Reducing Uncertainty in Scholarly Publishing: Concepts in the Field of Organization Studies, 1960–2008

In this paper, we investigate the dynamics in the field of organization studies. We focus on the market for scholarly publishing and trace how many and which kinds of concepts have been developed and diffused in publications over the last 48 years. We argue that scholars in the publishing market must deal with two kinds of uncertainty: uncertainty on the delicate balance of maintaining research that is both novel and attentive to existing schools of thought, and uncertainty related to the heterogeneity of institutional logics that guide research in the field. We propose that concepts are a means of uncertainty reduction for two reasons. First, working with concepts allows considering both novelty and continuity. Second, working with concepts in a way that follows the dominant field logic helps to reduce uncertainty about what is valued as publishable in the field. We find that the number of concept articles in organization studies has increased, particularly concept articles that align with the dominant logic of positivism

Scaling Up Alternatives to Capitalism: A Social Movement Approach to Alternative Organizing (in) the Economy

In these times of crises, capitalism and the far-reaching marketization of our societies has again become a subject of contestation and critique. Alternative organizing is one response to the critique of capitalism. As an embodied and constructive form of critique it takes place in prefigurative organizations and communities on the ground that experiment with alternative forms of organizing economic exchanges and lives. These prefigurative initiatives are seen as central actors in a social transformation toward an alternative economy. However, they oftentimes remain autonomous and disconnected, questioning their potential to contribute to a broader social change. This paper sets out to explore how and when alternative organizing as practiced in communities and organizations can scale upwards to lead to a more profound social transformation of our societies. Building on insights from scholarship on social movement outcomes, I discuss the collective actions, contextual conditions, and social mechanisms that are likely to allow an upward scale shift of alternative organizing.In den derzeitigen Krisenzeiten werden Kapitalismus und die weitreichende Vermarktlichung gesellschaftlicher Lebensbereiche erneut kritisch hinterfragt. Alternatives Organisieren gilt als eine konstruktive Form der Kapitalismuskritik. Es zeigt sich in präfigurativen Organisationen und Gemeinschaften, die mit alternativen Organisationsformen ihrer wirtschaftlichen Austauschbeziehungen und zuweilen auch ihrer Lebensweise experimentieren. Sie werden als zentrale Akteure einer sozialen Transformation in Richtung eines alternativen Wirtschaftssystems angesehen. Allerdings agieren diese präfigurativen Initiativen überwiegend autonom und unabhängig voneinander. Dies lässt ihren Beitrag zu einem umfassenderen sozialen Wandel zunächst fraglich erscheinen. Der Artikel befasst sich mit der Frage, wie und unter welchen Bedingungen die alternativen Organisationsformen präfigurativer Gemeinschaften und Organisationen Verbreitung finden und entsprechend eine grundlegendere soziale Transformation unserer Gesellschaften anstoßen können. Auf Grundlage der Forschung zu sozialen Bewegungen werden die kollektiven Handlungen, Kontextbedingungen und sozialen Mechanismen diskutiert, die eine Verbreitung alternativer Organisationsformen in der Gesellschaft ermöglichen können.Contents 1 Introduction 2 The critique of capitalism and movement activism against it 3 Defining alternative organizing (in) the economy 4 Mobilizing toward alternatives to capitalism The role of communities and organizations for social transformation Elements of a social movement approach 5 Scaling up alternatives to capitalism: Applying insights from social movement studies Targeting the state for social transformation The role of the media in scaling up alternative organizing (non-relational diffusion) Building mobilizing structures across and beyond prefigurative movements (relational diffusion) 6 Major obstacles to a scale shift of alternative organizing Heterogeneous actors and opposing strategies of social transformation Countermovements Signs of hope 7 Conclusion Reference

Profiling Sterols in Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis: Utility of Girard Derivatization and High Resolution Exact Mass LC-ESI-MSn Analysis

In this study we profile free 3-oxo sterols present in plasma from patients affected with the neurodegenerative disorder of sterol and bile acid metabolism cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis (CTX), utilizing a combination of charge-tagging and LC-ESI-MSn performed with an LTQ-Orbitrap Discovery instrument. In addition, we profile sterols in plasma from 24-month-old cyp27A1 gene knockout mice lacking the enzyme defective in CTX. Charge-tagging was accomplished by reaction with cationic Girard\u27s P (GP) reagent 1-(carboxymethyl) pyridinium chloride hydrazide, an approach uniquely suited to studying the 3-oxo sterols that accumulate in CTX, as Girard\u27s reagent reacts with the sterol oxo moiety to form charged hydrazone derivatives. The ability to selectively generate GP-tagged 3-oxo-4-ene and 3-oxo-5(H) saturated plasma sterols enabled ESI-MSn analysis of these sterols in the presence of a large excess (3 orders of magnitude) of cholesterol. Often cholesterol detected in biological samples makes it challenging to quantify minor sterols, with cholesterol frequently removed prior to analysis. We derivatized plasma (10μl) without SPE removal of cholesterol to ensure detection of all sterols present in plasma. We were able to measure 4-cholesten-3-one in plasma from untreated CTX patients (1207±302ng/ml, mean±SD, n=4), as well as other intermediates in a proposed pathway to 5α-cholestanol. In addition, a number of bile acid precursors were identified in plasma using this technique. GP-tagged sterols were identified utilizing high resolution exact mass spectra (±5ppm), as well as MS2 ([M]+→) spectra that possessed characteristic neutral loss of 79Da (pyridine) fragment ions, and MS3 ([M]+→[M-79]+→) spectra that provided additional structurally informative fragment ions. © 2010 Elsevier B.V

Phenanthroindolizidine Alkaloids Isolated from <em>Tylophora ovata</em> as Potent Inhibitors of Inflammation, Spheroid Growth, and Invasion of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

\ua9 2022 by the authors. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), representing the most aggressive form of breast cancer with currently no targeted therapy available, is characterized by an inflammatory and hypoxic tumor microenvironment. To date, a broad spectrum of anti-tumor activities has been reported for phenanthroindolizidine alkaloids (PAs), however, their mode of action in TNBC remains elusive. Thus, we investigated six naturally occurring PAs extracted from the plant Tylophora ovata: O-methyltylophorinidine (1) and its five derivatives tylophorinidine (2), tylophoridicine E (3), 2-demethoxytylophorine (4), tylophoridicine D (5), and anhydrodehydrotylophorinidine (6). In comparison to natural (1) and for more-in depth studies, we also utilized a sample of synthetic O-methyltylophorinidine (1s). Our results indicate a remarkably effective blockade of nuclear factor kappa B (NFκB) within 2 h for compounds (1) and (1s) (IC50 = 17.1 \ub1 2.0 nM and 3.3 \ub1 0.2 nM) that is different from its effect on cell viability within 24 h (IC50 = 13.6 \ub1 0.4 nM and 4.2 \ub1 1 nM). Furthermore, NFκB inhibition data for the additional five analogues indicate a structure–activity relationship (SAR). Mechanistically, NFκB is significantly blocked through the stabilization of its inhibitor protein kappa B alpha (IκBα) under normoxic as well as hypoxic conditions. To better mimic the TNBC microenvironment in vitro, we established a 3D co-culture by combining the human TNBC cell line MDA-MB-231 with primary murine cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF) and type I collagen. Compound (1) demonstrates superiority against the therapeutic gold standard paclitaxel by diminishing spheroid growth by 40% at 100 nM. The anti-proliferative effect of (1s) is distinct from paclitaxel in that it arrests the cell cycle at the G0/G1 state, thereby mediating a time-dependent delay in cell cycle progression. Furthermore, (1s) inhibited invasion of TNBC monoculture spheroids into a matrigel\uae-based environment at 10 nM. In conclusion, PAs serve as promising agents with presumably multiple target sites to combat inflammatory and hypoxia-driven cancer, such as TNBC, with a different mode of action than the currently applied chemotherapeutic drugs

A global analysis of subsidence, relative sea-level change and coastal flood exposure

Climate-induced sea-level rise and vertical land movements, including natural and humaninduced subsidence in sedimentary coastal lowlands, combine to change relative sea levels around the world's coast. Although this affects local rates of sea-level rise, assessments of the coastal impacts of subsidence are lacking on a global scale. Here, we quantify global-mean relative sea-level rise to be 2.5 mm/yr over the last two decades. However, as coastal inhabitants are preferentially located in subsiding locations, they experience an average relative sea-level rise up to four times faster at 7.8 to 9.9 mm/yr. These results indicate that the impacts and adaptation needs are much higher than reported global sea-level rise measurements suggest. In particular, human-induced subsidence in and surrounding coastal cities can be rapidly reduced with appropriate policy for groundwater utilization and drainage. Such policy would offer substantial and rapid benefits to reduce growth of coastal flood exposure due to relative sea-level rise

Uncertainty and Bias in Global to Regional Scale Assessments of Current and Future Coastal Flood Risk

This study provides a literature-based comparative assessment of uncertainties and biases in global to world-regional scale assessments of current and future coastal flood risks, considering mean and extreme sea-level hazards, the propagation of these into the floodplain, people and coastal assets exposed, and their vulnerability. Globally, by far the largest bias is introduced by not considering human adaptation, which can lead to an overestimation of coastal flood risk in 2100 by up to factor 1300. But even when considering adaptation, uncertainties in how coastal societies will adapt to sea-level rise dominate with a factor of up to 27 all other uncertainties. Other large uncertainties that have been quantified globally are associated with socio-economic development (factors 2.3–5.8), digital elevation data (factors 1.2–3.8), ice sheet models (factor 1.6–3.8) and greenhouse gas emissions (factors 1.6–2.1). Local uncertainties that stand out but have not been quantified globally, relate to depth-damage functions, defense failure mechanisms, surge and wave heights in areas affected by tropical cyclones (in particular for large return periods), as well as nearshore interactions between mean sea-levels, storm surges, tides and waves. Advancing the state-of-the-art requires analyzing and reporting more comprehensively on underlying uncertainties, including those in data, methods and adaptation scenarios. Epistemic uncertainties in digital elevation, coastal protection levels and depth-damage functions would be best reduced through open community-based efforts, in which many scholars work together in collecting and validating these data

Apolipoprotein E–low density lipoprotein receptor interaction affects spatial memory retention and brain ApoE levels in an isoform-dependent manner

Human apolipoprotein E (apoE) exists in three isoforms: apoE2, apoE3 and apoE4. APOE ε4 (E4) is a major genetic risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). ApoE mediates cholesterol metabolism by binding various receptors. The low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) has a high affinity for apoE, and is the only member of its receptor family to demonstrate an apoE isoform specific binding affinity (E4>E3>>E2). Evidence suggests that a functional interaction between apoE and LDLR influences the risk of CVD and AD. We hypothesize that the differential cognitive effects of the apoE isoforms are a direct result of their varying interactions with LDLR. To test this hypothesis, we have employed transgenic mice that express human apoE2, apoE3, or apoE4, and either human LDLR (hLDLR) or no LDLR (LDLR−/−). Our results show that plasma and brain apoE levels, cortical cholesterol, and spatial memory are all regulated by isoform-dependent interactions between apoE and LDLR. Conversely, both anxiety-like behavior and cued associative memory are strongly influenced by APOE genotype, but these processes appear to occur via an LDLR-independent mechanism. Both the lack of LDLR and the interaction between E4 and the LDLR were associated with significant impairments in the retention of long term spatial memory. Finally, levels of hippocampal apoE correlate with long term spatial memory retention in mice with human LDLR. In summary, we demonstrate that the apoE-LDLR interaction affects regional brain apoE levels, brain cholesterol, and cognitive function in an apoE isoform-dependent manner

Evidence from sperm whale clans of symbolic marking in non-human cultures

Culture, a pillar of the remarkable ecological success of humans, is increasingly recognized as a powerful force structuring nonhuman animal populations. A key gap between these two types of culture is quantitative evidence of symbolic markers—seemingly arbitrary traits that function as reliable indicators of cultural group membership to conspecifics. Using acoustic data collected from 23 Pacific Ocean locations, we provide quantitative evidence that certain sperm whale acoustic signals exhibit spatial patterns consistent with a symbolic marker function. Culture segments sperm whale populations into behaviorally distinct clans, which are defined based on dialects of stereotyped click patterns (codas). We classified 23,429 codas into types using contaminated mixture models and hierarchically clustered coda repertoires into seven clans based on similarities in coda usage; then we evaluated whether coda usage varied with geographic distance within clans or with spatial overlap between clans. Similarities in within-clan usage of both “identity codas” (coda types diagnostic of clan identity) and “nonidentity codas” (coda types used by multiple clans) decrease as space between repertoire recording locations increases. However, between-clan similarity in identity, but not nonidentity, coda usage decreases as clan spatial overlap increases. This matches expectations if sympatry is related to a measurable pressure to diversify to make cultural divisions sharper, thereby providing evidence that identity codas function as symbolic markers of clan identity. Our study provides quantitative evidence of arbitrary traits, resembling human ethnic markers, conveying cultural identity outside of humans, and highlights remarkable similarities in the distributions of human ethnolinguistic groups and sperm whale clans