A contemporaneous infrared flash from a long gamma-ray burst: an echo from the central engine

The explosion that results in a cosmic gamma-ray burst (GRB) is thought to produce emission from two physical processes -- the activity of the central engine gives rise to the high-energy emission of the burst through internal shocking and the subsequent interaction of the flow with the external environment produces long-wavelength afterglow. While afterglow observations continue to refine our understanding of GRB progenitors and relativistic shocks, gamma-ray observations alone have not yielded a clear picture of the origin of the prompt emission nor details of the central engine. Only one concurrent visible-light transient has been found and was associated with emission from an external shock. Here we report the discovery of infrared (IR) emission contemporaneous with a GRB, beginning 7.2 minutes after the onset of GRB 041219a. Our robotic telescope acquired 21 images during the active phase of the burst, yielding the earliest multi-colour observations of any long-wavelength emission associated with a GRB. Analysis of an initial IR pulse suggests an origin consistent with internal shocks. This opens a new possibility to study the central engine of GRBs with ground-based observations at long wavelengths.Comment: Accepted to Nature on March 1, 2005. 9 pages, 4 figures, nature12.cls and nature1.cls files included. This paper is under press embargo until print publicatio

Giving risk management culture a role in strategic planning

WOS: 000413939000023Strategically planned and implemented risk management paves the way for competitive advantage and a decisive edge for global financial institutions. The importance of risk management becomes more evident in financial instability periods. The failure of global financial institutions in the recent financial crisis revealed that firms with strong risk management and culture were more prepared and economically less damaged. As financial institutions have been criticized severely about risk management practices, it also becomes clear that most financial institutions have difficulties in developing a risk management culture. To have a clear understanding of risk management culture, the chapter aims to highlight a need to extend our understanding of risk management culture and how it can find a voice in the strategic planning of global financial institutions

Reassessing China’s Higher Education Development: A Focus on Academic Culture

During the past three and a half decades, China has been progressing in higher education in a surprisingly dramatic manner, evidenced especially by scientific publications and sheer numbers of graduates. Such a fact has national, regional and global implications. China’s higher education development and its future directions are now placed highly on the research agendas of many from various parts of the world. Unlike the general acknowledgment of China’s achievements, assessment of the future development of China’s higher education is wide open to question. To some, Chinese universities are on a trajectory to become “world-class” and China’s high-fliers challenge Western supremacy. To others, China’s notion of “world-class” status has been largely imitative. Pumping resources into universities will only lead to diminishing returns as Chinese culture and practices will act as a brake to the pursuit of academic excellence. An increasing deal of attention has been paid to where China will be located in a global higher education landscape and in what shape. Based on the author’s long-standing professional observation and recent empirical studies, this article assesses China’s higher education development, with a particular focus on the challenges brought forward by academic culture. It interrogates China’s pride of the idea that Chinese universities are not willing to assume that Western models define excellence, and asks how far Chinese universities could move within their current development model.postprin

Examining the strategy development process through the lens of complex adaptive systems theory

The development of strategy remains a debate for academics and a concern for practitioners. Published research has focused on producing models for strategy development and on studying how strategy is developed in organisations. The Operational Research literature has highlighted the importance of considering complexity within strategic decision making; but little has been done to link strategy development with complexity theories, despite organisations and organisational environments becoming increasingly more complex. We review the dominant streams of strategy development and complexity theories. Our theoretical investigation results in the first conceptual framework which links an established Strategic Operational Research model, the Strategy Development Process model, with complexity via Complex Adaptive Systems theory. We present preliminary findings from the use of this conceptual framework applied to a longitudinal, in-depth case study, to demonstrate the advantages of using this integrated conceptual model. Our research shows that the conceptual model proposed provides rich data and allows for a more holistic examination of the strategy development process. © 2012 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved

Automatic Delineation of the Diaphragm in Computed Tomographic Images

Segmentation of the internal organs in medical images is a difficult task. By incorporating a priori information regarding specific organs of interest, results of segmentation may be improved. Landmarking (i.e., identifying stable structures to aid in gaining more knowledge concerning contiguous structures) is a promising segmentation method. Specifically, segmentation of the diaphragm may help in limiting the scope of segmentation methods to the abdominal cavity; the diaphragm may also serve as a stable landmark for identifying internal organs, such as the liver, the spleen, and the heart. A method to delineate the diaphragm is proposed in the present work. The method is based upon segmentation of the lungs, identification of the lower surface of the lungs as an initial representation of the diaphragm, and the application of least-squares modeling and deformable contour models to obtain the final segmentation of the diaphragm. The proposed procedure was applied to nine X-ray computed tomographic (CT) exams of four pediatric patients with neuroblastoma. The results were evaluated against the boundaries of the diaphragm as identified independently by a radiologist. Good agreement was observed between the results of segmentation and the reference contours drawn by the radiologist, with an average mean distance to the closest point of 5.85 mm over a total of 73 CT slices including the diaphragm

Proposal for Using a Studio Format to Enhance Institutional Advancement

Universities today need to become quicker on their toes. They must continually scan the environment and seize emerging opportunities – and institutional advancement must lead this effort. An unfortunate number of institutional advancement operations are ill equipped for the task at hand. Many suffer from high staff turnover and overly hierarchical systems that refl ect excessive fragmentation and compartmentalization. They inadvertently perpetuate stifl ing and unnecessary bureaucracy. Organizing advancement efforts around the metaphor of the design studio or creative workshop promises to (a) pool talent, (b) cultivate collaboration, and (c) align diverse but related interests in order to promote fruitful advancement. By shifting the way personnel and leaders conceptualize their work, institutional advancement can overcome a number of challenges that currently hinder its efforts. The Institutional Advancement Atelier described in this paper can improve advancement ’ s overall productivity and its ability to see and harness opportunities in a quickly changing environment – and increase employee satisfaction in the process