James P. Ware, Principal

The challenge for practitioners is simple to state but extremely difficult to accomplish: how to build a business and an organization that can achieve sustained competitive advantage. This objective means ensuring that IT investments are implemented solely for business purposes -- to enhance productivity, to improve product/market capabilities, or to improve managerial decision making. But it also means that line managers, from the CEO on down, must develop a much deeper understanding of what I/T is doing to organizational forms and practices, what it can do, and how to make the changes both organizationally productive and individually appealing. New forms of organization and management are emerging today, whether by design or default. IT is making possible much flatter organizations, with characteristics often more like informal, loosely coupled networks than classic bureaucracies. Organizations with rich and extensive IT support appear to operate very differently from traditional models. Horizontal communication is more extensive, more frequent, and more informal. Decisions are reached more quickly, and the organization typically tolerates a wider range of behaviors, decisions, and practices. There is often more emphasis on results, less on forms. These changes, which amount to fundamental culture shifts, are usually subtle, and are frequently unrecognized by senior executives. On rare occasions, the changes are planned and managed. But, more typically, the changes begin evolving in some niche or department within the organization and then meet substantial resistance from entrenched managers, who are unwilling to undergo the personal changes in role, influence, power, and style that must be accomplished if the optimum benefits of the new technologies and new practices are to be fully realized. We have observed how the impact of technology on organizational practices seems to develop over time through four distinct phases: technological automation, task automation, managerial transformation, and strategic transformation. While there are elements of each phase present in any organization at any one time, there is typically a dominant theme that depends on the organization\u27s level of experience with the new technology. The critical issue, however, is that progression from one level to another is neither simple nor automatic; only when organizations undergo fundamental paradigm shifts do they actually achieve the higher benefits that accompany broader and more fundamental change. In our research and consulting experience, the major benefits of I/T are achieved only when technological change is iatroduced in support of business change. While some I/T R&D is of course necessary, the only long-lasting and effective applications of technology that we have seen are those that are clearly and explicitly packaged to address defined business problems or opportunities. Most organizations are stuck in technology-driven visions that are not producing significant business benefits. The organizational world of the 2lst century will be very different from the one we know today. We face two basic challenges: defining that vision (what is possible, practical, and appropriate); and describing the pathway to get there from here

A model for the submarine depthkeeping team

The most difficult task the depthkeeping team must face occurs during periscope-depth operations during which they may be required to maintain a submarine several hundred feet long within a foot of ordered depth and within one-half degree of ordered pitch. The difficulty is compounded by the facts that wave generated forces are extremely high, depth and pitch signals are very noisy and submarine speed is such that overall dynamics are slow. A mathematical simulation of the depthkeeping team based on the optimal control models is described. A solution of the optimal team control problem with an output control restriction (limited display to each controller) is presented

Real-Time Planning with Multi-Fidelity Models for Agile Flights in Unknown Environments

Autonomous navigation through unknown environments is a challenging task that entails real-time localization, perception, planning, and control. UAVs with this capability have begun to emerge in the literature with advances in lightweight sensing and computing. Although the planning methodologies vary from platform to platform, many algorithms adopt a hierarchical planning architecture where a slow, low-fidelity global planner guides a fast, high-fidelity local planner. However, in unknown environments, this approach can lead to erratic or unstable behavior due to the interaction between the global planner, whose solution is changing constantly, and the local planner; a consequence of not capturing higher-order dynamics in the global plan. This work proposes a planning framework in which multi-fidelity models are used to reduce the discrepancy between the local and global planner. Our approach uses high-, medium-, and low-fidelity models to compose a path that captures higher-order dynamics while remaining computationally tractable. In addition, we address the interaction between a fast planner and a slower mapper by considering the sensor data not yet fused into the map during the collision check. This novel mapping and planning framework for agile flights is validated in simulation and hardware experiments, showing replanning times of 5-40 ms in cluttered environments.Comment: ICRA 201

Transient dynamics of a superconducting nonlinear oscillator

We investigate the transient dynamics of a lumped-element oscillator based on a dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). The SQUID is shunted with a capacitor forming a nonlinear oscillator with resonance frequency in the range of several GHz. The resonance frequency is varied by tuning the Josephson inductance of the SQUID with on-chip flux lines. We report measurements of decaying oscillations in the time domain following a brief excitation with a microwave pulse. The nonlinearity of the SQUID oscillator is probed by observing the ringdown response for different excitation amplitudes while the SQUID potential is varied by adjusting the flux bias. Simulations are performed on a model circuit by numerically solving the corresponding Langevin equations incorporating the SQUID potential at the experimental temperature and using parameters obtained from separate measurements characterizing the SQUID oscillator. Simulations are in good agreement with the experimental observations of the ringdowns as a function of applied magnetic flux and pulse amplitude. We observe a crossover between the occurrence of ringdowns close to resonance and adiabatic following at larger detuning from the resonance. We also discuss the occurrence of phase jumps at large amplitude drive. Finally, we briefly outline prospects for a readout scheme for superconducting flux qubits based on the discrimination between ringdown signals for different levels of magnetic flux coupled to the SQUID.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

Lymphotoxins and cytomegalovirus cooperatively induce interferon-beta, establishing host-virus détente

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-related cytokines regulate cell death and survival and provide strong selective pressures for viruses, such as cytomegalovirus (CMV), to evolve counterstrategies in order to persist in immune-competent hosts. Signaling by the lymphotoxin (LT)-β receptor or TNF receptor-1, but not Fas or TRAIL receptors, inhibits the cytopathicity and replication of human CMV by a nonapoptotic, reversible process that requires nuclear factor κB (NF-κB)-dependent induction of interferon-β (IFN-β). Efficient induction of IFN-β requires virus infection and LT signaling, demonstrating the need for both host and viral factors in the curtailment of viral replication without cellular elimination. LTα-deficient mice and LTβR-Fc transgenic mice were profoundly susceptible to murine CMV infection. Together, these results reveal an essential and conserved role for LTs in establishing host defense to CMV

Formation of Alkaline Earth and Transition Metal Complexes with Efavirenz Drug in Ethanol-Water Media

The stability constant of Efavirenz drug with alkaline earth metal ions Mg(II), Ca(II)  and transition metal ions Fe(III), Cu(II) were investigate using pH metric titration technique in 20%(v/v) ethanol-water mixture at 27 °C temperature and at an ionic strength of 0.1M NaClO4.{Metal to ligand ratio = 1:5 & 1:1}The method of Calvin and Bjerrum as adopted by Irving and Rossotti has been employed to determine proton ligand (pKa) and metal-ligand stability constants (log K) values. It is observed that alkaline earth metal & transition metal ion forms 1:1 and 1:2 complexes. The order of stability constants for these metal complexes was as:                                                        Fe3+ > Cu2+ > Mg2+ > Ca2+