The Influence of Enterprise Systems on Business and Information Technology

Business strategy is important to all organizations. Nearly all Fortune 500 firms are implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to improve the execution of their business strategy and to improve integration with its information technology (IT) strategy. Successful implementation of these multi-million dollar software systems are requiring new emphasis on change management and on Business and IT strategic alignment. This paper examines business and IT strategic alignment and seeks to explore whether an ERP implementation can drive business process reengineering and business and IT strategic alignment. An overview of business strategy and strategic alignment are followed by an analysis of ERP. The ���As-Is/To-Be��� process model is then presented and explained as a simple, but vital tool for improving business strategy, strategic alignment, and ERP implementation success.

A local electrostatic change is the cause of the large-scale protein conformation shift in���bacteriorhodopsin

During light-driven proton transport bacteriorhodopsin shuttles between two protein conformations. A large-scale structural change similar to that in the photochemical cycle is produced in the D85N mutant upon raising the pH, even without illumination. We report here that (i) the pKa values for the change in crystallographic parameters and for deprotonation of the retinal Schiff base are the same, (ii) the retinal isomeric configuration is nearly unaffected by the protein conformation, and (iii) preventing rotation of the C13���C14 double bond by replacing the retinal with an all-trans locked analogue makes little difference to the Schiff base pKa. We conclude that the direct cause of the conformational shift is destabilization of the structure upon loss of interaction of the positively charged Schiff base with anionic residues that form its counter-ion.

Phosphorylation of Tyrosine 992, 1068, and 1086 Is Required for Conformational Change of the Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor C-Terminal Tail

We reported previously that a conformation-specific antibody, Ab P2, to a 16-amino acid peptide (Glu-Gly-Tyr-Lys-Lys-Lys-Tyr-Gln-Gln-Val-Asp-Glu-Glu-Phe-Leu-Arg) of the cytoplasmic domain of the ��-type platelet-derived growth factor receptor also recognizes the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor. Although the antibody is not directed to phosphotyrosine, it recognizes in immunoprecipitation the activated and hence phosphorylated form of both receptors. In P2 peptide, there are two tripeptide sequences, Asp-Glu-Glu and Tyr-Gln-Gln, that are also present in the EGF receptor. Our present studies using either EGF receptor C-terminal deletion mutants or point mutations (Tyr���Phe) and our previous studies on antibody inhibition by P2-derived peptides suggest that Gln-Gln in combination with Asp-Glu-Glu forms a high-affinity complex with Ab P2 and that such complex formation is dependent on tyrosine phosphorylation. Of the five phosphate acceptor sites in the EGF receptor, clustered in the extreme C-terminal tail, phosphorylation of three tyrosine residues (992, 1068, and 1086) located between Asp-Glu-Glu and Gln-Gln is necessary for Ab P2 binding. In contrast, the acceptor sites Tyr 1173 and 1148 play no role in the conformation change. Asp-Glu-Glu and Gln-Gln are located 169 amino acids apart, and it is highly likely that the interactions among three negatively charged phosphotyrosine residues in the receptor C terminus may result in the bending of the peptide chain in such a way that these two peptides come close to each other to form an antibody-binding site. Such a possibility is also supported by our finding that receptor dephosphorylation results in complete loss of Ab P2���binding activity. In conclusion, we have identified a domain within the cytoplasmic part of the EGF receptor whose conformation is altered by receptor phosphorylation; furthermore, we have identified the tyrosine residues that positively regulate this conformation.

Measuring the effect of the Federal government on the change in the labor market position of Black male workers relative to white male workers : 1966 to 1970 /

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A post-structural analysis of perceptions and experiences of continuity and change within the UK automotive supplier base

Firms acting as suppliers to the British automotive industry have a long history of so doing, with some evidencing histories that predate even the invention of the motor car. In exploring the challenges faced by the descendants of these firms in the 1990s, a review is undertaken of the bodies of literature surrounding the changes wrought through the increased globalisation of the industry; the impact of new manufacturing technologies and techniques; the rising levels of co-operation between firms; and the growing impact of the automotive 'service sector'. Moreover, an exploration is undertaken of the perceived 'realities' of the automotive industry as constructed through discourse, including the ways in which discourse effects a continual reinterpretation and re-evaluation of the historical evolution of the industry. Attention is focused on the implications of the above for the automotive supply chain, and the means for its rationalisation proposed by the major car manufacturers and their partner-suppliers. Post-structuralist approaches are introduced as part of an attempt to establish and appropriate research methodology that can explore and deconstruct the discourses surrounding 'modernity', 'supply chain rationalisation', 'flexible specialisation' and 'globalisation' within the automotive industry. Analytical research is conducted into the small- to medium-sized business that constitute the majority of the supplier base in the United Kingdom, and the findings of this research are compared with those of a similar study conducted a quarter-century ago. In this way, the relationships of these firms with their customers, suppliers, and peers are investigated, as are their perceptions of a changing marketplace and their reactions to the impact of policies such as the 'supply chain rationalisation' pursued by the major automotive manufacturers. Authoritative discourses of industry form, function, and structure are challenged, with voice being granted to the marginalised: small suppliers, 'service sector' firms, or those only partly involved in the automotive industry.

Strategies for agricultural change and the UK balance of payments

The world food crisis, Britain's reliance on imported food and feedstuffs and balance of payments difficulties were some of the factors which lent weight to the call for increased self-sufficiency in Britain's agriculture in the 1970s. This project considers two main areas: an investigation of the impact of radical agricultural change, designed to increase self-sufficiency, on the balance of payments; and, an appraisal of the potential role of the food industry within a radically different food system. The study proceeded by: an examination of the principles of agricultural policy and its development in Britain; an overview of the mechanism and meaning of the balance of payments; a consideration of the debate on agricultural import saving; the construction of radical agricultural strategies; the estimation of effects of the strategies, particularly to the balance of. payments; the role of the food industry and possible innovations within the strategies; a case study of textured vegetable proteins; and, the wider implications of implementation of radical agricultural alternatives. Two strategies were considered: a vegan system, involving no livestock; and, an intermediate system, including some livestock and dairy cattle. The study concludes that although agricultural change could in principle make a contribution to the balance of payments, implementation of agricultural change cannot be justified for this purpose alone. First, balance of payments problems can be solved by more appropriate methods. Second, the UK' s balance of payments problem has disappeared for the time being owing to North Sea oil and economic recession. Third, the political and social consequences of the changes investigated would be unacceptable. Progress in UK food policy is likely to be in the form of an integrated food and health policy.

The impact of information technology on organizations: A study of enterprise resource planning system influences on job design and organizational culture

The primary purpose of this research is to study the linkage between perceived job design characteristics and information system environment characteristics before and after the replacement of a legacy information system with a new type of information system (referred to as an Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP system). A public state University implementing an academic version of an ERP system was selected for the study. Three survey instruments were used to examine the perception of the information system, the job characteristics, and the organizational culture before and after the system implementation. The research participants included two large departments resulting in a sample of 130 workers. Research questions were analyzed using multivariate procedures including factor analysis, path analysis, step-wise regression, and matched pair analysis. ^ Results indicated that the ERP system has introduced new elements into the working environment that has changed the perception of how the job design characteristics and organization culture dimensions are viewed by the workers. The understanding of how the perceived system characteristics align with an individual's perceived job design characteristics is supported by each of the system characteristics significantly correlated in the proposed direction. The stronger support of this relationship becomes visible in the causal flow of the effects seen in the path diagram and in the step-wise regression. The perceived job design characteristics aligning with dimensions of organizational culture are not as strong as the literature suggests. Although there are significant correlations between the job and culture variables, only one relationship can be seen in the causal flow. ^ This research has demonstrated that system characteristics of ERP do contribute to the perception of change in an organization and do support organizational culture behaviors and job characteristics. ^

Large change in the predicted number of small halos due to a small amplitude oscillating inflaton potential

A smooth inflaton potential is generally assumed when calculating the primordial power spectrum, implicitly assuming that a very small oscillation in the inflaton potential creates a negligible change in the predicted halo mass function. We show that this is not true. We find that a small oscillating perturbation in the inflaton potential in the slow-roll regime can alter significantly the predicted number of small halos. A class of models derived from supergravity theories gives rise to inflaton potentials with a large number of steps and many trans-Planckian effects may generate oscillations in the primordial power spectrum. The potentials we study are the simple quadratic (chaotic inflation) potential with superimposed small oscillations for small field values. Without leaving the slow-roll regime, we find that for a wide choice of parameters, the predicted number of halos change appreciably. For the oscillations beginning in the 10(7)-10(8) M(circle dot) range, for example, we find that only a 5% change in the amplitude of the chaotic potential causes a 50% suppression of the number of halos for masses between 10(7)-10(8) M(circle dot) and an increase in the number of halos for masses <10(6) M(circle dot) by factors similar to 15-50. We suggest that this might be a solution to the problem of the lack of observed dwarf galaxies in the range 10(7)-10(8) M(circle dot). This might also be a solution to the reionization problem where a very large number of Population III stars in low mass halos are required.

Implications of long-term land-use change for the hydrology and solute budgets of small catchments in Amazonia

The replacement of undisturbed tropical forest with cattle pasture has the potential to greatly modify the hydrology of small watersheds and the fluxes of solutes. We examined the fluxes of water, Cl(-), NO(3)(-)-N: SO(4)(2--)-S, NH(4)(+)-N, Na(+), K(+), Mg(2+) and Ca(2+) in different flow paths in similar to 1 ha catchments of undisturbed open tropical rainforest and a 20 year-old pasture established from forest in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon state of Rondonia. Storm flow discharge was 18% of incident rainfall in pasture, but only 1% in forest. Quickflow predominated over baseflow in both catchments and in both wet and dry seasons. In the pasture, groundwater and quickflow were important flow paths for the export of all solutes. In the forest, quickflow was important for NO(3)(-)-N export, but all other solutes were exported primarily by groundwater outflow. Both catchments were sinks for SO(4)(2-)-S and Ca(2+), and sources of Na(+). The pasture catchment also lost K(+) and Mg(2+) because of higher overland flow frequency and volume and to cattle excrement. These results show that forest clearing dramatically influences small watershed hydrology by increasing quickflow and water export to streams. They also indicate that tropical forest watersheds are highly conservative for most solutes but that pastures continue to lose important cations even decades after deforestation and pasture establishment. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Change in the rate of shell deposition and shell microstructure in response to shell borers in the abalone Haliotis rubra

Gastropod shells consist of two crystal types of calcium carbonate, an outer, prismatic calcite layer and an inner nacreous layer made of aragonite. In cross-section, the nacre of the nacreous layer appears to have a regular brick-like microstructure composed of thin laminae of aragonite crystals, separated by very thin sheets of protein (Lutz and Rhoads, 1980; Nakahara, 1983). In abalone (Genus, Haliotis) and other gastropods, thin layers of non-lamellar pigmented material occur within the nacre and have been termed alternatively, fine lines, growth rings or growth lines (Shepherd et al., 1995). It has been suggested that these pigmented layers are small, prismatic, calcite layers (Shepherd and Avalos-Borja, 1997; Zaremba et al., 1996) but investigations using a Raman laser in Haliotis rubra show that they contain aragonite rather than calcite (Hawkes et al, 1996). Day and Fleming (1992) suggest that the occurrence of pigmented layers is correlated with regular exogenous cues such as reproduction or temperature changes and indeed in some species, pigmented layers in the shell can be used to age abalone (review: Shepherd and Triantafillos, 1997). However, McShane and Smith (1992) suggest that pigmented layers can occur irregularly and therefore may be unreliable indicators of age.

Spatial and temporal variation in distribution of mangroves in Moreton Bay, subtropical Australia: a comparison of pattern metrics and change detection analyses based on aerial photographs

An assessment of the changes in the distribution and extent of mangroves within Moreton Bay, southeast Queensland, Australia, was carried out. Two assessment methods were evaluated: spatial and temporal pattern metrics analysis, and change detection analysis. Currently, about 15,000 ha of mangroves are present in Moreton Bay. These mangroves are important ecosystems, but are subject to disturbance from a number of sources. Over the past 25 years, there has been a loss of more than 3800 ha, as a result of natural losses and mangrove clearing (e.g. for urban and industrial development, agriculture and aquaculture). However, areas of new mangroves have become established over the same time period, offsetting these losses to create a net loss of about 200 ha. These new mangroves have mainly appeared in the southern bay region and the bay islands, particularly on the landward edge of existing mangroves. In addition, spatial patterns and species composition of mangrove patches have changed. The pattern metrics analysis provided an overview of mangrove distribution and change in the form of single metric values, while the change detection analysis gave a more detailed and spatially explicit description of change. An analysis of the effects of spatial scales on the pattern metrics indicated that they were relatively insensitive to scale at spatial resolutions less than 50 m, but that most metrics became sensitive at coarser resolutions, a finding which has implications for mapping of mangroves based on remotely sensed data. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

History of vegetation and habitat change in the Austral-Asian region

Over 1000 marine and terrestrial pollen diagrams and Some hundreds of vertebrate faunal sequences have been studied in the Austral-Asian region bisected by the PEPII transect, from the Russian arctic extending south through east Asia, Indochina, southern Asia, insular Southeast Asia (Sunda), Melanesia, Australasia (Sahul) and the western south Pacific. The majority of these records are Holocene but sufficient data exist to allow the reconstruction of the changing biomes over at least the past 200,000 years. The PEPII transect is free of the effects of large northern ice caps yet exhibits vegetational change in glacial cycles of a similar scale to North America. Major processes that can be discerned are the response of tropical forests in both lowlands and uplands to glacial cycles, the expansion of humid vegetation at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and the change in faunal and vegetational controls as humans occupy the region. There is evidence for major changes in the intensity of monsoon and El Nino-Southern oscillation variability both on glacial-interglacial and longer time scales with much of the region experiencing a long-term trend towards more variable and/or drier climatic conditions. Temperature variation is most marked in high latitudes and high altitudes with precipitation providing the major climate control in lower latitude, lowland areas. At least some boundary shifts may be the response of vegetation to changing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Numerous questions of detail remain, however, and current resolution is too coarse to examine the degree of synchroneity of millennial scale change along the transect. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.

Parametric change in the grammatical encoding of indirect objects in Brazilian Portuguese

This paper examines the syntax of indirect objects (IO) in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Adopting a comparative perspective we propose that BP differs from European Portuguese (EP) in the grammatical encoding of IO. In EP ditransitive contexts, IO is found in two configurations - one projected by a (low) applicative head and another one involving a lexical/true preposition. We propose that the former property is contingent upon the presence of dative Case marking: namely, the morpheme `a` that introduces IO (a-DP), whose corresponding clitic pronoun is `lhe/lhes`. In contrast, important changes in the pronominal system, coupled with the increase in the use of the preposition `para` are taken as evidence for the loss of the low applicative construction in BP. Thus only the configuration with the lexical/true preposition is found in (Standard) BP. We argue that the innovative properties of IO in BP are due to the loss of the (3rd person) dative clitic and the preposition `a` as dative Case markers. Under this view, we further account for the realization of IO as a DP/weak pronoun, found in dialects of the central region of Brazil, which points to a similarity with the English Double Object Construction. Finally we show that the connection between the morphological expression of the dative Case and the expression of parameters supports a view of syntactic change according to which parametric variation is determined in the lexicon, in terms of the formal features of functional heads.