Designing IS service strategy: an information acceleration approach

Information technology-based innovation involves considerable risk that requires insight and foresight. Yet, our understanding of how managers develop the insight to support new breakthrough applications is limited and remains obscured by high levels of technical and market uncertainty. This paper applies a new experimental method based on “discrete choice analysis” and “information acceleration” to directly examine how decisions are made in a way that is behaviourally sound. The method is highly applicable to information systems researchers because it provides relative importance measures on a common scale, greater control over alternate explanations and stronger evidence of causality. The practical implications are that information acceleration reduces the levels of uncertainty and generates a more accurate rationale for IS service strategy decisions

Europe as a multilevel federation

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

L'identification des rôles dans un trafic de stupéfiants par la géolocalisation des données téléphoniques recueillies au cours de l'enquête

La surveillance téléphonique est un des principaux moyens utilisés dans les enquêtes sur le trafic de stupéfiants afin de reconstituer l’activité délictueuse, identifier les acteurs impliqués, déterminer leurs rôles respectifs et les localiser. À ce jour, les recherches sur l’exploitation de la téléphonie afin d’étudier des groupes criminels portent principalement sur les transcriptions des communications intégrées dans les décisions de justice. Cette recherche exploratoire bénéficie quant à elle d’un accès privilégié aux données de téléphonie provenant de mesures de surveillance en temps réel et rétroactive durant l’enquête. Cette recherche se focalise sur le lien entre le rôle d’un individu impliqué dans le trafic de stupéfiants et les patterns spatiaux détectés dans les traces téléphoniques. La question de recherche posée est : le rôle d’un acteur, à savoir la fonction qu’il remplit et la place qu’il occupe au sein du groupe, peut-il être inféré à partir de ses activités téléphoniques ? Cet article aborde cette question à travers l’analyse spatio-temporelle des contrôles téléphoniques rétroactifs et en temps réel de 20 individus distincts impliqués dans le trafic de stupéfiants. Les individus sélectionnés sont répartis selon trois rôles : livreurs, grossistes ou semi-grossistes et transporteurs. Pour mesurer leur mobilité, la localisation médiane, l’aire de l’enveloppe convexe, et la moyenne des distances parcourues par jour sont notamment calculées pour chaque individu et par type de rôle. Les résultats soutiennent l’hypothèse selon laquelle le rôle de l’utilisateur influence les patterns observés dans ses données téléphoniques. Les transporteurs semblent ainsi pouvoir être différenciés des livreurs et grossistes selon des patterns géographiques identifiables. Les livreurs semblent également pouvoir être différenciés des grossistes. Ces résultats tendent à confirmer l’approche proposée et révèlent un potentiel d’exploration des données de téléphonie pour inférer le rôle des acteurs dans un trafic

Metalliferous mining geophysics — State of the art after a decade in the new millennium

This paper is © 2019 Society of Exploration Geophysicists. The posting is available free of charge and its use is subject to the SEG terms and conditions: https://seg.org/Terms-of-UseMining exploration was very active during the first decade of the twenty-first century because there were numerous advances in the science and technology that geophysicists were using for mineral exploration. Development came from different sources: instrumentation improvements, new numerical algorithms, and cross-fertilization with the seismic industry. In gravity, gradiometry kept its promise and is on the cusp of becoming a key technology for mining exploration. In potential-field methods in general, numerous techniques have been developed for automatic interpretation, and 3D inversion schemes came into frequent use. These inversions will have even greater use when geologic constraints can be applied easily. In airborne electromagnetic (EM) methods, the development of time-domain helicopter EM systems changed the industry. In parallel, improvements in EM modeling and interpretation occurred; in particular, the strengths and weaknesses of the various algorithms became better understood. Simpler imaging schemes came into standard use, whereas layered inversion seldom is used in the mining industry today. Improvements in ground EM methods were associated with the development of SQUID technology and distributed-acquisition systems; the latter also impacted ground induced-polarization (IP) methods. Developments in borehole geophysics for mining and exploration were numerous. Borehole logging to measure physical properties received significant interest. Perhaps one reason for that interest was the desire to develop links between geophysical and geologic results, which also is a topic of great importance to mining geologists and geophysicists

How to organize secondary capital city regions: Institutional drivers of locational policy coordination

We analyze locational policy coordination in the metropolitan regions of secondary capital cities. Secondary capital cities - defined as capitals that are not the primary economic city of their nation states - serve as the political center of their nation states; however, they must simultaneously explore new ways to develop their own regional economies. Locational policies, and their regional coordination, aim to strengthen the economic competitiveness of metropolitan regions. Our comparison of the metropolitan regions of Bern, Ottawa–Gatineau, The Hague, and Washington, D.C., reveals that vertical institutional fragmentation, together with high local tax autonomy, create an unlevel playing field, which prompts jurisdictions to behave fiercely in regional tax competition. These findings are troubling for secondary capital cities given their propensity to be located in fragmented metropolitan regions and the capital city‐specific local tax autonomy constraints imposed on them

Dynactin Is Required for Microtubule Anchoring at Centrosomes

The multiprotein complex, dynactin, is an integral part of the cytoplasmic dynein motor and is required for dynein-based motility in vitro and in vivo. In living cells, perturbation of the dynein–dynactin interaction profoundly blocks mitotic spindle assembly, and inhibition or depletion of dynein or dynactin from meiotic or mitotic cell extracts prevents microtubules from focusing into spindles. In interphase cells, perturbation of the dynein–dynactin complex is correlated with an inhibition of ER-to-Golgi movement and reorganization of the Golgi apparatus and the endosome–lysosome system, but the effects on microtubule organization have not previously been defined. To explore this question, we overexpressed a variety of dynactin subunits in cultured fibroblasts. Subunits implicated in dynein binding have effects on both microtubule organization and centrosome integrity. Microtubules are reorganized into unfocused arrays. The pericentriolar components, γ tubulin and dynactin, are lost from centrosomes, but pericentrin localization persists. Microtubule nucleation from centrosomes proceeds relatively normally, but microtubules become disorganized soon thereafter. Overexpression of some, but not all, dynactin subunits also affects endomembrane localization. These data indicate that dynein and dynactin play important roles in microtubule organization at centrosomes in fibroblastic cells and provide new insights into dynactin–cargo interactions

Raman spectroscopic techniques to detect ovarian cancer biomarkers in blood plasma

Robust diagnosis of ovarian cancer is crucial to improve patient outcomes. The lack of a single and accurate diagnostic approach necessitates the advent of novel methods in the field. In the present study, two spectroscopic techniques, Raman and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) using silver nanoparticles, have been employed to identify signatures linked to cancer in blood. Blood plasma samples were collected from 27 patients with ovarian cancer and 28 with benign gynecological conditions, the majority of which had a prolapse. Early ovarian cancer cases were also included in the cohort (n = 17). The derived information was processed to account for differences between cancerous and healthy individuals and a support vector machine (SVM) algorithm was applied for classification. A subgroup analysis using CA-125 levels was also conducted to rule out that the observed segregation was due to CA-125 differences between patients and controls. Both techniques provided satisfactory diagnostic accuracy for the detection of ovarian cancer, with spontaneous Raman achieving 94% sensitivity and 96% specificity and SERS 87% sensitivity and 89% specificity. For early ovarian cancer, Raman achieved sensitivity and specificity of 93% and 97%, respectively, while SERS had 80% sensitivity and 94% specificity. Five spectral biomarkers were detected by both techniques and could be utilised as a panel of markers indicating carcinogenesis. CA-125 levels did not seem to undermine the high classification accuracies. This minimally invasive test may provide an alternative diagnostic and screening tool for ovarian cancer that is superior to other established blood-based biomarkers. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Experiences of mental health services for 'black' men with schizophrenia and a history of disengagement:a qualitative study

Whilst mental disorders can be disabling they are also treatable, yet engagement with services is often poor and disengagement from treatment is a major concern for mental health nurses. Participants were service users typically perceived as the most disengaged from mental health services, yet they were willing to engage in the research interviews. The seven participants were all male with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, a history of disengagement from mental health services and described their ethnicity as 'black'. Participants were under the care of Assertive Outreach Teams and were recruited after the researcher was introduced to them by clinicians who were working with them. After ethical approval, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were used to elicit the experiences of participants. Through interpretative phenomenological analysis, themes were developed. Interpretative Phenomenological analysis generated four themes: (i) "People just keep hounding me", (ii) Antipathy to Medication, (iii) Choice and the value of services, (iv) Stigmatisation and identity. By rigorously examining how service users with schizophrenia make sense of their experience of their relationship with mental health services, there is potential to give voice to the experiences of the recipients of mental health services. This study uncovered the complex nature of disengagement and in view of this there may never be a straightforward mechanism developed to engage all people with schizophrenia with mental health services. When the participants' experiences are considered in a broader social context it may be possible to reflect on how services can be adapted to facilitate better engagement