Aging Related Differences in Hand Intrinsic and Extrinsic Muscles for Hand Dexterity: An MRI Investigation

Hand dexterity is crucial for humans to interactions with the external environment. Many activities of daily living (ADLs) such as pressing, grasping, writing and typing would be unattainable without a skillfully and proficiently functioning hand. Sexagenarians and older often experience difficulties in hand dexterity, which seriously impair their ability to perform ADLs. This study described the aging-related changes in hand muscle size and dexterity; and addressed the conflicting literature regarding the extent of atrophy to either the intrinsic or extrinsic hand muscles in the elderly. The overall hypotheses for this study were 1) that elderly adults show an aging-related decrease in hand muscle size and strength, especially a greater decrease in the intrinsic hand muscles, 2) elderly adults show an aging-related decrease in hand dexterity and 3) hand muscle size and strength are positively related to hand dexterity. This study examined hand muscle sizes with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and examined hand strength and other functional measures. This study found aging-related decreases in muscle size, muscle strength, hand dexterity. Furthermore, intrinsic muscles showed a greater aging-related decrease in volume and strength as compared to the extrinsic muscles. When examining relationships, muscle strength was positively correlated to multi-finger synergy and finger dependence. Also, muscle size was positively related to performance on clinical hand dexterity tests. This supports the strength-dexterity equivalence hypothesis

The Impact of Mergers and Acquisitions on Information Systems: A Case of A Software Industry Acquisition

A company named Syscom was recently acquired by another company, Matcom. Both companies were focused on software development in similar markets, however, the Management Information Systems (MIS) decisions made by each company have resulted in significant differences as to how employees go about the business of developing, selling and supporting software. This paper highlights how Information Systems (IS) decisions made at these two companies enabled different ways for people to work together along with affecting various aspects of business operations and team communications. In addition, this paper presents issues with the integration of Syscom with the Matcom IS structure as a result of the acquisition of Syscom. Managerial implications are drawn from the discussion

Risk Diversification In World Stock Markets

The benefit of risk diversification refers to the reduction in the portfolio risk when different stocks are combined into a portfolio. This risk reduction benefit exists because not all stocks are moving together through time; this is presumably true for stocks from different countries. The smaller the degree of co-movements in the world stock markets (i.e., the less the correlation between the markets), the greater is the risk reduction effect. Thus, it makes sense for a US investor to invest globally as long as the foreign stock markets are not highly correlated with the U.S. market. Nevertheless, recent evidence shows that the correlations between the U.S. and various foreign stock markets are evolving through time due to the integration of world capital markets and international capital flows. Now that we witness the increased interdependence of the world stock markets, does it still make sense to diversify globally? In this paper, we address the question of global risk diversification from the US perspective

An Update on the IS/IT Skills Gap

Information systems (IS) curriculums have been the subject of debate and discussion, as to their proper planning, design, and implementation. Despite all of the work which has been done in this area to date, there are still arguments whether skills gaps exist between what is being taught in IS curriculums, and what is really needed in the industry. This study examines IS/IT skills gaps from three perspectives: end-users, academia, and IS/IT employers. The goal is to see whether skills gaps exist, and to make specific recommendations in order to alleviate these skills gaps. A survey was administered in the northeastern U.S. to investigate the perceived importance of IS courses, information technologies, and critical IS/IT issues. The survey was analyzed and the results were compared with IS course offerings by AACSB-accredited business schools in the northeastern U.S. and IT staffing surveys and reports. One interesting finding is that project management is a subject area which is not being adequately covered in IS program curriculums, however is considered a highly important skill area by both IS and nonIS industry professionals. In terms of technologies, the most basic and widely used technologies (personal productivity and desktop operating systems) were given high importance. Results related to IS/IT issues showed that security is an issue which should be given greater emphasis in any consideration of IS curriculums. ERP, end-user computing, and the integration of soft skills have also been indicated as being important technologies, skills, and issues based on our findings