Do Acquirer Capabilities Affect Acquisition Performance? Examining Strategic and Effectiveness Capabilities in Acquirers

This paper examines acquisition performance from the perspective of acquirer capabilities. It argues that the strategic capabilities underpinning a firm’s competitive strategy can be utilized to create economic value in acquisitions. Acquirers with strong cost leadership capabilities are expected to leverage these capabilities to reduce post-acquisition costs as they integrate acquisition targets. Acquirers with strong differentiation capabilities are expected to utilize their strategic capabilities to increase post-acquisition revenues by improving branding, product design, sales, and services in their targets. We also explore the affect of an acquirer’s effectiveness capabilities on acquisition performance. Lastly, we examine how acquirer’s organize these capabilities, either at the business unit or corporate-level, in order to maximize their affect on acquisition performance. Based on a sample of 204 horizontal acquisitions occurring in the banking industry, we find support for the link between acquirer cost leadership capabilities and post-acquisition cost reduction. Acquirer effectiveness capabilities are associated with improvements in post-acquisition revenues and profitability. We conclude that a better understanding of the competitive capabilities of acquirers is important to understanding acquisition performance. This contributes directly to horizontal acquisition research, but can be extended to several areas of strategy research on M&As including: diversifying acquisitions, acquirer experience, and how acquirers can avoid “synergy traps”.Acquisitions ; Acquirer Capabilities ; Strategic Capabilities ; Effectiveness Capabilities ; Acquisition Performance

A Case Study of Applying Blended Learning in an Accelerated Post-Baccalaureate Teacher Education Program

Blended learning has potential to improve teacher education in terms of accessibility and quality. This paper reports findings from a case study with mixed methods data collection analysis to examine the application of blended learning in accelerated post-baccalaureate teacher education at the program level. One hundred and sixty-seven recent graduates from a chosen teacher education program participated in the study by completing an online survey. Eight of the survey participants and six faculty members were interviewed. Findings from this study support the viability and benefits of applying blended learning in teacher education at the program level. On the other hand, teacher candidates and faculty members reported challenges in such blended learning teacher education programs. Suggestions for applying blended learning in teacher education at the program level are discussed in this paper

Land use change through the lens of macroecology : insights from Azorean arthropods and the maximum entropy theory of ecology

Human activity and land management practices, in particular land use change, have resulted in the global loss of biodiversity. These types of disturbance affect the shape of macroecological patterns, and therefore analyzing these patterns can provide insights into how ecosystems are affected by land use change. We here use arthropod census data from 96 sites at Terceira Island in the Azores archipelago across four different land uses of increasing management intensity: native forest, exotic forest, semi-natural pasture and intensive pasture, to examine the effects of land use type on three macroecological patterns: the species abundance distribution, the metabolic rate distribution of individuals and the species–area relationship. The maximum entropy theory of ecology (METE) has successfully predicted these patterns across habitats and taxa in undisturbed ecosystems, and thus provides a null expectation for their shapes. Across these patterns, we find that the forest habitats are the best fit by METE predictions, while the semi-natural pasture is consistently the worst fit, and the intensive pasture is intermediately well fit. We show that the direction of failure of the METE predictions at the pasture sites is likely due to the hyper-dominance of introduced spider species present there. We hypothesize that the particularly poor fit for the semi-natural pasture is due to the mix of arthropod communities out of equilibrium, leading to greater heterogeneity in composition and complex dynamics that violate METE's assumption of static state variables. The comparative better fit for the intensive pasture plausibly results from more homogeneous arthropod communities that are well adapted to intensive management, and thus whose state variables are less in flux. Analyzing deviations from theoretical predictions across land use type provides useful information about how land use and disturbance affect ecosystems, and such comparisons could be useful across other habitats and taxa.Funding for this project was provided in part by grant DEB 1751380 from the US National Science Foundation, as well as by grants to PAVB FCT-UIDP/00329/2020-2024 (Thematic Line 1 – integrated ecological assessment of environmental change on biodiversity) and MACRISK – PTDC/BIA-CBI/0625/2021, through the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. MB acknowledges the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) (PGSD2-517114-2018). Data acquisition was provided by the projects: ‘Consequences of land use change on Azorean fauna and flora – the 2010 Target' (Ref: Direcção Regional de Ciência e Tecnologia M.2.1.2/I/003/2008) and ‘Direcção Regional dos Recursos Florestais' (‘Secretaria Regional da Agricultura e Pescas') through the Project ‘Reservas Florestais dos Açores: Cartografia e Inventariação dos Artrópodes Endémicos dos Açores' (PROJ. 17.01 – 080203).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

NCLB technology and a rural school: A case study

The requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) have presented special challenges and opportunities for rural schools (Reeves, 2003). Researchers have suggested that one way rural schools may be able to overcome these challenges is through an increase in the level of technology integration in their school (Collins & Dewees, 2001). This case study reports on one school’s attempt to use grant resources funded through NCLB to integrate specific instructional technologies to facilitate increased student achievement. Through interviews and observations, the roles, attitudes, and difficulties of teachers and administrators in implementing a technology initiative in a rural middle school were observed, examined and discussed. Emerging themes included issues related to teacher ownership of the technology, teacher feelings of power and participation, differing goals of teachers and administrators, technical difficulties, school wide support, and changes in school culture

NCLB Technology and a Rural School: A Case Study

The requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) have presented special challenges and opportunities for rural schools (Reeves, 2003). Researchers have suggested that one way rural schools may be able to overcome these challenges is through an increase in the level of technology integration in their school (Collins & Dewees, 2001). This case study reports on one school’s attempt to use grant resources funded through NCLB to integrate specific instructional technologies to facilitate increased student achievement. Through interviews and observations, the roles, attitudes, and difficulties of teachers and administrators in implementing a technology initiative in a rural middle school were observed, examined and discussed. Emerging themes included issues related to teacher ownership of the technology, teacher feelings of power and participation, differing goals of teachers and administrators, technical difficulties, school wide support, and changes in school culture

ATM-deficient thymic lymphoma is associated with aberrant tcrd rearrangement and gene amplification

Ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) deficiency predisposes humans and mice to T lineage lymphomas with recurrent chromosome 14 translocations involving the T cell receptor α/δ (Tcra/d) locus. Such translocations have been thought to result from aberrant repair of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) during Tcra locus V(D)J recombination, and to require the Tcra enhancer (Eα) for Tcra rearrangement or expression of the translocated oncogene. We now show that, in addition to the known chromosome 14 translocation, ATM-deficient mouse thymic lymphomas routinely contain a centromeric fragment of chromosome 14 that spans up to the 5′ boundary of the Tcra/d locus, at which position a 500-kb or larger region centromeric to Tcra/d is routinely amplified. In addition, they routinely contain a large deletion of the telomeric end of one copy of chromosome 12. In contrast to prior expectations, the recurrent translocations and amplifications involve V(D)J recombination–initiated breaks in the Tcrd locus, as opposed to the Tcra locus, and arise independently of the Eα. Overall, our studies reveal previously unexpected mechanisms that contribute to the oncogenic transformation of ATM-deficient T lineage cells

Building a molecular glyco-phenotype ontology to decipher undiagnosed diseases

Abstract-Hundreds of rare diseases are due to mutation on genes related to glycans synthesis, degradation or recognition. These glycan-related defects are well described in the literature but largely absent in ontologies and databases of chemical entities and phenotypes, limiting the application of computational methods and ontology-driven tools for characterization and discovery of glycan related diseases. We are curating articles and textbooks in glycobiology related to genetic diseases to inform the content and the structure of an ontology of Molecular GlycoPhenotypes (MGPO). MGPO will be applied toward use cases including disease diagnosis and disease gene candidate prioritization, using semantic similarity and pattern matching at the glycan level with glycomics data from patient of the Undiagnosed Diseases Network

Statistical mechanics of Roskilde liquids: Configurational adiabats, specific heat contours, and density dependence of the scaling exponent

We derive exact results for the rate of change of thermodynamic quantities, in particular the configurational specific heat at constant volume, $C_V$, along configurational adiabats (curves of constant excess entropy $S_{\textrm{ex}}$). Such curves are designated isomorphs for so-called Roskilde liquids, in view of the invariance of various structural and dynamical quantities along them. Their slope in a double logarithmic representation of the density-temperature phase diagram, $\gamma$ can be interpreted as one third of an effective inverse power-law potential exponent. We show that in liquids where $\gamma$ increases (decreases) with density, the contours of $C_V$ have smaller (larger) slope than configurational adiabats. We clarify also the connection between $\gamma$ and the pair potential. A fluctuation formula for the slope of the $C_V$-contours is derived. The theoretical results are supported with data from computer simulations of two systems, the Lennard-Jones fluid and the Girifalco fluid. The sign of $d\gamma/d\rho$ is thus a third key parameter in characterizing Roskilde liquids, after $\gamma$ and the virial-potential energy correlation coefficient $R$. To go beyond isomorph theory we compare invariance of a dynamical quantity, the self-diffusion coefficient along adiabats and $C_V$-contours, finding it more invariant along adiabats

CLO: The cell line ontology

Abstract Background Cell lines have been widely used in biomedical research. The community-based Cell Line Ontology (CLO) is a member of the OBO Foundry library that covers the domain of cell lines. Since its publication two years ago, significant updates have been made, including new groups joining the CLO consortium, new cell line cells, upper level alignment with the Cell Ontology (CL) and the Ontology for Biomedical Investigation, and logical extensions. Construction and content Collaboration among the CLO, CL, and OBI has established consensus definitions of cell line-specific terms such as ‘cell line’, ‘cell line cell’, ‘cell line culturing’, and ‘mortal’ vs. ‘immortal cell line cell’. A cell line is a genetically stable cultured cell population that contains individual cell line cells. The hierarchical structure of the CLO is built based on the hierarchy of the in vivo cell types defined in CL and tissue types (from which cell line cells are derived) defined in the UBERON cross-species anatomy ontology. The new hierarchical structure makes it easier to browse, query, and perform automated classification. We have recently added classes representing more than 2,000 cell line cells from the RIKEN BRC Cell Bank to CLO. Overall, the CLO now contains ~38,000 classes of specific cell line cells derived from over 200 in vivo cell types from various organisms. Utility and discussion The CLO has been applied to different biomedical research studies. Example case studies include annotation and analysis of EBI ArrayExpress data, bioassays, and host-vaccine/pathogen interaction. CLO’s utility goes beyond a catalogue of cell line types. The alignment of the CLO with related ontologies combined with the use of ontological reasoners will support sophisticated inferencing to advance translational informatics development.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109554/1/13326_2013_Article_185.pd