Information Seeking and Knowledge Acquisition Behaviors of Young Information Systems Workers: Preliminary Analysis

The rapid growth of IT capital investments requires the corresponding development of IS human resources to effectively implement and apply the new technologies. This study addresses a critical, emerging research area for the development of young IS knowledge workers, which is key to providing the human infrastructure for successful implementation of IT in the future. Drawing upon the theory and methodology from several different lines of prior research, this current research project is designed to study the relationship between information seeking/knowledge acquisition behaviors and job performance of young IS workers. This paper describes a current research project in progress which investigates the information seeking and knowledge acquisition behavior of young IS workers. It is proposed that an understanding of how young IS workers approach their work and the factors facilitating or limiting their task learning process and job performance could lead to important findings affecting research, education and industry practice

Impact of Climate Change on Agricultural Production in Asian Countries: Evidence from Panel Study

We analyze the impact of climate change on agricultural production in 13 Asian countries for 1998-2007 estimating country-level FE panel model using climate variables. Higher summer temperature and rainfall increase production, higher fall temperature decreases it in Southeast Asia, and increase in annual temperature decreases agricultural production in Asian countries.climate change, production, food security, Asia, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Security and Poverty, Production Economics,

Single Molecule DNA Detection with an Atomic Vapor Notch Filter

The detection of single molecules has facilitated many advances in life- and material-sciences. Commonly, it founds on the fluorescence detection of single molecules, which are for example attached to the structures under study. For fluorescence microscopy and sensing the crucial parameters are the collection and detection efficiency, such that photons can be discriminated with low background from a labeled sample. Here we show a scheme for filtering the excitation light in the optical detection of single stranded labeled DNA molecules. We use the narrow-band filtering properties of a hot atomic vapor to filter the excitation light from the emitted fluorescence of a single emitter. The choice of atomic sodium allows for the use of fluorescent dyes, which are common in life-science. This scheme enables efficient photon detection, and a statistical analysis proves an enhancement of the optical signal of more than 15% in a confocal and in a wide-field configuration.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

SPT5 affects the rate of mRNA degradation and physically interacts with CCR4 but does not control mRNA deadenylation

The CCR4-NOT complex has been shown to have multiple roles in mRNA metabolism, including that of transcriptional elongation, mRNA transport, and nuclear exosome function, but the primary function of CCR4 and CAF1 is in the deadenylation and degradation of cytoplasmic mRNA. As previous genetic analysis supported an interaction between SPT5, known to be involved in transcriptional elongation, and that of CCR4, the physical association of SPT5 with CCR4 was examined. A two-hybrid screen utilizing the deadenylase domain of CCR4 as a bait identified SPT5 as a potential interacting protein. SPT5 at its physiological concentration was shown to immunoprecipitate CCR4 and CAF1, and in vitro purified SPT5 specifically could bind to CAF1 and the deadenylase domain of CCR4. We additionally demonstrated that mutations in SPT5 or an spt4 deletion slowed the rate of mRNA degradation, a phenotype associated with defects in the CCR4 mRNA deadenylase complex. Yet, unlike ccr4 and caf1 deletions, spt5 and spt4 defects displayed little effect on the rate of deadenylation. They also did not affect decapping or 5\u27 - 3\u27 degradation of mRNA. These results suggest that the interactions between SPT5/SPT4 and the CCR4-NOT complex are probably the consequences of effects involving nuclear events and do not involve the primary role of CCR4 in mRNA deadenylation and turnover

Reuse of Object and Component Technologies

Companies are increasingly requiring that new information systems development projects employ object- oriented (OO) approaches. The hottest new Web tools and languages have object capabilities built into them. Much of the movement toward the OO paradigm for systems development is based on claims of vendors and pioneers that adoption will lead to better and faster designs, more maintainable systems, and most audibly, reusable software

Interplay of resonant states and Landau levels in functionalized graphene

Adsorbates can drastically alter physical properties of graphene. Particularly important are adatoms and admolecules that induce resonances at the Dirac point. Such resonances limit electron mobilities and spin relaxation times. We present a systematic tight-binding as well as analytical modeling to investigate the properties of resonant states in the presence of a quantizing magnetic field. Landau levels are strongly influenced by the resonances, especially close to the Dirac point. Here the cyclotron motion of electrons around a defect leads to the formation of circulating local currents which are manifested by the appearance of side peaks around the zero-energy Landau level. Our study is based on realistic parameters for H, F, and Cu adatoms, each exhibiting distinct spectral features in the magnetic field. We also show that by observing a local density of states around an adatom in the presence of Landau levels useful microscopic model parameters can be extracted

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase pathway genomic alterations in 60,991 diverse solid tumors informs targeted therapy opportunities.

BackgroundThe phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway is frequently altered in cancer. This report describes the landscape of PI3K alterations in solid tumors as well as co-alterations serving as potential resistance/attenuation mechanisms.MethodsConsecutive samples were analyzed in a commercial Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment-certified laboratory using comprehensive genomic profiling performed by next-generation sequencing (315 genes). The co-alterations evaluated included the Erb-B2 receptor tyrosine kinase 2 (ERBB2), ERBB3, ERBB4, RAS, MET proto-oncogene tyrosine kinase (MET), and mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MAP2K) genes as well as tumor protein 53 (TP53), estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1), and androgen receptor (AR).ResultsAlterations in any of 18 PI3K-pathway associated genes were identified in 44% of 60,991 tumors. Although single base and insertions/deletions (indels) were the most frequent alterations, copy number changes and rearrangements were identified in 11% and 0.9% of patients, respectively. Overall, the most frequently altered genes were PIK3 catalytic subunit α (PIK3CA) (13%), phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) (9%), and serine/threonine kinase 11 (STK11) (5%). Tumor types that frequently harbored at least 1 PI3K alteration were uterine (77%), cervical (62%), anal (59%), and breast (58%) cancers. Alterations also were discerned frequently in tumors with carcinosarcoma (89%) and squamous cell carcinoma (62%) histologies. Tumors with a greater likelihood of co-occurring PI3K pathway and MAPK pathway alterations included colorectal cancers (odds ratio [OR], 1.64; P < .001), mesotheliomas (OR, 2.67; P = .024), anal cancers (OR, 1.98; P = .03), and nonsquamous head and neck cancers (OR, 2.03; P = .019). The co-occurrence of ESR1 and/or AR alterations with PI3K alterations was statistically significant in bladder, colorectal, uterine, prostate, and unknown primary cancers.ConclusionsComprehensive genomic profiling reveals altered PI3K-related genes in 44% of solid malignancies, including rare disease and histology types. The frequency of alterations and the co-occurrence of resistance pathways vary by tumor type, directly affecting opportunities for targeted therapy

Mapping individual electromagnetic field components inside a photonic crystal

We present a method to map the absolute electromagnetic field strength inside photonic crystals. We apply the method to map the electric field component Ez of a two-dimensional photonic crystal slab at microwave frequencies. The slab is placed between two mirrors to select Bloch standing waves and a subwavelength spherical scatterer is scanned inside the resulting resonator. The resonant Bloch frequencies shift depending on the electric field at the position of the scatterer. To map the electric field component Ez we measure the frequency shift in the reflection and transmission spectrum of the slab versus the scatterer position. Very good agreement is found between measurements and calculations without any adjustable parameters.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure