Development successes and issues for the future in deriving and applying selection indexes for beef breeding

2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (8) ◽  
pp. 923 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Barwick ◽  
A. L. Henzell

Research and development to provide systems for effective derivation and use of selection indexes has been conducted for the Australian beef industry since the late 1980s. This paper reports on development successes and presents evidence of increasing rates of industry genetic gain in beef production profitability. Key factors in success are identified and include the ability of the index development process to capture the full context of selection. The level of performance recording in many cases is the primary limitation to effective index use. Issues that will be more important in future applications of indexes are discussed. They include the need for more specific selection for environments, for extending the breeding objective to encompass additional industry sectors and aims, for greater account of industry supply and demand flow-on effects, and for combining gene marker tests with other criteria in indexes of economic merit. The critical role of selection indexes in targeting multiple-trait economic merit is likely to increase further with the availability of new gene marker test information.

2021 ◽  
pp. 239496432110105
Author(s):  
Bruno Pereira ◽  
Gui Lohmann ◽  
Luke Houghton

Collaboration plays a critical role in fostering innovation and value creation in the aviation sector. However, how factors and connections relate to the achievement of innovative outcomes in aviation require further investigation. This study investigates the key factors that create a conceptual framework by conducting a literature review and an archival analysis of news articles. The model proposed involves factors such as strategic decision-making; networking and partner choice; cultural context, values, behaviour and compatibilities; collaboration configuration; issues and risks shared; skills, capacities and experience; infrastructure and resources available; engagement activities; knowledge transfer, absorption and appropriation; collaboration management; communication flows; external environment and demand; and expectations and outcomes. Promising collaborations are also indicated in areas where the framework could be adopted to increase partnerships and outcomes. Also, we highlight best practice examples from leading organizations, such as International Airlines Group (IAG), Emirates Airline, Singapore Airlines, Boeing and JetBlue, to provide insights into existing collaborations that have led to innovation and value creation in this sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol 03 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Lawrence

Research publishing involves the production, use and management of research in a variety of genres and formats by commercial and non-profit academic publishers, and by organizations in government, civil society, university and industry sectors. However discussion of research publishing mainly tends to focus on the production and circulation of peer-reviewed academic journals and to a lesser extent books produced by commercial academic publishers. Research reports and papers produced by organizations outside the formal publishing system play a critical role in the research and development (R&D) system, yet they are often overlooked in studies on open scholarship and research communication. This is partly due to a lack of terminology to adequately describe the diverse publishing practices of organizations which operate across a spectrum from formal to informal economic activity. In this article I define and contextualise research publishing by organizations in relation to other forms of academic publishing and recent calls for greater bibliodiversity in scholarly communication. Commonly used terms such as ‘grey literature’ or ‘unpublished literature’ are inadequate to describe and account for the proliferation and importance of diverse research genres and formats able to be produced, published and disseminated in print and online by think tanks, government agencies, industry bodies and research centres. By taking a more holistic, systems-oriented approach to research publishing we can begin to understand the diverse actors, institutions and practices involved in knowledge production and develop appropriate policies, infrastructure and management practices to support an effective, efficient, equitable, credible and sustainable research knowledge commons in the public interest.


2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-117
Author(s):  
Tam Thi Minh Nguyen ◽  
Thi Hao Cao

Construction industry is considered to be one of the most important industries in Vietnam's economy. But many construction industry sectors have been experienced chronic problem as cost overrun. Therefore, a conceptual model of factors influencing construction cost was developed to determine the key factors that cause difference between budget cost and actual cost and some solutions are recommended to be applied to achieve the best outcome of cost. The result of analyzing 216 construction projects completed from 2002 to 2007 by companies located in Ho Chi Minh City indicated 6 main factors varying construction cost: project planners, project executives, economics, political, natural environment, fraudulent and lost. The results of multiple linear regression model confirmed the relationship between these above 6 factors and construction cost with the theories are supported at the statistically significant level of 0.05.


Author(s):  
Dimitris Kanellopoulos

Nowadays, the tourism industry is a consumer of a diverse range of information (Buhalis & O’Connor, 2005). Information communication technologies (ICTs) play a critical role for the competitiveness of tourism organizations and destinations. According to Staab and Werthner (2002), ICTs are having the effect of changing: • The ways in which tourism companies contact their business; reservations and information management systems; • The ways tourism companies communicate; how customers look for information on, and purchase travel goods and services. In the tourism industry, the supply and demand sides form a worldwide network in which tourism product’s generation and distribution are closely worked together. Most tourism products (e.g., hotel rooms or flight tickets) are time constrained and nonstockable. Generally, the tourism product is both “perishable” and “complex,” and itself is a bundle of basic products aggregated by intermediaries. Consequently, basic products must have well-defined interfaces with respect to consumer needs, prices, or distribution channels. In addition, a tourism product cannot be tested and controlled in advance. During decision-making, only an abstract model of the product (e.g., its description) is available. Besides, the tourism industry has a heterogeneous nature, and a strong small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) base. Undoubtedly, intelligent technologies are increasingly changing the nature of, and processes in, the tourism industry. This chapter reviews, in brief, such technologies applied to the e-tourism domain.


2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 526
Author(s):  
Will Pulsford

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) issued a Gas Statement of Opportunities in March 2016, which reports that gas supply to the domestic and liquefied natural gas markets in eastern Australia will be largely satisfied by proved and probable reserves until 2026 and by the addition of contingent resources until 2030. However, in parallel, there are widely reported concerns by energy consumers of insufficient gas supplies to meet demand by the early 2020s and a lack of new gas supplies to replace existing expiring contracts. Gas shortages have already contributed to black outs and load shedding events in South Australia. This paper reviews the eastern Australian gas supply position at a basin level. The AEMO basin level supply forecasts are reviewed and adjusted to generate forward profiles, which are consistent with reported reserves levels, production histories and depletion behaviour of typical gas fields. The revised supply forecast is compared with the AEMO’s demand profiles, and the likely commercial behaviour of key participants in the market is considered to build a picture of the domestic gas supply-demand balance through the 2020s. This analysis provides a transparent link from market outcomes back to the underlying reserves classifications to guide interpretation of supply-demand forecasts, and highlights the critical role of key suppliers in the eastern Australian gas market in the coming decade.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S441-S441
Author(s):  
Kezia Scales ◽  
Jodi M Sturgeon ◽  
Lisa I Iezzoni ◽  
Robert Espinoza ◽  
Stephen Campbell ◽  
...  

Abstract Most Americans would prefer to continue living in their homes and communities as they age, even when they require support with daily activities due to illness or disability. Much of this support is provided by unpaid caregivers, but the paid home care workforce also plays an essential role. Due to demographic changes and poor job quality, however, the home and community-based services (HCBS) sector is struggling to attract and retain enough workers to meet demand. Drawing from an extensive analysis of HCBS in the United States, this paper examines key factors impacting the home care workforce, including: supply and demand trends; financing policies; service-delivery models; and policies and practices defining workers’ compensation, training, and career development. From these findings, we provide recommendations for addressing the home care workforce crisis and maximizing home care workers’ contribution to the delivery of high-quality supports for a growing and evolving population of HCBS consumers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Aman Shakya ◽  
Subhash Paudel

 Skills management is one of the key factors to address the increasing competitiveness among different companies. Suitable knowledge representation and approach for matching skills and competences in job vacancies and candidate profiles can support human resources management automation through suitable matching and ranking services. This paper presents an approach for matchmaking between skills demand and supply through skill profiles enrichment and matching supply and demand profiles over multiple criteria. This work builds upon methods for profile modeling, information enrichment and multi-criteria matching. The main contribution of this work is a methodology for harmonization and enrichment of heterogeneous profile models and skill set description by making use of the standard ESCO ontology. Secondly, an algorithm is proposed for similarity matching across multi-criteria for discovering set of profiles that best fits the job description criteria. A prototype web-based system has been developed to implement the proposed approach and deployed online. The system has been tested with real IT jobs related dataset and validated against relevance scores provided by human experts. Experimental results show consistent correspondence between the similarity ranking scores produced by the system and scores provided by the human users.


2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee L. Schulz ◽  
Ted C. Schroeder ◽  
Katharine L. White

Consumers rely on experience and credence attributes when purchasing beef from retailers. It is essential for all beef industry sectors to recognize the complexity of consumer buying behavior. A hedonic model is estimated to determine if there are incentives to brand beef steaks, the types of brands that entertain price premiums, and the level of existing premiums. Most branded steaks garnered premiums along with organic claims, religious processing claims, and premium cuts. Factors influencing brand value were new brands targeting emerging consumer trends, brands with regional prominence, and brands positioned as special label, program/breed specific production, and store labels.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis E. Nikolaou ◽  
Konstantinos P. Tsagarakis ◽  
Kyriaki Tasopoulou

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address two research questions: which are the key factors that stimulate entrepreneurs to invest in ecopreneurship, and how ecopreneurhsip contributes to environmental sustainability. Design/methodology/approach To answer these questions, a framework has been developed to identify the incentives that lead entrepreneurs to invest in firms in the ecopreneurship through institutional and resource-based thinking. Findings From a survey of 91 Greek firms from the green service sector, it is shown that some specific institutional and resource-based view factors play a critical role in green entrepreneurs’ decisions, as well as some certain environmental practices that are frequently used by entrepreneurs to address environmental issues. Research limitations/implications First, the answer of the second research question through data collected by a questionnaire survey may be faced with skepticism by some authors, as it could be seen that entrepreneurs and managers of firms could have overstated their company's environmental activities. Second, although the sample selection of 91 firms is a representative sample (response rate 12.35 percent) of the total population of Greek green firms (761) and equal to other relative studies, a higher number of firms and a wider variety of green entrepreneurship ventures is necessary in future research. Practical implications The findings are useful for scholars, practitioners and policy makers since it provide information regarding the behavior of green entrepreneurs. Originality/value The paper analyze the types of green entrepreneurs in relation to the different features and strategies which are emerged from two theories, such as institutional and resource-based theory.


2005 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 159-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yun Deng ◽  
Dong-Song Nie ◽  
Jian Wang ◽  
Xiao-Jun Tan ◽  
Zhao-Yan Nie ◽  
...  

Abstract Beginning with a new contig of the expressed sequence tags (Mm.63892) obtained by comparing testis libraries with other tissue and cell line libraries using the digital differential display program, we cloned a new gene which is related to the apoptosis of mouse spermatogenic cells using the Genscan program and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology. The sequence data have been submitted to the GenBank database under accession number AY747687. The full cDNA length is 1074 bp, and the gene with 7 exons and 6 introns is located in mouse chromosome 1 H5. The protein is recognized as a new member of calmodulin (CaM) binding protein family because the sequence contains three short calmodulin-binding motifs containing conserved Ile and Gln residues (IQ motif) and is considered to play a critical role in interactions of IQ motif-containing proteins with CaM proteins. The putative protein encoded by this gene has 192 amino acid residues with a theoretical molecular mass of 23.7 kDa and a calculated isoelectric point of 9.71. The sequence shares no significant homology with any known protein in databases. RT-PCR and Northern blot analyses revealed that 1.3 kb MSRG-11 transcript was strongly expressed in adult mouse testis but weakly expressed in the spleen and thymus. The MSRG-11 gene was expressed at various levels, faintly at two weeks postpartum and strongly from three weeks postpartum in adult testes. The green fluorescence produced by pEGFP-C2/MSRG-11 was detected in the cytoplasm of COS7 cells 24 h post-transfection. The pcDNA3.1(–)/MSRG-11 plasmid was constructed and introduced into COS7 cells using Lipofectamine 2000 transfection reagent (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, USA). MSRG-11 can accelerate COS7 cell apoptosis, which suggests that this gene may play an important role in the development of mouse testes and is a candidate gene of testis-specific apoptosis. Based on these observations, it was considered that we cloned a new gene which probably accelerates spermatogenetic cell apoptosis in mouse.


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