Improving productivity by developing knowledge management practices for a consulting company

The objective of the research was to identify knowledge conversion states in consultancy sales and delivery processes for the company’s one business unit, to know where to store certain types of information and knowledge, and to create best practices for the company’s knowledge management activities in the selected business processes. The used research methodology was action research. The current business processes were analyzed by interviewing people involved in them. The results were documented and catego- rized, and based on them the target states of the processes were developed. Knowledge man- agement activities were integrated to the business processes. The main findings of the research were that roles and responsibilities in the processes were not clear to people, information systems did not fully support individuals and time was wasted searching for information and knowledge. There were also many variations of how the processes actually realized, which affected the overall quality of the process. The conclusions of the research were that knowledge management activities should be high- lighted in businesses where knowledge workers are the main assets of the company. Knowledge management practices can be supported by company culture, leadership and in- formation systems. However, one main factor is each individual’s willingness to share knowledge. By integrating knowledge management activities to business processes and hav- ing information systems supporting knowledge management, individual productivity can be improved.

Cooperation, social capital and economic performance

The objective of this paper is to define social capital as social infrastructure and to try to include this variable in an economic growth model. Considering social capital in such a way could have an impact on the productivity of production factors. Firstly, I will discuss how institutional variables can affect growth. Secondly, after analyzing several definitions of social capital, I will point out the benefits and problems of each one and will define social capital as social infrastructure, aiming to introduce this variable into an economic growth model. Finally, I will try to open the way for subsequent empirical studies, both in the area of measuring the stock of social infrastructure as well as those comparing economies, with the idea of showing the impact of social infrastructure on economic growth.

Measuring software security from the design of software

The vast majority of our contemporary society owns a mobile phone, which has resulted in a dramatic rise in the amount of networked computers in recent years. Security issues in the computers have followed the same trend and nearly everyone is now affected by such issues. How could the situation be improved? For software engineers, an obvious answer is to build computer software with security in mind. A problem with building software with security is how to define secure software or how to measure security. This thesis divides the problem into three research questions. First, how can we measure the security of software? Second, what types of tools are available for measuring security? And finally, what do these tools reveal about the security of software? Measuring tools of these kind are commonly called metrics. This thesis is focused on the perspective of software engineers in the software design phase. Focus on the design phase means that code level semantics or programming language specifics are not discussed in this work. Organizational policy, management issues or software development process are also out of the scope. The first two research problems were studied using a literature review while the third was studied using a case study research. The target of the case study was a Java based email server called Apache James, which had details from its changelog and security issues available and the source code was accessible. The research revealed that there is a consensus in the terminology on software security. Security verification activities are commonly divided into evaluation and assurance. The focus of this work was in assurance, which means to verify one’s own work. There are 34 metrics available for security measurements, of which five are evaluation metrics and 29 are assurance metrics. We found, however, that the general quality of these metrics was not good. Only three metrics in the design category passed the inspection criteria and could be used in the case study. The metrics claim to give quantitative information on the security of the software, but in practice they were limited to evaluating different versions of the same software. Apart from being relative, the metrics were unable to detect security issues or point out problems in the design. Furthermore, interpreting the metrics’ results was difficult. In conclusion, the general state of the software security metrics leaves a lot to be desired. The metrics studied had both theoretical and practical issues, and are not suitable for daily engineering workflows. The metrics studied provided a basis for further research, since they pointed out areas where the security metrics were necessary to improve whether verification of security from the design was desired.

Economic growth, labor and productivity in Brazil and the United States: a comparative analysis

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relation between economic growth and labor market dynamics in Brazil between 1981 and 2009, making a comparison with the United States. Among the findings, one can mention that economic growth in Brazil has been related to a massive incorporation of labor force in labor intensive activities, whereas, in the United States, to a substantial improvement of labor productivity in high-technology activities. Despite the favorable economic context in the 2000s, huge inequalities between these countries have widened since the structure of the Brazilian labor market remained with few or no changes.

Measuring Shared Value: How to Unlock Value by Linking Social and Business Results

Competitividad y valor compartido

Factors influencing the seasonal changes in primary productivity of the photosynthetic bacteria of Crawford Lake, Ontario

A naturally occurring population of photosynthetic bacteria, located in the meromictic Crawford Lake, was examined during two field seasons (1979-1981). Primary production, biomass, light intensity, lake transparency, pH and bicarbonate concentration were all monitored during this period at selected time intervals. Analysis of the data indicated that (l4C) bacterial photosynthesis was potentially limited by the ambient bicarbonate concentration. Once a threshold value (of 270 mg/l) was reached a dramatic (2 to 10 fold) increase in the primary productivity of the bacteria was observed. Light intensity appeared to have very little effect on the primary productivity of the bacteria, even at times when analyses by Parkin and Brock (1980a) suggested that light intensity could be limiting (i.e., 3.0-5.0 ft. candles). Shifts in the absorption maxima at 430 nrn of the .bacteriochlorophyll spectrum suggested that changes in the species or strain composition of the photosynthetic bacteria had occurred during the summer months. It was speculated that these changes might reflect seasonal variation in the wavelength of light reaching the bacteria. Chemocline erosion did not have the same effect on the population size (biomass) of the photosynthetic bacteria in Crawford Lake (this thesis) as it did in Pink Lake (Dickman, 1979). In Crawford Lake the depth of the chemocline was lowered with no apparent loss in biomass (according to bacteriochlorophyll data). A reverse current was. proposed to explain the observation. The photosynthetic bacteria contributed a significant proportion (10-60%) of the lake1s primary productivitya Direct evidence was obtained with (14C) labelling of the photosynthetic bacteria, indica.ting that the zooplankton were grazing the photosynthetic bacteria. This indicated that some of the photosynthetic bacterial productivity was assimilated into the food chain of the lake. Therefore, it was concluded that the photosynthetic bacteria made a significant contribution to the total productivity of Crawford Lake.

Measuring curriculum integration in the junior grades: the design of an instrument

This study \Alas initiated in response to the Junior Division Review (1985) publ ished by the Ministry of Education for the Province of Ontario. Curriculum integration is an element used within the educational paradigm designed by the Ontario Ministry of Education. It is a term frequent1y verbal ized b>' educators in this province, but because of 1 imi ted resource support regarding this methodology, it was open to broad interpretation resulting in an extreme v ar i at i on i nit simp 1 eme n tat i on • I n de ed, the Min i s try intimated that it was not occurring to any significant degree across the province. The objective of this thes is was· to define integration in the junior classroom and de-:.ign a meas.ur·ement in-:.tr-ument which would in turn high 1 i gh t indicators of curriculum integration. The :.tudy made a prel iminary, field-based survey of educa tiona 1 professionals in order to generate a relevant description of integrated curr-iculum programm i ng as def i ned in the j un i or classroom. The description was a compilation of views expressed by a random selection of teachers, consultants, supervisory officers and principals. The survey revea 1 ed a much more comprehens i ve vi et·<,l of the attributes of integrated programming than tradition would dictate and resulted in a functional definition tha t was broader than past prac t ices. Based on the information generated by this survey, an instrument ou t 1 in i ng program cr iter i a of was devised. an integrated junior cla~·sroom Th i s measuremen t i nstrumen t , designed for all levels of educators, was named uThe Han~.son I nstrumen t for the Measuremen t of Program Integrat ion in the Jun i or Cl assroom". It refl ected five categories intrinsic to the me thodol ogy of integration: Teacher Behaviour, Student Behaviour, Classroom Layout, Cl as~·r oom Environment and Progr amm i ng. Each category and the items therein were successfully tested in val idi ty and rel iabi 1 i ty checKs. Interestingly, the individual class was found to be the major variable programming in in the measuremen t the j un i or d i vis i on • of The integrated instrument demonstrated potential not onl)' a~· an initial measure of the degree of integrated curriculum, but as a guide to strategies to implement such a methodology.

Enabling and Measuring Complexity in Evolving Designs using Generative Representations for Artificial Architecture

As the complexity of evolutionary design problems grow, so too must the quality of solutions scale to that complexity. In this research, we develop a genetic programming system with individuals encoded as tree-based generative representations to address scalability. This system is capable of multi-objective evaluation using a ranked sum scoring strategy. We examine Hornby's features and measures of modularity, reuse and hierarchy in evolutionary design problems. Experiments are carried out, using the system to generate three-dimensional forms, and analyses of feature characteristics such as modularity, reuse and hierarchy were performed. This work expands on that of Hornby's, by examining a new and more difficult problem domain. The results from these experiments show that individuals encoded with those three features performed best overall. It is also seen, that the measures of complexity conform to the results of Hornby. Moving forward with only this best performing encoding, the system was applied to the generation of three-dimensional external building architecture. One objective considered was passive solar performance, in which the system was challenged with generating forms that optimize exposure to the Sun. The results from these and other experiments satisfied the requirements. The system was shown to scale well to the architectural problems studied.

Metaphorical Interpretation: Measuring and Facilitating Growth.

Abstract A total of 378 grade 9 students participated in this study to address the problem that although metaphorical literacy and thought are expected and necessary for success in junior and senior high school and beyond, metaphorical concepts and thought are not required to be explicitly taught to these students. The students were from 20 different classes from 4 levels: English language learners (ELL), school to work (SSTW), applied, and academic. All were from 7 secondary schools within a board in southern Ontario. Nine classes made up the control group and 11 classes made up the treatment group. All classes were given 3 pretests and the posttest. The treatment group was given Socratic lessons and direct instruction on metaphorical thought and expressions during 1 semester and in conjunction with their other classroom material. The pretest scores (TOLD, Peabody, preproverbs concrete, and preproverbs abstract) did not reveal any effect of gender, but the academic students had higher scores than the applied students. The SSTW student results are more variable: (a) for the TOLD test, SSTW scores were between those of the academic and applied students; (b) for Peabody scores, SSTW students’ scores are the same as academic and are greater than applied; (c) for preproverbs concrete and preproverbs abstract, the SSTW scores are not different from the applied scores. The postproverbs concrete and postproverbs abstract scores for the treatment groups also showed no effect of gender but revealed that all students who received the treatment did better on their post scores. The positive changes of the treatment group illustrate a measured movement from literal understanding to abstract understanding using direct Socratic instruction and proverbs as a medium.

Reduce Stress of Handling to Improve Productivity of Livestock

The article focuses on stress factors, which include: Genetic Background, Individual Differences, Past Experiences. The conclusion of the article states "reducing handling stress of animals will improve their weight gain, reproductive performance, and ability to resist disease".

Printed Blank by which John Brown Cullen solemnly declares that he is experienced in the art of measuring and culling timber

Printed blank by which John Brown Cullen solemnly declares that he is experienced in the art of measuring and culling timber. He states that he is entering into the service of Burton and Bro. of Barrie He will make out the specification of the timber in berths 192 and 198 and submit his findings to Burton and Brother, Oct. 22, 1877.

Map measuring 28 cm. x 24 cm. showing the Walter H. Dickson land

Map measuring 28 cm. x 24 cm. showing the Walter H. Dickson land along the road from Blenheim, n.d.