John F. Kennedy -Leadership Qualities That Moved A Nation

Leadership studies ask 'what makes an effective leader?' To answer this question analyses have to become practical and real-world oriented. The research question in this thesis is: 'How can the three factors - vision, decision-making style, and delegation - explain whether John F. Kennedy was an effective President?'While there are many other leadership factors such as integrity, political/legislative skills and communications skills three factors were chosen. 'Vision' mobilizes external support for the leader's overarching goals, and charts out a national direction. 'Decision making style' focuses on the 'internal', process-oriented aspects of leadership. The Delegation factor assesses what competence and perspectives that will bring input into the decision-making which will carry out the vision.The research methodology has been to conduct a single case study. His two year and ten months Presidency was short but contained several important Cold War eventsivThe Vision HypothesisA President will be effective if he has a compelling vision of the future of AmericaThe MA thesis tested whether 'The New Frontier' was a successful vision from which visionary initiatives were derived. The Moon Project was the most ambitious national scientific project in two decades, propelling the U.S. for-ward in the space race.JFK's ideas on peaceful cooperation with the Soviets were a consequence of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The vision was enunciated with his 'Strategy of Peace' speech at American University, in which he pledged for a pause in the Cold War, and announced the signing of the Test Ban Treaty.In the selected cases he strived to educate the American public on urgent needs by pursuing longer-term goals in the interest of national security.The Decision Making Style HypothesisA President will be effective if he has a competent personal decision making styleThe thesis tested whether President JFK had an effective personal decision making style. JFK often took issues out of the bureaucratic system in time to defend his own right to decide and his own right of innovation. JFK's collegial decision making model was a consensus-seeking vehicle which ensured that problems were debated through cross-fertilization.vThe Delegation Hypothesis:A President will be effective if he delegates with an eye to his political controlJFK knew what he was looking for in every position. Secretary of State Dean Rusk was probably chosen because JFK had conceived a greater role for himself in this area. Recent scholarly work has demonstrated that JFK was one of the most engaged Presidents in foreign affairs. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara was chosen as a rational, intelligent civilian that could provide political control over the military establishment.Speech Writer Ted Sorensen knew JFK's intellectual ideas, and they cooperated closely on the speeches of the Administration. JFK relied on external advisors to balance decision-making information, and the British Ambassador Ormsby-Gore saw his ideas being put into use with regards to the quarantine line in the Cuban Missile Crisis.JFK's selection of advisors reflected the strengths and weaknesses of his own policy experience, demonstrating what Neustadt calls a 'rare' fine distinction among his 'fellow kings'.The thesis concludes by briefly testing the three factors in a comparison between President JFK and President George W. Bush, and finds that the current administration seems to have set too ambitious goals in its vision lacking good contextual intelligence

Blood lactate and glucose concentrations in the femoral artery and three different veins during anaesthesia of healthy laboratory pigs

Blood lactate is a parameter used for monitoring pigs during prolonged anaesthesia. Here we compared blood lactate and glucose concentrations in nine anaesthetised laboratory pigs. Seventeen of the samples originated from a liver project and 15 from a kidney project. Mean and standard deviations of arterial blood lactate and glucose were compared with values for portal, renal and femoral veins by using paired Student’s t-test, paired Wilcoxon test as well as Spearman rank-order correlation. The study showed that lactate concentration was constant whether measured in blood from the femoral artery, portal vein, renal vein or femoral vein. The study showed that the origin of the blood sampled is not important and that changes in blood lactate concentration are likely to be the same throughout the cardiovascular system in healthy pigs

Vascular flow reserve as a link between long-term blood pressure level and physical performance capacity in mammals

Mean arterial pressure (MAP) is surprisingly similar across different species of mammals, and it is, in general, not known which factors determine the arterial pressure level. Mammals often have a pronounced capacity for sustained physical performance. This capacity depends on the vasculature having a flow reserve that comes into play as tissue metabolism increases. We hypothesize that microvascular properties allowing for a large vascular flow reserve is linked to the level of the arterial pressure.To study the interaction between network properties and network inlet pressure, we developed a generic and parsimonious computational model of a bifurcating microvascular network where diameter and growth of each vessel evolves in response to changes in biomechanical stresses. During a simulation, the network develops well‐defined arterial and venous vessel characteristics. A change in endothelial function producing a high precapillary resistance and thus a high vascular flow reserve is associated with an increase in network inlet pressure. Assuming that network properties are independent of body mass, and that inlet pressure of the microvascular network is a proxy for arterial pressure, the study provides a conceptual explanation of why high performing animals tend to have a high MAP

Selective release of a potent anticancer agent from a supramolecular hydrogel using green light

Light-triggered drug release from hydrogels is a promising method to improve efficiency of antitumor treatment, as an alternative to existing photodynamic therapies. Here we report a photochromic supramolecular low-MW hydrogel that can quickly and selectively release a physically encapsulated potent anticancer agent upon green light irradiation under physiological conditions

Boron-rich, cytocompatible block copolymer nanoparticles by polymerization-induced self-assembly

Core-shell nanoparticles (NPs) with a boron-rich core were synthesized by RAFT-mediated polymerization-induced self-assembly using a new methacrylic boronate ester monomer. Under specific conditions, sub-100 nm spherical NPs could be obtained at high conversions by either emulsion or dispersion RAFT polymerization using poly(oligo(ethylene glycol) methacrylate) (POEGMA) dithiobenozate-based chain transfer agents. Phenylboronic acid surface-functionalized NPs were obtained using a telechelic POEGMA. Primary data on biocompatibility is provided and suggests suitability as boron delivery agent for boron neutron capture therapy