193 research outputs found
De rode draad. Lessen uit innovatieve kantoorprojecten bij ABN AMRO: Innovatieve kantoorconcepten voor flexibel werken
No full textIn 1994 startte ABN AMRO haar eerste kleinschalige proefprojecten kantoorinnovatie, toegespitst op een andere layout dan het traditionele cellenkantoor of de kantoortuin. De eerste twee pilots betroffen een kloosterkantoor voor DG Automatisering en een combikantoor voor DG Human Resources Management. Al gauw werd ook geëxperimenteerd met het delen van werkplekken (gericht op efficiënter ruimtegebruik) en thuiswerken (gericht op efficiënter tijdgebruik). De grote doorbraak was de flexibele inrichting van Regiokantoor Zuidwest in Breda conform het Flexido concept: flexibel en doelmatig.Anno 2001 telt ABN AMRO ca 15 innovatieve projecten, in fase variërend van een oriënterend initiatief tot een aantal jaren in gebruik. De aard en omvang van de projecten variëren van een kleinschalig proefproject thuiswerken voor zes medewerkers tot enkele grootschalige projecten met honderdenactiviteitgerelateerde wisselwerkplekken. Met het introduceren van nieuwe kantoorconcepten beoogt de bank de medewerkers te stimuleren tot flexibel werken, deze nieuwe wijze van werken optimaal te faciliteren, bij te dragen aan een innovatieve uitstraling van de bank, en een hogere arbeidsatisfactieen arbeidsproductiviteit te realiseren met minder kosten.Uit de projecten valt veel te leren. Om die reden is ABN AMRO een samenwerkingsverband aangegaan met de Faculteit Bouwkunde van de Technische Universiteit Delft. Doel is om gezamenlijk door zorgvuldige evaluatie van gerealiseerde projecten kennis te ontwikkelen, als basis voor beleid en als input voor nog te realiseren projecten. De interesse gaat zowel uit naar de mate, waarin beoogde effecten daadwerkelijk gerealiseerd zijn (productevaluatie), als naar de wijze waarop innovatieve projecten het beste kunnen worden geïmplementeerd (procesevaluatie). Daartoe zijn in verschillende projecten enquêtes onder de medewerkers uitgezet en bezettingsgraadmetingen verricht, vooraf (nulmeting) en achteraf (nametingen in de gebruiksfase). Soms is volstaan met enkele interviews of een groepsgesprek.In dit interne rapport wordt verslag uitgebracht van de bevindingen. Eerst wordt besproken wat kantoorinnovatie inhoudt en waarom kantoorinnovatie nuttig en nodig kan zijn. Vervolgens worden de effecten van kantoorinnovatie doorgelicht. De bijlage bevat een overzicht van alle innovatieve projecten tot 1 januari 2000. Met name over de oudere projecten zijn slechts in beperkte mate evaluatiegegevens beschikbaar. Deze geven niettemin een aardige indruk van het project. Drie projecten zijn vrij uitgebreid geëvalueerd: Interne Controle Regio Amsterdam, twee pilots bij DGIT en regiokantoor Zuidwest in Breda. Hierover zijn afzonderlijke rapportages uitgebracht. Van laatstgenoemd project is tevens een evaluatie van de kosten in vergelijking met een conventioneel concept beschikbaar. Een verkorte versie van de onderhavige evaluatienota is als werkdocument uitgebracht onder de naam De Rode Draad. Daarin wordt tevens ingegaan op de belangrijkste stappen in het implementatieproces en succes- en faalfactoren.Deze bundeling van lessen uit projecten maakt deel uit van een reeks andere activiteiten. Samen met een extern adviesbureau zijn zogenaamde footprints opgesteld om een koppeling te kunnen leggen tussen typen functies en typen werkplekken. Samen met de Rijksgebouwendienst zijn een model enmethoden ontwikkeld voor evaluatie van kantoorinnovatie. Sinds kort participeert ABN AMRO in een kenniscentrum Center for People and Buildings, dat onder meer onderzoek verricht naar trends in werkomgevingen, telewerken, gebruik en beleving van innovatieve werkomgevingen en kosten enbaten van kantoorinnovatie. Op deze wijze hoopt de afdeling Concernhuisvesting en Vastgoed van ABN AMRO samen met de TU Delft en andere partners een wisselwerking tot stand te brengen tussen theorie en praktijk en bouwstenen aan te dragen voor een innovatief huisvestingsbeleid.Real Estate Managemen
The honey bee genome-- what has it been good for?
No full textIn 2006, the full complement of DNA sequence information (or ‘genome’) of the Western honey bee, Apis mellifera, was published. This important resource was one of the most important advances in the history of honey bee research, with seemingly limitless applications to unlocking the secrets of honey bee biology and social life and for improving health, breeding and management. Honey bee genomics has seen immense growth in the past one and a half decades. In this article, we reflect on what the genome has added to our understanding of fundamental aspects of honey bee biology, including evolutionary origins, behaviour and health/disease. We conclude that while the genome has fuelled growth in many areas of honey bee research, it is only one part of an emerging systems-based, multi-omics approach. Moving forward, we posit that honey bee research will benefit most from an even fuller integration of genomics with classical approaches in evolution, ethology, physiology and microbiology.This article is published as Toth, A.L., Zayed, A. The honey bee genome-- what has it been good for?. Apidologie (2021). doi: 10.1007/s13592-020-00829-3.</p
Innovation in a large scale agile organisation: A case study of ABN AMRO
No full textAgile methods seem to be the answer for today’s turbulent industries, and with it roots in software development, coincides neatly with the increasingly digital world we live in. ABN AMRO also decided to implement a large scale agile framework tailored to their company. Agile methodologies are known to work well at small scale and in an IT context, however at ABN AMRO they’ve implemented it for over 6000 employees from both business and IT departments. Unsurprisingly ABN AMRO faces challenges within this agile organisation. One area in which they’re struggling is managing innovation in a way that aligns with the flow of the tailored and scaled agile organisation. The objective was therefore; To design solution that better aligns innovation processes with the flow of the tailored and scale agile landscape. In addition, literature on large scale tailored agile transformation and innovation management within financial services firms is scarce. Both areas are relevant, however no research was found that combined these topics. Therefor in this thesis we attempt to find challenges for innovation management in a large scale tailored agile framework. In order to both find an answer to this question and help ABN AMRO the challenge was approached from two different streams. Firstly, a revelatory single-case study on ABN AMRO’s tailored agile framework served to understand how they tailored agile at such a large scale and what the challenges were. Secondly, through semi structured interviews with 18 ABN AMRO employees, their innovation management efforts were investigated as well as the challenges they experience with it. Both the challenges from a large scale agile perspective and the company-wide innovation management were merged into a set of six new challenges; “governance on innovation in the agile organisation”, “deficiency of exploration skills”, “getting innovation on the backlog”, “Lack of clear guidance & leadership on innovation”, “Dependencies & Limited Autonomy”, and “Organisational and Cultural legacy”. Based on these challenges a new design challenge was posited which was to design a solution that stimulates ownership and awareness amongst idea owners in the grid landscape towards customer problems and needs. This solution needed to provide clear guidance to enable autonomous and successful realisation of these customer centric innovations in the product and system oriented agile organisation. As a solution to the design challenge and in order to help ABN AMRO with their innovation management efforts, the “User Needs Integration Canvas” was created which is an innovation process that focuses on bridging the gap between customer needs and the complex nature of ABN AMRO’s agile organisation. This study further finds that agile methods don’t cover the innovation process in full, and thus extra efforts and support should go towards managing incremental innovation, the front-end of innovation specifically. In addition traditional financial service providers carry cultural legacy, lack innovation legacy and explorative competences. The role of the individual, with their skills, mindset and behaviour are imperative in in the journey towards a nimbler and more innovative financial service provider. There is no shortcut in becoming an innovative company, whilst a large scale agile framework is a step in the right direction, still a lot of time, effort and patience is needed beyond this stepStrategic Product Desig
Analysis of Spatial Learning in Honeybee Foragers Using the Food Search Box Assay
No full textGiven the under-representation of genetic analyses of spatial learning in honeybee literature, I designed an experiment to investigate gene expression profiles associated with spatial learning. The experimental design involved using the Food Search Box (FSB) assay to assess learning in Single Drone-Inseminated (SDI) foragers, then collecting the bees for RNA-seq analysis to generate and compare full-transcriptome gene expression profiles for five different stages of learning. From the first to the third learning trial, the SDI foragers did not decrease the number of mistakes they made in a significant way: they did not switch from chance to non-chance searching behaviour. In addition, during the memory recall stage, the bees made significantly more errors than chance, suggesting they did not remember their focal flower. Landmarks cues, inter-trial interval, motivation level for sucrose and genetics may each play a role in the ability of SDI foragers to learn vs. foragers from naturally mated queens
Understanding the evolutionary origin and ancestral composition of honey bee (Apis mellifera) populations.
No full textThe honey bee, Apis mellifera, is arguably the most important managed pollinator globally. Yet despite its economic and ecological importance, there are still several unknowns regarding the species ancestral origin and ancestral complexity. Understanding the genetic composition of native and managed honey bee colonies is imperative for resolving the species life history and elucidating how ancestry may inform management strategies. In this dissertation, I take a deep dive into the evolutionary origins of Apis mellifera and learn how ancestral complexity has shaped the composition of contemporary populations. In Chapter two, I settle a long-standing debate about the ancestral origins of the species. I find that Apis mellifea diverged out of Western Asia via at least three colonization routes, which resulted in the evolution of at least seven genetically distinct lineages. Interesting, I find that these lineages were able to adapt to their current distribution by repeated selection among a core set of genes. In Chapter three, I take a closer look at the genetic complexity of managed Canadian honey bees by estimating the ancestral composition of colonies using the genomic dataset from Chapter two. I find that patterns of ancestry differ between Canadian provinces, and that admixture correlates strongly with levels of genetic diversity. Interestingly, I find that genomic intervals with elevated levels of admixture segregate non-randomly in the genome and are associated with genes related to parasite and xenobiotic tolerance. Though admixture may bear advantages for managed colonies, admixture among honey bee is not always valued. In Chapter four and five I make use of the ancestral composition of invasive Africanized honey bees to develop assays to identify and track populations. This was achieved using machine learning models to choose the most informative single nucleotide polymorphisms (Chapter 4) and insertion-deletion (Chapter 5) markers that best delineate Africanized genetics from managed European colonies. My research addresses many gaps in our understanding of honey bee origins and ancestral complexity
The Effects of Social Interactions on Learning and Memory in the Honey Bee Apis Mellifera
No full textThe honey bee Apis mellifera has been used to study the genetics of learning and memory for several decades. In Chapter 2, a literature review revealed that learning and memory phenotypes are highly heritable. Several quantitative trait loci and specific genes which code for neurotransmitter receptors were identified. Whereas transcriptomic approaches showed that the process of learning and memory involves hundreds of genes. Although understanding the genetic components is crucial, it is also important to understand how environmental factors affect learning and memory. In Chapter 3, I investigate the effect of social interactions on discrimination learning by randomly assigning bees into three different social groups: 1 bee, 8 bees, and 32 bees. Using the proboscis extension conditioned response test, I found that the fewer social interactions a bee experiences, the more responsive she is to sucrose. Bees raised in groups of 32 had the best performance in discrimination learning
Development of Exposure Biomarkers for the Honey Bee (Apis mellifera): Neonicotinoids Versus Traditional Pesticides
No full textPollination is a vital ecosystem service crucial for reproduction of flowering plants, including agricultural crops. The western honey bee, Apis mellifera, is the most used managed pollinator worldwide. The use and overuse of agrochemicals is hypothesized to have played a role in increasing rates of colony mortality in Canada and globally. The identity of stressors affecting a colony is difficult to discern; information critical for diagnosing and managing honey bee colony health. Here, I explored the potential of using gene expression profiles as diagnostic biomarkers for exposure to various agrochemicals in honey bees. I found genes differentially expressed unique to each stressor, which could be putative biomarkers for specific agrochemical exposure. I found genes common between pesticides, which could be a putative general agrochemical stress signal. My research indicates that gene expression profiles can be an excellent tool for discovering stressor-specific biomarkers and diagnosing stressors found in honey bee colonies
The Neurogenomic State Underlying Selfish and Altruistic Aggression in Honey Bees (Apis mellifera)
No full textI studied aggression using the eusocial Western honey bee, Apis mellifera, as it displays aggression in altruistic and selfish contexts, allowing comparisons that improve our understanding regarding the molecular biology and neurogenomics underlying this ecologically important behaviour. Workers exhibit altruistic aggression to protect their colony while queens exhibit selfish aggression to gain reproductive control within their colony. I hypothesized that the neurogenomic state associated with altruistic aggression of worker bees is more evolutionarily derived than that associated with selfish aggression of queens. Using RNAseq I compared the neurotranscriptome of at-rest and aggressive workers and queens. Classifying the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of workers and queens as taxonomically-restricted or conserved as well as comparing these DEGs to that of solitary species both revealed that worker altruistic aggression DEGs are not more evolutionary derived than queen selfish aggression DEGs. These comparative analyses help reveal the molecular underpinnings of aggression in honey bees
Insects with similar social complexity show convergent patterns of adaptive molecular evolution
No full textEusociality has independently evolved multiple times in the hymenoptera, but the patterns of adaptive molecular evolution underlying the evolution and elaboration of eusociality remain uncertain. Here, we performed a population genomics study of primitively eusocial Polistes (paper wasps), and compared their patterns of molecular evolution to two social bees; Bombus (bumblebees), and Apis (honey bees). This species triad allowed us to study molecular evolution across a gradient of social complexity (Polistes Bombus Apis) and compare species pairs that have similar (i.e. Polistes and Bombus) or different (i.e. Polistes and Apis) life histories, while controlling for phylogenetic distance. We found that regulatory genes have high levels of positive selection in Polistes; consistent with the prediction that adaptive changes in gene regulation are important during early stages of social evolution. Polistes and Bombus exhibit greater similarity in patterns of adaptive evolution including greater overlap of genes experiencing positive selection, and greater positive selection on queen-biased genes. Our findings suggest that either adaptive evolution of a few key genes underlie the evolution of simpler forms of eusociality, or that the initial stages of social evolution lead to selection on a few key traits orchestrated by orthologous genes and networks.This article is published as Dogantzis, Kathleen A., Brock A. Harpur, André Rodrigues, Laura Beani, Amy L. Toth, and Amro Zayed. "Insects with similar social complexity show convergent patterns of adaptive molecular evolution." Scientific Reports 8 (2018): 10388. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-28489-5.</p
Genome Wide Analysis Of Admixture In Apis Mellifera Intermissa
No full textUnraveling the evolutionary history of Apis mellifera reveals how populations have adapted to diverse environments, resisted disease, and responded to human influence. An admixed population of A. m. intermissa in Morocco has sparked debate over the dispersal routes of A. mellifera and the origin of the European (M) lineage. Yet, despite its identification, the genomic consequences of this admixture remain largely unexplored. We analyzed global and local ancestry, estimated admixture timing, and assessed genetic diversity in this A. m. intermissa population. Our findings reveal recent admixture, occurring ~14 generations ago, with genome-wide diversity reflecting an intermediate value between progenitor lineages. Notable regions on chromosomes 7 and 11 showed high enrichment for M lineage ancestry. Functional enrichment and prior studies suggest these regions influence detoxification, immunity, development, and hormonal regulation. Four QTLs with 18 loci further support M lineage contributions to Varroa destructor resilience. These findings reveal the functional role of M lineage ancestry in North African Apis mellifera populations and offer a framework for further exploring the genomic outcomes of admixture
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