In new product development (NPD), the buyer–supplier relationship is changing. Suppliers are becoming an integral part of the design team. This study investigates the effectiveness of ...computer-mediated and face-to-face communication channels on knowledge exchange between buyer and supplier firms, and ultimately buyer NPD and market performance. Open innovation literature and media richness theory are used to develop hypotheses which are then empirically tested using data collected from 157 R&D project managers from U.S. manufacturing firms. To date, empirical studies on the link between supplier integration and buyer performance show conflicting results. Structural equation modeling found a significant positive link between knowledge exchange and NPD performance, measured both in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, and a significant positive link between effective and efficient NPD and market performance. A surprising finding is that contrary to media richness theory, email can perform like face-to-face communication transmitting rich information and having a positive relationship to knowledge exchange between buyer and supplier. It was also found that with face-to-face communication, knowledge exchange fully mediates the relationship with effective NPD while with email communication knowledge exchange fully mediates the relationship with efficient NPD. Video conferencing was found to have no significant effect on knowledge exchange and the effect of web-based tools was significant and negative. The implications of these findings in theory and practice are discussed.
•Supplier integration in new product development (NPD) is investigated in the context of U.S. manufacturing.•Communication channel effectiveness on knowledge exchanged and buyer performance is empirically tested.•Email and F2F communication have a positive effect on knowledge exchanged. Web-based tools have a negative effect.•A positive relationship is found between knowledge exchanged and buyer NPD effectiveness and efficiency.•A positive relationship is found between buyer NPD effectiveness and efficiency and buyer market performance.
While strategic orientation can represent an important antecedent to new product development (NPD) performance, research suggests that adopting a strategic orientation alone is not sufficient and a ...better understanding of contingencies is necessary. Based on the dynamic capability view of the firm, this study examines the effect of a firm's ability to connect with external network partners (networking capability) and the ability of NPD project managers to network with stakeholders within the firm (networking ability). The empirical results indicate that market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation are positively associated with NPD performance when a firm has sufficient networking capability to manage network dynamics and when the managers of NPD projects possess networking ability to successfully mobilize the support and advocacy of stakeholders within the firm. The results also show that NPD performance is highest when market (entrepreneurial) orientation, networking capability, and networking ability are all high, thus supporting the proposed three-way interaction.
•Networking capability contributes to the exchange and combination of network resources for product innovation. Market oriented or entrepreneurial oriented firms that enhance their levels of networking capability are more likely to orchestrate network resources than firms that have not adequately developed such a capability.•The implementation of market orientation or entrepreneurial orientation requires managers in charge of new product development to have sufficient networking ability in order to successfully execute the policies associated with market orientation or entrepreneurial orientation.•New product development performance is highest when market (entrepreneurial) orientation, networking capability, and networking ability are all high.
The 100,000 Genomes Project is a U.K. government project that is sequencing the genomes of patients with cancer or rare or infectious diseases. This pilot study involving 4660 participants with rare ...diseases provided actionable diagnoses and identified three newly implicated disease genes and offers a road map for the larger implementation of genome sequencing in the setting of a national health service.
The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification Hönisch, Bärbel; Ridgwell, Andy; Schmidt, Daniela N. ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
03/2012, Letnik:
335, Številka:
6072
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Ocean acidification may have severe consequences for marine ecosystems; however, assessing its future impact is difficult because laboratory experiments and field observations are limited by their ...reduced ecologie complexity and sample period, respectively. In contrast, the geological record contains long-term evidence for a variety of global environmental perturbations, including ocean acidification plus their associated biotic responses. We review events exhibiting evidence for elevated atmospheric CO₂, global warming, and ocean acidification over the past ~300 million years of Earth's history, some with contemporaneous extinction or evolutionary turnover among marine calcifiers. Although similarities exist, no past event perfectly parallels future projections in terms of disrupting the balance of ocean carbonate chemistry—a consequence of the unprecedented rapidity of CO₂ release currently taking place.
Familial hypercholesterolemia is a common Mendelian disorder associated with early-onset coronary heart disease that can be treated by cholesterol-lowering drugs. The majority of cases in the United ...Kingdom are currently without a molecular diagnosis, which is partly due to the cost and time associated with standard screening techniques. The main purpose of this study was to test the sensitivity and specificity of two next-generation sequencing protocols for genetic diagnosis of familial hypercholesterolemia.
Libraries were prepared for next-generation sequencing by two target enrichment protocols; one using the SureSelect Target Enrichment System and the other using the PCR-based Access Array platform.
In the validation cohort, both protocols showed 100% specificity, whereas the sensitivity for short variant detection was 100% for the SureSelect Target Enrichment and 98% for the Access Array protocol. Large deletions/duplications were only detected using the SureSelect Target Enrichment protocol. In the prospective cohort, the mutation detection rate using the Access Array was highest in patients with clinically definite familial hypercholesterolemia (67%), followed by patients with possible familial hypercholesterolemia (26%).
We have shown the potential of target enrichment methods combined with next-generation sequencing for molecular diagnosis of familial hypercholesterolemia. Adopting these assays for patients with suspected familial hypercholesterolemia could improve cost-effectiveness and increase the overall number of patients with a molecular diagnosis.
Genet Med15 12, 948–957.
The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a global warming event that occurred about 56 million years ago, and is commonly thought to have been driven primarily by the destabilization of ...carbon from surface sedimentary reservoirs such as methane hydrates. However, it remains controversial whether such reservoirs were indeed the source of the carbon that drove the warming. Resolving this issue is key to understanding the proximal cause of the warming, and to quantifying the roles of triggers versus feedbacks. Here we present boron isotope data-a proxy for seawater pH-that show that the ocean surface pH was persistently low during the PETM. We combine our pH data with a paired carbon isotope record in an Earth system model in order to reconstruct the unfolding carbon-cycle dynamics during the event. We find strong evidence for a much larger (more than 10,000 petagrams)-and, on average, isotopically heavier-carbon source than considered previously. This leads us to identify volcanism associated with the North Atlantic Igneous Province, rather than carbon from a surface reservoir, as the main driver of the PETM. This finding implies that climate-driven amplification of organic carbon feedbacks probably played only a minor part in driving the event. However, we find that enhanced burial of organic matter seems to have been important in eventually sequestering the released carbon and accelerating the recovery of the Earth system.
In partnership with NHS England, Genomics England’s ambitious plans to embed genomic medicine into routine patient care are well underway. Clare Turnbull and colleagues discuss its progress
Clinical validity assessments of gene-disease associations underpin analysis and reporting in diagnostic genomics, and yet wide variability exists in practice, particularly in use of these ...assessments for virtual gene panel design and maintenance. Harmonization efforts are hampered by the lack of agreed terminology, agreed gene curation standards, and platforms that can be used to identify and resolve discrepancies at scale. We undertook a systematic comparison of the content of 80 virtual gene panels used in two healthcare systems by multiple diagnostic providers in the United Kingdom and Australia. The process was enabled by a shared curation platform, PanelApp, and resulted in the identification and review of 2,144 discordant gene ratings, demonstrating the utility of sharing structured gene-disease validity assessments and collaborative discordance resolution in establishing national and international consensus.
Clinical validity assessments of gene-disease associations underpin analysis and reporting in diagnostic genomics, and yet wide variability exists in practice, particularly in use of these assessments for virtual gene panel design and maintenance. Harmonization efforts are hampered by the lack of agreed terminology, agreed gene curation standards, and platforms that can be used to identify and resolve discrepancies at scale. We undertook a systematic comparison of the content of 80 virtual gene panels used in two healthcare systems by multiple diagnostic providers in the United Kingdom and Australia. The process was enabled by a shared curation platform, PanelApp, and resulted in the identification and review of 2,144 discordant gene ratings, demonstrating the utility of sharing structured gene-disease validity assessments and collaborative discordance resolution in establishing national and international consensus.
Rising oceanic and atmospheric oxygen levels through time have been crucial to enhanced habitability of surface Earth environments. Few redox proxies can track secular variations in dissolved oxygen ...concentrations around threshold levels for metazoan survival in the upper ocean. We present an extensive compilation of iodine-to-calcium ratios (I/Ca) in marine carbonates. Our record supports a major rise in the partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere at ~400 million years (Ma) ago and reveals a step change in the oxygenation of the upper ocean to relatively sustainable near-modern conditions at ~200 Ma ago. An Earth system model demonstrates that a shift in organic matter remineralization to greater depths, which may have been due to increasing size and biomineralization of eukaryotic plankton, likely drove the I/Ca signals at ~200 Ma ago.
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