Aviation Organization Strategy Development in National Airspace Modernization

The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine how small sub-directorates within larger organizations develop strategy to accomplish expansive legacy infrastructure re-engineering. There is significant, historical academic inquiry on Technological Transitions (TT)s with respect to infrastructure modernization; the conversion of the National Airspace System from ground-based to space-based navigation is an example of a TT. There are also studies on how to re-engineer legacy software systems to continue supporting organizational needs. This study is intended to explore a case of re-engineering the expansive legacy ground-based navigation system in the United States by efficiently reducing the size of the network and expanding then verifying signal coverage on over 4.5 million square miles. It is not a pure TT, nor a pure software re-engineering, but rather a large-scale re-engineering of a pre-existing hardware and software infrastructure. It constitutes a nationwide effort to re-design and expand the legacy ground-based navigation system developed over 70 years. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) advised the public in 2011 that it intended to re-engineer and reduce the Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range (VOR) network from 896 stations down to 593 stations - to be defined as the Minimum Operational Network (MON). This reduction was based on the premise that two-thirds of the legacy VORs would be retained but their coverage expanded to cover twice the airspace within the US than the previous network. The FAA Flight Program Operations (FPO) is a small sub-directorate within the larger organization that is now responsible to validate signal coverage on several million square miles of additional airspace. Understanding how the FPO develops strategy and leverages technology to support this endeavor can provide a repeatable template for future, expansive, legacy infrastructure re-engineering efforts. This study discovered that the FPO developed and iteratively evolved strategy to accomplish the VOR MON using tribal knowledge, subject matter expertise and accepted business re-engineering practices. The template can be applied to other legacy infrastructure re-engineering efforts to support forthcoming TTs

Aviation organization strategy development in national airspace modernization

The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine how small sub-directorates within larger organizations develop strategy to accomplish expansive legacy infrastructure re-engineering. There is significant, historical academic inquiry on Technological Transitions (TT)s with respect to infrastructure modernization; the conversion of the National Airspace System from ground-based to space-based navigation is an example of a TT. There are also studies on how to re-engineer legacy software systems to continue supporting organizational needs. This study is intended to explore a case of re-engineering the expansive legacy ground-based navigation system in the United States by efficiently reducing the size of the network and expanding then verifying signal coverage on over 4.5 million square miles. It is not a pure TT, nor a pure software re-engineering, but rather a large-scale re-engineering of a pre-existing hardware and software infrastructure. It constitutes a nationwide effort to re-design and expand the legacy ground-based navigation system developed over 70 years. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) advised the public in 2011 that it intended to re-engineer and reduce the Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range (VOR) network from 896 stations down to 593 stations - to be defined as the Minimum Operational Network (MON). This reduction was based on the premise that two-thirds of the legacy VORs would be retained but their coverage expanded to cover twice the airspace within the US than the previous network. The FAA Flight Program Operations (FPO) is a small sub-directorate within the larger organization that is now responsible to validate signal coverage on several million square miles of additional airspace. Understanding how the FPO develops strategy and leverages technology to support this endeavor can provide a repeatable template for future, expansive, legacy infrastructure re-engineering efforts. This study discovered that the FPO developed and iteratively evolved strategy to accomplish the VOR MON using tribal knowledge, subject matter expertise and accepted business re-engineering practices. The template can be applied to other legacy infrastructure re-engineering efforts to support forthcoming TTs

Understanding online knowledge sharing: An interpersonal relationship perspective

The unique features and capabilities of online learning are built on the ability to connect to a wider range of learning resources and peer learners that benefit individual learners, such as through discussion forums, collaborative learning, and community building. The success of online learning thus depends on the participation, engagement, and social interaction of peer learners, which leads to knowledge sharing. Thus, without frequent and persistent interaction, it is doubtful whether knowledge sharing can take place in online learning. This study argues that theories about the development and maintenance of social relationships provide a theoretical foundation for understanding the motivation to engage in online knowledge sharing behavior. An Online Knowledge Sharing Model (OKSM) is proposed and empirically tested among undergraduate students using an online learning environment. The model introduces two new constructs – Perceived Online Attachment Motivation (POAM) and Perceived Online Relationship Commitment (PORC), which together explained 71 percent of the variance observed in self-reported online knowledge sharing behavior. The findings provide some explanations for the motivation to share knowledge, and have several implications for the design of the features and capabilities of online learning environments

Lolita's Time Leaks and Transatlantic Decadence

In this paper I investigate the matrix of transatlantic literary exchange in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) in order to suggest how the novel’s rehabilitation of an international decadent aesthetics constitutes a radical challenge to the American literary establishment in the postwar. I begin by identifying the figures of Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Baudelaire and Algernon Swinburne as the key constellation for Nabokov in his plotting of Lolita’s ambivalent engagement with the ethics of temporality and artistic autonomy. I then go on to situate Lolita’s composition within debates current in the American academy from the late 1930s to the early 1950s over the value of decadent aesthetics within the modernist project and anxieties over Poe’s place within American national literary culture. Read alongside the critical writings of T.S. Eliot, Allen Tate, and the New Criticism, Lolita emerges as the risky reinstatement of a transatlantic decadent tradition, in which the failure of temporal and ethical containment disrupts a dominant narrative of modernism’s history in American letters

Obstructive pancreatolithiasis in a cat with triaditis and concurrent hypercalcaemia.

CASE SUMMARY: A 7-year-old neutered female domestic longhair cat was presented for further investigation of suspected hepatobiliary disease. Increases in serum 1,2-o-dilauryl-rac-glycero-3-glutaric acid-(6'-methylresorufin) ester lipase and hepatobiliary enzymes, with concurrent hypoalbuminaemia, were documented on blood biochemistry. Abdominal ultrasonography findings were consistent with acute pancreatitis with multiple pancreatoliths visualised within the pancreatic duct. Treatment for suspected triaditis was initiated with a hydrolysed protein diet, amoxicillin-clavulanate, hepatoprotectants and buprenorphine. Fifty-three days later, the patient presented with hypercalcaemia and obstructive pancreatolithiasis, and was euthanased. Post-mortem examination revealed severe chronic active pancreatitis with moderate chronic lymphocytic, plasmacytic cholangiohepatitis and mild chronic lymphocytic-plasmacytic duodenal enteritis (triaditis). Multiple calcium carbonate pancreatoliths present within the pancreatic ducts had resulted in pancreatic duct obstruction. RELEVANCE AND NOVEL INFORMATION: Pancreatolithiasis is a very rare condition in cats, with only five reports to date. In human medicine, pancreatolithiasis is often a sequala to chronic pancreatitis, seen in up to 50-90% of patients. However, in cats the aetiology of pancreatolithiasis, and indeed chronic pancreatitis, is poorly understood. This report describes a case of obstructive pancreatolithiasis in a cat with histopathological confirmation of triaditis and is the first report of hypercalcaemia in a cat with obstructive pancreatolithiasis. This further adds to the evidence base that pancreatolithiasis may have a similar pathogenesis to humans and can develop secondarily to chronic pancreatitis in cats

Obstructive pancreatolithiasis in a cat with triaditis and concurrent hypercalcaemia.

CASE SUMMARY: A 7-year-old neutered female domestic longhair cat was presented for further investigation of suspected hepatobiliary disease. Increases in serum 1,2-o-dilauryl-rac-glycero-3-glutaric acid-(6'-methylresorufin) ester lipase and hepatobiliary enzymes, with concurrent hypoalbuminaemia, were documented on blood biochemistry. Abdominal ultrasonography findings were consistent with acute pancreatitis with multiple pancreatoliths visualised within the pancreatic duct. Treatment for suspected triaditis was initiated with a hydrolysed protein diet, amoxicillin-clavulanate, hepatoprotectants and buprenorphine. Fifty-three days later, the patient presented with hypercalcaemia and obstructive pancreatolithiasis, and was euthanased. Post-mortem examination revealed severe chronic active pancreatitis with moderate chronic lymphocytic, plasmacytic cholangiohepatitis and mild chronic lymphocytic-plasmacytic duodenal enteritis (triaditis). Multiple calcium carbonate pancreatoliths present within the pancreatic ducts had resulted in pancreatic duct obstruction. RELEVANCE AND NOVEL INFORMATION: Pancreatolithiasis is a very rare condition in cats, with only five reports to date. In human medicine, pancreatolithiasis is often a sequala to chronic pancreatitis, seen in up to 50-90% of patients. However, in cats the aetiology of pancreatolithiasis, and indeed chronic pancreatitis, is poorly understood. This report describes a case of obstructive pancreatolithiasis in a cat with histopathological confirmation of triaditis and is the first report of hypercalcaemia in a cat with obstructive pancreatolithiasis. This further adds to the evidence base that pancreatolithiasis may have a similar pathogenesis to humans and can develop secondarily to chronic pancreatitis in cats

Model evaluation for extreme risks

Current approaches to building general-purpose AI systems tend to produce systems with both beneficial and harmful capabilities. Further progress in AI development could lead to capabilities that pose extreme risks, such as offensive cyber capabilities or strong manipulation skills. We explain why model evaluation is critical for addressing extreme risks. Developers must be able to identify dangerous capabilities (through "dangerous capability evaluations") and the propensity of models to apply their capabilities for harm (through "alignment evaluations"). These evaluations will become critical for keeping policymakers and other stakeholders informed, and for making responsible decisions about model training, deployment, and security

Binary and Millisecond Pulsars at the New Millennium

We review the properties and applications of binary and millisecond pulsars. Our knowledge of these exciting objects has greatly increased in recent years, mainly due to successful surveys which have brought the known pulsar population to over 1300. There are now 56 binary and millisecond pulsars in the Galactic disk and a further 47 in globular clusters. This review is concerned primarily with the results and spin-offs from these surveys which are of particular interest to the relativity community.Comment: 59 pages, 26 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in Living Reviews in Relativity (http://www.livingreviews.org

Metadata matters: access to image data in the real world

Data sharing is important in the biological sciences to prevent duplication of effort, to promote scientific integrity, and to facilitate and disseminate scientific discovery. Sharing requires centralized repositories, and submission to and utility of these resources require common data formats. This is particularly challenging for multidimensional microscopy image data, which are acquired from a variety of platforms with a myriad of proprietary file formats (PFFs). In this paper, we describe an open standard format that we have developed for microscopy image data. We call on the community to use open image data standards and to insist that all imaging platforms support these file formats. This will build the foundation for an open image data repository

Pension fund performance and costs: small is beautiful.

Abstract Using the CEM pension fund data set, we document the cost structure and performance of a large sample of US pension funds. To date, self-reporting biases and a deficiency of comprehensive return and cost data have severely hindered pension fund performance studies. The bias-free CEM dataset resolves these issues and provides detailed information on fund-specific returns, benchmarks and costs for all types of pension plans and equity mandates. We find that pension fund cost levels are substantially lower than mutual fund fees. The domestic equity investments of US pension funds tend to generate abnormal returns (after expenses and trading costs) close to zero or slightly positive, contrasting the average underperformance of mutual funds. However, small cap mandates of defined benefit funds have outperformed their benchmarks by about 3% a year. While larger scale brings costs advantages, liquidity limitations seem to allow only smaller funds, and especially small cap mandates, to outperform their benchmarks. JEL Classifications : G23, G11, G14 Acknowledgements Our thanks to Keith Ambachtsheer, CEM Benchmarking Inc. for providing the pension fun