James P. Ware, Principal

The challenge for practitioners is simple to state but extremely difficult to accomplish: how to build a business and an organization that can achieve sustained competitive advantage. This objective means ensuring that IT investments are implemented solely for business purposes -- to enhance productivity, to improve product/market capabilities, or to improve managerial decision making. But it also means that line managers, from the CEO on down, must develop a much deeper understanding of what I/T is doing to organizational forms and practices, what it can do, and how to make the changes both organizationally productive and individually appealing. New forms of organization and management are emerging today, whether by design or default. IT is making possible much flatter organizations, with characteristics often more like informal, loosely coupled networks than classic bureaucracies. Organizations with rich and extensive IT support appear to operate very differently from traditional models. Horizontal communication is more extensive, more frequent, and more informal. Decisions are reached more quickly, and the organization typically tolerates a wider range of behaviors, decisions, and practices. There is often more emphasis on results, less on forms. These changes, which amount to fundamental culture shifts, are usually subtle, and are frequently unrecognized by senior executives. On rare occasions, the changes are planned and managed. But, more typically, the changes begin evolving in some niche or department within the organization and then meet substantial resistance from entrenched managers, who are unwilling to undergo the personal changes in role, influence, power, and style that must be accomplished if the optimum benefits of the new technologies and new practices are to be fully realized. We have observed how the impact of technology on organizational practices seems to develop over time through four distinct phases: technological automation, task automation, managerial transformation, and strategic transformation. While there are elements of each phase present in any organization at any one time, there is typically a dominant theme that depends on the organization\u27s level of experience with the new technology. The critical issue, however, is that progression from one level to another is neither simple nor automatic; only when organizations undergo fundamental paradigm shifts do they actually achieve the higher benefits that accompany broader and more fundamental change. In our research and consulting experience, the major benefits of I/T are achieved only when technological change is iatroduced in support of business change. While some I/T R&D is of course necessary, the only long-lasting and effective applications of technology that we have seen are those that are clearly and explicitly packaged to address defined business problems or opportunities. Most organizations are stuck in technology-driven visions that are not producing significant business benefits. The organizational world of the 2lst century will be very different from the one we know today. We face two basic challenges: defining that vision (what is possible, practical, and appropriate); and describing the pathway to get there from here

A morphometric analysis of ultrastructural dynamics in the murine glomerulus following surgically-induced renal hypertension

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end stage renal disease (ESRD) are significant causes of adult morbidity and mortality worldwide. Though these conditions are common, the mechanisms of pathogenesis in kidney disease are poorly understood. Genetic predisposition has been established in the African American population; however this does not explain the ubiquity of CKD in the United States and abroad. Diabetes and hypertension are the two most frequently occurring co-morbidities in kidney disease and both have been identified as putative sources of injury to the delicate filtering structures of the kidney. Furthermore, the intrinsic functional relationship between the cardiovascular and renal organ systems adds to the plausibility of a hemodynamic cause. In light of this knowledge, we aim to explore the roles of genetic predisposition and hypertension in the pathogenesis and progression of CKD. The filtering apparatus of the kidney, the glomerulus, is a looping tuft of capillaries specialized to allow the passage of water and certain substances from the blood while restricting others. Glomeruli at the corticomedullary boundary of the kidney experience blood pressures closer to those in systemic arterioles and are subject to similar hemodynamic stresses. To evaluate the role of hypertension in CKD, we employed a well-known model of hypertensive kidney disease in mice involving uninephrectomy (UNX), subcutaneous implantation of a timed-release pellet containing the active aldosterone precursor deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA), and a high-salt diet. Given the role of heritability in human CKD pathogenesis, we applied the DOCA-UNX model in two strains of mice with differing susceptibility to kidney damage, the 129S6 and C57BL/6 strains, to evaluate the effects of genetic predisposition. Mice were subjected to varying lengths of hypertension exposure and their kidneys were subsequently examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Ultrastructural lesions of glomeruli were evaluated by a renal pathologist and assigned subjective pathology scores based on the extent and severity of involvement. We hypothesized that certain glomerular lesions, particularly those involving the podocytes of the visceral epithelium, would increase in severity in mice with heritable susceptibility (129S6) as well as those with longer exposure to glomerular hypertension. Our observations demonstrate these hypotheses are partially correct. By TEM histopathology, mouse strain was found to have a significant effect on the severity of certain epithelial lesions while duration of hypertension had a significant effect on the overall morphological pathology of the podocytes, glomerular basement membrane, and glomerulus as a whole. These results provide a promising foundation for further investigation of the pathogenesis of CKD in mice

Interactive 3-D Visualization: A tool for seafloor navigation, exploration, and engineering

Recent years have seen remarkable advances in sonar technology, positioning capabilities, and computer processing power that have revolutionized the way we image the seafloor. The massive amounts of data produced by these systems present many challenges but also offer tremendous opportunities in terms of visualization and analysis. We have developed a suite of interactive 3-D visualization and exploration tools specifically designed to facilitate the interpretation and analysis of very large (10\u27s to 100\u27s of megabytes), complex, multi-component spatial data sets. If properly georeferenced and treated, these complex data sets can be presented in a natural and intuitive manner that allows the integration of multiple components each at their inherent level of resolution and without compromising the quantitative nature of the data. Artificial sun-illumination, shading, and 3-D rendering can be used with digital bathymetric data (DTM\u27s) to form natural looking and easily interpretable, yet quantitative, landscapes. Color can be used to represent depth or other parameters (like backscatter or sediment properties) which can be draped over the DTM, or high resolution imagery can be texture mapped on bathymetric data. When combined with interactive analytical tools, this environment has facilitated the use of multibeam sonar and other data sets in a range of geologic, environmental, fisheries, and engineering applications

Chronicles of Oklahoma

Article describes the impact of the National Recovery Administration and other New Deal policies in Oklahoma, as well as resistance by local government authorities such as Governor Will "Alfalfa Bill" Murray

Optically manipulated control over micron-scale signalling dynamics for directing cellular differentiation and migration

Cellular microenvironments are an important area of study, and their implications with regard to development, tissue function, and disease, mean that they have particular relevance in tissue engineering. The development of tissue engineered therapeutics is underpinned by the understanding of how the cells exist in their natural environment. A fundamental lack of insight into the signalling mechanisms within microenvironments, due to in part a lack of appropriate technologies, has meant that the therapeutic potential of tissue engineering is limited. To this end, the development of a micropatterning technology that enables control over solute signalling dynamics on the micron scale has been investigated. A bespoke holographic optical tweezers (HOTs) system was used to precisely position cells and controlled release vehicles into three-dimensional arrangements that resemble basic cellular micro-architectures. Via optical manipulation, release vehicles could be patterned to create solute release patterns to mimic signalling events in vitro. A proof of concept was established to demonstrate fluorophore release from microparticles positioned with high precision, into previously unobtainable micron-scale patterns. Such developments required optimisation of the system and protocols, for use with cell and microparticle manipulation and, creating a tool-set suitable for address unsolved biological questions. Biological investigations were completed to demonstrate how the HOTs can be used to control zonal cell differentiation and migration. These processes are paramount to cell microenvironment function, and this study has shown that the HOTs patterning setup is capable of achieving such signalling models in vitro. Herein is presented compelling evidence that optically manipulated release sources can achieve new levels of precision over signalling dynamics, over the length scales suitable for even the smallest cell microenvironments. It is hoped that through the better in vitro modelling of such cellular microenvironments and other signalling events, investigators will be able to elucidate new mechanisms through which cells proliferate and function

Dienerian (Early Triassic) ammonoids from the Candelaria Hills (Nevada, USA) and their significance for palaeobiogeography and palaeoceanography

A well-preserved ammonoid fauna of Early Dienerian age has long been known from the lower portion of the Candelaria Formation in the old Candelaria silver mining district in Mineral and Esmeralda Counties, Nevada, but for a number of reasons, this fauna has never been studied in detail nor illustrated. Previous authors assigned this ammonoid fauna to the Early Dienerian Proptychites candidus Zone of Canada. In reality, it more closely resembles the Tethyan faunas than the higher palaeolatitude Canadian faunas, thus indicating the presence of some degree of equatorial faunal exchange between opposite sides of the Panthalassic Ocean during Early Dienerian time. It also indicates the onset of a provincialism, which contrasts with the cosmopolitan Griesbachian faunas. A rigorous taxonomic analysis of the Candelaria fauna allows us to differentiate the following ten species, which include two new species and one new genus (Mullericeras nov. gen.) belonging to the new family Mullericeratidae: Ambites lilangensis (Krafft, 1909), Ambites aff. radiatus (Brühwiler, Brayard, Bucher and Guodun, 2008), Ussuridiscus sp. indet., "Koninckites” aff. kraffti Spath, 1934, Mullericeras spitiense (Krafft, 1909), Mullericeras fergusoni nov. sp., Mullericeras sp. indet., Proptychites haydeni (Krafft, 1909), Proptychites pagei nov. sp., Vavilovites sp. indet. and Parahedenstroemia kiparisovae Shigeta and Zakharov, 2009. This Early Dienerian fauna correlates with the Ambites fauna known from the base of the Ceratite Marls in the Salt Range and from the base of the "Meekoceras” beds in Spiti (northern Gondwanian margin). The fauna also permits the precise dating of a shelfal anoxic episode on the equatorial North American margin. This anoxic event correlates in time with similar palaeoceanographic changes in the southern Tethys, which indicates that the Early Triassic biotic recovery was at least partly shaped by such discrete, short events rather than by pervasive and lingering adverse environmental condition

LASP SmallSat Science Data Services

We are developing of a set of turn-key science data services for smallsat data management, processing, and hosting. Using cloud computing resources and existing infrastructure, we can rapidly deploy a modular data system for a mission or project. A basic system includes reliable, secure data storage, an API for fast data access worldwide, and a lightweight website with information about the mission and data API documentation. Optional add-ons include the ability to deploy science processing software using Docker containers, interactive web-based data displays, and archive deliveries to NASA or other archive facilities. The use of AWS CloudFormation templates to build new systems makes deployment and support straightforward and cost-efficient, and provides a consistent interface for both mission teams and science data users

Militia Commission of James Connor

Commission of James Connor appointed as Colonel of the Seventh Regiment of the Infantry in the Second Brigade, and the Second Division of the Maine Militia, by Governor William Williamson on July 24, 1821.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainebicentennial/1109/thumbnail.jp