Framing Electronic Commerce within an Introductory Information Systems Course

This paper describes and analyzes a teaching approach that frames ecommerce within an introductory Business Information Systems (BIS) class. The framework is guided by the systems development life cycle (SDLC) as a foundational and defining concept in the information systems (IS) discipline. Within this framework, the teaching approach employs a semester-long series of three assignments in which students propose and analyze an Internet start-up business. Although the assignments loosely parallel the SDLC, they do not emphasize systems development; and as such, they can be readily employed in an undergraduate or graduate core business course. At the same time, the assignments do provide a context for discussing the SDLC at the end of the semester, thus providing a substantive basis for exemplifying the relevance of both ecommerce and information systems alike. Such a context also lends to a discussion of how ecommerce systems change the traditional view of the SDLC. In addition to positioning and presenting the teaching approach and an example case, the paper discusses lessons learned from the experience of having implemented the assignments. The assignments provide an interesting context; and the advancement of the teaching approach has implications as a reproducible teaching exercise as well as for ecommerce and information systems pedagogical research

Practical Broad-Band Tuning of Dye Lasers by Solvent Shifting

We have operated a dye laser over a broad wavelength range (593.8-667.0nm) by shifting the dye emission profile with incremental changes of solvent composition. This was accomplished with the laser operating continuously, and only minor adjustment of the laser optics was required. Solvent tuning was facilitated by the critical dependence of the optimum laser wavelength on concentration of the second solvent. Using the known solvent-sensitive laser dye 9-diethylaminobenzo[a]phenoxaz-5-one (DBP), 87% of the tuning range from pure xylenes to pure methanol was covered by cumulative addition of 24 vol. % methanol to the starting xylenes solution. The optimum dye concentration was found to be independent of solvent composition, so that maximum laser power could be maintained by mixing equimolar dye solutions in the two solvents. These results establish the practicality of solvent-tuning as a method of conducting laser experiments over a broad wavelength range

New Dog, Old Tricks: ERP and the Systems Development Life Cycle

This paper presents and analyzes an approach for using the systems development life cycle (SDLC) to teach enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation issues. Not only does the SDLC put ERP into perspective, but ERP implementation issues give a substantive and informative context to the SDLC. A review of the literature provides a basis for using the SDLC as a framework for evaluating ERP implementation success and failure. In turn, the successes and failures provide a rich and interesting venue for introducing students to the relevance and implications of ERP applications as well as the SDLC. Such an introduction can be employed as a value-added teaching component in practically any IS curriculum, regardless of whether or not the institution has access to ERP software. Furthermore, the component can be used in a variety of information systems and management classes, including introduction to IS, introduction to ERP, systems analysis and design, project management, and even an MBA-level JS class. The development and analysis of the teaching approach is based on the experience of having employed the approach in an introductory ERP class. The experience reveals lessons learned, and it provides a source of data for mapping numerous ERP implementation failures to the stages of the SDLC

Status of Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus) in Sicily.

La poblaci\uf3n del buitre Neophron percnopterus en Sicilia se encuentra restringida a los sectores central y oeste de la isla. La poblaci\uf3n alcanz\uf3 cerca de 30 parejas durante el periodo entre 1970 y 1980, auque durante nuestro periodo de estudio (1990\u20132007), la poblaci\uf3n tuvo un tama\uf1o promedio de s\uf3lo 7 \ub1 2 parejas m\ue1s 2 \ub1 1 individuos no emparejados, con fluctuaciones considerables en los n\ufameros. Las tasas reproductivas durante nuestro periodo de estudio (juvenil por pareja reproductiva y juvenil por nido exitoso) fueron t\uedpicas para una poblaci\uf3n europea, aunque la tasa de \ue9xito de los nidos disminuy\uf3 y el abandono de nidos durante el per\uedodo 2000\u20132007 fue el doble del registrado durante el per\uedodo 1990\u20141999. La reducci\uf3n en la cantidad de ganado muerto y en la disponibilidad de alimento, como tambi\ue9n el aumento de la perturbaci\uf3n humana cerca de los sitios de anidaci\uf3n, probablemente alteraron la cualidad de los territorios de cr\ueda, y son probablemente la causa de la disminuci\uf3n del \ue9xito de anidaci\uf3n. Neophron percnopterus es una de las aves rapaces m\ue1s amenazadas de Europa, por lo que recomendamos el desarrollo r\ue1pido y la implementaci\uf3n del Plan de Acci\uf3n de Especies

Empowering Youth to Take Charge of School Wellness

Youth Advisory Councils (YACs) ensure that students are represented in school wellness discussions. YACs empower students to present ideas, insights, and input on nutrition and physical activity; work alongside peers to assess wellness needs; and develop recommendations for enhancing/expanding the school wellness environment. YACs provide a platform for students to make positive impacts on their school\u27s wellness policy. The YAC described in this article provided recommendations to increase fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy foods on the cafeteria menu; expand opportunities for physical activity; and enhance the school lunch experience in the cafeteria

Is there such a thing as the modern detail?

It seems that there is always a tension in every attempt to define what architectural details really are. There is a confident assumption that details have a concrete presence in the smallest scale of a building exactly where 'separate elements of the structure come together'. But when you look for a consistent account from the whole to the detail you get a point of elusiveness, an absence of certainty of what a detail is supposed to be. Are details simply a matter of articulated relationship between the whole and the parts} Why do architectural detail's definitions become so disputable Is this a common feature in other disciplines as well The word detail is generally defined 'as the small part in relation to a larger whole.' Apparently, though, this definition needs an adjective that qualifies and assures its position as a resolved architectural matter: the typical detail, the standard detail, the appropriate detail, the principal detail, the minimal detail, the good detail, the bad detail, and so on. However, such precarious characterisations easily become meaningless, if not ambiguous. What are we trying to say, for example, when we describe a detail as modern} Detail, on the one hand, and modern on the other, again becomes an unanswered situation. What does modern detail mean The concepts of modern, and the related concepts of modernity and modernism, are commonly distinguished as being components of Modern Architecture. Modern architecture is mainly associated with the Modern Movement (1914–1939), but is also generally understood as descriptive of the architecture that emerged between the industrial revolution and the beginning of World War two. Consequently, anew assumption is formulated yet again: if there is such a thing as Modern Architecture, is there also such a thing as the modern architectural detail? This enquiry is my point of departure of this report I will critically explore what makes modern detail different, physically and conceptually. Why do we call them modern? In order to formulate possible answers, I will pay particular attention to the Modern Movement. If omission is one aspect concerned with details, my primary objective is to identify its exact opposite, and authentic condition: the material nature and the physical evidence of (modern) details' objective existence. At this point, I will look for the solid, the concrete, and the tangible through an examination of three key subjects where details are openly shown and discussed. Firstly, details identified as the frequent source of building failure. Secondly, I will explore details showing changes in the methods of building. Thirdly, I will specifically explore details specially developed when new buildings are facing existing fabric. In brief, the materiality of detail will be captured as the physical expression of ideas and concepts. Questions of ornament, decoration (therefore style) and constructional solutions are consistent with detail, so much so that the boundaries between them are often indistinct. In fact, ornament and style are the first topics connected with details in general and modern ones in particular. What happened when both were purposely concealed from the Modern Movement's vocabulary? Did the approach to details—from the whole to the parts—lose its consistency due to this suppression? Has the modern detail changed its significance due to an undecided distinction from a standardised technical solution? With the purpose of searching for responses to the above questions, I will refer to 'the theoretical and the empirical' understanding of the role of the detail developed by Italian architect Marco Frascari in his remarkable essay The Tell-the-Tale Detail (1984). Frascari's identification of a duality between a 'physical production' and a 'mental production' of the detail, that is, the detail seen as 'the place of the meeting point of the mental construing and of the actual construction', engages interestedly with my consideration of modern detailing as two parts or aspects intertwined permanently. This can be illustrated through confronting the aspirations of the International Style to create a 'new single style' with the dissimilar—and sometimes opposing—'exercise of detailing' of modern architects. Consequently, having limited my research to the Modern Movement, I will in turn define a particular historical frame within this period by considering the experiences of two architects: Auguste Perret (1874–1954) and Alvar Aalto (1898–1976). Perret's 'no vocabulary detailing' and Aalto's abandonment of the use of 'modem details', on the one hand and the completion of two dissimilar buildings (both equally modern though) within their work—Perret's church of Notre-Dame du Raincy (France, 1922–24) and Aalto's Paimio Tuberculosis Sanatorium (Finland, 1929–33)—on the other, will be regarded as revealing confirmations of a detailing that can be called modern in the overall meaning of the word

La cordillera imaginada : Los aportes del paisaje para la construcción de la imagen país

El término paisaje se estudia en la presente investigación como un hecho cultural, donde además de representar las configuraciones de los espacios geográficos y de ejercer funciones territoriales básicas, el paisaje es capaz de mantener intensas influencias espirituales y culturales, a lo largo de nuestras vidas, a través de una realidad tanto inmediata como histórica. El paisaje es un aspecto de la cultura que se ve influenciado por los actuales procesos de comunicación, ya que éstos muchas veces hacen de soporte a las representaciones de paisaje. De la premisa que la cordillera de los Andes es para la mayoría de los chilenos una entidad territorial, que nos identifica y nos representa como nación, nace el tema del presente trabajo. Así, la investigación se centra en demostrar cómo a través de las diversas metáforas y anhelos que se han desarrollado a lo largo historia de la sociedad chilena, la cordillera se ha ido constituyendo como un hito patrimonial, un paisaje simbólico, con un fuerte argumento nacionalista. Al mismo tiempo, se busca poner la manera en que se utilizan las imágenes de los paisajes canonizados de la cordillera de los Andes para comunicar y emocionar por medio de su retrato, el cual se ha ido consolidando como un elemento visual reconocible, que se manifiesta cada vez más como una forma de comunicación y comprensión cultural. Se intenta descifrar, bajo las circunstancias actuales, cuáles son las formas de representación y qué funciones ejercen las imágenes de estos paisajes dentro del leguaje visual en el que están insertas, vislumbrando los diversos argumentos que se quiere comunicar, asociados al imaginario que existe tras la imagen de la cordillera de los Andes. En este sentido, se hará referencia esencialmente a los mitos sociales, a los sentimientos nacionales y a los sueños colectivos.Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo (FAU

La cordillera imaginada : Los aportes del paisaje para la construcción de la imagen país

El término paisaje se estudia en la presente investigación como un hecho cultural, donde además de representar las configuraciones de los espacios geográficos y de ejercer funciones territoriales básicas, el paisaje es capaz de mantener intensas influencias espirituales y culturales, a lo largo de nuestras vidas, a través de una realidad tanto inmediata como histórica. El paisaje es un aspecto de la cultura que se ve influenciado por los actuales procesos de comunicación, ya que éstos muchas veces hacen de soporte a las representaciones de paisaje. De la premisa que la cordillera de los Andes es para la mayoría de los chilenos una entidad territorial, que nos identifica y nos representa como nación, nace el tema del presente trabajo. Así, la investigación se centra en demostrar cómo a través de las diversas metáforas y anhelos que se han desarrollado a lo largo historia de la sociedad chilena, la cordillera se ha ido constituyendo como un hito patrimonial, un paisaje simbólico, con un fuerte argumento nacionalista. Al mismo tiempo, se busca poner la manera en que se utilizan las imágenes de los paisajes canonizados de la cordillera de los Andes para comunicar y emocionar por medio de su retrato, el cual se ha ido consolidando como un elemento visual reconocible, que se manifiesta cada vez más como una forma de comunicación y comprensión cultural. Se intenta descifrar, bajo las circunstancias actuales, cuáles son las formas de representación y qué funciones ejercen las imágenes de estos paisajes dentro del leguaje visual en el que están insertas, vislumbrando los diversos argumentos que se quiere comunicar, asociados al imaginario que existe tras la imagen de la cordillera de los Andes. En este sentido, se hará referencia esencialmente a los mitos sociales, a los sentimientos nacionales y a los sueños colectivos.Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo (FAU