What are the Best Processes for Using Metrics to Ensure Organizational Optimization Needs of our HR Clients are Being Met?

A major insurance company currently utilizes HR partners to serve needs within the organization. A challenge of this is determining how to drive organizational optimization and measuring how effective HR initiatives are in accomplishing this goal

Growth and yield performance of rice cultivars (Oryza sativa L.) under seaweed extract and inorganic fertilizer

A field experiment was conducted once at Isabela State University, Jones, Isabela, Philippines during the wet season of 2018 to determine the impact of seaweed extract added with varying levels of inorganic fertilizer on the growth and yield of upland rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars. In the study, five fertilizer levels and a farmer’s practice as a control combined with seaweed extract was used. The study used Randomized Blocks in a Factorial Scheme with six treatments replicated thrice as follows: Factor A: V1-Pinilisa, V2-Palawan and Factor B: F1-150-100 kg NP ha-1 (Farmer’s Practice), F2-40-10 kg NP ha-1 (100% Recommended Rate), F3-20-5 kg NP ha-1 (50% Recommended Rate), F4-40-10 kg NP ha-1 + 3 L/ha. Seaweed extract, F5-20-5 kg NP ha-1 + 3 L/ha. Seaweed extract and F6-3L/ha. Seaweed Extract. The findings revealed that seaweed extract combined with inorganic fertilizer application influenced the growth and yield of rice. Pinilisa cultivar obtained a higher yield compared to the Palawan cultivar. The combination of seaweed extract and inorganic fertilizer shows highly significant differences especially concerning the number of productive tillers, filled grains, 1000 grain weight and straw weight. The return on investment showed that Pinilisa cultivar fertilized with 3 L seaweed extract is more economical in upland rice obtaining the highest with 95.47%. Seaweed extract as foliar fertilizer can be applied not only in rice but also in other crops. Application of seaweed extract on rice can reduce the amount of fertilizers

A tale of three systems : case studies on the application of architectural tactics for cyber-foraging

Cyber-foraging is a technique to enable mobile devices to extend their computing power and storage by offloading computation or data to more powerful servers located in the cloud or in single-hop proximity. In previous work, we developed a set of reusable architectural tactics for cyber-foraging systems. We define architectural tactics as design decisions that influence the achievement of a system quality. In this article we present the results of three case studies to validate the application of the tactics to promote their intended functional and non-functional requirements. The first two case studies focus on the identification of architectural tactics in existing cyber-foraging systems. The third case study focuses on the development of a new cyber-foraging system using the architectural tactics. The results of the case studies are an initial demonstration of the validity of the tactics, and the potential for taking a tactics-driven approach to fulfill functional and non-functional requirements for cyber-foraging systems. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Malignant transformation of ovarian dermoid: a rare case

Mature cystic teratoma also known as the dermoid cyst is the most common benign tumor of the ovary (10 – 20%) in women of reproductive age. Malignant transformation in a dermoid is very rare (<2%) with squamous cell carcinoma being the most common malignancy. A total of 36 ovarian cysts have been operated in our hospital from the year February 2007 to April 2012 of which about 90% were dermoid but no case of ovarian dermoid turned malignant have been reported till date in our state, Sikkim, India. We report a rare case of dermoid cyst of ovary in a 47 yr old woman which had malignant transformation. Surgeons should keep the chance of malignant transformation in mind when faced with a dermoid cyst especially in older patients or in larger than usual so that the best can be done for the patient regarding the staging of the disease and its further management

Intra-articular osteoma in the stifle joint of a cat

Case summary A 13-year-old male castrated cat was referred to our clinic for a 2-month history of right hindlimb lameness. Radiographs and CT showed a solid bony mass within the stifle joint. The mass was resected by arthrotomy and osteotomy of the tibial tuberosity. Histopathological examination revealed the diagnosis of osteoma. Recovery from surgery was uneventful. At the 8-week follow-up examination, the cat was free of clinical signs. Relevance and novel information Feline osteomas are rare; only few cases have been reported. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of an intra-articular osteoma in the stifle joint of a cat and description of its surgical resection

Juno:An adaptive delivery-centric middleware

This paper proposes a new delivery-centric abstraction. A delivery-centric abstraction allows applications to generate content requests agnostic to location or protocol, with the additional ability to stipulate high-level requirements regarding such things as performance, security, resource consumption and monetary cost. A delivery-centric system therefore constantly adapts to fulfil these requirements, given the constraints of the environment. This abstraction has been realised through a delivery-centric middleware called Juno, which uses a reconfigurable software architecture to (i) discover multiple sources of an item of content, (ii) model each source's ability to provide the content, then (iii) adapt to interact with the source(s) that can best fulfil the application's requirements. Juno therefore utilises existing providers in a backwards compatible way, supporting immediate deployment. This paper evaluates Juno using Emulab to validate its ability to adapt to its environment

Comparative study of interval versus postpartum Cu-T insertion in a central referral hospital of North East India

Background: Aim of current study was to compare interval and postpartum Cu-T (380A) insertion in terms of safety and immediate outcome.Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study where retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data in the department of OBG, SMIMS, Gangtok, from April 2011 to April 2012 were taken for evaluation. 164 women who were inserted Cu-T after delivery and in the interval period were studied. 80 were inserted Cu-T at post-partum period (36 after vaginal delivery and 44 intra caesarean) while 84 were inserted at interval period. Follow up was done at 6 weeks and 3 months. Outcome was measured by tail visibility at 6 weeks and 3 months, spontaneous expulsion rate, removal rate and perception of insertion using visual analog scale (0-5).Results: Tail visibility at 6 weeks and 3 months was less in post-partum than that of interval insertion. Spontaneous expulsion rate was nil in post-partum while 5/84 (5.95%) in interval insertion. Perception of insertion for doctor and client was easiest in intra Caesarean (0) while difficult in interval (4). Removal rate was 1/80(1 %) in post-partum and 9/84 (10.7%) in interval.Conclusions: Study suggested that post-partum insertion is more effective than interval Cu-T insertion with low expulsion rate and complications compared to interval insertion.

Expansion of human mesenchymal stem cells in a fixed-bed bioreactor system based on non-porous glass carrier – Part A: Inoculation, cultivation, and cell harvest procedures

Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) are a promising cell source for several applications of regenerative medicine. The used cells are either autologous or allogenic, whereas the latter enables, especially by using of stem cell lines, a production of cell therapeutic or tissue engineered implants in stock. Therefore, the usually small initial cell number has to be increased. For that purpose bioreactors are demanded, which offer the controlled expansion of the hMSC under GMP-conform conditions. In this study, divided in part A and B, a fixed bed bioreactor system based on non-porous borosilicate glass spheres for the expansion of hMSC, demonstrated with the model cell line hMSC-TERT, is introduced. The system offers a comfortable automation of the inoculation, cultivation, and harvesting procedures. Furthermore the bioreactor owns a simple design which benefits the manufacturing as disposable. Part A is focused on the inoculation, cultivation, and harvesting procedures. Cultivations were performed in lab scales up to a bed volume of 300 cm3. It could be shown that the fixed bed system, based on 2-mm borosilicate glass spheres, as well as the inoculation, cultivation, and harvesting procedures are suitable for the expansion of hMSC with high yield and vitality

Accessing the entire overdoped regime in pristine YBa2Cu3O6 + x by application of pressure

We uncover the previously inaccessible overdoped regime to attain the complete superconducting dome in a pristine high temperature cuprate superconductor, by applying pressures up to 280 kbar to single crystals near stoichiometric YBa[subscript 2]Cu[subscript3]O[subscript 7]. The obtained superconducting phase boundary as a function of hole doping closely follows the form of the superconducting dome in La[subscript 2−x]Sr[subscript x]CuO[subscript 4]. Measurements are now enabled to trace the evolution of various entangled phases and the Fermi surface from the underdoped to overdoped regime in a single high purity cuprate superconducting family of materials.Royal Society (Great Britain)Winton Programme for the Physics of SustainabilityCambridge-MIT InstituteSeventh Framework Programme (European Commission) (Grants FP/2007-2013, ERC 337425 and EPSRC EP/M000524/1