HIV-infected children have abnormal cerebral metabolites, measured by proton MR spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS), but how these abnormalities relate to brain function is unclear.
Metabolite concentrations in ...five brain regions of 20 HIV-infected and 13 control children were measured, and these findings were correlated with age, log(10) plasma viral load, CD4 count, and neuropsychological scores.
Compared with control subjects, HIV patients had decreased choline concentration Cho in left frontal white matter (LFW) (-12%; p = 0.04); those with high viral load (>5,000 HIV RNA copies/mL) had decreased right basal ganglia (RBG) Cho (-15%; p = 0.005), and Cr (-13%; p = 0.02). Patients with high viral load also had higher Cho in the midfrontal gray matter (MFG) (+25%; p = 0.002) and lower myo-inositol Ins in the RBG (-18%; p = 0.04) than patients with low HIV viral load. N-Acetyl aspartate concentration (NAA) correlated with age in right frontal white matter (RFW) (r = 0.59, p = 0.04), LFW (r = 0.66, p = 0.02), and right hippocampus (RHIP) (r = 0.69, p = 0.02) only in control subjects. In contrast, Ins correlated with age in both RFW and LFW (r = 0.71, p = 0.0006; r = 0.65, p = 0.006) only in the HIV patients. Log(10) plasma viral load correlated positively with Ins in RFW (r = 0.54, p = 0.02) and Cho in MFG (r = 0.49, p = 0.04). Compared with control subjects, HIV patients had poorer spatial memory (p = 0.045) and delayed spatial memory correlated with Cho in RHIP (r = 0.68, p = 0.02).
These data suggest that normal brain development may be affected in children infected with HIV at birth, particularly evidenced by the lack of age-related increases in the neuronal marker NAA. Early, aggressive treatment of infants with HIV before development of encephalopathy is warranted.
The positive performance impact of a coalignment between the environment and strategy of a business is an important theoretical proposition in strategic management. In spite of its importance and ...intuitive appeal, the extent of empirical support is equivocal and riddled with problems of conceptualizing and testing for coalignment. This paper evaluates alternate approaches to testing such a proposition and argues in favor of specifying coalignment as `profile deviation', which states that coalignment is the degree to which strategic resource deployments adhere to an `ideal profile' for a given environment. Subsequently, this proposition is tested across two time periods, and eight distinct environments in two different samples drawn from the PIMS data base. Results, which were generally robust across the two periods, strongly support the proposition of a positive performance impact of environment-strategy coalignment. Implications and research directions are developed.
Inter-organizational strategies that leverage information technology capabilities are becoming more widespread but the degree of research attention is limited. This paper integrates theoretical ...concepts from transaction cost economics, organization theory and political economy to develop a conceptual framework to understand inter-organizational relationships, particularly those that explicitly leverage information technology capabilities. Further, we develop research directions and approaches to bridge the requirements of theory building and theory testing. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Software Business Cusumano, Michael A; Iyer, Bala; Venkatraman, N
2014, 2012, 2014-07-08, Letnik:
114
eBook
This book contains the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Software Business (ICSOB) held in Cambridge, MA, USA, in June 2012. The software business refers to commercial ...activities in the software industry, aimed at generating revenues from the design, delivery, and maintenance of software products and IT services to enterprises and individual customers, as well as from digital content. Although this business shares common features with other knowledge-intensive markets, it carries many inherent features making it a challenging domain for research. The 20 full and 10 short papers accepted for ICSOB were selected from 60 submissions and are organized in sections on software product management, organizational transformation, industry transformation, software platforms and ecosystems, and emerging trends.
We've all seen the signs in front of McDonald's announcing "Over X Billion Served" and have watched the number rise over the years. But tracking how many burgers are sold every day, month, or year is ...a relic of the past. Today ask: Do we know where each consumer buys her burgers? At what time? What does she drink with it? What does she do before or after buying a burger? How can we satisfy more of her needs so that she keeps coming back? Datagraphs capture this information, helping to reshape competition in every sector. Leaders must invest in upgrading their data architecture to enable a real-time, comprehensive view of how consumers interact with their products and services so that they can develop unique ways to solve customer problems.
In the present investigation, combining ability study was undertaken by crossing four rice lines and five testers in Line x Tester fashion. The ratio of GCA and SCA was less than unity for all the ...characters which revealed the predominance of non additive gene action in the inheritance of these traits. Based on the gca effects, four parents viz., MDU 6, ADT (R) 45, IR 64 Drt and CR Dhan 203 were identified as the best combiners for yield and various yield attributing traits. Hence, there is a possibility of getting desirable segregants from the better combining hybrids viz., MDU 6 x IR 64 Drt, ADT (R) 45 x IR 64 Drt and MDU 6 x CR Dhan 203 for yield and yield attributing characters. The cross combinations viz., MDU 6 x CR Dhan 201, MDU 6 x CR Dhan 203, MDU 6 x IR 64 Drt, MDU 6 x GP 239, ADT (R) 45 x IR 64 Drt and ASD 16 x IR 64 Drt with more than 20 per cent standard heterosis for single plant yield were identified as high yielder. Among these, three hybrids MDU 6 x IR 64 Drt, ADT (R) 45 x IR 64 Drt and MDU 6 x CR Dhan 203 had high heterotic performance along with significant sca effects.
While it is widely known that the success of platforms requires consistent support from complementors, scant attention has been paid to understand the moves of complementors in dynamic settings. In ...this paper, we focus on platform evolution from the sixth to the seventh generation of videogames and studied the strategic moves of third-party developers that supported personal computer and videogame consoles during a period of architectural convergence. We theorize how platform attachment capability of third-party developers (complementors to platforms) influence developers' strategic choice. We analyze their choices through two strategic moves- porting (launching an existing game on another platform) versus augmentation (launching a new game on a platform) using data on 316 developers over a nine-year period. We find that complementors that are more embedded in single platform technologies are unable to leverage their existing knowledge in new platform settings and hence, are less likely to engage in porting moves but support existing platforms through augmentation. Complementors are also more likely to port titles to platforms that were architecturally similar to their previously supported platforms. Architectural convergence across sixth and seventh generations of videogames affords even previously embedded developers an opportunity to migrate and support disparate platforms. The results underscore the importance of framing how platform providers and complementors coevolve their actions to respond to platform evolution and architectural convergence from a dyadic and dynamic perspective.
The West African outbreak of Ebola virus disease that peaked in 2014 has caused more than 11,000 deaths. The development of an effective Ebola vaccine is a priority for control of a future outbreak.
...In this phase 1 study, we administered a single dose of the chimpanzee adenovirus 3 (ChAd3) vaccine encoding the surface glycoprotein of Zaire ebolavirus (ZEBOV) to 60 healthy adult volunteers in Oxford, United Kingdom. The vaccine was administered in three dose levels--1×10(10) viral particles, 2.5×10(10) viral particles, and 5×10(10) viral particles--with 20 participants in each group. We then assessed the effect of adding a booster dose of a modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) strain, encoding the same Ebola virus glycoprotein, in 30 of the 60 participants and evaluated a reduced prime-boost interval in another 16 participants. We also compared antibody responses to inactivated whole Ebola virus virions and neutralizing antibody activity with those observed in phase 1 studies of a recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus-based vaccine expressing a ZEBOV glycoprotein (rVSV-ZEBOV) to determine relative potency and assess durability.
No safety concerns were identified at any of the dose levels studied. Four weeks after immunization with the ChAd3 vaccine, ZEBOV-specific antibody responses were similar to those induced by rVSV-ZEBOV vaccination, with a geometric mean titer of 752 and 921, respectively. ZEBOV neutralization activity was also similar with the two vaccines (geometric mean titer, 14.9 and 22.2, respectively). Boosting with the MVA vector increased virus-specific antibodies by a factor of 12 (geometric mean titer, 9007) and increased glycoprotein-specific CD8+ T cells by a factor of 5. Significant increases in neutralizing antibodies were seen after boosting in all 30 participants (geometric mean titer, 139; P<0.001). Virus-specific antibody responses in participants primed with ChAd3 remained positive 6 months after vaccination (geometric mean titer, 758) but were significantly higher in those who had received the MVA booster (geometric mean titer, 1750; P<0.001).
The ChAd3 vaccine boosted with MVA elicited B-cell and T-cell immune responses to ZEBOV that were superior to those induced by the ChAd3 vaccine alone. (Funded by the Wellcome Trust and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02240875.).
PDF
