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Market orientation literature in the context of higher education institutions
Get PDFPurpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the literature related to market orientation (MO) in the context of higher education institutions (HEIs). Design/methodology/approach: A search of major research databases with multiple keywords was performed to identify relevant peer-reviewed articles. A total of forty-three articles were identified and reviewed. Findings: The articles reviewed were predominantly in marketing/business and or education journals. A greater number which were published in the last ten years. The articles were predominantly empirical, quantitative and sampled HEI staff across two or more HEIs. Themes in the literature included; the MO and performance relationship, antecedents of MO, outlining MO frameworks, MO scales, export MO, market orientation for HEIs in developing countries, assessing MO in particular contexts, MO in public and private HEIs and literature reviews of MO in a higher education context. Research implications: This study provides an outline of the literature on MO and HEIs. The analysis of the different types of articles and themes they address can build the foundation for future research. Originality/value: This review of the literature can serve as a roadmap for academics and help stimulate further interest
Lameness Detection as a Service: Application of Machine Learning to an Internet of Cattle
Get PDFLameness is a big problem in the dairy industry,
farmers are not yet able to adequately solve it because of the
high initial setup costs and complex equipment in currently
available solutions, and as a result, we propose an end-to-end
IoT application that leverages advanced machine learning and
data analytics techniques to identify lame dairy cattle.
As part of a real world trial in Waterford, Ireland, 150
dairy cows were each fitted with a long range pedometer. The
mobility data from the sensors attached to the front leg of
each cow is aggregated at the fog node to form time series of
behavioral activities (e.g. step count, lying time and swaps per
hour). These are analyzed in the cloud and lameness anomalies
are sent to farmer’s mobile device using push notifications. The
application and model automatically measure and can gather
data continuously such that cows can be monitored daily. This
means there is no need for herding the cows, furthermore
the clustering technique employed proposes a new approach of
having a different model for subsets of animals with similar
activity levels as opposed to a one size fits all approach. It also
ensures that the custom models dynamically adjust as weather
and farm condition change as the application scales. The initial
results indicate that we can predict lameness 3 days before it
can be visually captured by the farmer with an overall accuracy
of 87%. This means that the animal can either be isolated or
treated immediately to avoid any further effects of lameness.
Index Terms—Lameness, Internet of Things (IoT), Data Analytics,
Smart Agriculture, Machine Learning, Micro services, Fog
Computing.
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Artificial Potential Field Assisted Mirror Reflectors for Terahertz Communications
Get PDFThe expectation for higher capacity wireless communication links is ever increasing due to the demand for high-data intensive applications, such as multimedia streaming, as well as increased number of devices connecting to the Internet. Researchers have now recently explored regions of the spectrum that are under utilized for communications, and this is the Terahertz band (0.1 THz to 10 THz). Unlike wireless technologies today, THz frequencies come with a plethora of challenges, one of which is the requirement of constant LoS. A number of solutions have explored the use of reflectors, or even reflect-arrays, that can help assist in redirecting beams towards the mobile devices in order to avoid blockages. In this paper, we propose the use of the Artificial Potential Field concept to increase the LoS rays in a multi-ray link by controlling antenna strips selection of a base station. Our approach aims to ensure a clear THz signal path from the base station to the reflectors, and to the mobile. We also consider micro-movement events that may result in loss of connectivity, through a concept of Personal Zones that allows multiple THz rays to beam around a user. Simulation results have shown the efficiency of the Artificial Potential Field (APF) in assisting the mirrors to redirect their beams through smaller number of utilized antenna strips, which increases the signal-to-noise ratio of links
THE IDENTIFICATION OF GENES AND ENZYMES IN THE ALDOXIME-NITRILE METABOLISING PATHWAY
Get PDFBiocatalysis is gaining much attention for the production of pharmaceutical intermediates, drug compounds and, fine chemicals. Biocatalysis, as a route of synthesis, boasts many benefits over traditional chemical synthesis. It can account for enantiopure compounds, lower waste production, decreases the need for potential purification and down-stream processing while also allowing the reactions to be carried out at milder conditions, such as lower temperatures and a relatively neutral pH (Gong et al. 2012, Singh et al. 2006). Due to the often low efficacy of racemic drugs or in fact the side effects caused by one of the enantiomers, enantiopure products are highly sought after (Albarrán-Velo et al. 2018). Thalidomide, a drug that was previously prescribed to treat morning sickness during pregnancy was sold as a safe and effective anti-emetic, in its racemic form. Unfortunately, years later the level of incidents of miscarriage and foetal birth defects observed amongst the women who were prescribed the drug led to the discovery that the S-enantiomer of the drug was teratogenic. Enzymes comprising the Aldoxime-Nitrile pathway are the focus of the body of work presented in this thesis. In 2010, it was reported that there were over 30 nitrile-containing pharmaceuticals on the market with another 20 at clinical trial stage (Fleming et al. 2010). Many nitrile containing drugs or intermediates may have been produced via chemical synthesis coupled with biocatalysis. Focusing on the identification of aldoxime dehydratase enzymes can offer a new, improved route to nitrile synthesis. The research presented in chapter two and published by (Dooley-Cullinane et al. 2016) presents a new high-throughput real-time (qPCR) for the detection of novel aldoxime dehydratase genes. The potential application of these genes/enzymes was reinforced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of 11 nitrile containing pharmaceuticals since 2010. This is an indication as to what is to come with regard to an increase in market size for bio-pharmaceuticals produced by biocatalysis, in particular nitrile containing pharmaceuticals. The remaining enzymes which comprise the aldoxime-nitrile pathway, the nitrile-degrading enzymes such as nitrilases and nitrile hydratases (NHases), have been shown to display a broad substrate scope and complex nitrile substrates can be converted into their corresponding amides with the final enzyme, and amidase converting the amide to the corresponding carboxylic acids. The area of nitrile metabolism has been of great interest and will be into the foreseeable future (Huisman and Collier 2013, Gong et al. 2012). The body of work presented, details outputs and discoveries which form a part of the larger web of research undertaken by the molecular biocatalysis research group. The overall aim of research carried out by the group is the identification and discovery of novel genes and enzymes towards the production of industrially or biopharmaceutical relevant products. This thesis presents two novel molecular methods for the detection of genes within the aldoxime-nitrile pathway. A novel qPCR method was designed for the detection of aldoxime dehydratase genes. The second molecular method presented is a novel clade-specific touchdown conventional PCR which allows for the clade specific detection of novel nitrilase genes. Additionally, this protocol allows for the detection of nitrilase genes with predicted enzymatic activity in model substrates based on their clade classification. A novel nitrilase previously identified from Burkholderia sp. LC8 was cloned, expressed and characterised with results displaying a broad substrate range and excellent enantioselectivity towards mandelonitrile. The research also documents the discovery of a novel nitrilase partial sequence through the construction of a genomic fosmid library from genomic DNA of Rhodococcus erythropolis SET-1. This body of work involved the screening of fosmid clones for functional activity on 3-HGN. Further work presented a discussion on the attempts to elucidate the full nitrilase gene sequence via fosmid insert sequencing and also whole genome sequencing which led to the identification of a nitrile hydratase/amidase genomic cluster in R. erythropolis SET-1
Gamification of physical activity and active travel in school-children; the impact of the Beat the Street intervention in Waterford, Ireland
Get PDFIntroduction:
Levels of physical activity and active travel are insufficient in Ireland. Gamification may be an effective approach to increasing walking and cycling in school-children. Beat the Street is a real-life walking and cycling game where players accumulate points using swipe card technology. The primary purpose of this study was to measure the efficacy of the gamified intervention on travel modes in school-children.
Methods:
This study evaluates a seven-week (September-November, 2017) gamified intervention. A seasonally match repeat cross-sectional surveys were collected in 24 intervention schools (16 primary and 8 secondary) and 2 control primary schools. Baseline surveys were conducted in October 2016 in 5th & 6th years of primary schools and 1st year of secondary schools. Follow-up surveys were conducted in November 2017 in 5th & 6th years of primary schools and 1st year of secondary schools.
Results:
Overall, 1892 children completed self-report surveys at baseline (intervention 1769, control 123) and 1776 at follow-up (intervention 1674, control 102). Females were significantly (p<0.001) more likely to play the game regularly when compared to males. Almost 25.3% of all females played the game every day in contrast with 16.1% of males. A greater proportion of primary school-children played the game every week (66.1% vs 45.5% of secondary school-children). There was no overall change in the proportion of school-children who walked or cycled to school in the intervention schools (26.5% at baseline and 25.9% at follow-up in primary; 21.1% at baseline and 19.2% at follow-up in secondary) compared with control (45.4% at baseline and 43% at follow-up) post-intervention. Correspondingly, there was no overall change in the number of days school-children achieved 60 minutes of MVPA at follow-up in the intervention (5.5, ±1.72 days at baseline to 5.2, ±1.82 days at follow-up in primary; 4.8, ±1.88 at baseline to 4.5, ±1.90 in secondary schools) versus control schools (5.9, ±1.49 days at baseline to 5.5, ±1.85 days at follow-up in primary schools). Children recommended the game should have a greater number of boxes, a more comprehensive reward system and be more challenging, exciting and fun.
Discussion:
The BTS game was not effective in creating a modal shift to active travel to school. The game itself needs to employ a more persuasive architecture to maintain interest and participation levels. Despite this, the game achieved very high levels of unprompted awareness, particularly among primary school children and girls. Gamification of active travel to school should not be a stand-alone intervention. It should be integrated into multicomponent programs which include infrastructural provision, policy development and curricular programming
SmartHerd Management: A Microservices Based Fog Computing Assisted IoT Platform towards Data Driven Smart Dairy Farming
Get PDFInternet of things (IoT), fog computing, cloud computing and data driven techniques together offer a great opportunity for verticals such as dairy industry to increase productivity by getting actionable insights to improve farming practices, thereby increasing efficiency and yield. In this paper, we present SmartHerd, a fog computing assisted end-to-end IoT platform for animal behaviour analysis and health monitoring in a dairy farming scenario. The platform follows a microservices oriented design to assist the distributed computing paradigm, and addresses the major issue of constrained Internet connectivity in remote farm locations. We present the implementation of the designed software system in a 6 month mature real-world deployment, wherein the data from wearables on cows is sent to a fog based platform for data classification and analysis, which includes decision making capabilities and provides actionable insights to farmer towards the welfare of animals. With fog based computational assistance in the SmartHerd setup, we see an 84\% reduction in amount of data transferred to the cloud as compared to the conventional cloud based approach
Explorando o Potencial da Molécula IP3 para a Comunicação em Nanorredes
Get PDFAdvances in bioengineering and nanotechnology have allowed the emergence of nanometer-sized devices, e.g., synthetic nanomachines, nanoantennas and nanoinjectors, able of detecting and actuating their environment. However, despite necessary, it is a big challenge to master the communication among them. The conventional electromagnetic communication is not a direct choice for nanonetworks in some specific medium and due to their scale. Hence, researchers have explored molecular communication. Particularly, this paper investigates the potential of the Inositol Triphosphate (IP3) molecule for data communication between nanodevices. We evaluate the space-time concentration of the IP3 molecule and how intracellular signaling inflluences over it in neuron cells (astrocytes). Compared to the calcium molecule performance, results from gain and channel communication are promising and assist in a further understanding of how to manage extracellular data transmission
BEYOND PROFESSIONALISM: FROM BUSINESS PROFESSIONAL TO PROFESSIONAL MANAGER - AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXECUTIVE MBA STUDENTS
Get PDFExecutive MBA programmes have long been synonymous with developing an eclectic mix of professionals into a professional cadre of executive managers. This exploratory study of professionalism in executive MBAs seeks to discover how their educators and learners perceive professionalism and identify the professional competencies, values and behaviours that they perceive learners develop, by which mechanisms and in what contexts. Semi-structured interviews with educators and learner focus groups provide a basis for thematic analysis. Findings suggest that educators and learners perceive professionalism to comprise synthesis and design skills, ethical disposition and behavioural moderation. Executive MBA programmes appear to reinforce these elements inversely to the proto-professional education processes of the archetype professions by intellectually anchoring in the business disciplines, providing reflective space for, and sharing learner experiences. Education processes that appear to support professionalism include curricula integrated across a broad range of business disciplines, andragogy, relationship learning, intertwining professional relevance with academic rigour and career development. Yet, educators imply a more holistic approach, beyond professionalism, to supporting managerial development. A synthesis of these findings with the literature yields a conceptual framework that contributes to our comprehension of the embeddedness of professionalism in executive MBA programmes by linking their processes and outcomes to relevant developmental factors of managerial professionalism. This study also enhances our understanding of executive MBA programmes. At the frontline between liberal and professional education, these programmes appear to align with one of three models that exhibit increasing levels of embeddedness of professionalism: a traditional model that siloes management knowledge; an intermediate model that bolts on professional development; and an integrated model that promotes synthesis and design. Whilst this study is limited to executive MBAs on the island of Ireland, contributions to management education arise from the international context in which MBAs are built on similar notions. Key Words - Professionalism, Management Education, Executive MBA, Educator and Learner Perceptions, Synthesis and Design, Ethical Disposition, Behavioural Moderation
The Use of Social Media in Sporting Organisations in Ireland: An Examination of Practice and Challenges in Accomplishing Organisational Objectives
Get PDFPurpose: The purpose of this study is to examine current social media practice, understand the perceived utility of social media in achieving organisational goals and investigate the barriers faced by NGBs and LSPs in Ireland concerning social media use. Finally, it sought to investigate best practice recommendations in the use of social media for NGBs and LSPs. Methods: This research employed two forms of data collection in a three-phase methodology. Firstly, one semi-structured interview with a key informant was used to establish best practice recommendations. An adapted online questionnaire was then circulated to Ireland’s national population of NGBs (N=65) and LSPs (N=29) to investigate the usage, goals and barriers relating to the use of social media. Finally, ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with NGBs (n=6) and LSPs (n=4) to give greater insight into the research questions posed. Findings: The response rate for this research was 48% (n=45). Overall, NGBs and LSPs used a mixture of textual and multimedia content to engage with and educate followers on Facebook and Twitter. Two main organisational goals emerged: information dissemination and promotion. The barriers identified were a lack of organisational resources, expertise and control. Best practice recommendations were made in the areas of usage, sponsorship and resources. Conclusions: For NGBs and LSPs, the perceived utility of social media lies in its ability to reach a wide audience to increase awareness of, and to promote the organisation and sport. However, it is unlikely that current practice is achieving these objectives. There is disparity between current use and best practice recommendations. This is mainly due to a lack of resources and social media expertise. It is suggested that NGBs and LSPs pool resources and upskill in order to reach best practice standards. This could result in success in areas such as communication, promotion and sponsorship
Exploring the externalisation phase of knowledge creation in the medical technology sector
Get PDFOrganisational knowledge creation can be described as the process of eliciting, harnessing and amplifying knowledge created within the individual and linking this newly codified knowledge to an organisation’s existing knowledge system (Nonaka and von Krogh, 2009). The externalisation mode, which can be defined as the process of articulating tacit knowledge in to a more comprehensible explicit form in order for it to be understood by others, has been identified as a key area for future research. In light of the above, this study aims to explore the ways in which organisations manage the externalisation phase of knowledge creation in order to harness and codify tacit knowledge. The studied context is the medical technology sector. The research questions ask: How does the articulation and codification of tacit knowledge occur in the medical technology sector? What are the barriers and enabling conditions of the externalisation phase of knowledge creation? This study adopts an interpretive research method. As interpretive research involves interpreting and understanding experiences of people engaged in the knowledge creation process (Creswell, 1998), this approach offered the best opportunity to harness individual perceptions of the externalisation phase of knowledge creation (Robson, 2002). Guided by the literature review, a set of interview questions were created and piloted prior to interviewing 24 participants, across a selection of award-winning organisations in the Irish Medtech sector. The study syntheses a conceptual framework of the externalisation phase from existing literature (Figure 2.5) showing tacit knowledge as articulated by an individual and transferred to others through a series of shared understanding exchanges before it is codified. This framework is then refined following analysis of the findings (Figure 6.1) to identify articulation enabling conditions as the simultaneous presence of a knowledge sharing culture and an open communication environment and where the intersecting domain between articulation and translation enabling conditions is expanded. The study expands existing research relating to how the externalisation phase occurs including the barriers and enabling conditions that impact upon it within an organisational setting. The revised framework reasserts the perspective of knowledge as existing upon a continuum and details the environmental factors and articulation and translation enabling conditions required to make knowledge more explicit. The revised framework also expands the role of codification in promoting articulation and emphasises the involvement of employees in the process of recodification and in the refinement of existing codified knowledge in order that newly codified knowledge represents the original tacit meaning as accurately and as fully as is possible. The study offers a number of practical and theoretical recommendations. This research aligns with international research and investment strategy, which suggests that a manufacturing environment requires an innovative, skilled and adaptable workforce supported by a strong and efficient system for knowledge creation and diffusion, which helps companies respond more competitively to new global challenges. The research findings assist in harnessing transferrable and domain specific knowledge skills and may improve knowledge transfer. The research also aligns with the aims of the Irish Centre for Manufacturing Research (2016) as it moves to translate tacit knowledge within the workforce