Toward an Organizational Theory of Membership Structural Design

Various events have led to the development of highly complex cooperative operations and to concepts for understanding operations. However. development of membership structures and concepts for understanding these structures has lagged. This paper imports organizational design and contingency theory into the member control literature. Membership structure is understood as organization-like, producing a service (Le., member control). Member control structure is understood as having three aspects (representation, policy making, and oversight) and two environments (the members themselves, and management and operations). Building from cooperative principles and following the development of cooperatives from simple to complex organizations, this paper develops a series of axiomatic propositions for understanding and designing membership structure. Only some of the propositions are testable, and still others are meant only to give continuity and relevance to the propositions as a group (as a theory). Such work should help develop a language for understanding and furthering discussion and research of membership structure and member control in agricultural cooperatives.Agribusiness,

Charting from within a Grounded Concept of Member Control

Organizational charts of membership structures can be useful tools for monitoring member control when they accurately depict a concept of control grounded in context and theory. This paper develops the concept "member control" by placing it within cooperative principles and democratic theory. From this perspective, members control their organization when, through a democratic process of decision making, they are able to keep the cooperative a cooperative, a condition we call "containment." With this conceptual development, a containment method of member control charting is developed and illustrative examples given.Agribusiness,

Spatial statistics and analysis of earth's ionosphere

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityThe ionosphere, a layer of Earths upper atmosphere characterized by energetic charged particles, serves as a natural plasma laboratory and supplies proxy diagnostics of space weather drivers in the magnetosphere and the solar wind. The ionosphere is a highly dynamic medium, and the spatial structure of observed features (such as auroral light emissions, charge density, temperature, etc.) is rich with information when analyzed in the context of fluid, electromagnetic, and chemical models. Obtaining measurements with higher spatial and temporal resolution is clearly advantageous. For instance, measurements obtained with a new electronically-steerable incoherent scatter radar (ISR) present a unique space-time perspective compared to those of a dish-based ISR. However, there are unique ambiguities for this modality which must be carefully considered. The ISR target is stochastic, and the fidelity of fitted parameters (ionospheric densities and temperatures) requires integrated sampling, creating a tradeoff between measurement uncertainty and spatio-temporal resolution. Spatial statistics formalizes the relationship between spatially dispersed observations and the underlying process(es) they represent. A spatial process is regarded as a random field with its distribution structured (e.g., through a correlation function) such that data, sampled over a spatial domain, support inference or prediction of the process. Quantification of uncertainty, an important component of scientific data analysis, is a core value of spatial statistics. This research applies the formalism of spatial statistics to the analysis of Earth's ionosphere using remote sensing diagnostics. In the first part, we consider the problem of volumetric imaging using phased-array ISR based on optimal spatial prediction ("kriging"). In the second part, we develop a technique for reconstructing two-dimensional ion flow fields from line-of-sight projections using Tikhonov regularization. In the third part, we adapt our spatial statistical approach to global ionospheric imaging using total electron content (TEC) measurements derived from navigation satellite signals

Space Craft Electrical System -- New Concepts in Protection and Control

Increased demands for more reliable circuit protection and power control in manned space craft electrical systems have resulted in a vigorous exploratory research program to develop a totally new systems concept of protection and control using solid-state logic in conjunction with either solid-state or electromechanical power switching. The electrical power system currently used in manned space craft is patterned after those used in aircraft. It should be noted that, in many cases, the electrical system, in even our most modern aircraft, could stand a critical re-evaluation

Buffet test in the National Transonic Facility

A buffet test of a commercial transport model was accomplished in the National Transonic Facility at the NASA Langley Research Center. This aeroelastic test was unprecedented for this wind tunnel and posed a high risk for the facility. Presented here are the test results from a structural dynamics and aeroelastic response point of view. The activities required for the safety analysis and risk assessment are described. The test was conducted in the same manner as a flutter test and employed on-board dynamic instrumentation, real time dynamic data monitoring, and automatic and manual tunnel interlock systems for protecting the model

The Adaptive Value of Aggregation Among Juvenile Caribbean Spiny Lobster: An Evaluation Using Individual-Based Modeling

Ontogenetic changes in gregariousness by pre-reproductive animals, like that observed in juvenile Caribbean spiny lobsters (Panulirus argus), may be adaptive and reflect size-specific changes in the effectiveness of aggregation in promoting survival. Alternatively, aggregation may simply result from changes in the distribution or availability of suitable habitat structure, or from other behaviors that enhance survival. There are currently two hypotheses explaining the potential benefits of gregarious behavior in juvenile spiny lobsters, both of which focus on increasing survivorship by reducing predation pressure: the group benefit hypothesis and the guide hypothesis. The group benefit hypothesis argues that aggregations of juvenile lobsters reduce individual susceptibility to predators because groups are better able to fend off attackers or benefit by dilution of risk. The guide hypothesis suggests that aggregation is a consequence of shelter seeking behavior, in which individuals searching for shelter follow conspecific odors, thus reducing the time they spend in the open exposed to higher predation rates. The guide mechanism should be most effective in areas of low shelter density. We used an individual-based, spatially-explicit model describing recruitment of juvenile spiny lobster in the Florida Keys to compare behavioral models incorporating a guide effect and group benefit under conditions of high and low shelter densities. We found that the guide effect significantly enhanced survival only under the most extreme circumstances where shelter was scarce, the risk of predation highest, and the effective distance of the guide effect strongest. In contrast, small increases in direct group benefit led to significantly higher population abundances under a wide range of conditions

Leading without bleeding: an information technology case study at union pacific railroad

In the railroad industry, the ability to assess damages to rail units in an accurate and timely manner is critical to the success and profits of a company. Accurate damage assessment of rail units also plays a key role in dispute resolution and negotiation with key vendors and suppliers (my.uprr.com/pub/dam-prev). This paper describes and presents information about Union Pacific Railroads (UPRR) and Science Applications International Corporations (SAIC) highly successful efforts in fully automating the data collection, inspection, assessment and reporting of damage claims to rail equipment. UPRR and SAIC used an innovative and highly creative approach to develop and implement the Automated Gate System (AGS) by integrating a portfolio of leading edge high resolution imaging and optical character recognition technologies. AGS is a unique and revolutionary system in the transportation industry and has yielded significant strategic and long-term benefits to the company. The reengineering efforts that preceded the development of the system have helped the company to sustain its position as a leader in the railroad industry

Long-lived heteronuclear spin-singlet states

We report observation of long-lived spin-singlet states in a 13C-1H spin pair at zero magnetic field. In 13C-labeled formic acid, we observe spin-singlet lifetimes as long as 37 seconds, about a factor of three longer than the T1 lifetime of dipole polarization in the triplet state. We also observe that the lifetime of the singlet-triplet coherence, T2, is longer than T1. Moreover, we demonstrate that this singlet states formed by spins of a heteronucleus and a 1H nucleus, can exhibit longer lifetimes than the respective triplet states in systems consisting of more than two nuclear spins. Although long-lived homonuclear spin-singlet states have been extensively studied, this is the first experimental observation of analogous spin-singlets consisting of a heteronucleus and a proton.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Host Behavior Alters Spiny Lobster-Viral Disease Dynamics: A Simulation Study

Social behavior confers numerous benefits to animals but also risks, among them an increase in the spread of pathogenic diseases. We examined the trade-off between risk of predation and disease transmission under different scenarios of host spatial structure and disease avoidance behavior using a spatially explicit, individual-based model of the host pathogen interaction between juvenile Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) and Panulirus argus Virus 1 (PaV1). Spiny lobsters are normally social but modify their behavior to avoid diseased conspecifics, a potentially effective means of reducing transmission but one rarely observed in the wild. We found that without lobster avoidance of diseased conspecifics, viral outbreaks grew in intensity and duration in simulations until the virus was maintained continuously at unrealistically high levels. However, when we invoked disease avoidance at empirically observed levels, the intensity and duration of outbreaks was reduced and the disease extirpated within five years. Increased lobster (host) spatial aggregation mimicking that which occurs when sponge shelters for lobsters are diminished by harmful algal blooms, did not significantly increase PaV1 transmission or persistence in lobster populations. On the contrary, behavioral aversion of diseased conspecifics effectively reduced viral prevalence, even when shelters were limited, which reduced shelter availability for all lobsters but increased predation, especially of infected lobsters. Therefore, avoidance of diseased conspecifics selects against transmission by contact, promotes alternative modes of transmission, and results in a more resilient host pathogen system