The Lone Coyote of the National Basketball Association: A Case Study on the Organization Culture of the San Antonio Spurs

Organizational culture exists within every professional sports team’s organization and makes up the organization’s DNA. The San Antonio Spurs are one such Professional Sports organization that innovates new global team building strategies that values the group as a whole over the individual. The purpose of this study was to examine the organizational culture of the San Antonio Spurs franchise in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The researcher used a best-practices guide to evaluate the San Antonio Spurs’ corporate culture. This study found that the San Antonio Spurs are effective in their organizational culture practices, however, could focus their efforts more on appealing more to All-Star caliber free agents. To continue to have a positive corporate culture, the San Antonio Spurs should focus more efforts on gearing their coaching and player developmental programs to appeal to higher quality, more established NBA players in free agency and through the NBA Draft

Ubiquitylation and control of renal na+ balance and blood pressure.

Ubiquitylation is crucial for regulating numerous cellular functions. In the kidney, ubiquitylation regulates the epithelial Na(+) channel ENaC. The importance of this process is highlighted in Liddle's syndrome, where mutations interfere with ENaC ubiquitylation, resulting in constitutive Na(+) reabsorption and hypertension. There is emerging evidence that NCC, involved in hypertensive diseases, is also regulated by ubiquitylation. Here, we discuss the current knowledge and recent findings in this field

Incense and ritual plant use in Southwest China: A case study among the Bai in Shaxi

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Ritual and religious uses of plant-derived smoke are widespread throughout the world. Our research focuses on Southwest China, where the use of incense is very common. This study aims to document and analyze contemporary ritual plant uses by the Bai people of Shaxi Township (Jianchuan County, Dali Prefecture, Yunnan Province), including their related ethnobotanical knowledge, practices, and beliefs. METHODS: The present study builds on previous ethnobotanical research in Shaxi, which started in 2005. Interviews focusing on ritual plant use and associated beliefs were carried out with a total of 44 Bai informants in September 2009 and May and June 2010. The results are supplemented with information on the local religion collected from June to December 2010. All documented species were vouchered, and are deposited at the herbaria of Kunming Institute of Botany (KUN) and the University of Zurich (Z/ZT). RESULTS: A total of 17 species have been documented for use in incense. They are always used in mixtures and are either burned in the form of powders in a censer or as joss sticks. The smell of the smoke is the main criterion for the selection of the incense plants. Incense is burned for communication with spiritual entities at graves, temples, and cooking stoves, as well as for personal well-being. Cupressus funebris Endl., Gaultheria fragrantissima Wall., and Ligustrum sempervirens (Franch.) Lingelsh. are the most important incense species. Others serve as substitutes or are used to stretch incense powders. CONCLUSIONS: In Shaxi the use of incense mixtures at the household and community level is regularly practiced for communication with ancestors, ghosts, and deities and in some cases to strengthen self-awareness. Some of the documented species are widely used in central Asia and Europe, hinting at the well documented knowledge exchange that occurred in Shaxi, which was a major hub along the influential Southern Silk Road

Functional assessment of sodium chloride cotransporter NCC mutants in polarized mammalian epithelial cells.

The thiazide-sensitive sodium chloride cotransporter NCC is important for maintaining serum sodium (Na(+)) and, indirectly, serum potassium (K(+)) levels. Functional studies on NCC have used cell lines with native NCC expression, transiently transfected nonpolarized cell lines, or Xenopus laevis oocytes. Here, we developed the use of polarized Madin-Darby canine kidney type I (MDCKI) mammalian epithelial cell lines with tetracycline-inducible human NCC expression to study NCC activity and membrane abundance in the same system. In radiotracer assays, induced cells grown on filters had robust thiazide-sensitive and chloride dependent sodium-22 ((22)Na) uptake from the apical side. To minimize cost and maximize throughput, assays were modified to use cells grown on plastic. On plastic, cells had similar thiazide-sensitive (22)Na uptakes that increased following preincubation of cells in chloride-free solutions. NCC was detected in the plasma membrane, and both membrane abundance and phosphorylation of NCC were increased by incubation in chloride-free solutions. Furthermore, in cells exposed for 15 min to low or high extracellular K(+), the levels of phosphorylated NCC increased and decreased, respectively. To demonstrate that the system allows rapid and systematic assessment of mutated NCC, three phosphorylation sites in NCC were mutated, and NCC activity was examined. (22)Na fluxes in phosphorylation-deficient mutants were reduced to baseline levels, whereas phosphorylation-mimicking mutants were constitutively active, even without chloride-free stimulation. In conclusion, this system allows the activity, cellular localization, and abundance of wild-type or mutant NCC to be examined in the same polarized mammalian expression system in a rapid, easy, and low-cost fashion

NEDD4-2 and salt-sensitive hypertension.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: NEDD4-2 is an ubiquitin-protein ligase that was originally identified as an interactor of the epithelial Na+ channel (ENaC); this interaction is defective in Liddle's syndrome, causing elevated ENaC activity and salt-sensitive hypertension. In this review we aim to highlight progress achieved in recent years demonstrating that NEDD4-2 is involved in the control of Na+ transporters that are different from ENaC, but which also play a role in salt-sensitive hypertension. RECENT FINDINGS: It has been shown that NEDD4-2 interacts with ubiquitylates and negatively regulates the thiazide-sensitive NCC (Na+,Cl- -cotransporter), both in vitro and in vivo in inducible, nephron-specific Nedd4-2 knockout mice. Moreover, evidence has been provided that NEDD4-2 is also involved in the regulation of human NHE3 (Na+,H+-exchanger 3) and NKCC2 (Na+,K+,2Cl- -cotransporter 2). SUMMARY: The emerging role of NEDD4-2 in the regulation of different Na+ transporters along the nephron and the identification of human polymorphisms in the NEDD4-2 gene (Nedd4L) related to salt-sensitive hypertension makes this ubiquitin-protein ligase an interesting target for the development of antihypertensive drugs

State-dependent potentials for the 1S0^1\text{S}_{0} and 3P0^3\text{P}_{0} clock states of neutral ytterbium atoms

We present measurements of three distinctive state-(in)dependent wavelengths for the $^1\text{S}_{0}-^3\text{P}_{0}$ clock transition in $^{174}\text{Yb}$ atoms. Specifically, we determine two magic wavelengths at $652.281(21)\,$THz and $542.50205(19)\,$THz, where the differential light shift on the $^1\text{S}_{0}-^3\text{P}_{0}$ clock transition vanishes, and one tune-out wavelength at $541.8325(4)\,$THz, where the polarizability of the $^1\text{S}_{0}$ ground state exhibits a zero crossing. The two new magic wavelengths are identified by spectroscopically interrogating cold $^{174}\text{Yb}$ atoms on the clock transition in a one-dimensional optical lattice. The ground-state tune-out wavelength is determined via a parametric heating scheme. With a simple empirical model, we then extrapolate the ground and excited state polarizability over a broad range of wavelengths in the visible spectrum

From cumulative cultural transmission to evidence-based medicine: evolution of medicinal plant knowledge in Southern Italy

In Mediterranean cultures written records of medicinal plant use have a long tradition. This written record contributed to building a consensus about what was perceived to be an efficacious pharmacopeia. Passed down through millennia, these scripts have transmitted knowledge about plant uses, with high fidelity, to scholars and laypersons alike. Herbal medicine's importance and the long-standing written record call for a better understanding of the mechanisms influencing the transmission of contemporary medicinal plant knowledge. Here we contextualize herbal medicine within evolutionary medicine and cultural evolution. Cumulative knowledge transmission is approached by estimating the causal effect of two seminal scripts about materia medica written by Dioscorides and Galen, two classical Greco-Roman physicians, on today's medicinal plant use in the Southern Italian regions of Campania, Sardinia, and Sicily. Plant-use combinations are treated as transmissible cultural traits (or "memes"), which in analogy to the biological evolution of genetic traits, are subjected to mutation and selection. Our results suggest that until today ancient scripts have exerted a strong influence on the use of herbal medicine. We conclude that the repeated empirical testing and scientific study of health care claims is guiding and shaping the selection of efficacious treatments and evidence-based herbal medicine

Kir5.1 regulates Nedd4-2-mediated ubiquitination of Kir4.1 in distal nephron.

Kir4.1/5.1 heterotetramer participates in generating the negative cell membrane potential in distal convoluted tubule (DCT) and plays a critical role in determining the activity of Na-Cl cotransporter (NCC). Kir5.1 contains a phosphothreonine motif at its COOH terminus (AA249-252). Coimmunoprecipitation showed that Nedd4-2 was associated with Kir5.1 in HEK293 cells cotransfected with Kir5.1 or Kir4.1/Kir5.1. GST pull-down further confirmed the association between Nedd4-2 and Kir5.1. Ubiquitination assay showed that Nedd4-2 increased the ubiquitination of Kir4.1/Kir5.1 heterotetramer in the cells cotransfected with Kir4.1/Kir5.1, but it has no effect on Kir4.1 or Kir5.1 alone. Patch-clamp and Western blot also demonstrated that coexpression of Nedd4-2 but not Nedd4-1 decreased K currents and Kir4.1 expression in the cells cotransfected with Kir4.1 and Kir5.1. In contrast, Nedd4-2 fails to inhibit Kir4.1 in the absence of Kir5.1 or in the cells transfected with the inactivated form of Nedd4-2 (Nedd4-2C821A). Moreover, the mutation of TPVT motif in the COOH terminus of Kir5.1 largely abolished the association of Nedd4-2 with Kir5.1 and abolished the inhibitory effect of Nedd4-2 on K currents in HEK293 cells transfected with Kir4.1 and Kir5.1 mutant (Kir5.1T249A). Finally, the basolateral K conductance in the DCT and Kir4.1 expression is significantly increased in the kidney-specific Nedd4-2 knockout or in Kir5.1 knockout mice in comparison to their corresponding wild-type littermates. We conclude that Nedd4-2 binds to Kir5.1 at the phosphothreonine motif of the COOH terminus, and the association of Nedd4-2 with Kir5.1 facilitates the ubiquitination of Kir4.1, thereby regulating its plasma expression in the DCT