486 research outputs found
Beyond enterprise resource planning projects: innovative strategies for competitive advantage
ABSTRACT A rapidly changing business environment and legacy IT problems has resulted in many organisations implementing standard package solutions. This 'common systems' approach establishes a common IT and business process infrastructure within organisations and its increasing dominance raises several important strategic issues. These are to what extent do common systems impose common business processes and management systems on competing firms, and what is the source of competitive advantage if the majority of firms employ almost identical information systems and business processes? A theoretical framework based on research into legacy systems and earlier IT strategy literature is used to analyse three case studies in the manufacturing, chemical and IT industries. It is shown that the organisations are treating common systems as the core of their organisations' abilities to manage business transactions. To achieve competitive advantage they are clothing these common systems with information systems designed to capture information about competitors, customers and suppliers, and to provide a basis for sharing knowledge within the organisation and ultimately with economic partners. The importance of these approaches to other organisations and industries is analysed and an attempt is made at outlining the strategic options open to firms beyond the implementation of common business systems
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Changes in neuronal activity across the mouse ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus in response to low glucose: evaluation using an extracellular multiāelectrode array approach
The hypothalamic ventromedial nucleus (VMN) is involved in maintaining systemic glucose homeostasis. Neurophysiological studies in rodent brain slices have identified populations of VMN glucoseāsensing neurones: glucoseāexcited (GE) neurones, cells which increased their firing rate in response to increases in glucose concentration, and glucoseāinhibited (GI) neurones, which show a reduced firing frequency in response to increasing glucose concentrations. To date, most slice electrophysiological studies characterising VMN glucoseāsensing neurones in rodents have utilised the patch clamp technique. Multiāelectrode arrays (MEAs) are a stateāofātheāart electrophysiological tool enabling the electrical activity of many cells to be recorded across multiple electrode sites (channels) simultaneously. We used a perforated MEA (pMEA) system to evaluate electrical activity changes across the dorsalāventral extent of the mouse VMN region in response to alterations in glucose concentration. Because intrinsic (ie, direct postsynaptic sensing) and extrinsic (ie, presynaptically modulated) glucosensation were not discriminated, we use the terminology āGE/presynaptically excited by an increase (PER)ā and āGI/presynaptically excited by a decrease (PED)ā in the present study to describe responsiveness to changes in extracellular glucose across the mouse VMN. We observed that 15%ā60% of channels were GE/PER, whereas 2%ā7% were GI/PED channels. Within the dorsomedial portion of the VMN (DMāVMN), significantly more channels were GE/PER compared to the ventrolateral portion of the VMN (VLāVMN). However, GE/PER channels within the VLāVMN showed a significantly higher basal firing rate in 2.5 mmol lā1 glucose than DMāVMN GE/PER channels. No significant difference in the distribution of GI/PED channels was observed between the VMN subregions. The results of the present study demonstrate the utility of the pMEA approach for evaluating glucose responsivity across the mouse VMN. pMEA studies could be used to refine our understanding of other neuroendocrine systems by examining population level changes in electrical activity across brain nuclei, thus providing key functional neuroanatomical information to complement and inform the design of singleācell neurophysiological studies
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