518 research outputs found
Stratigraphic Crinoid Zonation in Iowa Mississippian Rocks
Iowa Mississippian rocks, rich in fossil crinoidea, lend themselves excellently for stratigraphic zonation. Zone index fossils have been chosen in the basis of stage of evolution and abundance of occurrence. The following crinoid zones are established: North Hill formation, Aacocrinus chouteauensis (Miller), Hampton formation, Rhodocrinites kirbyi (Wachsmuth and Springer), Gilmore City formation, Rhodocrinites serpens (Laudon), Burlington formation, Dolbe Creek member, Cactocrinus proboscidialis (Hall), Haight Creek member, Agaricocrinus planoconvexus Hall, Cedar Fork member, lower part, Azygocrinus rotundus (Yandell and Shumard), upper part, Dorycrinus quinquelobus (Hall), Keokuk formation, transition beds, Eutrochocrinus trochiscus (Meek and Worthen), main limestone unit, Actinocrinites lowei (Hall), Warsaw formation, Barycrinus spurius (Hall), St. Louis formation, Dichocrinus omatus Wachsmuth and Springer and Ste. Genevieve formation, Taxocrinus huntsvillae Springer
PRODUCTIVITY AND THE ENACTMENT OF A MACRO CULTURE
This paper reports the puzzling results of a study which examined IT capital investment
and productivity at three of the largest IT user sites in the U.S. for the period 1970-1990: Social
Security Administration (SSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI). Based on detailed IT investment, employment, and output data over twenty
years, we found that only one agency had achieved significant productivity benefits, a second
agency had modest results, and a third agency achieved no results whatever. These results
cannot be explained by traditional theories of productivity of how productivity is produced.
We argue that IT-induced productivity results not simply from strategic choice, nor the
operation of the invisible hand in the market place, nor simply from keen managers adjusting
their organizations to an "objective" environment. Instead we propose instead a new theory in
which productivity benefits derive from a larger macro-culture enacted by powerful institutions
in an organizational field. We extend this analysis to the larger economy and examine how this
new theory helps us understand recent claims that IT is finally having positive productivity
benefits at the sector level, and also helps us understand how the current fascination with reengineering
and downsizing may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
Information Technology and Occupational Structure
A central tenet of much popular and scholarly
literature is that computers -and more broadly speaking
"information systems"- bring about significant change in
organizations. Some scholars focus on changes in
organizational structure- the division of labor and its
coordination through authority and power (Blau, 1976;
Danziger, et. d., 1982; Laudon, 1976; 1986; Keen 1981;
Kling and Iacono, 1984; Orlikowski and Robey, 1991;
Robey, 1981; Walton, 1989; Barley 1986; 1990) . Others
focus on IT induced changes in the design of work
(Zuboff, 1984; Bikson, et. al., 1985: Kraut, et. al., 1987;
Sproull and Kiesler, 199 1; Turner, 1984; Iacono and
Kling, 1987). Still others have argued that IT
significantly alters occupational structure in
organizations--the distribution of employment among
occupations and skill classes of workers (Braverman,
1984; Kling and Turner, 1987; Berndt, et. al., 1992;
Howell and W e , 1993; Cyert and Mowry, 1988; 1989).
In general, the impact of IT on occupational structure of
firms and organizations is a neglected area of empirical
research despite the fact that scholars have strong
opinions, and convincing theories, about such
occupational shifts.
In this paper we report the results of a twenty year
longitudinal study of occupational structure in three of the
largest and most intensive organizational users of IT in
the United States. For benchmarking purposes we also
examine occupational change at the aggregate society
level and in the federal government sector over a twenty
year period. The results of our research question the
claim that IT brings about significant change in
occupational structure. While the organizations we
examine did experience significant change in
occupational structure during periods of intense
computerization, these changes did not conform to
theoretical predictions and they were inconsistent from
one organization to another. We conc1ude that
organizational occupational structures are quite stable in
the face of massive IT change and claims that IT brings
about "revo1utionaryâ changes in organizational structure
have little empirical foundation even though there may be
isolated cases where such rapid and drastic changes do
occur.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, INVESTMENT IN IT, AND PRODUCTIVITY
Previous literature on IT and productivity does not take into account different
organizational goals and different management strategies for achieving these goals. But
productivity and ROI relationships can easily differ as organizational goals and
management strategies differ. Therefore, we argue, it is no longer appropriate to ask,
"Does IT lead to productivity enhancement." or "Is the ROI on IT investments large or
small or nonexistent? The better question is under what conditions of organizational
climate and management choice does IT enhanced productivity result.
To illustrate the powerful effect of organizational goals and management strategy
on IT-productivity relationships, we examine the twenty year history of two of the largest
IT users in the world: the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security
Administration. And we find that these two very similar agencies experienced very
different results from massive investments in IT despite sharing a similar production
function. There is nothing in micro economics however to explain the different strategies
pursed by these managers. Instead we must turn to political and sociological models of
organizations to understand the social construction of productivity results.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
PRODUCTIVITY AND THE ENACTMENT OF A MACRO CULTURE
This paper reports the puzzling results of a study which examined IT capital investment
and productivity at three of the largest IT user sites in the U.S. for the period 1970-1990: Social
Security Administration (SSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI). Based on detailed IT investment, employment, and output data over twenty
years, we found that only one agency had achieved significant productivity benefits, a second
agency had modest results, and a third agency achieved no results whatever. These results
cannot be explained by traditional theories of productivity of how productivity is produced.
We argue that IT-induced productivity results not simply from strategic choice, nor the
operation of the invisible hand in the market place, nor simply from keen managers adjusting
their organizations to an "objective" environment. Instead we propose instead a new theory in
which productivity benefits derive from a larger macro-culture enacted by powerful institutions
in an organizational field. We extend this analysis to the larger economy and examine how this
new theory helps us understand recent claims that IT is finally having positive productivity
benefits at the sector level, and also helps us understand how the current fascination with reengineering
and downsizing may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.Information Systems Working Papers Serie
Boreal forest riparian zones regulate stream sulfate and dissolved organic carbon
In boreal forest catchments, solute transfer to streams is controlled by hydrological and biogeochemical processes occurring in the riparian zone (RZ). However, RZs are spatially heterogeneous and information about solute chemistry is typically limited. This is problematic when making inferences about stream chemistry. Hypothetically, the strength of links between riparian and stream chemistry is time-scale dependent. Using a ten-year (2003 − 2012) dataset from a northern Swedish catchment, we evaluated the suitability of RZ data to infer stream dynamics at different time scales. We focus on the role of the RZ versus upslope soils in controlling sulfate (SO42−) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC). A priori, declines in acid deposition and redox-mediated SO42− pulses control sulfur (S) fluxes and pool dynamics, which in turn affect dissolved organic carbon (DOC). We found that the catchment is currently a net source of S, presumably due to release of the S pool accumulated during the acidification period. In both, RZ and stream, SO42 − concentrations are declining over time, whereas DOC is increasing. No temporal trends in SO42 − and DOC were observed in upslope mineral soils. SO42 − explained the variation of DOC in stream and RZ, but not in upslope mineral soil. Moreover, as SO42 − decreased with time, temporal variability of DOC increased. These observations indicate that: (1) SO42 − is still an important driver of DOC trends in boreal catchments and (2) RZ processes control stream SO42 − and subsequently DOC independently of upslope soils. These phenomena are likely occurring in many regions recovering from acidification. Because water flows through a heterogeneous mosaic of RZs before entering the stream, upscaling information from limited RZ data to the catchment level is problematic at short-time scales. However, for long-term trends and annual dynamics, the same data can provide reasonable representations of riparian processes and support meaningful inferences about stream chemistry
A drained nutrient-poor peatland forest in boreal Sweden constitutes a net carbon sink after integrating terrestrial and aquatic fluxes
Northern peatlands provide a globally important carbon (C) store. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, large areas of natural peatlands have been drained for biomass production across Fennoscandia. Today, drained peatland forests constitute a common feature of the managed boreal landscape, yet their ecosystem C balance and associated climate impact are not well understood, particularly within the nutrient-poor boreal region. In this study, we estimated the net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB) from a nutrient-poor drained peatland forest and an adjacent natural mire in northern Sweden by integrating terrestrial carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) fluxes with aquatic losses of dissolved organic C (DOC) and inorganic C based on eddy covariance and stream discharge measurements, respectively, over two hydrological years. Since the forest included a dense spruce-birch area and a sparse pine area, we were able to further evaluate the effect of contrasting forest structure on the NECB and component fluxes. We found that the drained peatland forest was a net C sink with a 2-year mean NECB of −115 ± 5 g C m−2 year−1 while the adjacent mire was close to C neutral with 14.6 ± 1.7 g C m−2 year−1. The NECB of the drained peatland forest was dominated by the net CO2 exchange (net ecosystem exchange [NEE]), whereas NEE and DOC export fluxes contributed equally to the mire NECB. We further found that the C sink strength in the sparse pine forest area (−153 ± 8 g C m−2 year−1) was about 1.5 times as high as in the dense spruce-birch forest area (−95 ± 8 g C m−2 year−1) due to enhanced C uptake by ground vegetation and lower DOC export. Our study suggests that historically drained peatland forests in nutrient-poor boreal regions may provide a significant net ecosystem C sink and associated climate benefits
High riverine CO2 emissions at the permafrost boundary of Western Siberia
Acknowledgements: The study was part of the JPI Climate initiative, financially supported by VR (the Swedish Research Council) grant no. 325-2014-6898 to J.K. Additional funding from RNF (RSCF) grant no. 18-17-00237, RFBR grant no. 17-55-16008 and RF Federal Target Program RFMEFI58717X0036 ‘Kolmogorov’ to O.S.P. and S.N.K. as well as NERC grant no. NE/M019896/1 to C.S. is acknowledged. The authors thank A. Sorochinskiy and A. Lim for assistance in the field, as well as M. Myrstener, M. Klaus and S. Monteux for advice on data analysis. L. Kovaleva is acknowledged for artwork.Peer reviewedPostprin
How small and medium enterprises are using social networks? Evidence from the Algarve region
The evolution of internet created new opportunities for small and medium enterprises (SME), among which are social networks. This work aims at analyzing the potential of these networks for the SME in Algarve, creating a questionnaire for the purpose. The empirical study revealed that some firms have already an integrated business strategy with social networks, as well as a group in the firm responsible for it. Most of their managers consider that social networks enhance performance, but few really measure these results. A categorical principal component analysis identified two dimensions of social networks’ use: social networks for product-client interaction and knowledge; and social networks with potential for marketing. A supplementary analysis (hierarchical clustering) identified three patterns of SME’s involvement in social networks: cluster Social Net Level 1, cluster Social Net Level 2 and cluster Social Net Level 3. These groups validated the results described above, indicating a sustainable methodological approach
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