiological cardiac growth. Methods: We used radiometric, immunologic, metabolomic, and biochemical assays to measure changes in myocardial glucose metabolism in mice subjected to acute and chronic treadmill exercise. To assess the relevance of changes in glycolytic activity, we determined how cardiac-specific expression of mutant forms of 6-phosphofructo-2-kinase/fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase affect cardiac structure, function, metabolism, and gene programs relevant to cardiac remodeling. Metabolomic and transcriptomic screenings were used to identify metabolic pathways and gene sets regulated by glycolytic activity in the heart. Results: Exercise acutely decreased glucose utilization via glycolysis by modulating circulating substrates and reducing phosphofructokinase activity; however, in the recovered state following exercise adaptation, there was an increase in myocardial phosphofructokinase activity and glycolysis. In mice, cardiac-specific expression of a kinase-deficient 6-phosphofructo-2-kinase/fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase transgene (GlycoLo mice) lowered glycolytic rate and regulated the expression of genes known to promote cardiac growth. Hearts of GlycoLo mice had larger myocytes, enhanced cardiac function, and higher capillary-to-myocyte ratios. Expression of phosphatase-deficient 6-phosphofructo-2-kinase/fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase in the heart (GlycoHi mice) increased glucose utilization and promoted a more pathological form of hypertrophy devoid of transcriptional activation of the physiological cardiac growth program. Modulation of phosphofructokinase activity was sufficient to regulate the glucose–fatty acid cycle in the heart; however, metabolic inflexibility caused by invariantly low or high phosphofructokinase activity caused modest mitochondrial damage. Transcriptomic analyses showed that glycolysis regulates the expression of key genes involved in cardiac metabolism and remodeling. Conclusions: Exercise-induced decreases in glycolytic activity stimulate physiological cardiac remodeling, and metabolic flexibility is important for maintaining mitochondrial health in the heart

Vibration control of flexible structures using piezoelectric devices as sensors and actuators

Ph.D.Sathya V. Hanagu

Performance analysis of the Linux buffer cache while running an Oracle OLTP workload

This project deals with the performance analysis of the Linux buffer cache while running an Oracle OLTP workload. The Linux buffer cache was studied and tests were conducted to gather buffer cache hit rates and test run times. The results of this analysis have lead to a better understanding of the complex operations of this system and may help to inspire further research on this topic

Detecting and Exploiting Symmetry in Discrete-state Markov Models ∗

Dependable systems are usually designed with multiple instances of components or logical processes, and often possess symmetries that may be exploited in model-based evaluation. The problem of how best to exploit symmetry in models has received much attention from the modeling community, but no solution has garnered widespread support, primarily because each solution is limited in terms of either the types of symmetry that can be exploited or the difficulty of translating from the system description to the model formalism. We propose a new method for detecting and exploiting model symmetry in which 1) models retain the structure of the system, and 2) all symmetry inherent in the structure of the model can be detected and exploited for the purposes of state-space reduction. Composed models are constructed from models through specification of connections between models that correspond to shared state fragments. The composed model is interpreted as an undirected graph, and results from group and graph theory are used to develop procedures for automatically detecting and exploiting all symmetries in the composed model. A statespace generator which implements these algorithms within Möbius [10] is then presented. 1