"Investment in Innovation, Corporate Governance and Employment: Is Prosperity Sustainable in the United States?"

Over the past decades foreign enterprises have gained competitive advantage over U.S. industrial corporations not by paying lower wages than American companies pay, Lazonick and O'Sullivan argue, but by developing and utilizing broader and deeper skill bases than American companies do. Since the 1970s corporate America has become obsessed with shedding employees to cut costs and with distributing revenue to stockholders. However, the way for it to regain its competitive edge and thus to restore the promise of secure and remunerative employment for its workers is to reform its system of governance. It must reject organizational segmentation and extraction of short-term returns and instead emphasize organizational integration and long-term value creation through financial commitment to investment in the collective and cumulative learning that is the foundation of industrial innovation.

The regulation of division of higher plant cells

Thesis from Leicester PolytechnicAcer pseudoplatanus L (English sycamore) cell suspension cultures provide an excellent system for controlled investigations into the regulation of cytokinesis. They exhibit 60-70% division synchrony on subculture, and produce predictable growth patterns in batch culture. Previous studies in these laboratories with partially synchronized cultures led to the hypothesis that a critical "trigger" concentration of endogenous IAA (approximately 500-750 ng 10 8 cells) is vital prior to each mitosis. In this present study a more effective induction technique has been employed. The cells were found to rapidly become nitrate and phosphate limited in batch culture. The addition of these nutrients after each cell division resulted in several highly synchronous divisions (80-90%). In"these cultures 'the IAA levels remained at a relatively stable level (50 ng 108 cells). Thus, the original hypothesis has been modified and it is now proposed that a critical minimum endogenous concentration of IAA is required to maintain cytokinesis. This IAA level may be optimal for an IAA binding protein. The nutrient feeding system was adapted for automation with the aid of a computer Interface. This automated system ensures,-- that the synchronization technique is more reliable and less time consuming. The endogenous cytokinins were studied during the first cell division. The individual levels were found to fluctuate with total cytokinin-like activity reaching a maxima -coincident with mitosis and/or cytokinesis. Z was the major cytokinin detected. This implicated the cytokinins as possible G2 --) M triggers. The Intracellular pH levels were estimated by 31p NMR spectroscopy. The cytoplasmic pH remained stable (approximately 7.5) during synchronous divisions and decreased as asynchrony developed. This may be a reflection of the nutrient status of the cells and/or the level optimal for"the distribution of IAA and/or other growth regulators. The cell cycle appears to be controlled by the various growth regulators and their receptors. It is apparent that the concentrations, availability and distribution of these substances is vital for the complex regulated cycle to ensue

"Corporate Governance in Germany, Productive and Financial Challenges"

The postwar system of corporate governance in Germany is being threatened by the failure of some industries to maintain their competitive position (with resulting significant job losses) and pressures for financial liquidity driven by those who have accumulated substantial financial holdings, institutions competing for control of those holdings, and those concerned about the funding of the pension their capabilities, based on financial commitment and organizational integration, to innovate and thereby to build the long-run future of the corporation. If German labor, finance, and corporate managers each insist on pursuing independent strategies to extract returns from industrial enterprises and if corporations replace investment in innovation with shareholder value as the basis for corporate decision making, German industry may be unable to regenerate the basis of sustainable prosperity.

Self-Study Research in Europe

Final Published versio

Investment in innovation: Corporate governance and employment ; is prosperity sustainable in the United States?

Since the 1970s corporate America has become obsessed with shedding employees to cut costs and with distributing revenue to stockholders. However, the way for it to regain its competitive edge and thus to restore the promise of secure and remunerative employment for its workers is to reform its system of governance. It must reject organizational segmentation and extraction of short-term returns and instead emphasize organizational integration and long-term value creation through financial commitment to investment in the collective and cumulative learning that is the foundation of industrial innovation

Introduction to the Digital Humanities Summer Institute Colloquium Special Issue

This is the introduction to the DHSI Colloquium Special Issue. The DHSI Colloquium serves as a forum for emerging scholars to present their own research.This special issue showcases some of the research presented at the Institute in 2014