Don\u27t Let the Digital Tail Wag the Transformation Dog: A Digital Transformation Roadmap for Corporate Counsel

Due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, enhancements in technology, as well as shifts in the macroeconomic and socioeconomic dynamics of globalization, Digital Transformation (DT) has become an enterprise-wide imperative for most multinational companies (MNCs). As a result, legal departments are being challenged to embrace enterprise DT and start their own departmental DT journeys. Despite these trends, there is little scholarship and research about how MNC legal departments are addressing the DT challenge. How are General Counsel (GCs) currently approaching DT? Is what they are doing effective and value-accretive? And importantly, how should GCs approach DT to best generate value? This article attempts to fill the literature gap. Based on interviews of 25 GCs and Chief Digital Officers of S&P 500 MNCs along with the authors\u27 professional experience and secondary research, we explore how legal departments are responding to and approaching DT. We identify a Three-Phased Digital Maturity Framework that maps the typical MNC legal department DT trajectory. We argue that this trajectory is suboptimal because it emphasizes technology at the expense of the foundational, non-technological elements of DT that are critical for success. Too often, GCs appear to let the digital tail of DT wag the transformational dog. The legal department itself must be fully transformed before the digital elements can add full value. By failing to transform the non-digital foundations of their departments in collaboration with the business before they introduce new technologies, GCs are leaving the most difficult aspects of DT-the organizational and structural, behavioral, and cultural changes-for last. This post-hoc approach (that leaves client-centricity and change management last) is disruptive, adds unnecessary cost, and threatens the credibility, viability, and timing of the entire DT effort on a go-forward. As an alternative to this typical Three-Phased approach, we articulate a Best Practice 5-Step Model for how GCs should approach DT. Our approach is distinctive in that technology is only considered and applied after the service delivery model has been designed and processes have been optimized in accordance with the broader strategic and organizational contexts of both the legal department and the MNC itself. Moreover, ours is iterative. Our approach is also distinct in that throughout this process, change management principles are thoughtfully and consistently applied in each step. Contrary to standard depictions, we contend that if deployed correctly, DT can significantly transform how a legal department operates and can enable legal departments to add value in ways that go beyond generating efficiencies, reducing costs, and increasing speed-to-market. Our model provides a roadmap to help GCs better execute DT and leverage DT-generated data and insights, moving the legal department away from its standard depiction as a cost center to that of a revenue generator and value creator that is seamlessly integrated with the rest of the MNC. In addition to filling some of the gaps in the literature, this article provides a vision that has broad applicability beyond the MNC legal department context and can be used as a model for law firms and other legal services providers to harness DT in their own contexts, to keep pace with-and better serve-their digitally transforming client base

Calibration of a two-phase xenon time projection chamber with a 37^{37}Ar source

We calibrate a two-phase xenon detector at 0.27 keV in the charge channel and at 2.8 keV in both the light and charge channels using a $^{37}$Ar source that is directly released into the detector. We map the light and charge yields as a function of electric drift field. For the 2.8 keV peak, we calculate the Thomas-Imel box parameter for recombination and determine its dependence on drift field. For the same peak, we achieve an energy resolution, $E_{\sigma}/E_{mean}$, between 9.8% and 10.8% for 0.1 kV/cm to 2 kV/cm electric drift fields.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

The Status of Masked Bobwhite Recovery in the United States and Mexico

The masked bobwhite (Colinus virginianus ridgwayi) is an endangered species currently numbering \u3c1500 individuals and restricted to 2 locales in southeastern Arizona and northcentral Sonora, Mexico. The subspecies\u27 endangered status is attributed to overgrazing of Sonora savanna grassland that began during the late 1880\u27s and continued well into the 20th century. This overgrazing resulted in the conversion of many native grass pastures to the exotic bufflegrass (Cenchrus ciliaris). The Arizona masked bobwhite population was extirpated around the turn of the century, and the Sonoran population was thought to have disappeared during the 1940\u27s until a small remnant population was discovered on a ranch near Benjamin Hill, Sonora , in 1964 . Masked bobwhite recovery efforts have a dynamic, long history of nearly six decades. Current masked bobwhite recovery efforts focus on reestablishing a self-sustaining population on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (BANWR) in the United States, as well as 2 remnant wild populations located on privately owned ranches in northcentral Sonora

Fluorescent Detection of Bromoperoxidase Activity in Microalgae and Planktonic Microbial Communities Using Aminophenyl Fluorescein

Among planktonic communities haloperoxidase enzymes may play a role in the control of intracellular and extracellular reactive oxygen species, in the generation of halogenated organic compounds and in chemical interactions between microbes. We introduce a sensitive fluorometric assay with a large dynamic range that is based on the dearylation of aminophenyl fluorescein (APF) to fluorescein by highly reactive oxygen species. Bromoperoxidase and chloroperoxidase enzymes catalyze the reaction between hydrogen peroxide and halides to generate highly reactive hypohalite intermediates able to dearylate APF. The fundamentals and standardization of the approach are illustrated using a partially purified, vanadium-dependent bromoperoxidase from the red seaweed Corallina officinalis. Laboratory cultures of two polar diatoms, Porosira glacialis and Fragilariopsis cylindrus, are used to illustrate the sensitivity and potential applications of the approach for in vitro, in vivo and in situ measurements of bromoperoxidase activity. These two diatoms differ in biovolume-specific bromoperoxidase activity by 2-orders of magnitude, from 5.4 to 0.044 fmol fluorescein μm-3 h-1, respectively. The approach is also used to investigate the partition of haloperoxidase activity between different size fractions of summer coastal planktonic communities, illustrating that generally more than 50% of the haloperoxidase activity occurred in a >10 μm size fraction that was dominated by diatoms. The assay has the potential to be of value in many aspects of haloperoxidase research, including developing an improved understanding of the roles of haloperoxidase enzymes in microbial planktonic communities

Bone mineral density and the risk of incident dementia:A meta-analysis

Background: It is not known whether bone mineral density (BMD) measured at baseline or as the rate of decline prior to baseline (prior bone loss) is a stronger predictor of incident dementia or Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods:We performed a meta-analysis of three longitudinal studies, the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), the Rotterdam Study (RS), and the Rush Memory and Aging Project (MAP), modeling the time to diagnosis of dementia as a function of BMD measures accounting for covariates. We included individuals with one or two BMD assessments, aged ≥60 years, and free of dementia at baseline with follow-up available. BMD was measured at the hip femoral neck using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), or at the heel calcaneus using quantitative ultrasound to calculate estimated BMD (eBMD). BMD at study baseline (“baseline BMD”) and annualized percentage change in BMD prior to baseline (“prior bone loss”) were included as continuous measures. The primary outcome was incident dementia diagnosis within 10 years of baseline, and incident AD was a secondary outcome. Baseline covariates included age, sex, body mass index, ApoE4 genotype, and education. Results: The combined sample size across all three studies was 4431 with 606 incident dementia diagnoses, 498 of which were AD. A meta-analysis of baseline BMD across three studies showed higher BMD to have a significant protective association with incident dementia with a hazard ratio of 0.47 (95% CI: 0.23–0.96; p = 0.038) per increase in g/cm2, or 0.91 (95% CI: 0.84–0.995) per standard deviation increase. We observed a significant association between prior bone loss and incident dementia with a hazard ratio of 1.30 (95% CI: 1.12–1.51; p &lt; 0.001) per percent increase in prior bone loss only in the FHS cohort. Conclusions: Baseline BMD but not prior bone loss was associated with incident dementia in a meta-analysis across three studies.</p

The risk of menstrual abnormalities after tubal sterilization: a case control study

BACKGROUND: Tubal sterilization is the method of family planning most commonly used. The existence of the post-tubal-ligation syndrome of menstrual abnormalities has been the subject of debate for decades. METHODS: In a cross-sectional study, 112 women with the history of Pomeroy type of tubal ligation achieved by minilaparatomy as the case group and 288 women with no previous tubal ligation as the control group were assessed for menstrual abnormalities. RESULTS: Menstrual abnormalities were not significantly different between the case and control groups (p = 0.824). The abnormal uterine bleeding frequency differences in two different age groups (30–39 and 40–45 years old) were statistically significant (p = 0.0176). CONCLUSION: Tubal sterilization does not cause menstrual irregularities

Regression, developmental trajectory and associated problems in disorders in the autism spectrum: the SNAP study

We report rates of regression and associated findings in a population derived group of 255 children aged 9-14 years, participating in a prevalence study of autism spectrum disorders (ASD); 53 with narrowly defined autism, 105 with broader ASD and 97 with non-ASD neurodevelopmental problems, drawn from those with special educational needs within a population of 56,946 children. Language regression was reported in 30% with narrowly defined autism, 8% with broader ASD and less than 3% with developmental problems without ASD. A smaller group of children were identified who underwent a less clear setback. Regression was associated with higher rates of autistic symptoms and a deviation in developmental trajectory. Regression was not associated with epilepsy or gastrointestinal problems