Product Architecture and Strategic Positioning in Information Products Firms

Businesses exist to deliver desired products and servicesto their markets. The efficient and effective design and development of products meeting market needs is a critical process which must be performed and managed effectively for a firm to remain viable. Product design and development has been dealt with at some length in the literature with regard to the architecture of assembled tangible products (e.g., automobiles (Abernathy 1978), power tools (Lehnerd 1987), production equipment (Henderson and Clark 1990), and computers (Meyer and Roberts 1988)), and process design for non-assembled tangible products (e.g., glass (Utterback 1994)). Less attention has been paid to the architecture for the delivery of services (Chase and Hayes 1991, Harvey and Filiatrault 1991, Heskett 1993, Heskett and Schlesinger 1994), and almost no research has been done with regard to the design and delivery of information 1 products and services. The worldwide economy is shifting from one based predominantly on physical goods and energy to one based on information goods and knowledge. Yet we do not understand much about the transformation to an information-based economy comprising firms whose core competency is their ability to create, access, or add value to information. This paper focuses on the effective design of information products. It develops a framework for organizing, managing, and building a robust information technology platform for the effective design and develop of information-based products and services. Based on that framework, we develop a means for assessing the strategic positioning and defensibility of information products firms

THE IMPACT OF MARKETING INFORMATION SUPPLY ON PRODUCT MANAGERS: AN ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION PROCESSING PERSPECTIVE

This paper examines the impact of information supply and distribution on managerial information processing using a model derived from the organizational information processing (OIP) framework developed by Daft and Weick (1984). The model suggests that more supply and distribution of information wiltlead to greater information use and the acquisition of more knowledge, given the organization\u27s information processing capabilities match its requirements. The model was extended to include the influence of social factors (i. e., culture and power) and the level of knowledge in the organization. Product managers in two consumer goods organizations providing different levels of information technology support were studied to compare the effect of different approaches to supplying and distributing information. The focused comparison case research method (George and McKeown 1985) was used, in which sites are selected differing only on the dimensions of interest, namely information supply and distribution. The cases provided evidence to support the model. The company which had more data and analytic tools available for its product managers used more information and knew more about the factors that influenced the marketing of its products. In addition, organizational culture and the level of knowledge at the companies affected their approach to information supply, information use, and knowledge acquisition. The results suggest that the effective use of information technology requires a combination of managing the organization culture and fitting the characteristics of information supply and distribution mechanisms to information requirements

Mesoscale acid deposition modeling studies

The work performed in support of the EPA/DOE MADS (Mesoscale Acid Deposition) Project included the development of meteorological data bases for the initialization of chemistry models, the testing and implementation of new planetary boundary layer parameterization schemes in the MASS model, the simulation of transport and precipitation for MADS case studies employing the MASS model, and the use of the TASS model in the simulation of cloud statistics and the complex transport of conservative tracers within simulated cumuloform clouds. The work performed in support of the NASA/FAA Wind Shear Program included the use of the TASS model in the simulation of the dynamical processes within convective cloud systems, the analyses of the sensitivity of microburst intensity and general characteristics as a function of the atmospheric environment within which they are formed, comparisons of TASS model microburst simulation results to observed data sets, and the generation of simulated wind shear data bases for use by the aviation meteorological community in the evaluation of flight hazards caused by microbursts

Neutron Correlations in the Decay of the First Excited State of 11Li

The decay of unbound excited 11Li was measured after being populated by a two-proton removal from a 13B beam at 71 MeV/nucleon. Decay energy spectra and Jacobi plots were obtained from measurements of the momentum vectors of the 9Li fragment and neutrons. A resonance at an excitation energy of ∼1.2 MeV was observed. The kinematics of the decay are equally well fit by a simple dineutron-like model or a phase-space model that includes final state interactions. A sequential decay model can be excluded

Identification of a pan-cancer oncogenic microRNA superfamily anchored by a central core seed motif

MicroRNAs modulate tumorigenesis through suppression of specific genes. As many tumour types rely on overlapping oncogenic pathways, a core set of microRNAs may exist, which consistently drives or suppresses tumorigenesis in many cancer types. Here we integrate The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) pan-cancer data set with a microRNA target atlas composed of publicly available Argonaute Crosslinking Immunoprecipitation (AGO-CLIP) data to identify pan-tumour microRNA drivers of cancer. Through this analysis, we show a pan-cancer, coregulated oncogenic microRNA ‘superfamily’ consisting of the miR-17, miR-19, miR-130, miR-93, miR-18, miR-455 and miR-210 seed families, which cotargets critical tumour suppressors via a central GUGC core motif. We subsequently define mutations in microRNA target sites using the AGO-CLIP microRNA target atlas and TCGA exome-sequencing data. These combined analyses identify pan-cancer oncogenic cotargeting of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase, TGFβ and p53 pathways by the miR-17-19-130 superfamily members

Histidyl–tRNA Synthetase and Asparaginyl–tRNA Synthetase, Autoantigens in Myositis, Activate Chemokine Receptors on T Lymphocytes and Immature Dendritic Cells

Autoantibodies to histidyl–tRNA synthetase (HisRS) or to alanyl–, asparaginyl–, glycyl–, isoleucyl–, or threonyl–tRNA synthetase occur in ∼25% of patients with polymyositis or dermatomyositis. We tested the ability of several aminoacyl–tRNA synthetases to induce leukocyte migration. HisRS induced CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocytes, interleukin (IL)-2–activated monocytes, and immature dendritic cells (iDCs) to migrate, but not neutrophils, mature DCs, or unstimulated monocytes. An NH2-terminal domain, 1–48 HisRS, was chemotactic for lymphocytes and activated monocytes, whereas a deletion mutant, HisRS-M, was inactive. HisRS selectively activated CC chemokine receptor (CCR)5-transfected HEK-293 cells, inducing migration by interacting with extracellular domain three. Furthermore, monoclonal anti-CCR5 blocked HisRS-induced chemotaxis and conversely, HisRS blocked anti-CCR5 binding. Asparaginyl–tRNA synthetase induced migration of lymphocytes, activated monocytes, iDCs, and CCR3-transfected HEK-293 cells. Seryl–tRNA synthetase induced migration of CCR3-transfected cells but not iDCs. Nonautoantigenic aspartyl–tRNA and lysyl–tRNA synthetases were not chemotactic. Thus, autoantigenic aminoacyl–tRNA synthetases, perhaps liberated from damaged muscle cells, may perpetuate the development of myositis by recruiting mononuclear cells that induce innate and adaptive immune responses. Therefore, the selection of a self-molecule as a target for an autoantibody response may be a consequence of the proinflammatory properties of the molecule itself

“Dogged” Search of Fresh Nakhla Surfaces Reveals New Alteration Textures

Special Issue: 74th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, August 8-12, 2011, London, U.K.International audienceCarbonaceous chondrites are considered as amongst the most primitive Solar System samples available. One of their primitive characteristics is their enrichment in volatile elements.This includes hydrogen, which is present in hydrated and hydroxylated minerals. More precisely, the mineralogy is expected to be dominated by phyllosilicates in the case of CM chondrites, and by Montmorillonite type clays in the case of CI. Here, in order to characterize and quantify the abundance of lowtemperature minerals in carbonaceous chondrites, we performed thermogravimetric analysis of matrix fragments of Tagish Lake, Murchison and Orgueil