Investments In Information Technology, Organizational Slack, And Economic Productivity

From a resource-based view (RBV), information technology (IT) investments affect organizational slack resources and therefore influence firm economic productivity. In this study, we develop a framework and test the relationship between economic productivity and organizational slack through an examination of 9 years financial data of 106 U.S. listed companies. Each variable has been tested for three stages of IT investments. Our results suggest that organizational slack resources increase after IT investments which later are consumed and converted into economic productivity

A home-based exercise intervention for caregivers of persons with dementia: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

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Prolonged Duration of Peripheral Nerve Blockade in a Pediatric Patient with Charcot Marie Tooth Disease: A Case Report

Natalie R Barnett,1 Amanda M Bunnell,1 Matthew A Dow2 1Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA; 2Department of Orthopaedics and Physical Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USACorrespondence: Natalie R Barnett, Associate Professor in Anesthesiology, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, 10 McClennan Banks Dr, Suite 2190, MSC 940, Charleston, SC, 29425, USA, Tel +1-843-792-5454, Email [email protected]: Charcot Marie Tooth disease is a common cause of pediatric peripheral neuropathy, which can lead to distal muscle wasting and weakness necessitating orthopedic procedures. We present an eleven-year-old male with Charcot Marie Tooth disease who received peripheral nerve blocks for ankle surgery, with a total dose of 1.75 mg/kg of bupivacaine 0.25%. Upon follow-up, it was identified that the sensory blockade did not resolve until thirty-six hours, postoperatively. There were no noted long-term sequalae on surgical follow-up. If a patient with Charcot Marie Tooth receives a peripheral nerve block, the patient should receive close short- and long-term follow-up to monitor for block complication or disease exacerbation.Keywords: regional anesthesia, local anesthesia, peripheral neuropath

Surface-Defects and Core Excitons at the (2x1) Asymmetric-Dimer (100) Surface of Si

Journals published by the American Physical Society can be found at http://journals.aps.org

Mapping an atlas of tissue-specific drosophila melanogaster metabolomes by high resolution mass spectrometry

Metabolomics can provide exciting insights into organismal function, but most work on simple models has focussed on the whole organism metabolome, so missing the contributions of individual tissues. Comprehensive metabolite profiles for ten tissues from adult Drosophila melanogaster were obtained here by two chromatographic methods, a hydrophilic interaction (HILIC) method for polar metabolites and a lipid profiling method also based on HILIC, in combination with an Orbitrap Exactive instrument. Two hundred and forty two polar metabolites were putatively identified in the various tissues, and 251 lipids were observed in positive ion mode and 61 in negative ion mode. Although many metabolites were detected in all tissues, every tissue showed characteristically abundant metabolites which could be rationalised against specific tissue functions. For example, the cuticle contained high levels of glutathione, reflecting a role in oxidative defence; the alimentary canal (like vertebrate gut) had high levels of acylcarnitines for fatty acid metabolism, and the head contained high levels of ether lipids. The male accessory gland uniquely contained decarboxylated S-adenosylmethionine. These data thus both provide valuable insights into tissue function, and a reference baseline, compatible with the FlyAtlas.org transcriptomic resource, for further metabolomic analysis of this important model organism, for example in the modelling of human inborn errors of metabolism, aging or metabolic imbalances such as diabetes

Hard Two-Photon Contribution to Elastic Lepton-Proton Scattering: Determined by the OLYMPUS Experiment

The OLYMPUS collaboration reports on a precision measurement of the positron-proton to electron-proton elastic cross section ratio, $R_{2\gamma}$, a direct measure of the contribution of hard two-photon exchange to the elastic cross section. In the OLYMPUS measurement, 2.01~GeV electron and positron beams were directed through a hydrogen gas target internal to the DORIS storage ring at DESY. A toroidal magnetic spectrometer instrumented with drift chambers and time-of-flight scintillators detected elastically scattered leptons in coincidence with recoiling protons over a scattering angle range of $\approx 20\degree$ to $80\degree$. The relative luminosity between the two beam species was monitored using tracking telescopes of interleaved GEM and MWPC detectors at $12\degree$, as well as symmetric M{\o}ller/Bhabha calorimeters at $1.29\degree$. A total integrated luminosity of 4.5~fb$^{-1}$ was collected. In the extraction of $R_{2\gamma}$, radiative effects were taken into account using a Monte Carlo generator to simulate the convolutions of internal bremsstrahlung with experiment-specific conditions such as detector acceptance and reconstruction efficiency. The resulting values of $R_{2\gamma}$, presented here for a wide range of virtual photon polarization $0.456<\epsilon<0.978$, are smaller than some hadronic two-photon exchange calculations predict, but are in reasonable agreement with a subtracted dispersion model and a phenomenological fit to the form factor data.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 2 table

Cytokinesis in bloodstream stage Trypanosoma brucei requires a family of katanins and spastin

Microtubule severing enzymes regulate microtubule dynamics in a wide range of organisms and are implicated in important cell cycle processes such as mitotic spindle assembly and disassembly, chromosome movement and cytokinesis. Here we explore the function of several microtubule severing enzyme homologues, the katanins (KAT80, KAT60a, KAT60b and KAT60c), spastin (SPA) and fidgetin (FID) in the bloodstream stage of the African trypanosome parasite, Trypanosoma brucei. The trypanosome cytoskeleton is microtubule based and remains assembled throughout the cell cycle, necessitating its remodelling during cytokinesis. Using RNA interference to deplete individual proteins, we show that the trypanosome katanin and spastin homologues are non-redundant and essential for bloodstream form proliferation. Further, cell cycle analysis revealed that these proteins play essential but discrete roles in cytokinesis. The KAT60 proteins each appear to be important during the early stages of cytokinesis, while downregulation of KAT80 specifically inhibited furrow ingression and SPA depletion prevented completion of abscission. In contrast, RNA interference of FID did not result in any discernible effects. We propose that the stable microtubule cytoskeleton of T. brucei necessitates the coordinated action of a family of katanins and spastin to bring about the cytoskeletal remodelling necessary to complete cell divisio

Electron and Photon Scattering on Three-Nucleon Bound States

A big spectrum of processes induced by real and virtual photons on the 3He and 3H nuclei is theoretically investigated through many examples based on nonrelativistic Faddeev calculations for bound and continuum states. The modern nucleon-nucleon potential AV18 together with the three-nucleon force UrbanaIX is used. The single nucleon current is augmented by explicit pi- and rho-like two-body currents which fulfill the current continuity equation together with the corresponding parts of the AV18 potential. We also employ the Siegert theorem, which induces many-body contributions to the current operator. The interplay of these different dynamical ingredients in the various electromagnetic processes is studied and the theory is compared to the experimental data. Overall we find fair to good agreement but also cases of strong disagreement between theory and experiment, which calls for improved dynamics. In several cases we refer the reader to the work of other groups and compare their results with ours. In addition we list a number of predictions for observables in different processes which would challenge this dynamical scenario even more stringently and systematically.Comment: 154 pages, 80 figures includes as ps files, 21 additional figures as jpeg file

Acquisition and Evolution of Plant Pathogenesis–Associated Gene Clusters and Candidate Determinants of Tissue-Specificity in Xanthomonas

is a large genus of plant-associated and plant-pathogenic bacteria. Collectively, members cause diseases on over 392 plant species. Individually, they exhibit marked host- and tissue-specificity. The determinants of this specificity are unknown. lineage. genome and indicate that differentiation with respect to host- and tissue-specificity involved not major modifications or wholesale exchange of clusters, but subtle changes in a small number of genes or in non-coding sequences, and/or differences outside the clusters, potentially among regulatory targets or secretory substrates

Rapid Evolution in the Most Luminous Galaxies During the First 900 Million Years

The first 900 million years (Myr) to redshift z~6 (the first seven per cent of the age of the Universe) remains largely unexplored for the formation of galaxies. Large samples of galaxies have been found at z~6, but detections at earlier times are uncertain and unreliable. It is not at all clear how galaxies built up from the first stars when the Universe was ~300 Myr old (z~12-15) to z~6, just 600 Myr later. Here we report the results of a search for galaxies at z~7-8, about 700 Myr after the Big Bang, using the deepest near-infrared and optical images ever taken. Under conservative selection criteria we find only one candidate galaxy at z~7-8, where ten would be expected if there were no evolution in the galaxy population between z~7-8 and z~6. Using less conservative criteria, there are four candidates, where 17 would be expected with no evolution. This demonstrates that very luminous galaxies are quite rare 700 Myr after the Big Bang. The simplest explanation is that the Universe is just too young to have built up many luminous galaxies at z~7-8 by the hierarchical merging of small galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in Nature, 20 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables (includes Supplementary Information), replaced to match version in pres