Proefschrift Universiteit Maastricht. / Met bibliogr., lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.

This thesis concerns the acquisition of newly developed production equipment in factories. Types of Manufacturing Technology Acquisition (MTA) can range from in-house development through to outright purchase from a supplier. MTA projects often fail because the new equipment fails to perform well enough or the expected financial benefits are not achieved. The purpose of this research has been to find out how to select the right manufacturing technology acquisition projects, and having chosen them, how to make them successful. Very little guidance on this subject was found in the literature. Therefore the approach taken was to adapt techniques widely used in the much more deeply researched field of New Product Development (NPD). The Success Factor method was applied by conducting interviews with managers in a number of factories to develop lists of factors thought to affect success or failure in their MTA projects. The Portfolio method from NPD was adapted to the case of managing a total MT'A budget, and developed through its use in three annual cycles of equipment acquisition in the researcher's Company. A formula for Expected Commercial Value in NPD was modified to become Expected Manufacturing Benefit, and tried out in practice. An important consideration in manufacturing equipment projects was discovered to be the replication of projects which had proved successful, and ways to incorporate this factor into the project selection procedure were developed. A detailed case study of a single project was carried out, which verified the validity of the findings at the level of a single project. This case study also revealed the considerable impact that corporate strategic events can have on technology acquisitions. This led to a case study on corporate strategy in the Company being carried out. Finally the findings were brought together to present a complete model for managing MTA.

Bone Morphogenetic Protein 2 (BMP2) is a cytokine growth factor that elicits de novo bone formation in adult mammals. The use of BMP2 in surgical applications ranges from spinal fusion procedures to off-label uses such as dental implant augmentation. Currently, 1.5 mg/ml of BMP2 are necessary for these surgical procedures. The use of such relatively high concentrations of BMP2 leads to ectopic bone formation, provokes immune reactions hence rendering treatments ineffective and adds greatly to the overall expense of these therapeutic treatments. An engineered mutant BMP2 designed to have higher biological potency over the current wild type recombinant human BMP2 would reduce both dosages and costs in biomedical applications. The synthesis of a codon optimized DNA sequence designed for expression in rice would ensure high fidelity expression of such recombinant protein products in a biotech rice protein production platform. Although designed for rice recombinant protein expression, the codon optimized DNA sequence produces a fragment that corresponds to the theoretical fragment size of the C-terminal, mature monomeric peptide of BMP2 when expressed in E. coli. Results from in silico modelling of mutant BMP2 ligands docked with BMP receptors suggested that only certain mutations are tolerated at the L51 and D53 positions. Only certain mutants might have the same affinity for the receptor as the wild type due to steric interactions with other side chains on both the ligand itself and the receptor. For those mutants that did not possess steric conflicts, the recombinant L51-series BMP2 mutants produced a circular dichroism spectrum that was unique and differed from the spectrum of wild-type BMP2. C2C12 alkaline phosphatase activity assays of the wild-type BMP2 protein produced activity similar to previously published results, while the thirteen L51 substituted BMP2 mutant collection samples showed no bioactivity similar to a known negative activity mutant at this position. The expression potential of the codon optimized DNA BMP2 sequence in rice was calculated by comparing several computer generated sequences from online programs. Such models were used to assess whether the recombinant BMP2 possesses similar bioactivity to the BMP2 expressed in mammalian expression systems currently used.

The object of this study has been to investigate dimensions of aggregate audience exposure to a mass medium (a daily newspaper). A mass medium such as a newspaper has a variety of content and an organized structure. Individual audience members are expected to be selective in their exposure to the medium using both its content and structure as a basis for their choices. Moreover, audience members are expected to act similarly in their selective use of the medium, resulting in dimensions of audience exposure which are determined by its content and structural organization. Such dimensionality has implications for the managerial use of the medium as a vehicle or, more precisely, a set of vehicles for the delivery of specific news and advertising information. The principal research method employed in this study was factor analysis. A critical review of related factor analytic applications in advertising research was undertaken. However, unlike these previous studies, prior expectations concerning the factor results were introduced into the analysis. This was accomplished through the construction of a model which stated that selective exposure is a function of the content and structure of a medium (or media). The model was used to predict aggregate audience exposure on a content and/or structural basis and these predictions were investigated using factor analysis. The procedure was replicated across samples and the results were validated through relation to external variables thought to be associated with mass media exposure. The results clearly indicated that the dimensions of audience exposure to the news content of a daily newspaper were determined by the latter's content and structural organization. Accordingly, it was concluded that the internal "managerial" sections of the newspaper represented vehicles for the delivery of specific news and promotional information. These results confirmed the argument that conventional audience assessment procedures, presently calculated on the basis of exposure to the entire newspaper, should recognize internal content and structural selectivity of the newspaper's internal "managerial" sections. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

El índice de rotación laboral en Perú es uno de los más altos en Latinoamérica. Contar con una estrategia de retención de personal es clave pues incide en los resultados de las organizaciones. La industria pesquera tiene un gran impacto económico en el Perú, es dinámica y aporta gran oferta de puestos de trabajo. El presente trabajo de investigación tuvo como objetivo principal determinar la relación existente entre los factores intrínsecos y extrínsecos de la motivación con la intención de permanencia de un empleado en grandes empresas de producción de ingredientes marinos que pertenecen a la Sociedad Nacional de Pesquería en Lima Metropolitana y Callao en el periodo 2019. La investigación es de tipo mixta, con diseño no experimental. Transaccional pues la recolección de datos se dio en un tiempo único; además, descriptivo y correlacional. Se revisaron documentos de investigación, se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas a especialistas del sector y se utilizaron encuestas para identificar los factores que influyen en la intención de permanencia laboral dirigidas a una muestra representativa de 293 personas. La hipótesis general fue aceptada al obtener una correlación positiva. El factor extrínseco más valorado son las relaciones interpersonales con un 72.4% de valoración entre todos los encuestados y el factor intrínseco más valorado fue la realización personal con un 72.5%. Además, los empleados con mayor tiempo de permanencia valoran más los factores intrínsecos y los de menor tiempo los factores extrínsecos. Se deja como aporte una serie de recomendaciones y un cuestionario validado por expertos del sector. / The labor turnover rate in Peru is one of the highest in Latin America. Having a staff retention strategy is key because it has consequences that affect the results of organizations. The fishing industry has a great economic impact in Peru, is dynamic and it generates great demand for jobs. The main objective of the research was to determine the relationship between the intrinsic and extrinsic factors of the motivation with the intention of permanence of an employee in large production companies of marine ingredients that belong to the National Fisheries Society in Metropolitan Lima and Callao in the 2019 period. The present research work is of a mixed type, with a non-experimental design; in addition, descriptive and correlational. Transactional because the data collection occurred in a single time; It was also descriptive and correlational. For data collection, research documents, interviews and questionnaires were reviewed. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with specialists and surveys were used to identify the factors that influence the intention to stay in the job, aimed at a representative sample of 293 people. The general hypothesis was accepted upon obtaining a positive correlation. The extrinsic factor most valued by the employees are the interpersonal relationships in a 72.4% and the highest rated intrinsic factor was personal realization with a 72.5%. In addition, employees with more time of permanence value more intrinsic factors and those with shorter time of stay extrinsic. A series of recommendations and a questionnaire validated by industry experts are left as input. / Tesis

Explica los paradigmas dentro de las organizaciones: el balance entre procedimientos estructurados y la creatividad de las personas en el interior de una organización. También detalla la importancia de los soft skills en contraposición con los hard skills.

Brucella ovis is a sexually transmitted, facultatively anaerobic, intracellular bacterial pathogen of sheep (Ovis aries) and red deer (Cervus elaphus). Brucella spp. infect primarily by penetrating the mucosa and are phagocytized by host macrophages, where survival and replication occurs. At least in some species, it has been shown that entry into stationary phase is necessary for successful infection. Brucella, like other alphaproteobacteria, lack the canonical stationary phase sigma factor ?s. Research on diverse members of this large phylogenetic group indicate the widespread presence of a conserved four-gene set including an alternative ECF sigma factor, an anti-sigma factor, a response regulator (RR), and a histidine kinase (HK). The first description of the system was made in Methylobacterium extorquens where the RR, named PhyR, was found to regulate the sigma factor activity by sequestering the anti-sigma factor in a process termed "sigma factor mimicry." These systems have been associated with various types of extracellular stress responses in a number of environmental bacteria. I hypothesized that homologous genetic sequences (Bov_1604-1607), which are similarly found among all Brucella species, may regulate survival functions during pathogenesis. To further explore the involvement of this system to conditions analogous to those occurring during infection, pure cultures of B. ovis cells were subjected to environments of pH (5 and 7) for 15, 30, and 45 minutes and oxidative (50mM H2O2) stress, or Spermine NONOate for 60 minutes. RNA was extracted and converted to cDNA andchanges in transcript levels of the sigma factor Bov1605 were measured using qPCR. Preliminary results indicate that under the exposure to Spermine NONOate there was little change in expression, but under oxidative stress expression of the sigma factor Bov1605 was 4.68-fold higher than that expressed under normal conditions. These results suggest that the sigma factor Bov1605 may be involved in oxidative stress defense during infection. Under acid stress (pH5), Bov1605 was found to be upregulated at 15 and 30 minutes, but after 45 and 60 minutes the time decreased.

Uses data collected from a sample of expatriate managers on assignments in Turkey to attempt to examine the dimensionality of expatriate adjustment. Suggests that the results offer support to earlier findings that expatriate adjustment is a multifaceted construct. Shows that the measure developed to capture the different dimensions demonstrate satisfactory internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity. Discusses strategies to facilitate the adjustment of expatriate managers to their assignments.

The pathogenicity of food-borne intracellular bacterium Listeria monocytogenes is greatly associated with its abilities to invade non-phagocytic cells, counteract the host innate immune system, resist bactericidal antibiotic-mediated killing, and breaking the physical barriers. In the last 30 years of research on L. monocytogenes, several virulence factors, such as Listeriolysin O (LLO), InlA, InlB, ActA, PI-PLC, and PC-PLC have already been characterized as important players that help this bacterium to achieve the key stage of infection. There are approximately 3,000 open reading frames in Listeria’s genome; however, only few virulence factors are functionally characterized. Thus, it is important to identify new virulence factors and understand how new virulence factors in Listeria help this opportunistic pathogen to counteract the host innate immune system, resist antibiotic-mediated killing, colonize vital organs, and finally successfully develop life-threatening listeriosis. In this study, inrame deletion mutagenesis was used to generate the deletion mutants of novel listerial virulence factors and a series of biochemical, in vitro and in vivo experiments were conducted to characterize the roles of these virulence factors during the infection process. In the first part of this study, an AlkD-like protein (Adlp, LmoF2365_0220) was identified and the protein is associated with oxidant tolerance and aminoglycoside antibiotic resistance. In the second part of this study, a new internalin-like protein (LmoH7858_0369) was shown to be involved in invasion of Hep-G2 cells and organ colonization in mice. The third part of this study showed that listeriolysin O (LLO) mediates cytotoxicity on brain endothelial cells, suggesting that LLO may contribute to the invasion of the central nervous system by L. monocytogenes. In summary, we identified and characterized two novel virulence factors, Adlp and LmoH7858_0369 that contributed to bacterial infection and revealed a new invasion mechanism of CNS cells that is mediated by LLO. Results from these studies provide a better understanding on the pathogenicity of L. monocytogenes and can be used as therapeutical targets or vaccine candidates

No description available.