An evaluation of whether the management practices of four companies (representing the printing industry in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe) have affected their profitability and success in the period 2003-2004

Nohria, Joyce and Roberson, a trio of academics in the United States, wrote an article in the July issue of the Harvard Business Review in 2003 entitled "What Really Works". For several years they had studied the management practices of 160 companies in the United States with a view to determining what made certain companies consistently successful. They found that the most profitable companies in their study were not successful because they utilised the latest management tools and techniques, but rather that they had a strong grasp of business basics. Companies outperformed their industrial peers, because they excelled at what they called the four primary management practices - Strategy, Execution, Culture and Structure. These practices were supplemented by a proficiency in any two out of four secondary practices - Talent, Innovation, Leadership and Mergers and Partnerships. They called this winning combination the 4 + 2 Formula for business success. The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether competence in these management practices applies in the Third World. The study will concentrate on four companies representing the printing industry in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Zimbabwean companies are faced with a number of unusual obstacles that do not exist in First World free market economies. This study will attempt to examine the nature of the obstacles faced and how each company deals with them. It will determine whether the management practices outlined by Nohria et ai, are valued to the same degree in the Zimbabwean context, and how far they contribute to profitability.Because of the pace of change in Zimbabwe, the research will focus on the period 2003 - 2004 and evaluate another management practice - change management. The forces of change can often be so radically negative, that if companies are not adequately prepared, they may face imminent collapse. Change management, the process of anticipating, reacting to and driving forces of change, has become a vital competency. Without it, the prospects of profitability and success in the Zimbabwean environment are slim. For this reason, this management practice will be given the same focus as those eight discussed by Nohria et al

Myth or Memory? Recollections of Penal Times in Irish Folklore

Stories of priests being hunted down and murdered at Mass Rocks by priest catchers and soldiers during the Penal era in Ireland persist to the present day. Using Ó Ciosáin’s (2004) tripartite taxonomy of memory this paper explores the reasons why these images continue to dominate and reflect persecuted nature of Catholicism

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

The Blair Years – A Northern Irish Perspective

This paper looks at New Labour’s devolution policies form the vintage point of the Northern Irish experiment. It explores the multiple consequences of the new constitutional framework set down by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, from the logical redefinition of British-Irish relations to the less self-evident potential redefinition of cross-border relations in Ireland itself. The paper also looks back on the history of devolution to Northern Ireland with a view to bringing out the crucial contribution of the Blair administration. Finally it provides an insider’s view into the operations of the Northern Irish Executive and through comparative analysis highlights the specificities of devolution Northern Irish style

Sunningdale : an agreement too soon?

Paper presented at the conference “Assessing the Sunningdale Agreement”, Institute for British-Irish Studies, University College, Dublin, 15 June 2006This paper looks at the circumstances lying behind the Sunningdale agreement of 1973, and at the factors associated with its collapse. It argues that the agreement represented significant gains for the nationalist side, and that the unionist leadership was unable to persuade its supporters that it represented gains for them too. Since the most obvious immediate costs were borne by the unionist side, it was there that the brunt of the difficulties in implementing the agreement had to be borne. The agreement thus proved incapable of surviving in the long term: against a backdrop of continuing IRA violence, leaders of the pro-agreement unionist wing were vulnerable to pressure from the broader unionist community, resulting in the collapse of the power-sharing executive in May 1974 following the Ulster Workers’ Council strike.Other funderIrish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciencesti.kpw26/7/1

The Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Protection of Minority Rights in Northern Ireland

The Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed by the Irish and British governments in November 1985. Highly contentious as it was from a political perspective one of its central objectives was to address minority rights problems which had arisen over the course of Northern Ireland's sixty-year history. Several Articles of the Agreement focus quite explicitly on the areas of concern. These range from the key political issue of 'self-determination', to electoral law, fair employment legislation, language, policing and judicial matters. This paper discusses the manner in which the framework of consultation between the British and Irish governments established by the Agreement has facilitated considerable progress in a number of these areas. The paper also suggests that the model of consultation provided by the Anglo-Irish Agreement is quite an unusual one for governments who support rival claims to the same territory. In this latter respect the Agreement is one which deserves attention beyond its own immediate confines. Finally it is argued that the Agreement is a flexible instrument which could be developed to provide the basis for a more comprehensive agreement to protect the rights of both the majority as well as the minority community in Northern Ireland.L'Accord anglo-irlandais a été signé par les gouvernements irlandais et britannique au mois de Novembre 1985. Aussi contestable fût-il sur le plan politique, cet accord avait, entre autres objectifs essentiels, de prendre en considération le problème des droits de la minorité nationaliste, problème qui s'est développé au cours des soixante ans d'existence de l'Irlande du Nord. Plusieurs articles de cet accord concernent directement ce problème. Ceux-ci correspondent aux questions politiques clés de l'auto-détermination, de la loi électorale, du droit à l'emploi, de l'usage de la langue irlandaise et aussi des problèmes policiers et judiciaires. Cet article étudie la manière dont le cadre de consultation entre les gouvernements britannique et irlandais, établi par l'Accord, a contribué à un progrès considérable concernant nombre de ces problèmes. Cet article avance également que cette forme de consultation est surprenante dans le cas de ces deux gouvernements, chacun revendiquant le territoire de l'Irlande du Nord. Ce fait rend l'accord intéressant indépendamment de son application immédiate en Irlande. Finalement, cet article suggère que l'accord est un instrument souple qui pourrait être développé afin de fournir une base plus large en vue de la protection des droits, soit de la majorité, soit de la minorité en Irlande du Nord.Farren Sean. The Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Protection of Minority Rights in Northern Ireland. In: Études irlandaises, n°16-1, 1991. pp. 141-159

Sunningdale : an agreement too soon?

Paper presented at the conference “Assessing the Sunningdale Agreement”, Institute for British-Irish Studies, University College, Dublin, 15 June 2006This paper looks at the circumstances lying behind the Sunningdale agreement of 1973, and at the factors associated with its collapse. It argues that the agreement represented significant gains for the nationalist side, and that the unionist leadership was unable to persuade its supporters that it represented gains for them too. Since the most obvious immediate costs were borne by the unionist side, it was there that the brunt of the difficulties in implementing the agreement had to be borne. The agreement thus proved incapable of surviving in the long term: against a backdrop of continuing IRA violence, leaders of the pro-agreement unionist wing were vulnerable to pressure from the broader unionist community, resulting in the collapse of the power-sharing executive in May 1974 following the Ulster Workers’ Council strike.Other funderIrish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciencesti.kpw26/7/1

The Limits of Principle : the Joint Declaration of the British and Irish Prime Ministers of December 1993

This paper considers the Joint Declaration in the light of recent developments in Anglo-Irish relations emanating particularly from the work of the New Ireland Forum in 1983-84. The argument is made that the Joint Declaration represents the limit to which the two governments are able to go at present on the issue of self-determination and on the conditions by which a united Ireland could be achieved by peaceful means. The conclusion drawn is that Sinn Fein should accept the Declaration, persuade the IRA to cease its campaign of violence, and use the principles of the Declaration to enter mainstream Irish politics alongside those other constitutional parties working for a. new agreement on Northern Ireland.Cet article étudie la Déclaration Conjointe à la lumière des développements récents dans les relations anglo-irlandaises depuis les travaux du Forum pour une Irlande Nouvelle en 1983-84. L'argument avancé est que la Déclaration Conjointe constitue la limite au-delà de laquelle les deux gouvernements ne peuvent pas aller en ce moment sur la question de l' auto-détermination et des conditions dans lesquelles on peut parvenir à une Irlande unie par des moyens pacifiques. Il conclut que le Sinn Féin devrait accepter la Déclaration, convaincre TIRA de cesser sa campagne de violence et se servir des principes de la Déclaration pour intégrer le jeu politique irlandais à côté des autres partis constitutionnels qui oeuvrent en faveur d'un nouvel accord sur l'Irlande du Nord.Farren Sean. The Limits of Principle : the Joint Declaration of the British and Irish Prime Ministers of December 1993. In: Études irlandaises, n°19-1, 1994. pp. 97-108