Everyday Leaders

For years business writers and speakers have focused on larger than life, charismatic Leaders, with a capital “L”. The implication is that the success of an organization is dependent on this one person and his or her ability to inspire everyone else to follow a unique vision. This focus on the Leader is at least a partial cause of the lack of trust we are witnessing in business organizations today. Leaders believe they must behave in some larger than life way. With the expectation that they must see things the rest of us do not, they make riskier and riskier decisions, desperate to prove they deserve the role. Perhaps now that we have seen the problems resulting from this Leader-focused approach to running our organizations, we can return to a more reasonable approach - one that is actually attainable by mere mortals - where many are called upon to be good, competent, everyday leaders. If educational institutions begin to focus on developing the skills and character of these everyday leaders, our organizations will not only be more successful, but surely more trusted than they are today

When Good Management Isnt Enough: The Story Of A Czech Business In The Twentieth Century

We teach management as a rational process: if you conscientiously apply the concepts learned, you will succeed.  However, for this equation to work certain underlying factors must be in place.  No matter how well prepared managers may be, events unfold around them that profoundly affect their organizations.  We may take the basic infrastructure of democratic capitalism for granted when we teach management education, but it doesn’t hurt to remind our students occasionally that these ‘givens’ aren’t always there.  By teaching our students to appreciate how remarkable is the achievement of democratic capitalism, will we be more likely to protect it and perhaps even improve upon it

Entrepreneurial Attitudes Of MBA Students In The United States Relative To The CIS: The Case Of Armenia

This paper compares the entrepreneurial attributes of MBA students in Armenia to those in the United States.  If entrepreneurial attributes are more learned cultural behaviors and not only inherent personality factors, business students in a recently-privatized economy such as Armenia would not score as high on an entrepreneurial personality index as would business students in the U.S. where both models of entrepreneurship and expectations of certain proactive characteristics in individuals entering the business world are widespread

Down-regulation of the myo-inositol oxygenase gene family has no effect on cell wall composition in Arabidopsis

The enzyme myo-inositol oxygenase (MIOX; E.C. 1.13.99.1) catalyzes the ring-opening four-electron oxidation of myo-inositol into glucuronic acid, which is subsequently activated to UDP-glucuronic acid (UDP-GlcA) and serves as a precursor for plant cell wall polysaccharides. Starting from single T-DNA insertion lines in different MIOX-genes a quadruple knockdown (miox1/2/4/5-mutant) was obtained by crossing, which exhibits greater than 90% down-regulation of all four functional MIOX genes. Miox1/2/4/5-mutant shows no visible phenotype and produces viable pollen. The alternative pathway to UDP-glucuronic acid via UDP-glucose is upregulated in the miox1/2/4/5-mutant as a compensatory mechanism. Miox1/2/4/5-mutant is impaired in the utilization of myo-inositol for seedling growth. The incorporation of myo-inositol derived sugars into cell walls is strongly (>90%) inhibited. Instead, myo-inositol and metabolites produced from myo-inositol such as galactinol accumulate in the miox1/2/4/5-mutant. The increase in galactinol and raffinose family oligosaccharides does not enhance stress tolerance. The ascorbic acid levels are the same in mutant and wild type plants

Cloning and endogenous expression of a Eucalyptus grandis UDP-glucose dehydrogenase cDNA

UDP-glucose dehydrogenase (UGDH) catalyzes the oxidation of UDP-glucose (UDP-Glc) to UDP-glucuronate (UDP-GlcA), a key sugar nucleotide involved in the biosynthesis of plant cell wall polysaccharides. A full-length cDNA fragment coding for UGDH was cloned from the cambial region of 6-month-old E. grandis saplings by RT-PCR. The 1443-bp-ORF encodes a protein of 480 amino acids with a predicted molecular weight of 53 kDa. The recombinant protein expressed in Escherichia coli catalyzed the conversion of UDP-Glc to UDP-GlcA, confirming that the cloned cDNA encodes UGDH. The deduced amino acid sequence of the cDNA showed a high degree of identity with UGDH from several plant species. The Southern blot assay indicated that more than one copy of UGDH is present in Eucalyptus. These results were also confirmed by the proteomic analysis of the cambial region of 3- and 22-year-old E. grandis trees by 2-DE and LC-MS/MS, showing that at least two isoforms are present. The cloned gene is mainly expressed in roots, stem and bark of 6-month-old saplings, with a lower expression in leaves. High expression levels were also observed in the cambial region of 3- and 22-year-old trees. The results described in this paper provide a further view of the hemicellulose biosynthesis during wood formation in E. grandis

Immunolocalization of cell wall polymers in grapevine (Vitis vinifera) internodes under nitrogen, phosphorus or sulfur deficiency

Abstract The impact on cell wall (CW) of the deficiency in nitrogen (–N), phosphorus (–P) or sulphur (–S), known to impair essential metabolic pathways, was investigated in the economically important fruit species Vitis vinifera L. Using cuttings as an experimental model a reduction in total internode number and altered xylem shape was observed. Under –N an increased internode length was also seen. CW composition, visualised after staining with calcofluor white, Toluidine blue and ruthenium red, showed decreased cellulose in all stresses and increased pectin content in recently formed internodes under –N compared to the control. Using CW-epitope specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), lower amounts of extensins incorporated in the wall were also observed under –N and –P conditions. Conversely, increased pectins with a low degree of methyl-esterification and richer in long linear 1,5-arabinan rhamnogalacturonan-I (RG-I) side chains were observed under –N and –P in mature internodes which, in the former condition, were able to form dimeric association through calcium ions. –N was the only condition in which 1,5-arabinan branched RG- content was not altered, as –P and –S older internodes showed, respectively, lower and higher amounts of this polymer. Higher xyloglucan content in older internodes was also observed under –N. The results suggest that impairments of specific CW components led to changes in the deposition of other polymers to promote stiffening of the CW. The unchanged extensin amount observed under –S may contribute to attenuating the effects on the CW integrity caused by this stress. Our work showed that, in organized V. vinifera tissues, modifications in a given CW component can be compensated by synthesis of different polymers and/or alternative linking between polymers. The results also pinpoint different strategies at the CW level to overcome mineral stress depending on how essential they are to cell growth and plant development

Evolution of Plant Nucleotide-Sugar Interconversion Enzymes

Nucleotide-diphospho-sugars (NDP-sugars) are the building blocks of diverse polysaccharides and glycoconjugates in all organisms. In plants, 11 families of NDP-sugar interconversion enzymes (NSEs) have been identified, each of which interconverts one NDP-sugar to another. While the functions of these enzyme families have been characterized in various plants, very little is known about their evolution and origin. Our phylogenetic analyses indicate that all the 11 plant NSE families are distantly related and most of them originated from different progenitor genes, which have already diverged in ancient prokaryotes. For instance, all NSE families are found in the lower land plant mosses and most of them are also found in aquatic algae, implicating that they have already evolved to be capable of synthesizing all the 11 different NDP-sugars. Particularly interesting is that the evolution of RHM (UDP-L-rhamnose synthase) manifests the fusion of genes of three enzymatic activities in early eukaryotes in a rather intriguing manner. The plant NRS/ER (nucleotide-rhamnose synthase/epimerase-reductase), on the other hand, evolved much later from the ancient plant RHMs through losing the N-terminal domain. Based on these findings, an evolutionary model is proposed to explain the origin and evolution of different NSE families. For instance, the UGlcAE (UDP-D-glucuronic acid 4-epimerase) family is suggested to have evolved from some chlamydial bacteria. Our data also show considerably higher sequence diversity among NSE-like genes in modern prokaryotes, consistent with the higher sugar diversity found in prokaryotes. All the NSE families are widely found in plants and algae containing carbohydrate-rich cell walls, while sporadically found in animals, fungi and other eukaryotes, which do not have or have cell walls with distinct compositions. Results of this study were shown to be highly useful for identifying unknown genes for further experimental characterization to determine their functions in the synthesis of diverse glycosylated molecules