scholarly journals A Breakthrough From an Unexpected Corner: Turning an Old Technology Into a Paradigm Shift

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietmar Winzker ◽  
Leon Pretorius

This paper elucidates the history, the design philosophy of innovation and the transformation of an old process-technology into a breakthrough, evidence-based therapy with international medical acceptance, verification of effectiveness as well as the strategic business model employed. Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMFT) was not medically acceptable and was, until recently in disrepute, professionally speaking. A revisiting of the technology with reference to the partially inconsistent, yet positive anecdotal results obtained, gave rise to in-depth analysis as well as scientific research conducted by independent institutions which resulted in the identification of the key physiological parameters which in turn could be related to a significant improvement of pathologies. By applying and promoting a systems approach as practiced by engineers who were involved in complex multidisciplinary projects for many years, a different perspective on the innovative development of PEMF therapy was established. The innovative process-based therapy working mainly at cellular and self-regulation level was a paradigmatic departure from the indication-based therapy as applied to pharmaceutical therapy. Over the past 10 years exceptional breakthroughs of the nonsymptom based therapy have been documented through clinical trials, scientific medical investigations and the publication of relevant literature. The turn-around of the old and insufficiently understood technology into an innovative, significant, scientific breakthrough-technology, requires a paradigm shift which is analogous to working in a different culture. It is surmised that this paradigm shift will strongly influence medical schools and practitioners over the next 5–10 years. The authors, as “outsiders” to the medical discipline, bring an engineering perspective to bear on the development of innovative but system-integrated medical devices which can promote the medical device industry and bring system engineering approaches into the realm of medical technology and therapy. Both authors have presented a number of papers at international conferences individually and in partnership on the topics of strategic business leadership and business transformation, system thinking and holistic management model development for high technology companies.

Author(s):  
Novi Trisnawati ◽  

The existence of SMEs has an important role in improving people's living standards, as well as in economic development. The purpose of this study is to analyze the confirmatory factors of competitive advantage, learning organization and SME performance. Analysis of the data used in the study using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) techniques, the results of the study show that the learning organization of SMEs in this study was formed by indicators of system thinking development, mentality model development, personal skills, teamwork and flexibility and indicators that are considered to have the greatest contribution. or the most powerful form of learning organization variable is teamwork. The competitive advantage of SMEs is formed by indicators of resources adding positive value, resources are unique or rare, resources are difficult to imitate and resources cannot be replaced by other sources and indicators that are considered to have the largest or strongest contribution to form competitive advantage variables are difficult resources. imitated. The performance of SMEs is formed by indicators of financial performance, innovative performance, production performance and marketing performance and the indicator that is considered to have the largest or strongest contribution in shaping the performance variable of SMEs is financial performance.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Halbrügge

Keep it simple - A case study of model development in the context of the Dynamic Stocks and Flows (DSF) taskThis paper describes the creation of a cognitive model submitted to the ‘Dynamic Stocks and Flows’ (DSF) modeling challenge. This challenge aims at comparing computational cognitive models for human behavior during an open ended control task. Participants in the modeling competition were provided with a simulation environment and training data for benchmarking their models while the actual specification of the competition task was withheld. To meet this challenge, the cognitive model described here was designed and optimized for generalizability. Only two simple assumptions about human problem solving were used to explain the empirical findings of the training data. In-depth analysis of the data set prior to the development of the model led to the dismissal of correlations or other parametric statistics as goodness-of-fit indicators. A new statistical measurement based on rank orders and sequence matching techniques is being proposed instead. This measurement, when being applied to the human sample, also identifies clusters of subjects that use different strategies for the task. The acceptability of the fits achieved by the model is verified using permutation tests.


Author(s):  
Ivanna Shubina ◽  
Atik Kulakli

This paper’s aim is to investigate the role of creativity and pervasive learning in a modern education paradigm. The research was conducted by relevant literature review along with reflective analysis on sub-context such as creativity, educational development, pedagogical methods, important factors behind of creativity development and technology-learning systems affects. Various issues may become a supportive factor or barrier for creativity development in educational processes. Technology in an education field provides many opportunities for creativity enhancement, among which supports to enhance curiosity to develop some skills to improve student's cognitive processes and engagement as well as to increase intrinsic motivation, self-regulation. Authors attempted to consider all the benefits, challenges and risks related to enhancing creativity with the help of technology in modern educational paradigm. Many studies have been analyzed in order to answer main research question: How technology-pervasive learning environment can enhance stimulation and development of creativity among students?


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-6
Author(s):  
Przemysław Tarwacki

The article discusses the problem of social reintegration of prisoners, which — despite being raised many a time in the relevant literaturę — remains to be a point of issue. In the light of a recent survey conducted by the Polish Public Opinion Research Centre (hereinafter: CBOS), former convicts are considered by the Polish society as one of the groups of people most at risk of social exclusion. In turn, a report of the Ministry of Justice of 2020, regarding convicted adults, shows that a very large number of people leaving prison return to crime as early as in the first year after being released, which, for obvious reasons, has a negative impact on the internal security of our country. These circumstances encourage one to take a fresh glance at the problem of social reintegration of convicts and to search for additional arguments in favor of extending special support to this group of people. A review of the existing legislation indicates that it allows the principle of individualisation of assistance for the sake of social readaptation of individual convicts to be applied to an unlimited extent. What is strictly limited, however, is the circle of persons who can undertake activities for the social readaptation of prisoners during their imprisonment. The exclusion from the above-mentioned circle of all persons validly convicted of intentional offences is unjustified, and with regard to those members of society who, outside the structures of non-governmental organisations, wish to engage in activities for the social readaptation of convicted persons is downright unlawful, as it is contrary to higher-order legal acts. An in-depth analysis of the law in force leads to the conclusion that argumentation for not treating this social group differently from other individuals most at risk of social exclusion can be found in the constitution itself. On the other hand, a review of lower-order legal acts leads to the observation that since our country's accession to the European Union there have appeared both new measures and additional reasons, different from those traditionally identified in the doctrine of executive criminal law, for investing in any human capital in need of support, including persons sentenced to imprisonment.


Author(s):  
Eglė Rindzevičiūtė

This epilogue addresses the complex question of the link between system-cybernetic governmentality and the neoliberal transformation of post-Soviet Russia. Although the system-cybernetic governmentality and economic neoliberalism did not share institutional origins, they were linked during the post-Soviet transformation as a result of historical momentum: the members of the Soviet systems approach community were best positioned to conduct the transfer of the models of the market economy from the West at a time when neoliberal ideas on the free market economy were gaining popularity. However, this should not mean that the pre-1980 history of system-cybernetic governmentality should be tainted as neoliberal; rather, this reveals the extent to which scientific governance can be appropriated by different economic and political regimes. If anything, the pre-1980 history of system-cybernetic governmentality is a history of a rather liberal governmental technology, underscoring the conditions of autonomy, self-regulation, and government at a distance.


Author(s):  
Ingunn Hagen ◽  
Stine Kofoed ◽  
Usha Nayar

In this chapter, we will address how Yoga may contribute to psychological wellbeing. The chapter will be based on review of relevant literature in the backdrop of the theoretical framework of Self-Efficacy developed by Albert Bandura in his comprehensive ‘social cognitive theory of human motivation and learning'. Illustrations are included from our study: “Yoga to promote young people's mental health and well-being?” First, we will address some current social tendencies that contribute to everyday stress and challenges to people's general wellbeing. Second, we aim to have some conceptual clarification related to the concepts in our title “Yoga for psychological wellbeing”. Third, we will address how Yoga may function as a tool for self-regulation and its relationship with self-efficacy. Fourth, we will describe how Yoga is perceived as a mean to cope with stress. We will discuss how different people use Yoga to cope with stress, and how this partly relates to the role of Yoga as a tool for self-regulation.


Author(s):  
Pi-Fang Hsu ◽  
En-Ping Lin ◽  
Chia-Wen Tsai

As today's consumers encounter different types of media, communication channel has become omnipresent. The vast array of marketing tools available to advertisers have lessened the use of traditional media advertising and seen the rapid rise of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) in response to it. This study establishes a model divided into two sections. The first part uses the relevant literature and a Modified Delphi Method to find the best selection criteria for an IMC company's business manager, and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to determine the relative weights of the criteria. The second part uses the Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) to rank the alternatives and select the appropriate business manager. Finally, with an IMC company as an example, the authors use this model for empirical research. The results show that the emphasis on the criteria of professional competence, personal qualities, creative thinking, social skills and self-regulation. This research provides a new model for selecting a business manager, in addition to providing a reference basis for decision makers.


Publications ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Friedrich Summann ◽  
Andreas Czerniak ◽  
Jochen Schirrwagen ◽  
Dirk Pieper

The global network of scholarly repositories for the publication and dissemination of scientific publications and related materials can already look back on a history of more than twenty years. During this period, there have been many developments in terms of technical optimization and the increase of content. It is crucial to observe and analyze this evolution in order to draw conclusions for the further development of repositories. The basis for such an analysis is data. The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) service provider Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) started indexing repositories in 2004 and has collected metadata also on repositories. This paper presents the main features of a planned repository monitoring system. Data have been collected since 2004 and includes basic repository metadata as well as publication metadata of a repository. This information allows an in-depth analysis of many indicators in different logical combinations. This paper outlines the systems approach and the integration of data science techniques. It describes the intended monitoring system and shows the first results.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qian Chen ◽  
Daniel Mark Hall ◽  
Bryan Tyrone Adey ◽  
Carl Thomas Haas

PurposeManaging stakeholders' reciprocal interdependencies is always a challenging issue. Stakeholders need to find out different ways to communicate information and coordinate material flows during the supply chain processes. Many recent studies have advanced construction supply chain coordination from multiple perspectives. However, the field still lacks a comprehensive analysis to summarize existing research, to explicitly identify all the possible enablers for coordination and to investigate how the enablers can be carried out at the supply chain interfaces. To fill the gap, this study aims to conduct a systematic review in order to examine the relevant literature.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review process was conducted to identify and synthesize relevant publications (published in the past 20 years) concerning the coordination of construction supply chain functions. These publications were coded to link main research findings with specific enabler categories. In addition, how these enablers can be used at the interfaces across supply chain processes was reviewed with an in-depth analysis of reciprocal communications between stakeholders at design-to-production, production-to-logistics and production-to-site-assembly phases.FindingsThe coordination enablers were classified into three categories: (1) contractual enablers (including subtopics on relational contracts and incentive models), (2) procedural enablers (including subtopics on multiagent knowledge sharing systems and the last planner system) and (3) technological enablers (including subtopics on linked databases for design coordination, design for manufacturing software platforms and automated monitoring technologies). It was found that interfacing different functions requires a certain level of integration of stakeholders for quick response and feedback processes. The integration of novel contractual forms with digital technologies, such as smart contracts, however, was not adequately addressed in the state of the art.Research limitations/implicationsThe scope of the systematic review is limited to the static analysis of selected publications. Longitudinal studies should be further included to sharpen the inductions of enablers considering organizational changes and process dynamics in construction projects.Practical implicationsDifferent enablers for coordination were summarized in a concise manner, which provides researchers and project stakeholders with a reinforced understanding of various ways to manage reciprocal interdependencies at different supply chain interfaces.Originality/valueThis study constitutes an important input for research on the construction supply chain by illuminating the thematic topic of coordination from inductively developed review processes, which included a holistic framing of the emerging coordination enablers and their use across supply chain functions. Consequently, it closes some identified knowledge gaps and offers additional insights to improve the supply chain performance of construction projects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (D1) ◽  
pp. D630-D638
Author(s):  
Jiawei Wang ◽  
Wei Dai ◽  
Jiahui Li ◽  
Qi Li ◽  
Ruopeng Xie ◽  
...  

Abstract Anti-CRISPR (Acr) proteins naturally inhibit CRISPR-Cas adaptive immune systems across bacterial and archaeal domains of life. This emerging field has caused a paradigm shift in the way we think about the CRISPR-Cas system, and promises a number of useful applications from gene editing to phage therapy. As the number of verified and predicted Acrs rapidly expands, few online resources have been developed to deal with this wealth of information. To overcome this shortcoming, we developed AcrHub, an integrative database to provide an all-in-one solution for investigating, predicting and mapping Acr proteins. AcrHub catalogs 339 non-redundant experimentally validated Acrs and over 70 000 predicted Acrs extracted from genome sequence data from a diverse range of prokaryotic organisms and their viruses. It integrates state-of-the-art predictors to predict potential Acrs, and incorporates three analytical modules: similarity analysis, phylogenetic analysis and homology network analysis, to analyze their relationships with known Acrs. By interconnecting all modules as a platform, AcrHub presents enriched and in-depth analysis of known and potential Acrs and therefore provides new and exciting insights into the future of Acr discovery and validation. AcrHub is freely available at http://pacrispr.erc.monash.edu/AcrHub/.


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