The role of internal communication in an organizational change process : a case study

In this case study, interviews and participant observation explored the role of internal communication in an organizational change process. The case for study was the ChurchResources Division of LifeWay Christian Resources, a religious publishing company based in Nashville, Tennessee. LifeWay\u27s use of communication in the change process was compared to five themes for transitional organization communication found in academic business and communication books and journals. The five themes are the top executive as lead communicator, two-way communication, using middle managers,interpersonal communication, and a shared vision. Two major discoveries emerged that were outside the five themes. The first was that the top leaders in the LifeWay ChurchResources Division were genuinely concerned about communicating to their employees with truth and accuracy. With this idea established at the beginning of the change process, the communication throughout the change effort was consistent from all division leaders. The second discovery was the use of a communication team to maintain communication throughout the change process. The communication team had both a proactive and reactive relationship to the division leadership and also implemented four of the five themes found in the literature

Practicing neurosurgery in the United States

Journal ArticleCompared with other developed countries, the U.S. spends a high percentage of its gross domestic product on healthcare: 16 percent in 2005, up from 15 percent in 2004. This is far and away the greatest percentage of GDP spent on healthcare of any nation for which such data is collected. However, the high level of healthcare spending is not reflected in globally accepted indicators of quality such as comparatively longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality. Moreover, the U.S. government pays for the healthcare of less than half its population, and the percentage of uninsured people is a relatively high 15.3 percent

Identifying Unique Neighborhood Characteristics to Guide Health Planning for Stroke and Heart Attack: Fuzzy Cluster and Discriminant Analyses Approaches

Socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic factors are known determinants of stroke and myocardial infarction (MI) risk. Clustering of these factors in neighborhoods needs to be taken into consideration during planning, prioritization and implementation of health programs intended to reduce disparities. Given the complex and multidimensional nature of these factors, multivariate methods are needed to identify neighborhood clusters of these determinants so as to better understand the unique neighborhood profiles. This information is critical for evidence-based health planning and service provision. Therefore, this study used a robust multivariate approach to classify neighborhoods and identify their socio-demographic characteristics so as to provide information for evidence-based neighborhood health planning for stroke and MI.The study was performed in East Tennessee Appalachia, an area with one of the highest stroke and MI risks in USA. Robust principal component analysis was performed on neighborhood (census tract) socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, obtained from the US Census, to reduce the dimensionality and influence of outliers in the data. Fuzzy cluster analysis was used to classify neighborhoods into Peer Neighborhoods (PNs) based on their socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Nearest neighbor discriminant analysis and decision trees were used to validate PNs and determine the characteristics important for discrimination. Stroke and MI mortality risks were compared across PNs. Four distinct PNs were identified and their unique characteristics and potential health needs described. The highest risk of stroke and MI mortality tended to occur in less affluent PNs located in urban areas, while the suburban most affluent PNs had the lowest risk.Implementation of this multivariate strategy provides health planners useful information to better understand and effectively plan for the unique neighborhood health needs and is important in guiding resource allocation, service provision, and policy decisions to address neighborhood health disparities and improve population health

Kinetics of H2–O2–H2O redox equilibria and formation of metastable H2O2 under low temperature hydrothermal conditions

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 75 (2011): 1594-1607, doi:10.1016/j.gca.2010.12.020.Hydrothermal experiments were conducted to evaluate the kinetics of H2(aq) oxidation in the homogeneous H2-O2-H2O system at conditions reflecting subsurface/near-seafloor hydrothermal environments (55-250 oC and 242-497 bar). The kinetics of the water-forming reaction that controls the fundamental equilibrium between dissolved H2(aq) and O2(aq), are expected to impose significant constraints on the redox gradients that develop when mixing occurs between oxygenated seawater and high- temperature anoxic vent fluid at near-seafloor conditions. Experimental data indicate that, indeed, the kinetics of H2(aq)-O2(aq) equilibrium become slower with decreasing temperature, allowing excess H2(aq) to remain in solution. Sluggish reaction rates of H2(aq) oxidation suggest that active microbial populations in near-seafloor and subsurface environments could potentially utilize both H2(aq) and O2(aq), even at temperatures lower than 40 oC due to H2(aq) persistence in the seawater/vent fluid mixtures. For these H2-O2 disequilibrium conditions, redox gradients along the seawater/hydrothermal fluid mixing interface are not sharp and microbially-mediated H2(aq) oxidation coupled with a lack of other electron acceptors (e.g. nitrate) could provide an important energy source available at low-temperature diffuse flow vent sites. More importantly, when H2(aq)-O2(aq) disequilibrium conditions apply, formation of metastable hydrogen peroxide is observed. The yield of H2O2(aq) synthesis appears to be enhanced under conditions of elevated H2(aq)/O2(aq) molar ratios that correspond to abundant H2(aq) concentrations. Formation of metastable H2O2 is expected to affect the distribution of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) owing to the existence of an additional strong oxidizing agent. Oxidation of magnetite and/or Fe++ by hydrogen peroxide could also induce formation of metastable hydroxyl radicals (•OH) through Fenton-type reactions, further broadening the implications of hydrogen peroxide in hydrothermal environments.This research was conducted with partial support from the NSF OCE-0752221 and the Geophysical Laboratory Postdoctoral Fellowship. We would also like to acknowledge contributions by the W.M. Keck Foundation and Shell towards supporting the hydrothermal lab at the Geophysical Lab. SMS acknowledges support from NSF OCE-0452333 and the Alfried-Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald (Germany), while WES acknowledges support from NSF grants OCE-0549457 and OCE- 0813861

A multivariate analysis of the financial structure of selected industries

The major hypothesis of this dissertation is that an industry has a distinct financial structure which would justify the use of a unique subset of financial ratios to describe differences within an industry over time and between companies. A secondary consideration is to evaluate the application of present multivariate methods within financial analysis, especially in regard to variable selection. A selection of 29 financial ratios which are most common to the literature, simplest to calculate, and the most meaningful to financial information users is drawn from the ratio categories of liquidity, activity, profitability, leverage, and miscellaneous. These ratios are computed for firms in the following six industries: crude-oil producing, textile apparel, chemical, electronic components, auto parts and accessories, and retail-food. The data for the six selected industries are taken from the Standard & Poor's Compustat Tapes. A screening of the data revealed that there were missing values, data irregularities, outliers, and unusual financial circumstances such as negative common equity which had to be resolved before the data were usable for analysis. ..

A multivariate analysis of the financial structure of selected industries

The major hypothesis of this dissertation is that an industry has a distinct financial structure which would justify the use of a unique subset of financial ratios to describe differences within an industry over time and between companies. A secondary consideration is to evaluate the application of present multivariate methods within financial analysis, especially in regard to variable selection. A selection of 29 financial ratios which are most common to the literature, simplest to calculate, and the most meaningful to financial information users is drawn from the ratio categories of liquidity, activity, profitability, leverage, and miscellaneous. These ratios are computed for firms in the following six industries: crude-oil producing, textile apparel, chemical, electronic components, auto parts and accessories, and retail-food. The data for the six selected industries are taken from the Standard & Poor's Compustat Tapes. A screening of the data revealed that there were missing values, data irregularities, outliers, and unusual financial circumstances such as negative common equity which had to be resolved before the data were usable for analysis. ..