The Role of Tacit Routines in Coordinating Activity

We explore the influence of tacit routines in obtaining coordination. Our experiment uses simple laboratory "firms," in which we interfere with one kind of firm's ability to develop tacit routines. Thus, our firms vary in the degree to which they rely on this kind of knowledge – instead of other, explicit, mechanisms – for obtaining coordination. We find that interfering with the development of tacit routines harms firms’ ability to coordinate. We then explore the extent to which firms are able to transfer their ability to coordinate activity, either to a new domain or to new members. Our results indicate that tacit routines transfer more easily than other mechanisms to a new, but closely related, domain. However, routine-based firms perform slightly worse in their ability to incorporate new members

Farm-level Perspectives in Rwanda's Coffee Supply Chain Coordination Challenge

This synthesis shows the need to update and improve household-level information on Rwanda’s coffee sector, so that appropriate policies may be put into place to increase the level and diversity of smallholder and rural business income.food security, food policy, Rwanda, coffee, Agribusiness, Q18,

Art and Medicine: A Collaborative Project Between Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar and Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar

Four faculty researchers, two from Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, and two from Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar developed a one semester workshop-based course in Qatar exploring the connections between art and medicine in a contemporary context. Students (6 art / 6 medicine) were enrolled in the course. The course included presentations by clinicians, medical engineers, artists, computing engineers, an art historian, a graphic designer, a painter, and other experts from the fields of art, design, and medicine. To measure the student experience of interdisciplinarity, the faculty researchers employed a mixed methods approach involving psychometric tests and observational ethnography. Data instruments included pre- and post-course semi-structured audio interviews, pre-test / post-test psychometric instruments (Budner Scale and Torrance Tests of Creativity), observational field notes, self-reflective blogging, and videography. This book describes the course and the experience of the students. It also contains images of the interdisciplinary work they created for a culminating class exhibition. Finally, the book provides insight on how different fields in a Middle Eastern context can share critical /analytical thinking tools to refine their own professional practices

Changes in Allocation of Land Holdings, Production and Farm Size in the Rwandan Smallholder Sector Over the Period 1984/1990 to 2002

There have been major shifts/changes in land use patterns in Rwanda over the past twelve years. A few striking observations include: As a percentage of total farmland, cultivated land increased. The increase in cultivated land occurred at the expense of pasture and fallow and woodlot. The share of pasture and fallow decreased from 22% in 1990 to 14% in 2002 and woodlot decreased from 11% in 1990 to 7% in 2002. This trend of increasing cultivated land is apparent from the mid-eighties to today. These observations imply that land is being farmed much more intensively without much time to fallow and allow the soil to rejuvenate. Pasture and woodlot are also being cut down at the expense of cultivation. This has important potential implications for productivity as well as for the environment. Average calorie production per person per day in Rwanda is believed to have dropped significantly during the war period, and then has increased on average in 2002 to levels near those measured in 1984. The rural population dependent on the land has increased some 27% since 1984.food security, food policy, allocation of land, farm size, Rwanda, Land Economics/Use, Q18,

Opening the Early Modern ToolBox: The Digital Interleaf and Digital Commonplace Book

This paper considers how early modern note-taking practices can inform the design of digital reading environments.  In particular, it argues that proximate, handwritten note-taking is essential for both memory retention and archiving, and that digital readers should work within structures that allow for such practices.  The Digital Interleaf, the first of two conceptual prototypes introduced, offers one response to that need: a multi-layered page designed for individual and social annotation.  The Digital Commonplace Book, the second of the prototypes discussed, provides a method for indexing notes from the Digital Interleaf.  These two interoperable concepts are the first in a suite called the Early Modern Toolbox

Shipboard acoustic observations of flow rate from a seafloor-sourced oil spill

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Loranger, S., & Weber, T. C. . Shipboard acoustic observations of flow rate from a seafloor-sourced oil spill. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 125(10), (2020): e2020JC016274, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JC016274.In 2004 a debris flow generated by Hurricane Ivan toppled an oil production platform in Mississippi Canyon lease block 20 (MC20). Between 2004 and the installation of a containment system in 2019 MC20 became an in situ laboratory for a wide range of hydrocarbon in the sea‐related research, including different methods of assessing the volumetric flow rate of hydrocarbons spanning different temporal scales. In 2017 a shipboard acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) and high‐frequency (90 to 154 kHz) broadband echosounder were deployed to assess the flow rate of liquid and gas phase hydrocarbons. Measurements of horizontal currents were combined with acoustic mapping to determine the rise velocity of the seep as it moved downstream. Models of the rise velocity for fluid particles were used to predict the size of oil droplets and gas bubbles in the seep. The amplitude and shape of the broadband acoustic backscatter were then used to differentiate between, and determine the flow rate of, hydrocarbons. Oil flow rate in the seep was estimated to be 56 to 86 barrels/day (mean urn:x-wiley:jgrc:media:jgrc24228:jgrc24228-math-0001 barrels/day) while the flow rate of gaseous hydrocarbons was estimated to be 98 to 359 m3/day (mean urn:x-wiley:jgrc:media:jgrc24228:jgrc24228-math-0002 m3/day).The work was supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Grant NA15NOS4000200)

Case Report: Familial Gastric Cancer and Chordoma in the Same Family

Gastric cancers are the second most common malignancy in the world and represent a major burden to all societies even though the incidence of disease is decreasing in the industrialized world. The aetiology of the disease is complex and is believed to be primarily due to environmental factors but a small proportion of cases are recognised as being associated with genetic factors. Two inherited forms of stomach cancer have been identified, one which is associated with familial clusterings of stomach cancer and the other being a subgroup of families that belong to hereditary non polyposis colorectal cancer (or Lynch syndrome). In this report we present a small nuclear family which is unusual in that there is a clustering of malignancy which includes stomach cancer, colorectal cancer and chordoma. Genetic analysis failed to reveal any causative mutation in genes associated with HNPCC or in E-cadherin. Together, the clinical picture in this family may indicate that other genetic factors are behind this family's clustering of malignancy

An Empirical Framework for Matching with Imperfectly Transferable Utility

We introduce an empirical framework for models of matching with imperfectly transferable utility and unobserved heterogeneity in tastes. Our framework includes as special cases the classic fully- and non-transferable utility models, collective models, and settings with taxes on transfers, deadweight losses, and risk aversion. We characterize equilibrium and conditions for identification, and derive comparative statics