How art.com uses ABC to succeed

The days of venture capitalists being caught up in the euphoria of dot-com mania - and throwing money at Internet start-ups - are over. Many of these start-ups have flipped, which means they have matured through the start-up phase and have been purchased by large organizations or are free-standing through an IPO. One flipped company - art.com - turned to professionals to build a long-term successful business. The company uses activity-based costing as a tool to guide leadership in resource allocation and decision making. A case study of art.com is presented

Does Hope Vi Deep-six The Poor? Analyzing The Effects Of Displacement Former Residents Of Distressed Public Housing In A Mid-sized Southern City

Do downtown revitalization efforts detrimentally affect people who are displaced? HUD\u27s HOPE VI grant program provides local housing authorities with funds to leverage private investment to demolish blighted, severely distressed public housing units and replace them with mixed-use, mixed-income units. In 2002, the OHA secured an $18 million grant to redevelop a public housing project then known as Carver Court. 212 units of public housing were razed and former public housing residents were displaced to make way for redevelopment. Interviews with 55 former residents of Carver Court are analyzed to determine the self-reported effects of the local implementation of federal housing policy. Outcomes measured include satisfaction with occupation, housing costs, neighborhood quality, crime, social interactions, access to public transportation, and quality of life overall, among others. In addition, the analysis uses Census data to examine the extent to which poverty deconcentration, a major policy goal of HOPE VI, has been accomplished. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of HOPE VI\u27s position in the history of American housing policy

Understanding Mediation Support

Recent decades have witnessed increasing institutionalization of mediation support through the establishment of mediation support structures (MSS) within foreign ministries and secretariats of multilateral organizations. This study sheds light on this trend and aims to better understand the emergence, design and development of different MSS. This study analyzes six MSS, namely those established in the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union (EU), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, (IGAD), Switzerland and Germany. It provides five main findings. First, the emergence of dedicated MSS is the result of an interplay of three factors. These refer to the political interests of states that have made mediation a priority of their foreign policies; a normative evolution emphasizing that effective peace mediation requires technical knowledge and resources provided by specialized units; and the operational needs of mediators confronted with the growing complexity of peace processes. Second, looking at their design, MSS in highly different institutional contexts nonetheless exhibit a striking similarity. All of them provide a mixture of training, knowledge management and operational support, ranging from political advice to logistical help. This similarity can be understood by the influence of professional networks of mediation support practitioners that have proven to be influential when new structures are set up. Third, despite the similarity, there are differences between MSS in terms of the balance between different lines of activity, topics they specialize in, whether or not they support external mediation operations, and the degree to which they involve civil society actors. These differences are due to mandates, political environment and organizational culture, which are specific to each organization. Fourth, as for development over time, some MSS examined in this report, i.e. the UN and Switzerland, are fully embedded and deeply involved in mediation processes pursued by their respective institutions. Other MSS, in particular IGAD and Germany, are in the early stages of development with still limited direct involvement in mediation processes. The EU and the OSCE cover the middle ground of this spectrum. The study finds that institutional entrenchment is fostered by demands for support by envoys, a conducive political environment, availability of human and financial resources, and, for multilateral organizations, the strength of secretariats vis-à-vis member states. Fifth, the study showed that the prevalent model of mediation support puts a premium on technical knowledge and generalist expertise that is transferable from one context to the next. Given that today there are fewer comprehensive peace processes and more decentralized dialogue engagements focusing on one issue or one actor in a particular context for a limited period of time, there is a need for existing MSS to adapt, and for practitioners and policymakers to consider a broad range of mediation support approaches

Cotinine inhibits the pro-inflammatory response initiated by multiple cell surface Toll-like receptors in monocytic THP cells

Background The primary, stable metabolite of nicotine [(S)-3-(1-methyl-2-pyrrolidinyl) pyridine] in humans is cotinine [(S)-1-methyl-5-(3-pyridinyl)-2-pyrrolidinone]. We have previously shown that cotinine exposure induces convergence and amplification of the GSK3β-dependent PI3 kinase and cholinergic anti-inflammatory systems. The consequence is reduced pro-inflammatory cytokine secretion by human monocytes responding to bacteria or LPS, a TLR4 agonist. Findings Here we show that cotinine-induced inflammatory suppression may not be restricted to individual Toll-like receptors (TLRs). Indeed, in monocytic cells, cotinine suppresses the cytokine production that is normally resultant upon agonist-specific engagement of all of the major surface exposed TLRs (TLR 2/1; 2/6; 4 and 5), although the degree of suppression varies by TLR. Conclusions These results provide further mechanistic insight into the increased susceptibility to multiple bacterial infections known to occur in smokers. They also establish THP-1 cells as a potentially suitable model with which to study the influence of tobacco components and metabolites on TLR-initiated inflammatory events

Government Data and the Invisible Hand

If President Barack Obama\u27s new administration really wants to embrace the potential of Internet-enabled government transparency, it should follow a counter-intuitive but ultimately compelling strategy: reduce the federal role in presenting important government information to citizens. Today, government bodies consider their own Web sites to be a higher priority than technical infrastructures that open up their data for others to use. We argue that this understanding is a mistake. It would be preferable for government to understand providing reusable data, rather than providing Web sites, as the core of its online publishing responsibility. During the presidential campaign, all three major candidates indicated that they thought the federal government could make better use of the Internet. Barack Obama\u27s platform went the furthest and explicitly endorsed maling government data available online in universally accessible formats. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, remarked that she wanted to see much more government information online. John McCain\u27s platform called for a new Office of Electronic Government. But the situation to which these candidates were responding-the wide gap between the exciting uses of Internet technology by private parties, on the one hand, and the government\u27s lagging technical infrastructure, on the other-is not new. A minefield of federal rules and a range of other factors, prevent government Web masters from keeping pace with the evergrowing potential of the Internet

Action Management – Status, Requirements And Implementation Strategies For SMEs

Due to its great importance for a successful planning, control and improvement of business processes, action management is long established as essential management process in most companies. However, there is often a strikingly large gap between claim and actual implementation of action management. While internal and external requirements for action management are continuously increasing, its actual implementation - especially in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - is already often quite incomplete today. First, this paper introduces in the topic field of action management as part of modern management systems. In its analysis part, the paper presents the current implementation status of action management in companies focusing on SMEs and portrays software-technical implementation possibilities. Taking into account the resulting fields of action, possible strategies to implement action management in SMEs' business processes in a more profitable way are presented. In the sense of a socio-technical overall system, not only methodical issues but also information-technical and organizational aspects are discussed. By means of a developed prototype and taking into account a concrete use case from industry, the characteristics, procedure, potentials and current limits of the proposed solution are critically evaluated and recommendations for action are illustrated. Finally, the paper ends with a summary, a discussion and an outlook towards future trends