Continuity and Change in New Products

This doctoral dissertation is triggered by an emergent problem: how can firms reinvent themselves? Continuity- and change-oriented decisions fundamentally shape overtime the activities and potential revenues of organizations and other adaptive systems, but both types of actions draw upon limited resources and rely on different organizational routines and capabilities. Most organizations appear to have difficulties in making tradeoffs, so that it is easier to overinvest in one of them than to successfully achieve a mixture of both. Nevertheless, theory and empirical evidence suggest that too little of either may reduce performance, indicating a need to learn more about how organizations reconcile these tensions. In the first paper, I moved from the consideration that rapid changes in competitive environments increasingly require firms to be “ambidextrous” implementing organizational mechanisms and structures that allow continuity- and change-oriented activities to be engaged at the same time. More specifically, I show that continuity- and change-related decisions can’t be confined either inside or outside the firm, but span overtime across distinct decision domains located within and beyond the organizational boundaries. Reconciling static and dynamic perspectives of ambidexterity, I conceptualize a firm’s strategy as a bundle of decisions about product attributes and components of the production team, proposing a multidimensional and dynamic model of structural ambidexterity that explains why and how firms could manage conflicting pressures for continuity and change in the context of new products. In the second study I note how rigorous systematic evidence documenting the success of ambidextrous organizations is lacking, and there has been very little investigation of how firms deal with continuity and change in new products. How to manage the transition form a successful product to another? What to change and what to keep? Incumbents that deal with series of products over time need to update their offerings in order to have the most relevant attributes to prospect clients without disappoint the current customer base. They need to both match and anticipate consumers’ preferences, blending something old with something new to satisfy the current demand and enlarge the herd by appealing to newer audiences. This paper contributes to strategic renewal and ambidexterity-related research with the first empirically assessment of a positive consumer response to ambidexterity in new products. Also, this study provides a practical method to monitor overtime the degree to which a brand or a firm is continuity- or change- oriented and evaluate different strategy profiles across two decision domains that play a pivotal role in new products: product attributes and components of the production team.

A prediction of bone remodeling thanks to a mechanical signal on cells - Predizione del rimodellamento osseo a partire da un segnale meccanico sulle cellule

This text wants to explore the process of bone remodeling. The idea supported is that the signal, the cells acquire and which suggest them to change in their architectural conformation, is the potential difference on the free boundaries surfaces of collagen fibers. These ones represent the bone in the nanoscale. This work has as subject a multiscale model. Lots of studies have been made to try to discover the relationship between a macroscopic external bone load and the cellular scale. The tree first simulations have been a longitudinal, a flexion and a transversal compression force on a full longitudinal fiber 0-0 sample. The results showed first the great difference between a fully longitudinal stress and a flexion stress. Secondly a decrease in the potential difference has been observed in the transversal force configuration, suggesting that such a signal could be taken as the one, who leads the bone remodeling. To also exclude that the obtained results was not to attribute to a piezoelectric collagen effect and not to a mechanical load, different coupling analyses have been developed. Such analyses show this effect is really less important than the one the mechanical load is responsible of. At this point the work had to explore how bone remodeling could develop. The analyses involved different geometry and fibers percentage. Moreover at the beginning the model was to manually implement. The author, after an initial improvement of it, provided to implement a standalone version thanks to integration between Comsol Multiphysic, Matlab and Excel.

Survival of the fittest: Herausforderungen an den Fremdenverkehr im Zeichen des global change

Der Globale Wandel ist im Begriff, den Tourismus zu verändern. Die Wechselwirkung von Tourismus und Klimawandel sind beidseitiger Art. Die vorliegende Arbeit zeigt Möglichkeiten der Adaption und einen wandelbaren Fremdenverkehr. Eine Übersicht der gängigen Tourismusmodelle stellt den Stand der Forschung dar. Der Fremdenverkehr ist durch drei Faktoren massiv geprägt: Die Nachfrage und Motivation, die Reisemittler und Veranstalter sowie das Destinationsangebot. Bei der Motivation wirken Motiv und Anreiz Motivationspsychologisch betrachtet auf die Reiseentscheidung deren Grundlage verarbeitete Informationen sind. Reisemittler und Veranstalter haben einen großen Einfluss auf Entscheidungsprozesse. Neue IuK Technologien haben deren Arbeit grundlegend verändert. Das Tourismusangebot wird stark durch die naturräumlichen Gegebenheiten sowie das politische System bestimmt. Überlebenswichtig für die Destination ist die evolutionstheoretisch etrachtete Fitnessmaximierung also Adaption und Wandel, um sich an geänderte Rahmenbedingungen anpassen zu können. Gerade im Bereich des Klimawandels müssen Maßnahmen ergriffen werden. Aber auch die Marktsättigung gerade in Verbindung mit der aktuellen Finanzkrise wirkt besonders schwer auf die Destination. Eine hohes Innovationsvermögen, Trendscanning und der Zusammenschluss in flexiblen Netzwerkclustern können einen Kundenmehrwert erzeugen. Die Fitnessmaximierung ist somit Überlebensziel der Destination und führt zur Kundenzufriedenheit die im Sättigungsmarkt alleinig Wachstum generieren kann.

A farm-level programming model to compare the atmospheric impact of conventional and organic farming

A model is developed to represent the activity of a farm using the method of linear programming. Two are the main components of the model, the balance of soil fertility and the livestock nutrition. According to the first, the farm is supposed to have a total requirement of nitrogen, which is to be accomplished either through internal sources (manure) or through external sources (fertilisers). The second component describes the animal husbandry as having a nutritional requirement which must be satisfied through the internal production of arable crops or the acquisition of feed from the market. The farmer is supposed to maximise total net income from the agricultural and the zoo-technical activities by choosing one rotation among those available for climate and acclivity. The perspective of the analysis is one of a short period: the structure of the farm is supposed to be fixed without possibility to change the allocation of permanent crops and the amount of animal husbandry. The model is integrated with an environmental module that describes the role of the farm within the carbon-nitrogen cycle. On the one hand the farm allows storing carbon through the photosynthesis of the plants and the accumulation of carbon in the soil; on the other some activities of the farm emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The model is tested for some representative farms of the Emilia-Romagna region, showing to be capable to give different results for conventional and organic farming and providing first results concerning the different atmospheric impact. Relevant data about the representative farms and the feasible rotations are extracted from the FADN database, with an integration of the coefficients from the literature.

Consensus Report: 2nd European Workshop on Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation for Oral Health Professionals

Tobacco use has been identified as a major risk factor for oral disorders such as cancer and periodontal disease. Tobacco use cessation (TUC) is associated with the potential for reversal of precancer, enhanced outcomes following periodontal treatment, and better periodontal status compared to patients who continue to smoke. Consequently, helping tobacco users to quit has become a part of both the responsibility of oral health professionals and the general practice of dentistry. TUC should consist of behavioural support, and if accompanied by pharmacotherapy, is more likely to be successful. It is widely accepted that appropriate compensation of TUC counselling would give oral health professionals greater incentives to provide these measures. Therefore, TUC-related compensation should be made accessible to all dental professionals and be in appropriate relation to other therapeutic interventions. International and national associations for oral health professionals are urged to act as advocates to promote population, community and individual initiatives in support of tobacco use prevention and cessation (TUPAC) counselling, including integration in undergraduate and graduate dental curricula. In order to facilitate the adoption of TUPAC strategies by oral health professionals, we propose a level of care model which includes 1) basic care: brief interventions for all patients in the dental practice to identify tobacco users, assess readiness to quit, and request permission to re-address at a subsequent visit, 2) intermediate care: interventions consisting of (brief) motivational interviewing sessions to build on readiness to quit, enlist resources to support change, and to include cessation medications, and 3) advanced care: intensive interventions to develop a detailed quit plan including the use of suitable pharmacotherapy. To ensure that the delivery of effective TUC becomes part of standard care, continuing education courses and updates should be implemented and offered to all oral health professionals on a regular basis.

Disclosing Sexual Assault Victimization to Others

Previous research has demonstrated that victims of sexual assault disclose their assaults most frequently to members of their intimate social circle. Unfortunately, some friends and family members give support in ways that are perceived as unhelpful by victims. The present study found that victims' reports and non-victims' expectations of positive support after disclosure differed significantly. These results indicate that significant efforts are needed to change the campus culture by increasing support for sexual assault victims.

Adverse events to antiretrovirals in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study: effect on mortality and treatment modification

BACKGROUND: Antiretroviral therapy (ART) decreases morbidity and mortality in HIV-infected patients but is associated with considerable adverse events (AEs). METHODS: We examined the effect of AEs to ART on mortality, treatment modifications and drop-out in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study. A cross-sectional evaluation of prevalence of 13 clinical and 11 laboratory parameters was performed in 1999 in 1,078 patients on ART. AEs were defined as abnormalities probably or certainly related to ART. A score including the number and severity of AEs was defined. The subsequent progression to death, drop-out and treatment modification due to intolerance were evaluated according to the baseline AE score and characteristics of individual AEs. RESULTS: Of the 1,078 patients, laboratory AEs were reported in 23% and clinical AEs in 45%. During a median follow up of 5.9 years, laboratory AEs were associated with higher mortality with an adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of 1.3 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.2-1.5; P < 0.001) per score point. For clinical AEs no significant association with increased mortality was found. In contrast, an increasing score for clinical AEs (HR 1.11,95% CI 1.04-1.18; P = 0.002), but not for laboratory AEs (HR 1.07, 95% CI 0.97-1.17; P = 0.17), was associated with antiretroviral treatment modification. AEs were not associated with a higher drop-out rate. CONCLUSIONS: The burden of laboratory AEs to antiretroviral drugs is associated with a higher mortality. Physicians seem to change treatments to relieve clinical symptoms, while accepting laboratory AEs. Minimizing laboratory drug toxicity seems warranted and its influence on survival should be further evaluated.

Effects of various forms of calcium added to chewing gum on initial enamel carious lesions in situ

The purpose of this randomized, cross-over in situ study was to determine the effects of 4 chewing gums on artificial caries-like subsurface lesions. Two chewing gums (1 with zinc citrate and 1 without) contained dicalcium phosphate (3.9%), calcium gluconate (1.8%) and calcium lactate (0.45%), 1 chewing gum contained casein phosphopeptide-amorphous calcium phosphate nanocomplexes (0.7%), and another one contained no calcium. Fifteen subjects without current caries activity (7 male, 8 female; mean age: 27.5 +/- 2.5 years) wore removable buccal appliances in the lower jaw with 4 bovine enamel slabs with subsurface lesions. The appliances were inserted immediately before gum chewing for 20 min and then retained for an additional 20 min. This was performed 4 times per day. Every subject chewed 4 different chewing gums over 4 periods of 14 days each. During a fifth period (control) the subjects only wore the appliances without chewing gum. At completion of each period the enamel slabs were embedded, sectioned and subjected to transversal microradiography. With regard to change of mineral loss and of lesion depth no significant differences could be found between chewing gums containing calcium and calcium-free chewing gums. Moreover, the chewing gum groups and the control group did not differ significantly if adjustments were made for baseline values (p > 0.05; ANCOVA). Under the conditions of the present study it may be concluded that the use of chewing gum offers no additional remineralizing benefit to buccal tooth surfaces, even if the chewing gum contains calcium compounds.

Dosimetric impact of geometric errors due to respiratory motion prediction on dynamic multileaf collimator-based four-dimensional radiation delivery

The synchronization of dynamic multileaf collimator (DMLC) response with respiratory motion is critical to ensure the accuracy of DMLC-based four dimensional (4D) radiation delivery. In practice, however, a finite time delay (response time) between the acquisition of tumor position and multileaf collimator response necessitates predictive models of respiratory tumor motion to synchronize radiation delivery. Predicting a complex process such as respiratory motion introduces geometric errors, which have been reported in several publications. However, the dosimetric effect of such errors on 4D radiation delivery has not yet been investigated. Thus, our aim in this work was to quantify the dosimetric effects of geometric error due to prediction under several different conditions. Conformal and intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) plans for a lung patient were generated for anterior-posterior/posterior-anterior (AP/PA) beam arrangements at 6 and 18 MV energies to provide planned dose distributions. Respiratory motion data was obtained from 60 diaphragm-motion fluoroscopy recordings from five patients. A linear adaptive filter was employed to predict the tumor position. The geometric error of prediction was defined as the absolute difference between predicted and actual positions at each diaphragm position. Distributions of geometric error of prediction were obtained for all of the respiratory motion data. Planned dose distributions were then convolved with distributions for the geometric error of prediction to obtain convolved dose distributions. The dosimetric effect of such geometric errors was determined as a function of several variables: response time (0-0.6 s), beam energy (6/18 MV), treatment delivery (3D/4D), treatment type (conformal/IMRT), beam direction (AP/PA), and breathing training type (free breathing/audio instruction/visual feedback). Dose difference and distance-to-agreement analysis was employed to quantify results. Based on our data, the dosimetric impact of prediction (a) increased with response time, (b) was larger for 3D radiation therapy as compared with 4D radiation therapy, (c) was relatively insensitive to change in beam energy and beam direction, (d) was greater for IMRT distributions as compared with conformal distributions, (e) was smaller than the dosimetric impact of latency, and (f) was greatest for respiration motion with audio instructions, followed by visual feedback and free breathing. Geometric errors of prediction that occur during 4D radiation delivery introduce dosimetric errors that are dependent on several factors, such as response time, treatment-delivery type, and beam energy. Even for relatively small response times of 0.6 s into the future, dosimetric errors due to prediction could approach delivery errors when respiratory motion is not accounted for at all. To reduce the dosimetric impact, better predictive models and/or shorter response times are required.

THE USE OF LIFE-CYCLE ANALYSIS TO REDUCE THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF MATERIALS IN MANUFACTURING

This thesis is composed of three life-cycle analysis (LCA) studies of manufacturing to determine cumulative energy demand (CED) and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The methods proposed could reduce the environmental impact by reducing the CED in three manufacturing processes. First, industrial symbiosis is proposed and a LCA is performed on both conventional 1 GW-scaled hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H)-based single junction and a-Si:H/microcrystalline-Si:H tandem cell solar PV manufacturing plants and such plants coupled to silane recycling plants. Using a recycling process that results in a silane loss of only 17 versus 85 percent, this results in a CED savings of 81,700 GJ and 290,000 GJ per year for single and tandem junction plants, respectively. This recycling process reduces the cost of raw silane by 68 percent, or approximately $22.6 and $79 million per year for a single and tandem 1 GW PV production facility, respectively. The results show environmental benefits of silane recycling centered around a-Si:H-based PV manufacturing plants. Second, an open-source self-replicating rapid prototype or 3-D printer, the RepRap, has the potential to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing of polymer-based products, using distributed manufacturing paradigm, which is further minimized by the use of PV and improvements in PV manufacturing. Using 3-D printers for manufacturing provides the ability to ultra-customize products and to change fill composition, which increases material efficiency. An LCA was performed on three polymer-based products to determine the CED and GHG from conventional large-scale production and are compared to experimental measurements on a RepRap producing identical products with ABS and PLA. The results of this LCA study indicate that the CED of manufacturing polymer products can possibly be reduced using distributed manufacturing with existing 3-D printers under 89% fill and reduced even further with a solar photovoltaic system. The results indicate that the ability of RepRaps to vary fill has the potential to diminish environmental impact on many products. Third, one additional way to improve the environmental performance of this distributed manufacturing system is to create the polymer filament feedstock for 3-D printers using post-consumer plastic bottles. An LCA was performed on the recycling of high density polyethylene (HDPE) using the RecycleBot. The results of the LCA showed that distributed recycling has a lower CED than the best-case scenario used for centralized recycling. If this process is applied to the HDPE currently recycled in the U.S., more than 100 million MJ of energy could be conserved per annum along with significant reductions in GHG. This presents a novel path to a future of distributed manufacturing suited for both the developed and developing world with reduced environmental impact. From improving manufacturing in the photovoltaic industry with the use of recycling to recycling and manufacturing plastic products within our own homes, each step reduces the impact on the environment. The three coupled projects presented here show a clear potential to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing and other processes by implementing complimenting systems, which have environmental benefits of their own in order to achieve a compounding effect of reduced CED and GHG.

IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON SOIL MICROORGANISMS IN NORTHERN HARDWOOD FORESTS

As global climate continues to change, it becomes more important to understand possible feedbacks from soils to the climate system. This dissertation focuses on soil microbial community responses to climate change factors in northern hardwood forests. Two soil warming experiments at Harvard Forest in Massachusetts, and a climate change manipulation experiment with both elevated temperature and increased moisture inputs in Michigan were sampled. The hyphal in-growth bag method was to understand how soil fungal biomass and respiration respond to climate change factors. Our results from phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analyses suggest that the hyphal in-growth bag method allows relatively pure samples of fungal hyphae to be partitioned from bacteria in the soil. The contribution of fungal hyphal respiration to soil respiration was examined in climate change manipulation experiments in Massachusetts and Michigan. The Harvard Forest soil warming experiments in Massachusetts are long-term studies with 8 and 18 years of +5 °C warming treatment. Hyphal respiration and biomass production tended to decrease with soil warming at Harvard Forest. This suggests that fungal hyphae adjust to higher temperatures by decreasing the amount of carbon respired and the amount of carbon stored in biomass. The Ford Forestry Center experiment in Michigan has a 2 x 2 fully factorial design with warming (+4-5 °C) and moisture addition (+30% average ambient growing season precipitation). This experiment was used to examine hyphal growth and respiration of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), soil enzymatic capacity, microbial biomass and microbial community structure in the soil over two years of experimental treatment. Results from the hyphal in-growth bag study indicate that AMF hyphal growth and respiration respond negatively to drought. Soil enzyme activities tend to be higher in heated versus unheated soils. There were significant temporal variations in enzyme activity and microbial biomass estimates. When microbial biomass was estimated using chloroform fumigation extractions there were no differences between experimental treatments and the control. When PLFA analyses were used to estimate microbial biomass we found that biomass responds negatively to higher temperatures and positively to moisture addition. This pattern was present for both bacteria and fungi. More information on the quality and composition of the organic matter and nutrients in soils from climate change manipulation experiments will allow us to gain a more thorough understanding of the mechanisms driving the patterns reported here. The information presented here will improve current soil carbon and nitrogen cycling models.

Razor Thin Win: The 1972 Constitution Ballot, Campaign, Ratification & the Courts -- Mae Nan (Robinson) Ellingson & Mick McKeon “In the Crucible of Change”

Beyond the challenge of crafting a new state Constitution that empowered the people and modernized and opened up state and local government in Montana, the Constitutional Convention delegates, as they signed the final document, looked forward to the arduous task of getting it ratified by the electorate in a short ten week period between the end of the convention on March 24 and the ratification election of June 6, 1972. While all 100 delegates signed the draft Constitution, not all supported its adoption. But the planning about how to get it adopted went back to the actions of the Convention itself, which carefully crafted a ballot that kept “hot political issues” from potentially killing the entire document at the polls. As a result, three side issues were presented to the electorate on the ballot. People could vote for or against those side issues and still vote to ratify the entire document. Thus, the questions of legalizing gambling, having a unicameral legislature and retaining the death penalty were placed separately on the ballot (gambling passed, as did the retention of the death penalty, but the concept of a one-house legislature was defeated). Once the ballot structure was set, delegates who supported the new Constitution organized a grassroots, locally focused effort to secure ratification – thought hampered by a MT Supreme Court decision on April 28 that they could not expend $45,000 in public monies that they had set aside for voter education. They cobbled together about $10,000 of private money and did battle with the established political forces, led by the MT Farm Bureau, MT Stockgrowers’ Assn. and MT Contractors Assn., on the question of passage. Narrow passage of the main document led to an issue over certification and a Montana Supreme Court case challenging the ratification vote. After a 3-2 State Supreme Court victory, supporters of the Constitution then had to defend the election results again before the federal courts, also a successful effort. Montana finally had a new progressive State Constitution that empowered the people, but the path to it was not clear and simple and the win was razor thin. The story of that razor thin win is discussed in this chapter by the two youngest delegates to the 1972 Constitutional Convention, Mae Nan Ellingson of Missoula and Mick McKeon, then of Anaconda. Both recognized “Super Lawyers in their later professional practices were also significant players in the Constitutional Convention itself and actively participated in its campaign for ratification. As such, their recollections of the effort provide an insider’s perspective of the struggle to change Montana for the better through the creation and adoption of a new progressive state Constitution “In the Crucible of Change.” Mae Nan (Robinson) Ellingson was born Mae Nan Windham in Mineral Wells, TX and graduated from Mineral Wells High School in 1965 and Weatherford College in Weatherford, TX in 1967. Mae Nan was the youngest delegate at the 1972 Convention from Missoula. She moved to Missoula in 1967 and received her BA in Political Science with Honors from the University of MT in 1970. She was a young widow known by her late husband’s surname of Robinson while attending UM graduate school under the tutelage of noted Professor Ellis Waldron when he persuaded her to run for the Constitutional Convention. Coming in a surprising second in the delegate competition in Missoula County she was named one of the Convention’s “Ten Outstanding Constitutional Convention Delegates,” an impressive feat at such a young age. She was 24 at the time, the youngest person to serve at the ConCon, and one of 19 women out of 100 delegates. In the decade before the Convention, there were never more than three women Legislators in any session, usually one or two. She was a member of the American Association of University Women, a Pi Sigma Alpha political science honorary, and a Phi Alpha Theta historical honorary. At the Convention, she led proposals for the state's bill of rights, particularly related to equal rights for women. For years, Ellingson kept a copy of the preamble to the Constitution hanging in her office; while all the delegates had a chance to vote on the wording, she and delegate Bob Campbell are credited with the language in the preamble. During the convention, she had an opportunity that opened the door to her later career as an attorney. A convention delegate suggested to her that she should go to law school. Several offered to help, but at the time she couldn't go to school. Her mom had died in Texas, and she ended up with a younger brother and sister to raise in Missoula. She got a job teaching, but about a year later, intrigued with the idea of pursuing the law as a career, she called the man back to ask about the offer. Eventually another delegate, Dave Drum of Billings, sponsored her tuition at the UM School of Law. After receiving her JD with Honors (including the Law Review and Moot Court) from the UM Law School Ellingson worked for the Missoula city attorney's office for six years (1977-83), and she took on landmark projects. During her tenure, Missoula became the first city to issue open space bonds, a project that introduced her to Dorsey & Whitney. The city secured its first easement on Mount Sentinel, and it created the trail along the riverfront with a mix of playing fields and natural vegetation. She also helped develop a sign ordinance for the city of Missoula. She ended up working as bond counsel for Dorsey & Whitney, and she opened up the firm's full-fledged Missoula office after commuting a couple of years to its Great Falls office. She was a partner at Dorsey Whitney, working there from 1983 until her retirement in 2012. The area of law she practiced there is a narrow specialty - it requires knowledge of constitutional law, state and local government law, and a slice of federal tax law - but for Ellingson it meant working on great public projects – schools, sewer systems, libraries, swimming pools, ire trucks. At the state level, she helped form the Montana Municipal Insurance Authority, a pooled insurance group for cities. She's shaped MT’s tax increment law, and she was a fixture in the MT Legislature when they were debating equal rights. As a bond lawyer, though, Ellingson considers her most important work for the state to be setting up the Intercap Program that allowed local governments to borrow money from the state at a low interest rate. She has been a frequent speaker at the League of Cities and Towns, the Montana Association of Counties, and the Rural Water Users Association workshops on topics related to municipal finance, as well as workshops sponsored by the DNRC, the Water and Sewer Agencies Coordination Team, and the Montana State University Local Government Center. In 2002, she received an outstanding service award from the Montana Rural Water Users Association. In addition to being considered an expert on Montana state and constitutional law, local government law and local government finance, she is a frequent teacher at the National Association of Bond Lawyers (NABL) Fundamentals of Municipal Bond Law Seminar and the NABL Bond Attorney’s Workshop. For over 30 years Mae Nan has participated in the drafting of legislation in Montana for state and local finance matters. She has served on the Board of Directors of NABL, as Chairman of its Education Committee, was elected as an initial fellow in 1995 to the American College of Bond Counsel, and was recognized as a Super Lawyer in the Rocky Mountain West. Mae Nan was admitted to practice before the MT and US Supreme Courts, was named one of “America’s Leading Business Lawyers” by Chambers USA (Rank 1), a Mountain States Super Lawyer in 2007 and is listed in Best Lawyers in America; she is a member and former Board Member of NABL, a Fellow of the American College of Bond Counsel and a member of the Board of Visitors of the UM Law School. Mae Nan is also a philanthropist who serves on boards and applies her intelligence to many organizations, such as the Missoula Art Museum. [Much of this biography was drawn from a retirement story in the Missoulian and the Dorsey Whitney web site.] Mick McKeon, born in Anaconda in 1946, is a 4th generation Montanan whose family roots in this state go back to the 1870’s. In 1968 he graduated from Notre Dame with a BA in Communications and received a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Montana Law School in 1971. Right after graduating from law school, Mick was persuaded by his father, longtime State Senator Luke McKeon, and his uncle, Phillips County Attorney Willis McKeon, to run for delegate to Montana’s Constitutional Convention and was elected to represent Deer Lodge, Philipsburg, Powell, and part of Missoula Counties. Along with a coalition of delegates from Butte and Anaconda, he fought through the new Constitution to eliminate the legal strangle hold, often called “the copper collar,” that corporate interests -- the Anaconda Company and its business & political allies -- had over state government for nearly 100 years. The New York Times called Montana’s Constitutional Convention a “prairie revolution.” After helping secure the ratification of the new Constitution, Mick began his practice of law in Anaconda where he engaged in general practice for nearly 20 years. Moving to Butte in 1991, Mick focused has practice in personal injury law, representing victims of negligence and corporate wrongdoing in both Montana district courts and federal court. As such, he participated in some of the largest cases in the history of the state. In 1992 he and his then law partner Rick Anderson obtained a federal court verdict of $11.5 million -- the largest verdict in MT for many years. Mick’s efforts on behalf of injured victims have been recognized by many legal organizations and societies. Recently, Mick was invited to become a member of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers - 600 of the top lawyers in the world. Rated as an American Super Lawyer, he has continuously been named one of the Best Lawyers in America, and an International Assn. of Trial Lawyers top 100 Trial Lawyer. In 2005, he was placed as one of Montana’s top 4 Plaintiff’s lawyers by Law Dragon. Mick is certified as a civil trial specialist by the National Board of Trial Advocacy and has the highest rating possible from Martindale-Hubble. Mick was awarded the Montana Trial Lawyers Public Service Award and provided pro bono assistance to needy clients for his entire career. Mick’s law practice, which he now shares with his son Michael, is limited to representing individuals who have been injured in accidents, concentrating on cases against insurance companies, corporations, medical providers and hospitals. Mick resides in Butte with his wife Carol, a Butte native. Mick, Carol, Michael and another son, Matthew, who graduated from Dartmouth College and was recently admitted to the Montana bar, enjoy as much of their time together in Butte and at their place on Flathead Lake.

Change-Enabled Software Systems

Few real software systems are built completely from scratch nowadays. Instead, systems are built iteratively and incrementally, while integrating and interacting with components from many other systems. Adaptation, reconfiguration and evolution are normal, ongoing processes throughout the lifecycle of a software system. Nevertheless the platforms, tools and environments we use to develop software are still largely based on an outmoded model that presupposes that software systems are closed and will not significantly evolve after deployment. We claim that in order to enable effective and graceful evolution of modern software systems, we must make these systems more amenable to change by (i) providing explicit, first-class models of software artifacts, change, and history at the level of the platform, (ii) continuously analysing static and dynamic evolution to track emergent properties, and (iii) closing the gap between the domain model and the developers' view of the evolving system. We outline our vision of dynamic, evolving software systems and identify the research challenges to realizing this vision.

Seasonality and magnitude of floods in Switzerland under future climate change

The flood seasonality of catchments in Switzerland is likely to change under climate change because of anticipated alterations of precipitation as well as snow accumulation and melt. Information on this change is crucial for flood protection policies, for example, or regional flood frequency analysis. We analysed projected changes in mean annual and maximum floods of a 22-year period for 189 catchments in Switzerland and two scenario periods in the 21st century based on an ensemble of climate scenarios. The flood seasonality was analysed with directional statistics that allow assessing both changes in the mean date a flood occurs as well as changes in the strength of the seasonality. We found that the simulated change in flood seasonality is a function of the change in flow regime type. If snow accumulation and melt is important in a catchment during the control period, then the anticipated change in flood seasonality is most pronounced. Decreasing summer precipitation in the scenarios additionally affects the flood seasonality (mean date of flood occurrence) and leads to a decreasing strength of seasonality, that is a higher temporal variability in most cases. The magnitudes of mean annual floods and more clearly of maximum floods (in a 22-year period) are expected to increase in the future because of changes in flood-generating processes and scaled extreme precipitation. Southern alpine catchments show a different signal, though: the simulated mean annual floods decrease in the far future, that is at the end of the 21st century. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Poverty, Educational Attainment and Health Among America’s Children: Current and Future Effects of Population Diversification and Associated Socioeconomic Change

A complex of interrelated factors including minority status, poverty, education, health status, and other factors determine the general welfare of children in America, particularly in heavily diverse states such as Texas. Although racial/ethnic status is clearly only a concomitant factor in that determination it is a factor for which future projections are available and for which the relationships with the other factors in the complex can be assessed. After examining the nature of the interrelationships between these factors we utilize direct standardization techniques to examine how the future diversification of the United States and Texas will affect the number of children in poverty, the educational status of the householders in households in which children in poverty live and the health status of children in 2040 assuming that the current relationships between minority status and these socioeconomic factors continue into the future. In the results of the analyses, data are compared with the total population of the United States and Texas in 2040 assumed in the first simulation scenario, to have the race/ethnicity characteristics of 2008 and in the second those projected for 2040 by the U.S. Census Bureau for the nation and by the Texas State Data Center for Texas in 2040. The results show that the diversification of the population could increase the number of children in poverty in the United States by nearly 1.8 million more than would occur with the lower levels of diversification evident in 2008. In addition, poverty would become increasingly concentrated among minority children with minority children accounting for 76.2 percent of all children in poverty by 2040 and with Hispanic children accounting for nearly half of the children in poverty by 2040. Results for educational attainment show an increasing concentration of minority children in households with householders with very low levels of education such that by 2040, 85.2 percent of the increase in the number of children in poverty would be in households with a householder with less than a high school level of education. Finally, the results related to several health status factors show that children in poverty will have a higher prevalence of nearly all health conditions. For example, the number of children with untreated dental conditions could increase to more than 4 million in the United States and to nearly 500,000 in Texas. The results clearly show that improving the welfare of children in America will require concerted efforts to change the poverty, educational, and health status characteristics associated with minority status and particularly Hispanic status. Failing to do so will lead to a future in which America’s children are increasingly impoverished, more poorly educated, and less healthy and which, as a result, is an America with a more tentative future.