The Automobile\u27s Role In The Future

This paper explores the competition between various modes of travel as a function of range and between travel and electronics for communicating. An evolutionary development of our means of travel is described which would introduce new concepts for improving the capacity and capability of our urban transportation systems while mollifying unwanted side effects. A Freeway Express Transit is outlined which would better use the already huge investment commitments in land, equipment, and social way of life that have made the automobile such an important factor. It would retain the eminent role of the automobile while evolving the transportation systems toward more socially satisfying means

Broadcast Opportunities With Satellites And CAW, And Their Control In The Public Interest

This paper explores the opportunities for providing new TV broadcast services and a variety of social benefits from broadcast using satellites and CATV. The relative costs of the various alternatives are outlined, and new regulatory and operational policies are suggested. The paper is intended to ease international concern about the control of satellite broadcasting in order to gain support for permissive frequency allocations. Also, it attempts to stimulate domestic vested interests by outlining a wealth of novel opportunities available under the suggested new policies

Polymer Modeling Reveals Interplay between Physical Properties of Chromosomal DNA and the Size and Distribution of Condensin-Based Chromatin Loops

Transient DNA loops occur throughout the genome due to thermal fluctuations of DNA and the function of SMC complex proteins such as condensin and cohesin. Transient crosslinking within and between chromosomes and loop extrusion by SMCs have profound effects on high-order chromatin organization and exhibit specificity in cell type, cell cycle stage, and cellular environment. SMC complexes anchor one end to DNA with the other extending some distance and retracting to form a loop. How cells regulate loop sizes and how loops distribute along chromatin are emerging questions. To understand loop size regulation, we employed bead–spring polymer chain models of chromatin and the activity of an SMC complex on chromatin. Our study shows that (1) the stiffness of the chromatin polymer chain, (2) the tensile stiffness of chromatin crosslinking complexes such as condensin, and (3) the strength of the internal or external tethering of chromatin chains cooperatively dictate the loop size distribution and compaction volume of induced chromatin domains. When strong DNA tethers are invoked, loop size distributions are tuned by condensin stiffness. When DNA tethers are released, loop size distributions are tuned by chromatin stiffness. In this three-way interaction, the presence and strength of tethering unexpectedly dictates chromatin conformation within a topological domain

Drucker\u27s Insights on Market Orientation and Innovation: Implications for Emerging Areas in High-Technology Marketing

In 1954, Drucker boldly declared that organizations have only two basic functions, marketing and innovation. While true for any organization, this insight is particularly pertinent for technology-based businesses. The complicated environment surrounding high-tech companies creates a great need for sophisticated marketing, yet these companies continue to have under-developed competencies in marketing and in understanding customer needs. In its first two sections, this essay explores Drucker’s insights with respect to two particularly salient issues for high-tech companies: developing and implementing a market orientation, and sustained break-through innovations. We review Drucker’s insights and synthesize them with the scholarly research on these issues. In the third section, we discuss three emerging areas in high-tech marketing where academics and managers could build on Drucker’s insight to guide future research and practice: market-driving, customer co-creation, and corporate social responsibility. The illustrative examples provided by these emerging areas highlight that even today, Drucker’s writings continue to offer remarkable guidance to scholars and managers who are willing to take the time to reflect, understand, and incorporate these insights in the unique context of high-tech industries

An Assessment of the Exporting Literature: Using Theory and Data to Identify Future Research Directions

Exporting research is an established facet of the field of international marketing. That stated, the radical increase in recent export activity necessitates a sustained research effort devoted to the topic. In this article, the authors provide a qualitative review of the core theoretical exporting areas and evaluate the exporting domain quantitatively over six decades (1958–2016). For the quantitative analysis, they use multidimensional scaling and apply established bibliometric principles to offer an understanding of the field and to provide suggestions for future exporting research. For the evaluations, the authors used data from 830 articles with 52,191 citations from 35 journals. Using cocitation analysis as the basis to evaluate the data, they propose a series of intellectual structure implications on exporting that relate to internationalization process stages, dynamic capabilities, knowledge scarcity, social networks, export marketing strategy, absorptive capacity and learning, and nonlinear performance relationships involving marketing channel relationships

Astrocytes: biology and pathology

Astrocytes are specialized glial cells that outnumber neurons by over fivefold. They contiguously tile the entire central nervous system (CNS) and exert many essential complex functions in the healthy CNS. Astrocytes respond to all forms of CNS insults through a process referred to as reactive astrogliosis, which has become a pathological hallmark of CNS structural lesions. Substantial progress has been made recently in determining functions and mechanisms of reactive astrogliosis and in identifying roles of astrocytes in CNS disorders and pathologies. A vast molecular arsenal at the disposal of reactive astrocytes is being defined. Transgenic mouse models are dissecting specific aspects of reactive astrocytosis and glial scar formation in vivo. Astrocyte involvement in specific clinicopathological entities is being defined. It is now clear that reactive astrogliosis is not a simple all-or-none phenomenon but is a finely gradated continuum of changes that occur in context-dependent manners regulated by specific signaling events. These changes range from reversible alterations in gene expression and cell hypertrophy with preservation of cellular domains and tissue structure, to long-lasting scar formation with rearrangement of tissue structure. Increasing evidence points towards the potential of reactive astrogliosis to play either primary or contributing roles in CNS disorders via loss of normal astrocyte functions or gain of abnormal effects. This article reviews (1) astrocyte functions in healthy CNS, (2) mechanisms and functions of reactive astrogliosis and glial scar formation, and (3) ways in which reactive astrocytes may cause or contribute to specific CNS disorders and lesions

Materials produced from plant biomass: part II: evaluation of crystallinity and degradation kinetics of cellulose

In this study Eucalyptus grandis (CEG) and Pinus taeda (CPT) cellulose fibers obtained from kraft and sulfite pulping process, respectively, were characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and thermogravimetry (TGA). The degradation kinetic parameters were determined by TGA using Coats and Redfern method. FTIR results showed that CPT presented a more ordered structure with higher crystallinity than CEG. Thermogravimetric results showed that CPT had a higher thermal stability than CEG. The kinetic results revel that for CEG the degradation mechanism occurs mainly by random nucleation, although phase boundary controlled reactions also occurs while for CPT the degradation process is more related with phase boundary controlled reactions. Results demonstrated that differences between thermal stability and degradation mechanisms might be associated with differences in the cellulose crystalline structure probably caused by different pulping processes used for obtaining the cellulose fibers