Integration and Consensus: A Tentative Exploration

The dimensions of the topic at hand are of a scope known on occasion to induce giddiness of mind and delusions of omniscience among those who treat with such words as consensus and integration. Let us be warned; recognition of danger is the first stage of wisdom. It is necessary to severely limit our purview and to temper our aspirations. Established knowledge in this complex and elusive area of concern is scanty. Firm data are perhaps lass conspicuous than firm opinions. Ideological convictions often are easier to come by than precise and valid evidence. The immediate moral is to expect something less than definitive knowledge, but to take the topic very seriously indeed, in the reasonable hope that some clarification may be achieved

The organisational change agent as an appreciative system : increasing effectiveness in business process reengineering through the systems approach

This thesis is concerned with the effectiveness of change agents within organisations. The argument presented is that the effectiveness of change agents depends on their ability to develop an understanding of the complex situations they are faced with. This includes a rich understanding of their own role within the situation. The systems approach described by Churchman (1971, 1979) and further developed by Ulrich (1983) provides methods that aid the development of a rich understanding of, inquiry into, and intervention in complex socio-technical situations. The structure of the paper will take the following form: Part 1: Appreciative systems and the systems approach. Performance criteria for change agents are declared. The key role of appreciation ineffective change management is highlighted. An explanation of appreciative systems and how the systems approach can make them more effective is presented. Finally an appreciative frame for human populated (social) systems is explained. Part 2: Investigating sources of purpose in traditional Business Process Reengineering (BPR).Before developing the complete the appreciative framework in Part 3, our understanding will be consolidated by applying the human populated systems frame to organisational change (business process reengineering) as a system

Integration and Consensus: A Tentative Exploration

The dimensions of the topic at hand are of a scope known on occasion to induce giddiness of mind and delusions of omniscience among those who treat with such words as consensus and integration. Let us be warned; recognition of danger is the first stage of wisdom. It is necessary to severely limit our purview and to temper our aspirations. Established knowledge in this complex and elusive area of concern is scanty. Firm data are perhaps lass conspicuous than firm opinions. Ideological convictions often are easier to come by than precise and valid evidence. The immediate moral is to expect something less than definitive knowledge, but to take the topic very seriously indeed, in the reasonable hope that some clarification may be achieved

Affinity resins enable a multi-vaccine/platform purification process and rapid response to new viruses

Established platform processes applicable to a range of recombinant sub-unit vaccines and VLPs will enable rapid response as well as easy adaption to seasonal variants. Affinity purification has the ability to provide a platform purification process affording a standard high purity, high yield purification step towards different vaccines. We describe several affinity resins that we have developed that enables this platform approach for different vaccine modalities, some of which can be considered custom affinity resins, whilst the others open access catalog resins. The approach used is based on targeting elements or domains that are common to a vaccine technology and generating affinity resin towards these domains. For example, many vaccines are based upon trimeric virus fusion proteins and incorporate a trimerization domain to ensure correct folding and presentation. By targeting the trimerization domain a platform affinity resin can be developed that yields a platform production process irrespective of which virus protein is fused to the domains. This purification approach can be applied to many trimerization domains irrespective if the domain is proprietary and or with freedom to operate and in public use, and to other domains encourage the formation of larger protein particles (nanoparticles) to elicit immune responses. We present a custom affinity resin towards a proprietary domain that has wide applicability to many sub-unit vaccines within a company’s pipeline. We also present an open access resin that is under development that targets the T4 foldon trimerization domain. The foldon domain is the most widely used trimerization domain in academia and industry and has been used in a multitude of protein subunit vaccines. We further extend this catalog resin platform approach towards whole virus particles for which we have developed an affinity resin that binds to the phospholipid on the outer surface of the lipid membrane. It is our hope and also the intention of the companies that we collaborate with, that these resins will enable producers of these traditional vaccine modalities to effect rapid process development and enable them access to the timescale of development exhibited by mRNA vaccines

Facilitators and barriers to remaining at home for people with dementia who live alone: a protocol for a systematic review of qualitative evidence.

REVIEW QUESTION/OBJECTIVE: This qualitative review aims to gain an increased understanding of the factors that support (facilitators) and challenge (barriers) people who have dementia and live alone in being able to remain living in their own homes. The review will contribute to the development of a complex intervention, inform clinical practice and influence policy development for this population.Overarching review question: what are the barriers to, and facilitators for, people with a dementia who live alone being able to remain in their own homes? SUB-QUESTIONS: 1. What are the factors that support and/or challenge a person with dementia who lives alone?2. What are the barriers to, and facilitators for, people with a dementia who live alone being able to remain in their own homes from the perspective of people who have dementia and live alone?3. What are the barriers to, and facilitators for, people with dementia who live alone being able to remain in their own homes from the perspective of people who interact closely with this population, including family, and health and social care workers

Bostonia. Volume 12

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

Advances in expression of heterologous protein products by Streptococcus gordonii

Streptococcus gordonii is a bacterial species that naturally colonizes the oral cavity of most healthy humans. It resides in the mouth as an adherent to dental surfaces and, with few exceptions, does not cause disease in individuals it inhabits. It possesses qualities that encourage its use as a vector to deliver human vaccines against pathogens that enter at mucosal surfaces such as the mouth, throat, lungs, gastrointestinal or urogenital tracts. S. gordonii is easily engineered in the laboratory to produce foreign, or heterologous, proteins derived from pathogenic organisms. Thus, S. gordonii engineered to produce particular viral may stimulate protective immunity against smallpox, a potential biowarfare agent, without causing the harmful side effects associated with the current vaccine. The research presented in this dissertation desribes new ways that S. gordonii can be genetically engineered for greater production of heterologous products derived from pathogens. S. gordonii naturally secretes two proteins, glucosyltransferase and amylase-binding protein during growth, and the genetics S. gordonii utilizes to produce these products were reproduced and situated on a plasmid to facilitate production of a heterologous product. Although some plasmids constructs could not be introduced into E. coli, it was found that the addition of a synthetic peptide to growth medium enhanced the efficiency with which S. gordonii assimilated genetic material, thereby allowing the plasmid to be directly introduced into S. gordonii. The expression plasmid is well retained by S. gordonii that colonized the oral cavities of mice. The mechanisms that S. gordonii uses to export products from the cell are capable of accommodating high-level expression of at least two heterologous products, smallpox vaccine candidates A27L and B5R. Further, particular viral products that had previously proven recalcitrant to expression were produced by S. gordonii by engineering the fusion of viral sequences with those derived from a bacterial protein

Driving the solar thermal reforming of methane via a nonstoichiometric ceria redox cycle

This talk will be focused on a prospective solar driven methane reforming process using a nonstoichiometric ceria-based redox cycle. Compared to the traditional temperature swing process that accompanies solar-thermal redox cycles, the introduction of methane during the reduction step provides the ability to operate the cycle isothermally, or with smaller temperature swings, because the required reduction temperature decreases. As a result, the valuable solar energy that is utilized in the process is used more efficiently because sensible heating requirements are reduced, and the overall solar conversion efficiency is enhanced. Furthermore, compared to typical iron oxide based materials that are often used in similar chemical looping cycles, ceria has inherent kinetic and thermodynamic benefits that render it more suitable for isothermal operation where efficiencies are greater. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract