Apple Imprinting

Anthocyanin is the pigment that develops in the skin of apples and produces the red color associated with some apple cultivars. Apples are dependent on light to develop anthocyanins. This is the reason why some apples develop leaf-like shapes in their pigment on the skin; the leaf excludes the light in its shape and the red color pigment doesn’t develop. Apple imprinting is a lightmanipulation technique used to produce an intentional design on the skin of apples. This technique is used in Japan where fruit can be a prized gift, and apples imprinted with special logos can bring a very high price. One orchard in western Canada imprints the logos of two competing hockey teams on apples to increase the value and obtain a considerable return on their investment. Iowa orchardists could create a valuable addition to their marketing strategies if they use apple imprinting techniques. The purpose of this study was to imprint apples with the goal of learning the process in Iowa with local apple cultivars

Cops, Teachers, and the Art of the Impossible: Explaining the lack of diffusion of impossible job innovations

In their now classic Impossible Jobs in Public Management, Hargrove and Glidewell (1990) argue that public agencies with limited legitimacy, high conflict, low professional authority, and weak agency myths have essentially impossible jobs. Leaders of such agencies can do little more than cope, which is also a theme of James Q. Wilson (1989), among others. Yet in the years since publication of Impossible Jobs, one such position, that of police commissioner has proven possible. Over a sustained 17-year period, the New York City Police Department has achieved dramatic reductions in crime with relatively few political repercussions, as described by Kelling and Sousa (2001). A second impossible job discussed by Wilson and also by Frederick Hess (1999), city school superintendent, has also proven possible, with Houston and Edmonton having considerable academic success educating disadvantaged children. In addition, Atlanta and Pittsburgh enjoyed significant success in elementary schooling, though the gains were short-lived for reasons we will describe. More recently, under Michelle Rhee, Washington D.C. schools have made the most dramatic gains among city school systems. These successes in urban crime control and public schooling have not been widely copied. Accordingly, we argue that the real conundrum of impossible jobs is why agency leaders fail to copy successful innovations. Building on the work of Teodoro (2009), we will discuss how the relative illegitimacy of clients and inflexibility of personnel systems combine with the professional norms, job mobility and progressive ambition of agency leaders to limit the diffusion of innovations in law enforcement and schooling. We will conclude with ideas about how to overcome these barriers