Teamworking and the "sharpening" of peripherical vision

Managers and organizations are normally focussed on a number of key issues and targets, such as strategic positioning, operations, competitors, internal processes, human relations, etc. Focus is fundamental to effective exploitation. Focus, however, carries with it some attendant risks. It may, for example, lead to an underestimation of critical moves taking place at the periphery outside the focus of attention. In such instances, peripheral vision becomes crucial to organizational survival. In this paper, we discuss how teams and teamworking may help re-educate attention and in so doing ‘sharpen’ peripheral vision in organizational contexts. A typology is built, which specifies how different types of teams deal with focus and periphery in practice. Next, we discuss the specific cases of the groups that are most oriented towards the periphery to uncover how they manage collective action and collective imagination. The paper finishes with a number of practical suggestions derived from the previous theoretical work. Six strategic practices are critically analyzed: zooming, improvisation, bricolage, scenario thinking, wild cards and weak signals.periphery, peripheral vision, teams, weak signals, minimal structures

DERIVING FEEDER CATTLE PRICING CONTRACTS FROM FED CATTLE PRICE GRIDS: SIMULATION RESULTS OF RISK-SHARING CONTRACTS

Post-slaughter quality-based pricing of cattle is increasingly common. This quality, however, is dependent upon unobservable quality characteristics of the feeder cattle used as inputs. Through stochastic simulation we construct incentive compatible quality risk-sharing contracts based upon final grid-quality schedules that facilitate input quality sorting in the feeder cattle market.Marketing,

Money, credit, and the cyclical behavior of household investment

This paper focuses on a monetary explanation of two business cycle regularities: (i) business and household investment are positively correlated and procyclical and (ii) household investment tends to lead business investment. We construct a general equilibrium framework that explicitly incorporates a credit sector where real resources are employed in the production of costly household and business credit services. Financial intermediaries provide interest bearing accounts to households and loanable funds for credit producers. It is shown that liquidity effects from asymmetric monetary injections to the financial sector increase the availability of consumer and business credit services. The relative strength of these liquidity effects on business and household spending can provide a mechanism which captures both the direction and timing of their corresponding investments expenditures over the cycle. Furthermore, explaining these observations with a household credit channel also resolves some problematic predictions of existing liquidity effect models.Investments

Half-Skyrmions and Spike-Vortex Solutions of Two-Component Nonlinear Schrodinger Systems

Recently, skyrmions with integer topological charges have been observed numerically but have not yet been shown rigorously on two-component systems of nonlinear Schrodinger equations (NLSE) describing a binary mixture of Bose-Einstein condensates. Besides, half-skyrmions characterized by half-integer topological charges can also be found in the nonlinear sigma model which is a model of the Bose-Einstein condensate of the Schwinger bosons. Here we prove rigorously the existence of half-skyrmions which may come from a new type of soliton solutions called spike-vortex solutions of two-component systems of NLSE on the entire plane. These spike-vortex solutions having spikes in one component and a vortex in the other component may form half-skyrmions. By Liapunov-Schmidt reduction process, we may find spike-vortex solutions of two-component systems of NLSE.Comment: to appear in J.Math.Phy

Loss of vesicular dopamine release precedes tauopathy in degenerative dopaminergic neurons in a Drosophila model expressing human tau.

While a number of genome-wide association studies have identified microtubule-associated protein tau as a strong risk factor for Parkinson's disease (PD), little is known about the mechanism through which human tau can predispose an individual to this disease. Here, we demonstrate that expression of human wild-type tau is sufficient to disrupt the survival of dopaminergic neurons in a Drosophila model. Tau triggers a synaptic pathology visualized by vesicular monoamine transporter-pHGFP that precedes both the age-dependent formation of tau-containing neurofibrillary tangle-like pathology and the progressive loss of DA neurons, thereby recapitulating the pathological hallmarks of PD. Flies overexpressing tau also exhibit progressive impairments of both motor and learning behaviors. Surprisingly, contrary to common belief that hyperphosphorylated tau could aggravate toxicity, DA neuron degeneration is alleviated by expressing the modified, hyperphosphorylated tau(E14). Together, these results show that impairment of VMAT-containing synaptic vesicle, released to synapses before overt tauopathy may be the underlying mechanism of tau-associated PD and suggest that correction or prevention of this deficit may be appropriate targets for early therapeutic intervention

Nearly 6.4 Million Californians Lacked Health Insurance in 2007 -- Recession Likely to Reverse Small Gains in Coverage

Summarizes findings from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) on trends in the state's uninsured rate, the underlying factors, and projected trends. Points to flaws in the eligibility rules for public coverage and outlines policy implications

Ignition and Front Propagation in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells

Water produced in a Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cell enhances membrane proton conductivity; this positive feedback loop can lead to current ignition. Using a segmented anode fuel cell we study the effect of gas phase convection and membrane diffusion of water on the spatiotemporal nonlinear dynamics - localized ignition and front propagation - in the cell. Co-current gas flow causes ignition at the cell outlet, and membrane diffusion causes the front to slowly propagate to the inlet; counter-current flow causes ignition in the interior of the cell, with the fronts subsequently spreading towards both inlets. These instabilities critically affect fuel cell performance

Role of Bell Singlet State in the Suppression of Disentanglement

The stability of entanglement of two atoms in a cavity is analyzed in this work. By studying the general Werner states we clarify the role of Bell-singlet state in the problem of suppression of disentanglement due to spontaneous emission. It is also shown explicitly that the final amount of entanglement depends on the initial ingredients of the Bell-singlet state.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev.

First-Principle Wannier function analysis of the electronic structure of PdTe: Weaker magnetism and superconductivity

We report a first-principles Wannier function study of the electronic structure of PdTe. Its electronic structure is found to be a broad three-dimensional Fermi surface with highly reduced correlations effects. In addition, the higher filling of the Pd $d$-shell, its stronger covalency resulting from the closer energy of the Pd-$d$ and Te-$p$ shells, and the larger crystal field effects of the Pd ion due to its near octahedral coordination all serve to weaken significantly electronic correlations in the particle-hole (spin, charge, and orbital) channel. In comparison to the Fe Chalcogenide e.g., FeSe, we highlight the essential features (quasi-two-dimensionality, proximity to half-filling, weaker covalency, and higher orbital degeneracy) of Fe-based high-temperature superconductors.Comment: 5 Pages, 3 Figure