The Brain in Business: The Case for Organisational Cognitive Neuroscience?

The application of cognitive neuroscientific techniques to understanding social behaviour has resulted in many discoveries. Yet advocates of the ‘social cognitive neuroscience’ approach maintain that it suffers from a number of limitations. The most notable of these is its distance from any form of real-world applicability. One solution to this limitation is ‘Organisational Cognitive Neuroscience’ – the study of the cognitive neuroscience of human behaviour in, and in response to, organizations. Given that all of us will spend most of our lives in some sort of work related organisation, organisational cognitive neuroscience allows us to examine the cognitive underpinnings of social behaviour that occurs in what may be our most natural ecology. Here we provide a brief overview of this approach, a definition and also some possible questions that the new approach would be best suited to address

Global consensus Monte Carlo

To conduct Bayesian inference with large data sets, it is often convenient or necessary to distribute the data across multiple machines. We consider a likelihood function expressed as a product of terms, each associated with a subset of the data. Inspired by global variable consensus optimisation, we introduce an instrumental hierarchical model associating auxiliary statistical parameters with each term, which are conditionally independent given the top-level parameters. One of these top-level parameters controls the unconditional strength of association between the auxiliary parameters. This model leads to a distributed MCMC algorithm on an extended state space yielding approximations of posterior expectations. A trade-off between computational tractability and fidelity to the original model can be controlled by changing the association strength in the instrumental model. We further propose the use of a SMC sampler with a sequence of association strengths, allowing both the automatic determination of appropriate strengths and for a bias correction technique to be applied. In contrast to similar distributed Monte Carlo algorithms, this approach requires few distributional assumptions. The performance of the algorithms is illustrated with a number of simulated examples

Doing business research:a guide to theory and practice

For anyone involved in developing a research project, this textbook provides an integrated, accessible and humorous account that explains why research methods are the way they are and how they do what they do. Unrivalled in its nature Doing Business Research addresses the research project as a whole and provides: - essential detail of philosophical and theoretical matters that are crucial to conceptualising the nature of methodology - a pragmatic guide to why things are important and how they are important - a huge range of things to consider that the reader can use to develop their research project further - a resource book, providing extensive suggested reading to help the researcher do their research

Identification of a rhythmic firing pattern in the enteric nervous system that generates rhythmic electrical activity in smooth muscle

The enteric nervous system (ENS) contains millions of neurons essential for organization of motor behavior of the intestine. It is well established that the large intestine requires ENS activity to drive propulsive motor behaviors. However, the firing pattern of the ENS underlying propagating neurogenic contractions of the large intestine remains unknown. To identify this, we used high-resolution neuronal imaging with electrophysiology from neighboring smooth muscle. Myoelectric activity underlying propagating neurogenic contractions along murine large intestine [also referred to as colonic migrating motor complexes, (CMMCs)] consisted of prolonged bursts of rhythmic depolarizations at a frequency of ∼2 Hz. Temporal coordination of this activity in the smooth muscle over large spatial fields (∼7 mm, longitudinally) was dependent on the ENS. During quiescent periods between neurogenic contractions, recordings from large populations of enteric neurons, in mice of either sex, revealed ongoing activity. The onset of neurogenic contractions was characterized by the emergence of temporally synchronized activity across large populations of excitatory and inhibitory neurons. This neuronal firing pattern was rhythmic and temporally synchronized across large numbers of ganglia at ∼2 Hz. ENS activation preceded smooth muscle depolarization, indicating rhythmic depolarizations in smooth muscle were controlled by firing of enteric neurons. The cyclical emergence of temporally coordinated firing of large populations of enteric neurons represents a unique neural motor pattern outside the CNS. This is the first direct observation of rhythmic firing in the ENS underlying rhythmic electrical depolarizations in smooth muscle. The pattern of neuronal activity we identified underlies the generation of CMMCs

Global consensus Monte Carlo

To conduct Bayesian inference with large data sets, it is often convenient or necessary to distribute the data across multiple machines. We consider a likelihood function expressed as a product of terms, each associated with a subset of the data. Inspired by global variable consensus optimisation, we introduce an instrumental hierarchical model associating auxiliary statistical parameters with each term, which are conditionally independent given the top-level parameters. One of these top-level parameters controls the unconditional strength of association between the auxiliary parameters. This model leads to a distributed MCMC algorithm on an extended state space yielding approximations of posterior expectations. A trade-off between computational tractability and fidelity to the original model can be controlled by changing the association strength in the instrumental model. We further propose the use of a SMC sampler with a sequence of association strengths, allowing both the automatic determination of appropriate strengths and for a bias correction technique to be applied. In contrast to similar distributed Monte Carlo algorithms, this approach requires few distributional assumptions. The performance of the algorithms is illustrated with a number of simulated examples

The quality of sales manager:salesperson exchanges perspective under problem resolution conditions

Building on social exchange theory and qualitative inquiry, managerial responsiveness, caring, and aggressiveness were uncovered as three key social exchange dimensions used by sales managers when dealing with problem situations in the salesforce. We used Australian data to develop measures of these three constructs. Results of the development process indicate that the measures show good validity. Further to this, we also provide examination of the relationship of the three exchange dimensions with key organizational outcomes. Overall the findings suggest that the three constructs are important in sales manager problem resolution exchanges, and that they may ultimately influence the success of sales organizations

Two cases of possible transmitted drug-resistant HIV : likely HIV superinfection and unmasking of pre-existing resistance

In the UK, patients undergo HIV viral load and genotype testing before they are prescribed antiretroviral therapy. The genotype test guides clinicians in prescribing antiretroviral therapy with maximum efficacy against the patient’s specific viral strain. HIV viral load escape under antiretroviral drug therapy, to which the virus was thought to be genotypically susceptible, is commonly observed in patients with poor adherence. We observed early viral escapes in two-newly diagnosed patients, during antiretroviral treatment, with different sequences compared to their original viral resistance test and who reported excellent adherence to and tolerance of their therapy. HIV superinfection with a new viral strain was identified in a patient with multiple risk factors and co-infections with sexually transmitted infections. The second patient was a case of the emergence of primary resistant virus under drug pressure. Both suppressed their virus promptly after treatment switch