Structured Psychosocial Stress and Therapeutic Intervention: Toward a Realistic Biological Medicine

Using generalized 'language of thought' arguments appropriate to interacting cognitive modules, we explore how disease states can interact with medical treatment, including, but not limited to, drug therapy. The feedback between treatment and response creates a kind of idiotypic 'hall of mirrors' generating a pattern of 'efficacy', 'treatment failure', and 'adverse reactions' which will, from a Rate Distortion perspective, embody a distorted image of externally-imposed structured psychosocial stress. This analysis, unlike current pharmacogenetics, does not either reify 'race' or blame the victim by using genetic structure to place the locus-of-control within a group or individual. Rather, it suggests that a comparatively simple series of questions to identify longitudinal and cross-sectional stressors may provide more effective guidance for specification of individual therapy than complicated genotyping strategies of dubious meaning. These latter are likely to be both very expensive and utterly blind to the impact of structured psychosocial stress -- a euphemism for various forms of racism and ethnic cleansing -- which, we contend, is often a principal determinant of treatment outcome at both individual and community levels of organization. We propose, to effectively address 'health disparities' between populations, and in contrast to current biomedical ideology based on a simplistic genetic determinism, a richer program of biological medicine reflecting Lewontin's 'triple helix' of genes, environment, and development, a program more in concert with the realities of a basic human biology marked by hypersociality unusual in vertibrates. Aggressive social, economic, and other policies of affirmative action to redress the persisting burdens of history would be an integral component of any such project

Transversality and Transition: Branching to New Regional Path Dependence

Since Paul David published his economic histories of path dependent innovation the subject has exerted fascination upon scholars of innovation, technological change and, latterly, regional scientists and economic geographers. This paper speaks to the third and fourth of these communities in the main, though it may have theoretical and empirical elements of interest to the first two as well. The paper begins with an overview of recent perspectives and critiques concerning the relevance of the path dependence concept to the understanding of regional economic development and its associated governance. It then goes on to discuss the contribution of evolutionary economic geography to thinking about ÔbranchingÕ from path dependence and the creation of new paths. Evidence for key generic spatial processes of path transition is provided before the main content of the paper concludes with new insights into the contributions of regional innovation policy to path evolution. Conclusions are then drawn.regional path dependence, branching, transition, transversality

A model for evolution and extinction

We present a model for evolution and extinction in large ecosystems. The model incorporates the effects of interactions between species and the influences of abiotic environmental factors. We study the properties of the model by approximate analytic solution and also by numerical simulation, and use it to make predictions about the distribution of extinctions and species lifetimes that we would expect to see in real ecosystems. It should be possible to test these predictions against the fossil record. The model indicates that a possible mechanism for mass extinction is the coincidence of a large coevolutionary avalanche in the ecosystem with a severe environmental disturbance.Comment: Postscript (compressed etc. using uufiles), 16 pages, with 15 embedded figure

Strategic Information Systems Alignment: A Longitudinal Investigation

The alignment between business and information systems’ strategies (strategic IS alignment) has occupied researchers’ and practitioners’ interest over the past two decades. This is due to the belief that strategic IS alignment positively affects business performance. However, despite the concerted effort in seeking to understand the alignment phenomenon, executives in organizations continue to complain of the difficulty in achieving and sustaining alignment. This may be due to a lack of a comprehensive model of alignment that takes into account its dynamic nature and the factors that affect it over time. Therefore, this study seeks to add to our accumulated knowledge by proposing a functional form for the alignment trajectory and identifying some factors that may affect or predict the dynamic changes between organizations’ alignment trajectories. The study used longitudinal data drawn from several public databases and developed and tested a random coefficients model of strategic IS alignment. The results indicate that alignment is a nonlinear, dynamic phenomenon that is affected by prior IS success, and change in CIO, organizational size, and industry uncertainty. The findings suggest that prior IS success is associated with high initial magnitudes of strategic IS alignment and low rates of change in the strategic IS alignment trajectory. In addition, the findings suggest that CIO turnover is associated with higher initial levels of strategic IS alignment and high (and negative) rates of change in the strategic IS alignment trajectory. The results also show that larger organizations are associated with higher magnitudes of strategic alignment and that firms in stable industry environments, on average, have higher initial magnitudes of strategic IS alignment than firms in uncertain industry environments

Sports Analytics: Predicting Athletic Performance with a Genetic Algorithm

Existing predictive modeling in sports analytics often hinges on atheoretical assumptions winnowed from a large and diverse pool of game metrics. Feature subset selection by way of a genetic algorithm to identify and assess the combinatorial advantage for a group of metrics is a viable option to otherwise arbitrary model construction. However, this approach concedes similar arbitrariness as there is no general strategy or common practice design among the tightly coupled nucleus of genetic operators. The resulting dizzying ecosystem of choice is especially difficult to overcome and leaves a residual uncertainty regarding true strength of output, specifically for practical implementations. This study transposes ideas from extreme environmental change into a quasi-deterministic extension of standard GA functionality that seeks to punctuate converged populations with individuals from auxiliary metas. This strategy has the effect of challenging what might otherwise be considered shallow fitness, thereby promoting greater trust in output against innumerable alternatives

Organisational Learning And Multinational Strategy

Increasingly, it has been recognised that in their process of internationalisation multinationals may learn. They may take a strategy not only of exploitation, to leverage existing assets, competencies and products, built up in their home countries, but also, and perhaps even primarily, of exploration, to profit from diversity of host countries to develop new products and competencies. The question is how they can manage and integrate resulting diversity. This article analyses that issue, using a theory of organisational learning. It employs a ‘cycle of discovery’ that seeks to resolve the problem of combining exploitation and exploration. That problem arises more widely, apart from internationalisation, and solutions to it may yield solutions for problems of internationalisation.globalization;innovation;organizational learning;international business;multinational corporations

Modeling, Simulation and Application of Bacterial Transduction in Genetic Algorithms

At present, all methods in Evolutionary Computation are bioinspired in the fundamental principles of neo-Darwinism as well as on a vertical gene transfer. Thus, on a mechanism in which an organism receives genetic material from its ancestor. Horizontal, lateral or cross-population gene transfer is any process in which an organism transfers a genetic segment to another one that is not its offspring. Virus transduction is one of the key mechanisms of horizontal gene propagation in microorganism (e.g. bacteria). In the present paper, we model and simulate a transduction operator, exploring a possible role and usefulness of transduction in a genetic algorithm. The genetic algorithm including transduction has been named PETRI (abbreviation of Promoting Evolution Through Reiterated Infection). The efficiency and performance of this algorithm was evaluated using a benchmark function and the 0/1 knapsack problem. The utility was illustrated designing an AM radio receiver, optimizing the main features of the electronic components of the AM radio circuit as well as those of the radio enclosure. Our results shown how PETRI approaches to higher fitness values as transduction probability comes near to 100%. The conclusion is that transduction improves the performance of a genetic algorithm, assuming a population divided among several sub-populations or ‘bacterial colonies’

Predicting Patterns of Information Systems Alignment in Entrepreneurial Organizations

Organizations expend a great deal of effort managing their information system resources as they try to achieve information systems alignment (ISA), but relatively little is known about the different ways in which alignment changes over time in different organizations or what factors predict which kinds of changes are likely to occur. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that predict the patterns of ISA change in entrepreneurial organizations. An in-depth examination of the alignment process was conducted using two retrospective case studies. Continuous Change Theory and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory were used to explore ISA patterns in the two organizations. Longitudinal qualitative and quantitative data from the two organizations were used to compare the predictive ability of the two theories regarding ISA changes over time. Results suggest that two factors, organizational inertia and institutionalism, predict the likelihood of an entrepreneurial organization following one ISA change pattern over another

Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach: What Is the Empirical Impact of this Universal Theory?

While John Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) remains a key reference point in thepublic policy literature, few have attempted to assess MSA holistically. To assess its broaderimpact and trends in usage, we combine in-depth analysis of representative studies, withcomprehensive coverage of MSA-inspired articles, to categorize its impact. We find that Kingdon’swork makes two separate contributions. First, it has contributed to the development of“evolutionary” policy theories such as punctuated equilibrium. Second, it has prompted a large,dedicated, and often empirical, literature. However, most MSA empirical applications only engagewith broader policy theory superficially. The two contributions are oddly independent of eachother. We argue that these trends in application are due largely to its intuitive appeal and low“barrier to entry.” Drawing on other policy approaches, we offer suggestions to improve the MSAinspired literature

Tales of serial exploration

In this paper, we examine the firm and ecological factors that affect the long-term sustainability of exploration. We analysed the investment decisions by US venture capital firms to enter new technological domains over a 43-year period. Our results suggest that in addition to the well studied effects of inertia and slack, exploration is affected by an organization´s knowledge specialization, is conducive to repetitive momentum, and affects an organization´s subsequent exploration when occurring early in an organization´s life. We contribute to the literature on organizational learning by identifying some of the antecedents of exploration and its sustenance over time.