BWP Bats: A marketing case study of maple bats in Major League Baseball

Brookville Wood Products (BWP) is a company created in 1965 and located in rural Pennsylvania. The company grows ash and maple trees on their 5,000 acres of land and sold timber to furniture manufacturers in the United States. In the late 1990s, BWP reduced their workforce due to furniture manufacturing moving to China. To stay in business, the company diversified into making baseball bats with a customer focus on the Major League Baseball teams. The case begins with the creation of BWP Bats in 1999 and the introduction of the maple bat to Major League Baseball players, followed by an analysis of their marketing challenge

Abnormal brain tryptophan metabolism and clinical correlates in Tourette syndrome

Symptoms in Tourette syndrome (TS) are likely related to abnormalities involving multiple neurotransmitter systems in striatal-thalamo-cortical circuitry. Although prior studies have found abnormal levels of tryptophan, serotonin, and their metabolites in blood, cerebrospinal fluid and brain tissue of TS patients, understanding of focal brain disturbances and their relationship to clinical phenotype remains poor. We used Α-[ 11 C]methyl- L -tryptophan (AMT) positron emission tomography (PET) to assess global and focal brain abnormalities of tryptophan metabolism and their relationship to behavioral phenotype in 26 children with TS and nine controls. Group comparisons on regional cortical and subcortical AMT uptake revealed decreased AMT uptake in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortical and bilaterally increased uptake in the thalamus ( P = 0.001) in TS children. The ratio of AMT uptake in subcortical structures to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was significantly increased bilaterally ( P < 0.01) in TS patients also. Behaviorally defined subgroups within the TS sample revealed differences in the pattern of AMT uptake in the fronto-striatal-thalamic circuit. This study demonstrates cortical and subcortical abnormalities of tryptophan metabolism in TS and provides neuroimaging evidence for a role of serotonergic mechanisms in the pathophysiology of TS. © 2007 Movement Disorder SocietyPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57523/1/21712_ftp.pd

Insights into the Mechanism of Ligand Binding to Octopine Dehydrogenase from Pecten maximus by NMR and Crystallography

Octopine dehydrogenase (OcDH) from the adductor muscle of the great scallop, Pecten maximus, catalyzes the NADH dependent, reductive condensation of L-arginine and pyruvate to octopine, NAD+, and water during escape swimming and/or subsequent recovery. The structure of OcDH was recently solved and a reaction mechanism was proposed which implied an ordered binding of NADH, L-arginine and finally pyruvate. Here, the order of substrate binding as well as the underlying conformational changes were investigated by NMR confirming the model derived from the crystal structures. Furthermore, the crystal structure of the OcDH/NADH/agmatine complex was determined which suggests a key role of the side chain of L-arginine in protein cataylsis. Thus, the order of substrate binding to OcDH as well as the molecular signals involved in octopine formation can now be described in molecular detail