Continuity Culture: A Key Factor for Building Resilience and Sound Recovery Capabilities

This article investigates the extent to which Jordanian service organizations seek to establish continuity culture through testing, training, and updating of their business continuity plans. A survey strategy was adopted in this research. Primary and secondary data were used. Semistructured interviews were conducted with five senior managers from five large Jordanian service organizations registered with the Amman Stock Exchange. The selection of organizations was made on the basis of simple random sampling. Interviews targeted the headquarters only in order to obtain a homogenous sample. Three out of five organizations could be regarded as crisis prepared and have better chances for recovery. The other two organizations exhibited characteristics of standard practice that only emphasizes the recovery aspect of business continuity management (BCM), while paying less attention to establishing resilient cultures and embedding BCM. The findings reveal that the ability to recover following major incidents can be improved by embedding BCM in the culture of the organization and by making BCM an enterprise-wide process. This is one of few meticulous studies that have been undertaken in the Middle East and the first in Jordan to investigate the extent to which service organizations focus on embedding BCM in the organizational culture

Mechanical and kinetic effects of shortened tropomyosin reconstituted into myofibrils

The effects of tropomyosin on muscle mechanics and kinetics were examined in skeletal myofibrils using a novel method to remove tropomyosin (Tm) and troponin (Tn) and then replace these proteins with altered versions. Extraction employed a low ionic strength rigor solution, followed by sequential reconstitution at physiological ionic strength with Tm then Tn. SDS-PAGE analysis was consistent with full reconstitution, and fluorescence imaging after reconstitution using Oregon-green-labeled Tm indicated the expected localization. Myofibrils remained mechanically viable: maximum isometric forces of myofibrils after sTm/sTn reconstitution (control) were comparable (~84%) to the forces generated by non-reconstituted preparations, and the reconstitution minimally affected the rate of isometric activation (kact), calcium sensitivity (pCa50), and cooperativity (nH). Reconstitutions using various combinations of cardiac and skeletal Tm and Tn indicated that isoforms of both Tm and Tn influence calcium sensitivity of force development in opposite directions, but the isoforms do not otherwise alter cross-bridge kinetics. Myofibrils reconstituted with Δ23Tm, a deletion mutant lacking the second and third of Tm’s seven quasi-repeats, exhibited greatly depressed maximal force, moderately slower kact rates and reduced nH. Δ23Tm similarly decreased the cooperativity of calcium binding to the troponin regulatory sites of isolated thin filaments in solution. The mechanisms behind these effects of Δ23Tm also were investigated using Pi and ADP jumps. Pi and ADP kinetics were indistinguishable in Δ23Tm myofibrils compared to controls. The results suggest that the deleted region of tropomyosin is important for cooperative thin filament activation by calcium

Orbital Stability for Rotating Planar Vortex Filaments in the Cartesian and Arclength Forms of the Local Induction Approximation

The local induction approximation (LIA) is commonly used to study the motion of a vortex filament in a fluid. The fully nonlinear form of the LIA is equivalent to a type of derivative nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation, and stationary solutions of this equation correspond to rotating planar vortex filaments. Such solutions were first discussed in the plane by Hasimoto [J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 31 (1971) 293], and have been described both in Cartesian three-space and in the arclength formulation in subsequent works. Despite their interest, fully analytical stability results have been elusive. In the present paper, we present elegant and simple proofs of the orbital stability for the stationary solutions to the derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equations governing the self-induced motion of a vortex filament under the LIA, in both the extrinsic (Cartesian) and intrinsic (arclength) coordinate representations. Such results constitute an exact criterion for the orbital stability of rotating planar vortex filament solutions for the vortex filament problem under the LIA

Effects of accurate and inaccurate visual feedback on the tuning accuracy of high school and college trombonists

We examined how visual feedback from electronic tuners affected trombonists’ pitch performance and tuning confidence. High school (n = 29) and college trombonists (n = 30) were tasked to play in tune with a stimulus tone (G3) recorded by a professional trombonist presented through headphones. Following each of three attempts, participants rated their confidence level that their performance was in tune. A different tuner was provided during each tuning attempt and set to one of three conditions: in-tune (A = 440Hz); flat (A = 437Hz); and sharp (A = 443Hz). These tuner conditions displayed either accurate (A = 440Hz) or inaccurate (A = 437Hz; A = 443Hz) visual feedback. Results indicated significant main effects due to tuner condition and experience level. Participants’ tuning accuracy with the sharp tuner was significantly less precise in comparison to flat and in-tune tuners. Collegiate participants performed with greater precision than high school participants in all tuner conditions. Weak relationships were observed between participants’ tuning performance and confidence ratings