The Relationship between Information Systems (IS) Assets, Organizational Capabilities, and IS-enabled Absorptive Capacity in U.S. State Information Technology Departments

Despite the recognition that information is a strategic asset for any state government, we lack research on the deployment and use of information systems in the U.S. state government context. Information systems are central for state agencies’ efforts to develop optimal responses to demands from their internal and external constituents. We examine how a specific IS asset combines with prior knowledge to influence organizational capabilities. We also examine the connection between organizational capabilities and the IS-enabled absorptive capacity of U.S. state IT departments from the perspective of IS employees. This study may help researchers and practitioners understand the role of IS assets in forming IS-enabled absorptive capacity in government organizations. We collected survey data from 417 government IS employees that represented 21 different states. The findings indicate that the role of an IS asset depends on the type of asset. Inside-out IS assets (ERP) moderate the relationship between prior knowledge and organizational capabilities, while outside-in IS assets (CRM) directly affect organizational capabilities. In addition, organizational capabilities can directly affect IS-enabled absorptive capacity in IT departments. This research increases our understanding of the influence of different IS assets on IS-enabled absorptive capacity in state government IT departments. We discuss limitations and directions for future research

Self-reported domain-specific and accelerometer-based physical activity and sedentary behaviour in relation to psychological distress among an urban Asian population

Background: The interpretation of previous studies on the association of physical activity and sedentary behaviour with psychological health is limited by the use of mostly self-reported physical activity and sedentary behaviour, and a focus on Western populations. We aimed to explore the association of self-reported and devise-based measures of physical activity and sedentary behaviour domains on psychological distress in an urban multi-ethnic Asian population. Methods: From a population-based cross-sectional study of adults aged 18-79 years, data were used from an overall sample (n = 2653) with complete self-reported total physical activity/sedentary behaviour and domain-specific physical activity data, and a subsample (n = 703) with self-reported domain-specific sedentary behaviour and accelerometry data. Physical activity and sedentary behaviour data were collected using the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ), a domain-specific sedentary behaviour questionnaire and accelerometers. The Kessler Screening Scale (K6) and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) were used to assess psychological distress. Logistic regression models were used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals, adjusted for socio-demographic and lifestyle characteristics. Results: The sample comprised 45.0% men (median age = 45.0 years). The prevalence of psychological distress based on the K6 and GHQ-12 was 8.4% and 21.7%, respectively. In the adjusted model, higher levels of self-reported moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) were associated with significantly higher odds for K6 (OR = 1.47 [1.03-2.10]; p-trend = 0.03) but not GHQ-12 (OR = 0.97 [0.77-1.23]; p-trend = 0.79), when comparing the highest with the lowest tertile. Accelerometry-assessed MVPA was not significantly associated with K6 (p-trend = 0.50) nor GHQ-12 (p-trend = 0.74). The highest tertile of leisure-time physical activity, but not work- or transport-domain activity, was associated with less psychological distress using K6 (OR = 0.65 [0.43-0.97]; p-trend = 0.02) and GHQ-12 (OR = 0.72 [0.55-0.93]; p-trend = 0.01). Self-reported sedentary behaviour was not associated with K6 (p-trend = 0.90) and GHQ-12 (p-trend = 0.33). The highest tertile of accelerometry-assessed sedentary behaviour was associated with significantly higher odds for K6 (OR = 1.93 [1.00-3.75]; p-trend = 0.04), but not GHQ-12 (OR = 1.34 [0.86-2.08]; p-trend = 0.18). Conclusions: Higher levels of leisure-time physical activity and lower levels of accelerometer-based sedentary behaviour were associated with lower psychological distress. This study underscores the importance of assessing accelerometer-based and domain-specific activity in relation to mental health, instead of solely focusing on total volume of activity

How Managers and Workers See Their World: Perceptions of the Relationship Between Organizational Capabilities and Absorptive Capacity in U.S. State Information Systems Departments

Despite the recognition that information is a strategic asset to any state government, there is a relative dearth of research on the information systems (IS) function in state government. This stands in contrast to the number of articles devoted to e-government initiatives. IS departments however are central to state agencies’ efforts to develop optimal responses to demands from their internal and external constituents. The authors examine the connections between perceptions of critical agency capabilities (socialization, coordination, and systems) and the absorptive capacity of state IS departments from the perspective of IS workers and IS managers. Findings indicate that two critical capabilities (socialization and coordination) explained 62.5% of the variation in absorptive capacity for IS workers and 47% of the variation for IS managers. In addition, the influence of the relevant knowledge of IS workers and managers is found to have differing influences on agency capabilities

PERENNIAL CROPS FOR BIO-FUELS AND CONSERVATION

Perennial woody crops have the potential to contribute significantly to the production of bio-fuels while simultaneously helping to provide a wide range of conservation benefits. Among these benefits are increased biological diversity in the landscape, conservation of soil and water resources, maintenance of forest ecosystem productivity and health, contribution to the global carbon cycle, and provision of socioeconomic benefits. Short rotation woody crops, like hybrid poplar and willow, grow rapidly and can reach 15-25 feet in height after only three years. Currently, non-irrigated yields can be sustained at about 5 dry tons/acre/year and are increasing as plant breeding, nutrient management, and weed control advances are made. The high hemi-cellulose and cellulose content of woody biomass result in favorable net energy conversion ratios of 1:11 when co-fired with coal and 1:16 when undergoing gasification. Directing this wood fiber into bio-fuels would benefit both the energy sector and forest and farm landowners, while providing an array of conservation benefits and ecological services. The amount of biofuel that can be sustainably produced each year from perennial crops is potentially very large. The next Farm Bill affords an opportunity to insure that this potential can be more fully realized

The Information Technology Professional: A Two-wave Study of Factors Impacting Commitment and Satisfaction

In this paper, we present a two-wave study that examined the relationships between three independent variables (professional identification, psychological contract violation, and fairness) and three dependent variables (general satisfaction, satisfaction with the information technology (IT) profession, and affective commitment to the IT profession). The constructs analyzed pertain to the IT workforce and represent areas where the literature has provided conflicting results with regard to the nature of the relationships. Due to the lack of consistency related to causality among these variables, we used 10 separate canonical correlation models to analyze the responses from two surveys distributed across three years. Results consistently revealed a significant relationship between perceived psychological contract violation and fairness with the dependent constructs related to satisfaction (general, and with the IT profession). Both gender and tenure in the IT profession played a role in the identification process for this group of individuals. We present and discuss additional findings along with limitations and directions for future research

PERENNIAL CROPS FOR BIO-FUELS AND CONSERVATION

Perennial woody crops have the potential to contribute significantly to the production of bio-fuels while simultaneously helping to provide a wide range of conservation benefits. Among these benefits are increased biological diversity in the landscape, conservation of soil and water resources, maintenance of forest ecosystem productivity and health, contribution to the global carbon cycle, and provision of socioeconomic benefits. Short rotation woody crops, like hybrid poplar and willow, grow rapidly and can reach 15-25 feet in height after only three years. Currently, non-irrigated yields can be sustained at about 5 dry tons/acre/year and are increasing as plant breeding, nutrient management, and weed control advances are made. The high hemi-cellulose and cellulose content of woody biomass result in favorable net energy conversion ratios of 1:11 when co-fired with coal and 1:16 when undergoing gasification. Directing this wood fiber into bio-fuels would benefit both the energy sector and forest and farm landowners, while providing an array of conservation benefits and ecological services. The amount of biofuel that can be sustainably produced each year from perennial crops is potentially very large. The next Farm Bill affords an opportunity to insure that this potential can be more fully realized

PERENNIAL CROPS FOR BIO-FUELS AND CONSERVATION

Perennial woody crops have the potential to contribute significantly to the production of bio-fuels while simultaneously helping to provide a wide range of conservation benefits. Among these benefits are increased biological diversity in the landscape, conservation of soil and water resources, maintenance of forest ecosystem productivity and health, contribution to the global carbon cycle, and provision of socioeconomic benefits. Short rotation woody crops, like hybrid poplar and willow, grow rapidly and can reach 15-25 feet in height after only three years. Currently, non-irrigated yields can be sustained at about 5 dry tons/acre/year and are increasing as plant breeding, nutrient management, and weed control advances are made. The high hemi-cellulose and cellulose content of woody biomass result in favorable net energy conversion ratios of 1:11 when co-fired with coal and 1:16 when undergoing gasification. Directing this wood fiber into bio-fuels would benefit both the energy sector and forest and farm landowners, while providing an array of conservation benefits and ecological services. The amount of biofuel that can be sustainably produced each year from perennial crops is potentially very large. The next Farm Bill affords an opportunity to insure that this potential can be more fully realized

Aminolevulinic Acid mediated Photodynamic Therapy of Human Meningioma: an in vitro Study on Primary Cell Lines

Objective: Five-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA)-induced porphyrins in malignant gliomas are potent photosensitizers. Promising results of ALA-PDT (photodynamic therapy) in recurrent glioblastomas have been published. Recently, 5-ALA-induced fluorescence was studied in meningioma surgery. Here, we present an experimental study of ALA-PDT in an in vitro model of primary meningioma cell lines. Methods: We processed native tumor material obtained intra-operatively within 24 h for cell culture. Epithelial membrane antigen (EMA) immunohistochemistry was performed after the first passage to confirm that cells were meningioma cells. For 5-ALA-PDT treatment, about 5000 cells per well were seeded in 20 wells of a blank 96-well plate. Each block of 4 wells was inoculated with 150 µL of 0, 25, 50 and 100 µg/mL 5-ALA solutions; one block was used as negative control without 5-ALA and without PDT. Following incubation for 3 h PDT was performed using a laser (635 nm, 18.75 J/cm2). The therapeutic response was analyzed by the water soluble tetrazolium salt (WST-1) cell viability assay 90 min after PDT. Results: 5-ALA-PDT was performed in 14 primary meningioma cell lines. EMA expression was verified in 10 primary cell cultures. The remaining 4 were EMA negative and PDT was without any effect in these cultures. All 10 EMA-positive cell lines showed a significant and dose-dependent decrease in viability rate (p < 0.001). Cell survival at 5-ALA concentrations of 12.5, 25, 50 and 100 μg/mL was 96.5% ± 7.6%, 67.9% ± 29.9%, 24.0% ± 16.7% and 13.8% ± 7.5%, respectively. For the negative controls (no 5-ALA/PDT and ALA/no PDT), the viability rates were 101.72% ± 3.5% and 100.17% ± 3.6%, respectively. The LD50 for 5-ALA was estimated between 25 and 50 µg/mL. Conclusion: This study reveals dose-dependent cytotoxic effects of 5-ALA-PDT on primary cell lines of meningiomas. Either 5-ALA or PDT alone did not affect cell survival. Further efforts are necessary to study the potential therapeutic effects of 5-ALA-PDT in vivo

Molecular diagnostics of gliomas: state of the art

Modern neuropathology serves a key function in the multidisciplinary management of brain tumor patients. Owing to the recent advancements in molecular neurooncology, the neuropathological assessment of brain tumors is no longer restricted to provide information on a tumor’s histological type and malignancy grade, but may be complemented by a growing number of molecular tests for clinically relevant tissue-based biomarkers. This article provides an overview and critical appraisal of the types of genetic and epigenetic aberrations that have gained significance in the molecular diagnostics of gliomas, namely deletions of chromosome arms 1p and 19q, promoter hypermethylation of the O6-methylguanine-methyl-transferase (MGMT) gene, and the mutation status of the IDH1 and IDH2 genes. In addition, the frequent oncogenic aberration of BRAF in pilocytic astrocytomas may serve as a novel diagnostic marker and therapeutic target. Finally, this review will summarize recent mechanistic insights into the molecular alterations underlying treatment resistance in malignant gliomas and outline the potential of genome-wide profiling approaches for increasing our repertoire of clinically useful glioma markers

Chronophin regulates active vitamin B6 levels and transcriptomic features of glioblastoma cell lines cultured under non-adherent, serum-free conditions

Background: The phosphatase chronophin (CIN/PDXP) has been shown to be an important regulator of glioma cell migration and invasion. It has two known substrates: p-Ser3-cofilin, the phosphorylated form of the actin binding protein cofilin, and pyridoxal 5′-phosphate, the active form of vitamin B6. Phosphoregulation of cofilin, among other functions, plays an important role in cell migration, whereas active vitamin B6 is a cofactor for more than one hundred enzymatic reactions. The role of CIN has yet only been examined in glioblastoma cell line models derived under serum culture conditions. Results: We found that CIN is highly expressed in cells cultured under non-adherent, serum-free conditions that are thought to better mimic the in vivo situation. Furthermore, the substrates of CIN, p-Ser3-cofilin and active vitamin B6, were significantly reduced as compared to cell lines cultured in serum-containing medium. To further examine its molecular role we stably knocked down the CIN protein with two different shRNA hairpins in the glioblastoma cell lines NCH421k and NCH644. Both cell lines did not show any significant alterations in proliferation but expression of differentiation markers (such as GFAP or TUBB3) was increased in the knockdown cell lines. In addition, colony formation was significantly impaired in NCH644. Of note, in both cell lines CIN knockdown increased active vitamin B6 levels with vitamin B6 being known to be important for S-adenosylmethionine biosynthesis. Nevertheless, global histone and DNA methylation remained unaltered as was chemoresistance towards temozolomide. To further elucidate the role of phosphocofilin in glioblastoma cells we applied inhibitors for ROCK1/2 and LIMK1/2 to our model. LIMK- and ROCK-inhibitor treatment alone was not toxic for glioblastoma cells. However, it had profound, but antagonistic effects in NCH421k and NCH644 under chemotherapy. Conclusion: In non-adherent glioblastoma cell lines cultured in serum-free medium, chronophin knockdown induces phenotypic changes, e.g. in colony formation and transcription, but these are highly dependent on the cellular background. The same is true for phenotypes observed after treatment with inhibitors for kinases regulating cofilin phosphorylation (ROCKs and LIMKs). Targeting the cofilin phosphorylation pathway might therefore not be a straightforward therapeutic option in glioblastoma