acquisition processes
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2022 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 101809
Author(s):  
Fredrik Hartwig ◽  
Mats Landström ◽  
Patrik Sörqvist

2022 ◽  
Vol 29 (99) ◽  
pp. 22-48
Author(s):  
Andrew Miller ◽  
Ronald Giachetti ◽  
Douglas Van Bossuyt

The Department of Defense (DoD) is often exhorted to adopt best practices from industry, and more recently, innovation in software development as exemplified by Silicon Valley. Yet, the DoD is vastly different from industry in multiple aspects, and adoption of such practices is not as straightforward as in industry. This article investigates the challenges of adopting Development and Operations (DevOps) in the U.S. Navy for combat systems. The authors conducted interviews of multiple subject matter experts in the Navy and DoD familiar with software development, DevOps, and the DoD’s acquisition processes. The observations collected from the interviews were organized and classified into either organizational, process, regulatory challenges, and technical challenges. The majority of the challenges cited were nontechnical challenges dealing with regulations, organization culture, and process. Knowledge of the challenges could help acquisition leaders in planning for, and adapting DevOps to, the Navy’s acquisition process to improve DoD’s software development and maintenance processes.


2022 ◽  
pp. 159-178
Author(s):  
Arthur McNeill

Within the field of TESOL, opinions often differ about the role of learners' first language (L1) in second language learning. When teachers are aware of their students' L1, this awareness can increase their understanding of second language acquisition processes and issues. It can also provide teachers with insights into learners' backgrounds and cultures that may influence their approach to studying English and attitudes towards multilingualism. Specifically, the chapter proposes that the notion of teacher language awareness (TLA) should be expanded to include awareness of students' language backgrounds. TLA is regarded as an important component of the knowledge base of a language teacher. Two questionnaires are provided to assist teachers with the elicitation of information about students' L1: (1) a language-focused set of questions to allow comparison between a learner's L1 and English and (2) a sociolinguistic-oriented questionnaire that explores issues related to status and use.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Manel Bekri

In the classical economy, the business is always looking for growth. It tries to protect itself against disappearance and to enter new markets to ensure its growth. It resorts to the merger or the takeover of local companies to more easily solve certain problems. Development today by M&A is the most popular mode. In the context of merger acquisition processes, and its relationship with organizational, process, strategic, economic, political and cultural factors, our paper is designed to study the impact of these various factors on the merger-acquisition.To understand these relationships, we used principal component analysis, ANOVA analysis and multiple regression. A questionnaire was designed on the basis of a documentary analysis leading to the collection of 80 observations, collected from functionaries in the Tunisian banking sector during the period 16 December to 6 January 2016.The results show that the various factors have a positive impact on the success of the merger acquisition operation. It should be noted that the organizational factor is the most influential factor on the acquisition merger process and the least influential economic factor.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamás Takács ◽  
Tibor Mihály Németh ◽  
Zóra Szilovics ◽  
Csaba Vágvölgyi ◽  
Duncan Wilson ◽  
...  

Candida parapsilosis is the second or third most commonly isolated Candida species from blood cultures and is frequently associated with infections in neonatal intensive care units. Candida species have several virulence factors enabling them to adapt to host environmental conditions and cause infections. These factors include adhesion, biofilm formation, and secretion of hydrolytic enzymes, such as acidic proteinases and lipases. Candida species also obtain heavy metal ions from their environment, such as zinc. Zinc is a cofactor of several proteins and a vital element in cellular mechanisms of the fungi. On the one hand, the host niche represents a zinc-limited environment, that indirectly inhibits microbial growth. In order to survive in such an environment, these pathogens have evolved a zinc transport system that allows them to access bound zinc ions during infection. On the other hand, high zinc ion concentration within the host can also be toxic to microbes e.g. in the phagosomes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infected macrophages. In case of C. albicans, zinc acquisition processes are intensively studied, but we lack information of the zinc uptake, transfer and homeostasis mechanisms in C. parapsilosis. Here, predicted potential zinc transporters in C. parapsilosis using in silico analyses, generated homozygous knock out mutants and performed their phenotypical characterization by exposing them to various types of stressors and zinc limiting conditions. Furthermore, we analyzed their virulence traits by examining kinetics of fungal cell uptake by macrophages, their killing efficiency and also investigated zinc ion levels in the phagolysosome during in vitro infections


2021 ◽  
Vol 2130 (1) ◽  
pp. 011001

Abstract 6th International Conference of Computational Methods in Engineering Science (CMES’2021), 25-27 November 2021, Zamośd, Poland. The main objective of the CMES conference is the development of engineering sciences, numerical and experimental techniques, broaden experience, and good practices by representatives of the scientific community and industry. The conference allows the exchange of knowledge between different research domestic and foreign centres representing various fields of engineering science and technology. The organizers of the conference are Department of Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics and Aircraft Propulsion, Department of Machine Engineering Fundamentals and Mechatronics, Department of Materials Engineering (Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Lublin University of Technology), Department of Computer Science (Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of Lublin University of Technology), Department of Organisation of Enterprise (Faculty of Management of Lublin University of Technology), Department of Renewable Energy Engineering and Department of Biomass and Waste Conversion in Biofuels (Faculty of Environmental Engineering of Lublin University of Technology), as well as Department of Airframe and Engine (Aeronautics Faculty of Military University of Aviation). TOPICS • Analysis of engineering processes • Application of computer programs in technology • Artificial and computational intelligence • Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) • Computer simulations of processes and phenomena • Finite Element Method (FEM) • Material properties and structure research methods • Production engineering and quality control • Technology management in energy acquisition processes List of Honorary Patronage, Organizing Committee, Scientific Committee are available in this pdf.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (23) ◽  
pp. 7842
Author(s):  
Linlu Zu ◽  
Yanping Zhao ◽  
Jiuqin Liu ◽  
Fei Su ◽  
Yan Zhang ◽  
...  

Since the mature green tomatoes have color similar to branches and leaves, some are shaded by branches and leaves, and overlapped by other tomatoes, the accurate detection and location of these tomatoes is rather difficult. This paper proposes to use the Mask R-CNN algorithm for the detection and segmentation of mature green tomatoes. A mobile robot is designed to collect images round-the-clock and with different conditions in the whole greenhouse, thus, to make sure the captured dataset are not only objects with the interest of users. After the training process, RestNet50-FPN is selected as the backbone network. Then, the feature map is trained through the region proposal network to generate the region of interest (ROI), and the ROIAlign bilinear interpolation is used to calculate the target region, such that the corresponding region in the feature map is pooled to a fixed size based on the position coordinates of the preselection box. Finally, the detection and segmentation of mature green tomatoes is realized by the parallel actions of ROI target categories, bounding box regression and mask. When the Intersection over Union is equal to 0.5, the performance of the trained model is the best. The experimental results show that the F1-Score of bounding box and mask region all achieve 92.0%. The image acquisition processes are fully unobservable, without any user preselection, which are a highly heterogenic mix, the selected Mask R-CNN algorithm could also accurately detect mature green tomatoes. The performance of this proposed model in a real greenhouse harvesting environment is also evaluated, thus facilitating the direct application in a tomato harvesting robot.


Author(s):  
Diāna Liepa ◽  

Based on the analyses of scientific literature (Krashen, Terrel 1983; Krashen 1989; Widdowson 1996; Larsen-Freeman, Long 1999; Kramiņa 2000; Larsen-Freeman 2000; Nunan 2015; Ellis 2003; Forrester 1996, 2006; Cummins 2001), it is concluded that different theories about language studies have their strengths and weaknesses. These theories generally analyse language acquisition processes, their factors of influence, language teaching and learning. Language acquisition takes place simultaneously with the cognition of the surrounding world. By trying to find answers to questions on what language is, in what circumstances it is acquired on a certain level, ideas emerge, which transform into methodological guidelines. Each of the explored theories offers a solution to more effective language acquisition. However, the theory of whole language acquisition has been taken as the basis for integrated language skills development; the four skills are viewed separately. Publishers usually produce a series of “skills books”, textbooks and exams also follow these categories. The question of the criteria of competence assessment remains unanswered. Exams continue to test foreign language acquisition skills. Language teachers need help in order to understand the general principles and become independent in their work. It is important to link these ideas and use a common framework in organising a successful foreign language study process. The research suggests that a common foreign language study approach should be developed and implemented in practice. The planning and organisation of the study process should take into account unified competence acquisition criteria and levels.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Hatim Z. Almarzouki ◽  
Hemaid Alsulami ◽  
Ali Rizwan ◽  
Mohammed S. Basingab ◽  
Hatim Bukhari ◽  
...  

In recent years, neurological diseases have become a standout amongst all the other diseases and are the most important reasons for mortality and morbidity all over the world. The current study’s aim is to conduct a pilot study for testing the prototype of the designed glove-wearable technology that could detect and analyze the heart rate and EEG for better management and avoiding stroke consequences. The qualitative, clinical experimental method of assessment was explored by incorporating use of an IoT-based real-time assessing medical glove that was designed using heart rate-based and EEG-based sensors. We conducted structured interviews with 90 patients, and the results of the interviews were analyzed by using the Barthel index and were grouped accordingly. Overall, the proportion of patients who followed proper daily heart rate recording behavior went from 46.9% in the first month of the trial to 78.2% after 3–10 months of the interventions. Meanwhile, the percentage of individuals having an irregular heart rate fell from 19.5% in the first month of the trial to 9.1% after 3–10 months of intervention research. In T5, we found that delta relative power decreased by 12.1% and 5.8% compared with baseline at 3 and at 6 months and an average increase was 24.3 ± 0.08. Beta-1 remained relatively steady, while theta relative power grew by 7% and alpha relative power increased by 31%. The T1 hemisphere had greater mean values of delta and theta relative power than the T5 hemisphere. For alpha ( p  < 0.05) and beta relative power, the opposite pattern was seen. The distinction was statistically significant for delta ( p  < 0.001), alpha ( p  < 0.01), and beta-1 ( p  < 0.05) among T1 and T5 patient groups. In conclusion, our single center-based study found that such IoT-based real-time medical monitoring devices significantly reduce the complexity of real-time monitoring and data acquisition processes for a healthcare provider and thus provide better healthcare management. The emergence of significant risks and controlling mechanisms can be improved by boosting the awareness. Furthermore, it identifies the high-risk factors besides facilitating the prevention of strokes. The EEG-based brain-computer interface has a promising future in upcoming years to avert DALY.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atharva Hans ◽  
Ashish M. Chaudhari ◽  
Ilias Bilionis ◽  
Jitesh H. Panchal

Abstract Cost and schedule overruns are common in the procurement of large-scale defense acquisition programs. Current work focuses on identifying the root causes of cost growth and schedule delays in the defense acquisition programs. There is need for a mix of quantitative and qualitative analysis of cost and schedule overruns which takes into account program factor such as, technology maturity, design maturity, initial acquisition time, and program complexity. Such analysis requires an easy to access database for program-specific data about how an acquisition programs’ technical and financial characteristics vary over the time. To fulfill this need, the objective of this paper is twofold: (i) to develop a database of major US defense weapons programs which includes details of the technical and financial characteristics and how they vary over time, and (ii) to test various hypotheses about the interdependence of such characteristics using the collected data. To achieve the objective, we use a mixed-method analysis on schedule and cost growth data available in the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO’s) defense acquisitions annual assessments during the period 2003–2017. We extracted both analytical and textual data from original reports into Excel files and further created an easy to access database accessible from a Python environment. The analysis reveals that technology immaturity is the major driver of cost and schedule growth during the early stages of the acquisition programs while technical inefficiencies drive cost overruns and schedule delays during the later stages. Further, we find that the acquisition programs with longer initial length do not necessarily have higher greater cost growth. The dataset and the results provide a useful starting point for the research community for modeling cost and schedule overruns, and for practitioners to inform their systems acquisition processes.


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