Coopetition (Contemporaneous Cooperation and Competition) Among Nonprofit Arts Organizations: The Case of Symphony Orchestras

Coopetition was formalized as a strategic management concept in the early 1990s by Ray Noorda, CEO of Novell, who coined the term and proposed that often, in order to achieve growth in an organization or industry, You have to cooperate and compete at the same time (Davis 1993). Although the individual ideas of cooperation and competition in the business environment have been well-established for some time, the formal idea of contemporaneous cooperation and competition, or cooperation among competitors, is relatively new in business and academic literature. Why is this hybrid concept important? The literature to date on coopetition and its antecedents suggests that they constitute a phenomenon that extends beyond the individual paradoxical constructs of competition and cooperation (Chen 2002). In a business environment that has historically stressed competitive advantage, the assertion that the best strategy often has multiple winners is a powerful one (Brandenburger and Nalebuff 1996). This research expands the concept of coopetition to an area in which it has not yet been studied: the nonprofit arts sector. It provides a comprehensive literature review, a posited model of coopetition and related hypotheses, and two proposed studies: a qualitative exploratory study to examine coopetition in the nonprofit arts setting, and a quantitative study to empirically assess the model and hypotheses. Contributions of this research include: (1) an in-depth literature review of the first ten years of theoretical and empirical research on the concept of coopetition, (2) a literature review of the concepts of competition and cooperation in the context of the nonprofit arts environment, (3) presentation of a conceptual framework of coopetition in the nonprofit arts environment and related hypotheses based on the literature, and (4) qualitative and quantitative studies of the concept of coopetition in a nonprofit arts setting and a resulting understanding of how nonprofit arts coopetition in artistic, operational, marketing, and fund development contexts has the potential to impact organizational improvement in terms of participant organizational financial performance and organizational effectiveness. From an academic standpoint, this research adds to the literature in the areas of nonprofit marketing/management and coopetition/strategic management. From a nonprofit arts management and marketing standpoint, the qualitative and quantitative studies indicate that the range of potential strategic and tactical options for achieving organizational improvement is broader than traditionally contemplated, with opportunities that can be envisioned and leveraged through coopetition

Arts management/marketing journal citation analysis : assessing external impact

Purpose &ndash; This paper aims to present a quantitative analysis of arts management/marketing articles in leading general management/marketing journals, including an examination of the extent to which those top tier journal articles on arts/culture-related topics cite authors of leading arts management journal articles.Design/methodology/approach &ndash; Using bibliometric techniques, this study examines the content of 20 top tier management and marketing journals over 22 years to identify articles published on arts management/marketing, which authors were cited, and from which arts management/marketing journals.Findings &ndash; Analysis indicates that: relatively few citations in the top management/marketing journals reference arts management/marketing journals; assessment of interaction between the parent management/marketing disciplines and the arts management/marketing sub-discipline indicates that authors draw upon a large reserve of diverse literatures; and top journal arts-related management/marketing articles tend to utilize citations to journal articles grounded in the social sciences and aesthetics of management, with an increasing trend of citations to arts management/marketing journals.Research limitations/implications &ndash; This study of the extent to which top journals have published arts/culture-related articles and the citation impact of arts management/marketing journals is the initial academic study on the topic and suggests opportunities for further research.Practical implications &ndash; Analysis of arts management/marketing journal impact contributes to professionalization of the field and increased perceived value of those journals by industry practitioners.Originality/value &ndash; This research is the first to examine the spectrum of arts management/marketing literature, including both top general management/marketing journals and sector-oriented arts management/marketing journals, establishing a body of knowledge for augmentation by future research over time.<br /

Spatial Association of Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) and their Prey in the Southern Gulf of Maine, USA

Efficient foraging strategies result in a predator spatially overlapping with its prey, foraging in the most profitable patches, and minimizing the time transiting between patches. Previous studies investigating baleen whale foraging strategies have generally focused on investigating spatial overlap with prey patches, patch profitability or movement within feeding grounds. The present study investigated the fine-scale strategies of movement between individual prey schools and larger prey patches in humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) bubble-feeding on sand lance (Ammodytes spp.) in and around the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, USA. The goal was to investigate the presence of hierarchically nested spatial structures in both sand lance patches and whale bubble-feeding behavior, and to compare the scales and geometry of these patches between predator and prey behavior on each hierarchical scale. Furthermore, the profitability of sand lance schools in feeding areas was investigated. Using animal-borne tag technology to record underwater movement of whales in combination with surface observations of whale behavior, the locations of bubble-feeding events were identified. Concurrent hydroacoustic measurements of the prey distribution in the water column were used to identify the locations and energetic parameters of sand lance schools around tagged whales. First Passage Time analysis was used to determine the spatial scale of individual bubble-feeding events. Based on spatial proximity, feeding events and prey schools were grouped into larger feeding bouts and prey patches to investigate the presence of hierarchically nested scales. Up to three hierarchy levels were found in bubble-feeding behavior of nine whales tagged on six days between 2008 and 2012, and up to five hierarchy levels in the sand lance prey field around the tagged whales. There was a significant positive correlation between the lengths of whale bubble-feeding bouts and the lengths of sand lance patches over three common hierarchy levels. On each hierarchy level, the lengths of whale bubble-feeding bouts were significantly smaller than those of sand lance patches. Mean inter-feeding bout distances were significantly positively correlated with mean inter-prey patch distances over two hierarchy levels. Mean distances between feeding events were similar to the mean distances between prey schools. On larger hierarchy levels, mean inter-bout distances were greater than mean distances among prey patches. Mean school height and density tended to be greater in schools recorded inside than outside of feeding bout areas. The prey field structures found here were likely a result of the specific habitat requirements of sand lance. The results of this study suggest that the tagged whales were able to adapt their foraging movement to the structure of the prey field. By feeding on neighboring schools, whales could minimize the time spent between prey schools. On larger spatial scales, whales did not feed on neighboring prey patches. This could be a result of decreased abilities to find the nearest patch, or because, rather than restricting their foraging movement to neighboring patches, the whales were targeting specific patches. The foraging movement observed in this study led to spatial overlap of the tagged whales with sand lance schools that were characterized by properties rendering them more energetically profitable for bubble-feeding whales. While hierarchically structured foraging movement has been found in other marine predators, this is the first study that demonstrates this kind of foraging mechanism for baleen whales

Improving Arts Management/Marketing Efficiency: Optimizing Utilization of Scarce Resources to Produce Artistic Outputs

Purpose This longitudinal research examines US symphony orchestra sector organizations to determine individual efficiencies in allocating resources (donations, governmental/private funding, etc.) for desirable outputs (concerts, educational programs, community outreach). It provides researchers and managers with a tool for identifying, assessing and mitigating organizational inefficiencies. Design/methodology/approach This study assesses relative efficiencies in performing arts organizations using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a widely-used nonparametric data-intensive benchmarking technique that determines an optimal “production frontier” of best-practice organizations among their peers and assesses their abilities to turn multivariate inputs into multivariate desired outputs. Findings This analysis highlights efficiency differences in a wide range of orchestras in converting available resources into performance-related outputs. It provides individual arts organizations with useful results for developing practical benchmarks to achieve organizational efficiency improvement. Research limitations/implications: This study provides constructive benchmarking guidance for improving efficiencies of relatively-inefficient organizations. Future analysis can expand the scope to utilize a two-stage DEA model to provide more specific guidance to arts organizations. Practical implications: This pragmatic analysis enables arts/culture institutions to assess their organizational efficiencies and identify opportunities to optimize resources in producing social outputs for their target markets. Social implications: Efficiency improvements enable performing arts organizations to provide additional artistic/social services, with fewer resources, to larger audiences. Originality/value This research demonstrates the abilities of DEA analysis to assess both a sector and its individual organizations to determine efficiencies, identify sources of inefficiencies and assess longitudinal efficiency trends

Optimizing Convolutional Neural Networks for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Detection in Clinical Computed Tomography Imaging

Purpose: To optimize the binary detection of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) based on emphysema presence in the lung with convolutional neural networks (CNN) by exploring manually adjusted versus automated window-setting optimization (WSO) on computed tomography (CT) images. Methods: 7,194 CT images (3,597 with COPD; 3,597 healthy controls) from 78 subjects (43 with COPD; 35 healthy controls) were selected retrospectively (10.2018-12.2019) and preprocessed. For each image, intensity values were manually clipped to the emphysema window setting and a baseline 'full-range' window setting. Class-balanced train, validation, and test sets contained 3,392, 1,114, and 2,688 images. The network backbone was optimized by comparing various CNN architectures. Furthermore, automated WSO was implemented by adding a customized layer to the model. The image-level area under the Receiver Operating Characteristics curve (AUC) [lower, upper limit 95% confidence] and P-values calculated from one-sided Mann-Whitney U-test were utilized to compare model variations. Results: Repeated inference (n=7) on the test set showed that the DenseNet was the most efficient backbone and achieved a mean AUC of 0.80 [0.76, 0.85] without WSO. Comparably, with input images manually adjusted to the emphysema window, the DenseNet model predicted COPD with a mean AUC of 0.86 [0.82, 0.89] (P=0.03). By adding a customized WSO layer to the DenseNet, an optimal window in the proximity of the emphysema window setting was learned automatically, and a mean AUC of 0.82 [0.78, 0.86] was achieved. Conclusion: Detection of COPD with DenseNet models was improved by WSO of CT data to the emphysema window setting range

Histological and serological features of acute liver injury after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination

Codoni G, Kirchner T, Engel B, Villamil AM, Efe C, Stättermayer AF, Weltzsch JP, Sebode M, Bernsmeier C, Lleo A, Gevers TJ, Kupčinskas L, Castiella A, Pinazo J, De Martin E, Bobis I, Sandahl TD, Pedica F, Invernizzi F, Del Poggio P, Bruns T, Kolev M, Semmo N, Bessone F, Giguet B, Poggi G, Ueno M, Jang H, Elpek GÖ, Soylu NK, Cerny A, Wedemeyer H, Vergani D, Mieli-Vergani G, Lucena MI, Andrade RJ, Zen Y, Taubert R, Beretta-Piccoli BT, Histological and serological features of acute liver injury after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, JHEP Reports (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhepr.2022.100605.Liver injury with autoimmune features after vaccination against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is increasingly reported. We investigated a large international cohort of patients with acute hepatitis arising after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, focusing on histological and serological features

Twenty-three unsolved problems in hydrology (UPH) – a community perspective

This paper is the outcome of a community initiative to identify major unsolved scientific problems in hydrology motivated by a need for stronger harmonisation of research efforts. The procedure involved a public consultation through on-line media, followed by two workshops through which a large number of potential science questions were collated, prioritised, and synthesised. In spite of the diversity of the participants (230 scientists in total), the process revealed much about community priorities and the state of our science: a preference for continuity in research questions rather than radical departures or redirections from past and current work. Questions remain focussed on process-based understanding of hydrological variability and causality at all space and time scales. Increased attention to environmental change drives a new emphasis on understanding how change propagates across interfaces within the hydrological system and across disciplinary boundaries. In particular, the expansion of the human footprint raises a new set of questions related to human interactions with nature and water cycle feedbacks in the context of complex water management problems. We hope that this reflection and synthesis of the 23 unsolved problems in hydrology will help guide research efforts for some years to come

Cefotaxime resistant Escherichia coli collected from a healthy volunteer; characterisation and the effect of plasmid loss.

In this study 6 CTX-M positive E. coli isolates collected during a clinical study examining the effect of antibiotic use in a human trial were analysed. The aim of the study was to analyse these isolates and assess the effect of full or partial loss of plasmid genes on bacterial fitness and pathogenicity. A DNA array was utilised to assess resistance and virulence gene carriage. Plasmids were characterised by PCR-based replicon typing and addiction system multiplex PCR. A phenotypic array and insect virulence model were utilised to assess the effect of plasmid-loss in E. coli of a large multi-resistance plasmid. All six E. coli carrying bla CTX-M-14 were detected from a single participant and were identical by pulse field gel electrophoresis and MLST. Plasmid profiling and arrays indicated absence of a large multi-drug resistance (MDR) F-replicon plasmid carrying blaTEM, aadA4, strA, strB, dfrA17/19, sul1, and tetB from one isolate. Although this isolate partially retained the plasmid it showed altered fitness characteristics e.g. inability to respire in presence of antiseptics, similar to a plasmid-cured strain. However, unlike the plasmid-cured or plasmid harbouring strains, the survival rate for Galleria mellonella infected by the former strain was approximately 5-times lower, indicating other possible changes accompanying partial plasmid loss. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that an apparently healthy individual can harbour bla CTX-M-14 E. coli strains. In one such strain, isolated from the same individual, partial absence of a large MDR plasmid resulted in altered fitness and virulence characteristics, which may have implications in the ability of this strain to infect and any subsequent treatment

De novo subtype and strain identification of botulinum neurotoxin type B through toxin proteomics

Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs) cause the disease botulism, which can be lethal if untreated. There are seven known serotypes of BoNT, A–G, defined by their response to antisera. Many serotypes are distinguished into differing subtypes based on amino acid sequence, and many subtypes are further differentiated into toxin variants. Previous work in our laboratory described the use of a proteomics approach to distinguish subtype BoNT/A1 from BoNT/A2 where BoNT identities were confirmed after searching data against a database containing protein sequences of all known BoNT/A subtypes. We now describe here a similar approach to differentiate subtypes BoNT/B1, /B2, /B3, /B4, and /B5. Additionally, to identify new subtypes or hitherto unpublished amino acid substitutions, we created an amino acid substitution database covering every possible amino acid change. We used this database to differentiate multiple toxin variants within subtypes of BoNT/B1 and B2. More importantly, with our amino acid substitution database, we were able to identify a novel BoNT/B subtype, designated here as BoNT/B7. These techniques allow for subtype and strain level identification of both known and unknown BoNT/B rapidly with no DNA required