li-11-2     BILE ACIDS METABOLISM     by Dr. E. Orfei

Bile acids or, better, bile salts are the metabolites of cholesterol. Cholesterol metabolism occurs in the liver.

Formation from cholesterol

Bile acids are formed by removal of the last three carbon atoms of the terminal aliphatic side chain of cholesterol. It is thus formed a cyclopentanophenantrene molecule of 19 carbon atoms with a side chain of a variable number of carbon atoms. The side chain terminates with a carboxyl and may have from 1 to 8 carbon atoms. In humans the most common bile acids are those with a side chain of 5 carbon atoms and a total of 24 carbon atoms: the cholanoic acid. The enzyme operating the transformation of cholesterol into cholanoic acid is a microsomal enzyme, 7-alpha-hydroxylase.

By hydroxylating various carbon atoms of the molecule, more classes of bile acid are formed. The hydroxylation occurs in the liver and varies in different animal species. The major classes in man are:

-Monohydroxycholanoic acids. (Lithocholic, allolithocholic, isolithocholic).

-Dihydroxycholanoic acids. (Hyodeoxycholic, chenodeoxycholic, ursodeoxycholic, deoxycholic).

-Trihydroxycholanoic acids. (Cholic, Hyocholic, ursocholic, murocholic).

-Tetrahydroxycholanoic acids. (Phocaecholic, varanic acid).

-Triketocholanoic acids. (Dehydrocholic).

-Hydroxy-keto cholanoic acids. (Ketolithocholic).

Bile acids are conjugated with amino acids, glycine and taurine catalyzed by an acyltransferase. Detoxifying conjugation occurs also with sulphate, glucuronic acid (8%) and sugars. Sulphation and glucuronidation increase in cholestasis and cirrhosis. Taurine conjugates increase in cholestasis. Glycine conjugates increase in intestinal malabsorption because insufficient amounts of taurine is absorbed by the intestine. Taurine is an essential amino acid and it has to be obtained with the diet.

Secretion into the bile ducts.

Bile acid are actively secreted as salts into the bile canaliculus. The secretary activity depends on the availability of

 cholesterol and phospholipids with which they form micelles.

Intestinal metabolism

The micelles of bile acids an cholesterol or phospholipids in the upper intestine are large and therefore are not reabsorbed but function as emulsifying agents in the digestion of lipids. In the lower intestine the micelles are smaller and are partially reabsorbed and are returned to the liver where they are reconjugated and re-excreted.

They are partially reabsorbed in the intestine and returned to the liver The portion that is not reabsorbed passes into the large bowel where they are deconjugated and metabolized by bacteria into secondary bile acids such as lithotomic acid. They are reabsorbed from the colon and returned to the liver but cannot be eliminated from the liver and passes into the blood. In normal conditions only a minor quantity of bile acids enters the systemic blood circulation. Their level increases very early in liver disease.

From the intestine they are eliminated in the feces. From the blood they are eliminated in the urine.

Bile salts increase the elimination of water, cholesterol, lecithin and conjugated bilirubin in the bile.

In liver disease bile acid synthesis and turnover are decreased, therefore micelle formation and emulsification of fats is impaired , favoring the development of gall stones and steatorrhea.

Some defects of bile acids metabolism due to deficiency of some microtonal enzymes have been identified. All these defects cause homeostasis and some of them cause serious illnesses and death. The following syndromes have been reported.

-3-hydroxycoprostanic acid academia. Severe homeostasis in two sibling infants who died at 8 and 20 months.

(Hanson FRO et al:J Clin Invest 56:577,1975).

-Deficiency of 7-alpha hydroxylase leads to accumulation of monohydroxy bile acids (lithocholic and 3-hydrox- cholenoic) in blood and urine. The patient will suffer severe cholestasis. (Javitt NB et al: Gastroenterology and Nutrition. No.627: New York, Raven Press, 1986: 250A.)

-Deficiency of 3 beta hydroxy steroid dehydrogenase / delta isomerase. Neonatal cholestasis and giant cell hepatitis (Cleyton PT et al. J Clin Invest 79:1031,1987)

-Deficiency of Delta-3-oxosteroid-5 beta-reductase. Neonatal hepatitis in identical twins. (SetchellKDR et al.J Clin Invest 82:2148,1988).

-Deficiency of 24 Hydroxylase. It is related to cerebrotendineous xanthomatosis and possibly to Zellweger syndrome.

Cerebrotendineous xanthomatosis is a rare disease and consists of massive accumulations of chlesterol and cholesterol-like crystals in the brain and tendons causing tendon xanthomas, cataracts, cerebellar ataxia and dementia.

11-2-1.jpg (32549 bytes) Fig.191- Cerebrotendineous xanthomatosis.

Section of cerebellum. The brain substance is infiltrated by masses of cholesterol clefts which are produced by cholesterol crystals dissolved by fat solvents during the histological preparation.

11-2-2.jpg (20186 bytes)Fig.192- Cerebrotendineous xanthomatosis.

Gross section of Achilles tendon. Note the thickening and the yellowish discoloration of the tendon.

11-2-3.jpg (56374 bytes)FIG.192A-Cerebrotendineous xanthomatosis.

Achilles tendon. The microscopy shows massive infiltration of the tendon by cholesterol crystals.

The Zellweger syndrome, also called cerebro-hepato-renal syndrome is a fatal hereditary disease of infancy. It produces widespread gliosis of the brain, multiple small renal cysts and severe damage of the liver with necrosis, fibrosis, giant cells and hemosyderosis.The metabolic defect is not clear but there seems to be a block in the formation of chenodeoxycholic and cholic acid from cholesterol with accumulation of metabolic precursors of these compounds, dihydro, trihydro and tetrahydrocoprostanic acids, apparently toxic to the liver cells. There is absence of perixosomes and abnormalities of mitochondria in the cells of these individuals.


Faiths that preach tolerance

Religion has always been a source of conflict and, as Christianity and Islam face a fresh crisis, Wole Soyinka suggests a new hope for peace - the 'secular deity'

Were anyone sufficiently reckless as to make me secretary-general of the United Nations, I would have ensured that the year 2000 or 2001 was declared the Year of the Secular Deities. A blasphemous oxymoron? Not in the least. Let me simply state that I do not exaggerate when I say that the world has great need of the promotion of the secular gods. Those of us who hold on to a belief in the unity, indeed the indivisibility, of the human community - no matter how buffeted such a concept has been during the last century, especially by the anti-human excesses of ideology, religion and doctrines of separatism - must consider ourselves fortunate if we happen to be heirs to systems of beliefs that have survived those overweening themes that appear to contest the world among themselves.

We can treat them all within a framework of binaries: communism and capitalism, Buddhism and Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity, Christianity and Islam, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, the Crusade and the Jihad, fascism and democracy, the Judeo-Christian/Euramerican world and the Arab-Islamic, etc, etc, plus their extended families, aggressive offshoots and client relations. All these, to varying degrees, and despite their demonstrable and glaring errors of doctrine and conduct, continue to arrogate to themselves the monopoly of truth, perfection and/or dominance.

This mentality of binary organisation makes it easy to simplify the Other, to demonise it and focus on it as the sole obstacle to one's own survival. On the other hand, they do tacitly - and tactically - acknowledge it as equal contender for the stakes of hegemonic dominance. Tough luck on the other inhabitants of the real world - which happens to be a pluralistic one! They simply disappear through aversion of the eyes by the Super-Duo, conserving their energy for the final onslaught between the two monoliths.

As the African proverb goes, however, when two elephants fight, it is the grass beneath their feet that suffers. In fact, the grass simply vanishes! I believe that it is time to draw attention to the Invisible Faiths, especially those instructive faiths of the "secular" - that is, humanistic - temper, and to highlight the many subtle tactics that are utilised to render them invisible.

Against them has been ranged the devastating armoury of the "binary" conspiracy. Traverse human history at any moment from antiquity to the present; with negligible exceptions, you will encounter this pattern of collaboration between the most powerful contending systems. They say, in effect: let us join hands to take care of these minnows so that we can roam the ocean at will, not bothered by minor irritants - you take the west, we take the east. It is small consolation that, despite this hegemonic pattern and its historic rampages of destructiveness, a number of little-known systems of beliefs - in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Australasia - have survived and continue to thrive.

Our destination is one such world, that of the Yoruba. Nigeria, home to the Yoruba, offers us a contemporary model of the effect of binary conditioning, since it was within that nation, secular in its governance from the colonial period, that a state recently declared itself Moslem. The immediate effect has been to create an arena between two assertive faiths, thus sucking the anterior faiths - orisa, ancestor or nature worship, etc - deeper into invisibility.

Predictably, the arguments have gone back and forth: "The legal system being practised is based on Christian law, hence we must oppose it with ours," claims the Council of Imams and its surrogates. The other, the Christian Association of Nigeria, replies in kind, determined to defend its own established turf on similar grounds, both aided and abetted by the international media, which cannot refer to Nigeria except in such terms as the Moslem north and the Christian south. The neglected truth, however, is that this state, Zamfara, like many other parts of Nigeria, also consists of other religious faiths, those pre-Christian and pre-Islamic faiths that are so wishfully dismissed as vestigial and inconsequential paganism. The Jukums, the Tivs, the Bornos of northern Nigeria continue to follow (sometimes side by side with Islam or Christianity) the religions of their ancestors. So the moment a state opts to become a theocracy, no one bothers to ask: what are the pronouncements of existing traditional religions? What is the teaching of such religions on the imposition of a theocratic mandate on community, society or state? The answer is clear: abomination!

To address the world of the Yoruba, let us begin within human consciousness. That world repudiates the hegemonic tendency, as is demonstrable in its most fundamental aspect: the induction of a new living entity into the world and its dedication to the spiritual custody of unseen forces. A child is born. Quite early in its life, when the parents discern traces of personality, later to become known as character (iwa), this newcomer is taken to the babalawo , the priest of divination, who adds his tutored observations to the signs that have already been noted. The babalawo observes that it is a child of Osun, or of Sango, or of Obatala. It does not matter that neither parent is a follower of any such deity, or that no one in the entire household, or in the history of the family has ever been an initiate of this god. The child, it is accepted, brings his or her own ori , destiny, into the world. It is futile to attempt to change it or to impose a different one on him.

Yet even this allotment of the child's spiritual aura is not definitive, nor is it exclusive. Some other incidents in its life passage - a series of setbacks, a display of talent, creative or leadership precocity, or indeed some further revelation of earlier hidden traits such as a tendency towards clairvoyance, or simply the child's habit of enigmatic utterances - may lead the babalawo to conclude that a different guardian deity is indicated, or an additional one. Thus, a new deity is admitted into the household. There is no friction, no hostility. All gods, the Yoruba understand, are manifestations of universal phenomena of which humanity is also a part.

Ifa, the Yoruba's corpus of prognostic verses that interpret the future and prescribe options and directions for the seeker, is replete with odu (signs): those verses that are at once morality tales and historic vignettes filled with curative prescriptions. They narrate at the same time the experiences of both mortals and immortals for whom Ifa divined, advised, and who either chose to obey or ignore Ifa. The sceptics are neither penalised nor hounded by any supernatural forces. The narratives indicate that they simply go their way.

The deities have themselves been the subject of a large body of traditional drama, in the manner of, but owing nothing to, Greek classic drama: Oba Koso, Oba Waja, by Duro Ladipo, The Imprisonment of Obatala, by Obotunde Ijimere, Esu Elegbara, by Wale Ogunyemi, and numerous epic narratives and adventure tales. My own long poem Ogun Abibiman merely follows an ancient tradition, albeit one turned to a contemporary political use.

Ifa, like the orisa, does not proselytise. Ifa does not anathematise non-believers; on the contrary, there are verses in Ifa that warn against disrespect of other religions. Of course, Ifa is not without its own tendency towards a little self-promotion, and so we find that Ifa is also filled with narratives of the headstrong and cynics who disobey the injunctions of Ifa and thus fall deeper and deeper into misfortunes, until they return to the original path mapped out by Orunmila, the divination god of Ifa.

There is a crucial difference, however, in this process of cause and effect that differs from what I call the jealous religions. It is never Orunmila, or any agent of his, who is responsible for their misfortunes. No, it is their ori, destiny, the portion that they brought with them into the world, the very definition of their being, that Ifa merely diagnosed before leaving them to their own devices, to their own choices. The gods remain totally indifferent to who does or does not follow them or acknowledge their place in mortal decisions.

The Yoruba understanding of the nature of truth is echoed by the Vedic texts from yet another ancient world, the Indian, which declares: "Wise is he who recognises that Truth is One and one only, but wiser still the one who accepts that Truth is called by many names, and approached from myriad routes." The accommodative spirit of the Yoruba gods remains the eternal bequest to a world that is riven by the spirit of intolerance, xenophobia and suspicion.

The dominant religions of the world and their theologies as received up to the present day, have meant not the search for, or the love of, but the veneration and consolidation - at whatever cost, including torture and massacres - of propositions of truth, declared revelation. It has meant the manipulation of truth, the elevation of mere texts to dogma and absolutes, be those texts named scriptures or catechisms. This failure to see transmitted texts, with their all too human adumbrations, as no more than signposts, as parables that may lead the mind towards a deeper quarrying into the human condition, its contradictions and bouts of illumination, a re-examination of the phenomena of nature, of human history and human strivings, of the building of community - it is this failure that has led to the substitution of dogma for a living, dynamic spirituality. And this is where the Yoruba deities have an urgent and profound message to transmit to the rest of the world.

There is an urgency about this, as the world is increasingly being taken over by the most virulent manifestations of dogmatic allegiances. In the 12 months since the introduction of the theocratic state in Nigeria, at least 15,000 lives have been lost, often in the most ghoulish manner. But the orisa continue to insist: leave the gods to fight their own wars. This brief voyage into the world of the orisa, hopefully, may challenge a few ears and eyes into embarking on a serious, sobering critique of their world.

Before Islam or Christianity, before its enslavement at the hands of Arabs and Europeans, the African world evolved its own spiritual accommodation with the unknown, evolved its own socio-economic systems, its cohering systems of social relationships, and reproduced its own material existence within an integrated world-view. Those systems have affected both liturgy and the practice of alien religions, even to the extent of rendering them in some instances docile and domesticated. Thus, whenever the aggressive face of world religions is manifested, our recourse is primarily to the unextinguished virtues of our antecedent faiths, the loftiest of which will be found in such attitudes as tolerance. I refer, of course, to genuine tolerance, one that is demonstrable by the very histories of the deities - their travails, errors and acts of reparation, as recorded in their mythologies - and their adaptability to the dynamic changes of the world.

Orisa is the voice, the very embodiment of tolerance. And the tenets of Ifa are governed by a frank acknowledgement that the definition of truth is a goal constantly sought by humanity, that existence itself is a passage to ultimate truth, and that claimants to possession of the definitiveness of knowledge are, in fact, the greatest obstacles to its attainment. Acceptance of the elastic nature of knowledge remains Ifa's abiding virtue.

· This is an edited extract from The End of Tolerance?, featuring essays by writers including Ian Buruma, Muhammad Ali and Hans K¿ng (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, paperback original £12.99). To order a copy of The End of Tolerance? for £10.99 plus p&p (rrp £12.99), call the Guardian book service on 0870 066 7979.


Home > News & Opinion > Blog > 2012 > Cranial connection

Cranial connection

Popularity tracker
Sarah DeWeerdt
30 November 2012

Eye angle: One participant in a brain imaging study watches the eyes of another, in a separate brain scanner, for cues about which of a pair of dots to look towards.

One of the challenges in studying autism is that social behavior involves interactions between brains, but traditional brain imaging only provides a peek into one brain at a time.

Enter ‘hyperscanning,’ a set of techniques for simultaneously measuring brain activity in two people as they interact in various ways. Researchers first tried hyperscanning about a decade ago, and as it becomes more popular, they are developing variations on the approach that are suited to answering different types of research questions.

For example, in a study published 7 November in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers at Beijing Normal University conducted functional near-infrared spectroscopy in pairs of adults who were either facing each other or seated back to back.

This method involves both individuals wearing a net of sensors on their heads, similar to that used in electroencephalography. It allows the participants to be together in an everyday setting and communicate in a natural way using gestures and facial expressions.

The researchers found that there’s something special about face-to-face dialog that’s distinct from other forms of communication.

People show similar patterns of brain activity in the left inferior frontal cortex, where mirror neurons are located, when they are facing each other and having a conversation, the study found. This neural synchronization doesn’t occur when the participants are seated back to back, nor when one partner is delivering a monologue and the other is just listening.

The results emphasize the importance in successful communication of paying attention to facial expressions and taking turns talking — both tasks with which people who have autism often struggle.

Similarly, a group of Japanese researchers reported in September in Frontiers in Neuroscience that brain activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus aligns when two controls make eye contact, but is less synchronized when a control is paired with a high-functioning individual who has autism.

This second study used functional magnetic resonance imaging, with pairs of participants in separate scanners connected via the Internet. On a computer screen inside the scanner, each participant can see the partner’s eyes as well as a pair of colored balls. The researchers asked the participants to look at their partner’s eyes, then follow the partner’s gaze to one or another of the balls.

Pairs that include one person with autism are not as good at this task as pairs of controls, the researchers found. When they try to follow the partner’s gaze, people with high-functioning autism show lower activity than controls do in a brain region called the occipital pole, which is involved in the early stage of gaze processing.

In contrast, controls paired with an individual who has autism show higher activity in the occipital cortex and in the right prefrontal area, suggesting that their brains may work extra to compensate for the low or abnormal eye contact from their partner.

The evidence from these studies that social interaction involves neural synchronization seems to me to be profound. We are used to thinking of our thoughts as our own, but sometimes what’s most important may be that they are shared — and with little conscious effort on our part.

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Question: What is 10 + 4 ?
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  • Kaz

    Too bad that they got the caricature backwards. The theory of evolution tells us that 1 + 1 = 3, whereas ID says 1 + 1 = 2.

      Although I suspect that it will only lead to us covering ground that we have already been over multiple times, I will say that I do not see how someone who is well-acquainted with the ID materials as well as mainstream biology could invert the analogy as you do. While the truth is that biology is fundamentally different from math, the evidence for evolution adds up, while the proponents of ID are not even doing research, for the most part. You cannot get scientific results without doing research, and so perhaps the best analogy would be that ID claims to have an answer to the equation, even though they have not gone through the steps to solve it, much less solve it differently than others do.

      • Susan Burns

        The Biologos website states that the only organic system that was created rather than evolved was the cellular structure of flagella. Doesn’t that mean that IDers just don’t understand biology?

          Are you looking at the Biologic Institute web site rather than Biologos? The former is a ID-promoting site, which would emphasize the alleged irreducible complexity of bacterial flagella. The latter I would not expect to do so.

      Considering that ID claims not to know the identity of the designer, and can’t even agree whether it is God or not, would not 1 + x = 2 be more accurate?

        Since they also do not do research, the other part of the equation also becomes a variable. And since nothing seems to be incompatible with ID claims, no specific evidence or outcomes correllate with it.

        So I think a closer analogy to ID would be x + y = z.


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Doctors say cancer likely killed Steve Jobs

October 5, 2011 - 10:35 PM
Obit Steve Jobs

FILE - In this Jan. 15, 2008, file photo, Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds up the new MacBook Air after giving the keynote address at the Apple MacWorld Conference in San Francisco. Apple on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011 said Jobs has died. He was 56. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Apple and the family of Steve Jobs are not saying what caused the death of the company's founder. However, medical experts not involved in his care say that the liver transplant he had two years ago was probably a sign that his cancer had returned.

Jobs declared he was cured in 2004 after surgery for a rare type of pancreatic cancer that grows more slowly and is more treatable than the more common type. Yet this type of cancer often returns or spreads, usually to the liver.

Jobs has been on a medical leave since early this year for medical problems he wouldn't discuss in detail. He resigned as Apple's chief in August.


Leadership Development Consultant
Dr. Harold Resnick - Leadership Development Consultant Leadership Development Resources Our Products Our Services Contact Us for Leadership Development Program

If people are an organization’s most important asset, then why do so few organizations actually implement programs that help individuals achieve their potential?
Learn more

Rules For Reorganizing Can Maximize Efficiency

This article first appeared in the September, 2002 edition of the Jacksonville Business Journal

Hate to re-organize? Most people do. It's disruptive. Established ways of working are threatened. But there are times when reorganization is necessary.

  • An organization has outgrown its structure.
  • Business requirements change.
  • Work methods or processes change.
  • Too much bureaucracy.
  • Territorial issues.

A re-organization should be designed to maximize the intended benefits and minimize unintended consequences. Here are some rules to use.

Rule #1 - Don't re-organize if you don't have to.
Reorganization seems like quick and decisive change. But if the work processes remain the same then nothing really changes. Analyze your situation to determine what really needs to change.
Example: I was asked to help re-organize a computer hardware design group. Five different groups were making five types of circuit boards and fighting over shared support resources. The real problem was the lack of one common design process. Once the groups agreed to a common process and created one master project schedule the resources could be shared without re-organizing.

Rule #2 - The new organization must be "fit for purpose."
Design the organization around the work to be done and how the work should flow. Completed pieces of work should be done within one organization. Remove unnecessary boundaries and hand-offs.
Example: An insurance company was organized in departments that handled components of a claim. Claims moved from one department to another until processed. The result: long cycle time and no accountability for errors. They re-organized into units responsible for processing one type of claim from start to finish. Processing time dropped from six weeks to three days.

Rule #3 - Keep the structure as simple as possible.
If an organization chart requires explanation it's too complicated. Everyone should have just one boss. Each box should have a clearly understood function. Differences between line and staff should be clear. Matrix structures should only be used to meet a compelling business need.
Example: A global engineering and construction company established a matrix structure - one side for technical departments and the other for projects. Then they also divided their company into both geographic regions and global business lines. Everyone had four bosses (technical, project, market, regional) each with his own priorities. The resulting conflict killed the company. It was acquired for pennies on the dollar.

Rule #4 - Design the structure around the work; not personalities.
Build the organization to perform the work that needs to be done and assign people where they will make their best contribution. Do not build the organization around personalities. Those are the seeds of future disaster.
Example: I was asked to look at a company's structure. Everything made sense except for two unusual boxes. The president described that these positions were created to accommodate two people. A year later both people were in new roles but the dysfunctional structure had now been institutionalized.

Rule #5 - Design for flexibility and scalability.
Markets, customers, competition and technology change. Structures must be built with the flexibility to scale up or down as conditions require. Project-based structures, assignments vs. permanent positions, team-based work groups and a mix of permanent and temporary staff maximize flexibility.
Example: I worked with a project-based organization where people were assigned to project task forces for six months to two years. Every Thursday was "moving day." When you joined a new team you packed up your cube on Thursday evening. On Friday morning you went to your new cube. Your boxes were waiting, your computer was connected and you had the same phone extension. That's flexibility!

Rule #6 - Design for team performance
We extol the virtue of teamwork. Yet most organizational structures are designed for individual performance. If you want the synergy of teamwork, establish natural work teams as the structure.
Example: Consulting organizations typically establish cross-functional project teams to deliver their work. Over time these teams become high performing seamless units even though they come from different traditional disciplines.

Rule #7 - Design for empowerment and accountability.
People want work that is meaningful, challenging, and enables them to learn. Give people a whole job to do so they can see the results of their work. Provide work that requires a variety of skills. Empower people with the autonomy and authority to perform and hold them accountable.
Example: You're at a restaurant and your meal is not prepared well. You complain. One server can only ask for the manager. Another server has the authority to take whatever corrective action is needed to satisfy you. Which restaurant would you want to work at?

There is no one best way to design an organization. Use these rules to help create the best structure for your company.

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  • 1. Jason Murphy
    Science Mid Term
    Chapter 1:
    1-1 The goal of science is to investigate and understand nature, to explain events in nature, and to use those explanations to make useful predictions
    Science: an organized way of using evidence to learn about the natural world. Also refers to the body of knowledge that scientists have built up over years of using this process.
    Evidence Based on Observation:
    Observation: using 1 or more of the senses to gather information.
    Data: evidence, the information gathered from observation.
    Quantitative Observations: involve numbers, counting or measuring objects.
    Qualitative Observations: involve characteristics that cannot be easily measured or counted, Ex: color or texture.
    Inference: a logical interpretation based on prior knowledge and experience.
    Hypothesis: a possible explanation for a set of observations or an answer to a scientific question.
    A skeptical person continues to ask questions and looks for alternative explanations.
    1-2 The factors in an experiment that can change are called variables.
    Whenever possible, a hypothesis should be tested by an experiment in which only one variable is changed at a time. All other variables should be kept unchanged, or controlled.
    Independent/manipulated variable: variable deliberately changed.
    Dependent/responding variable: changes in response to the independent variable.
    Theory: a hypothesis that is so well supported from evidence in numerous investigations.
    In science, the word theory applies to a well tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.
    1-3 Biology: study of life
    Living things share several characteristics. These characteristics include the following:
    • Living things are made up of cells
    • 2. Living things reproduce
    • 3. Living things are based on a universal genetic code
    • 4. Living things grow and develop
    • 5. Living things obtain and use materials and energy
    • 6. Living things respond to their environment
    • 7. Living things maintain a stable internal environment
    • 8. Living things, taken as a group, change over time
    Cell: small, self contained units that make up all life.
    Sexual reproduction: two cells from different parents unite to produce the first cell of the new organism.
    Asexual reproduction: the new organism has a single parent.
    Metabolism: the combination of chemical reactions through which an organism builds up or breaks down materials as it carries out it’s life processes.
    Homeostasis: the process by which organisms keep their internal conditions relatively stable.
    Evolve: change over time.
    The many levels at which life can be studied include molecules, cells, organisms, populations of a single organism, communities of populations living in the same area, and the biosphere.
    1-4 Most scientists use the metric system when collecting data and performing experiments.
    The metric system is a decimal system of measurement.
    Microscopes are devices that produce magnified images of structures that are too small to see with the unaided eye.
    Light microscopes produce magnified images by focusing visible light rays. Electron microscopes produce magnified images by focusing beams of electrons.
    Compound light microscopes allow light to pass through the specimen and use two lenses to form an image.
    Electron microscopes focus beams of electrons on specimens.
    Cell culture: a group of cells, often isolated for experimentation.
    Cell fractionation: process to separate cell parts.
    Chapter 2:
    2-1 The Nature of Matter
    Atom: basic, smallest unit of matter
    Nucleus: center of the cell, formed by protons and neutrons. Contains DNA, the blueprint for the cell.
    Electron: negatively charged particles located on orbitals.
    Proton: positively charged sub-atomic particle located in the nucleus of cells.
    Element: a pure substance that can’t be broken down into a more simpler substance, consists entirely of one type of atom.
    Isotopes: Atoms of the same element with a different atomic mass number.
    Because they have the same number of electrons, all isotopes of an element have the same checmical properties.
    Compound: A chemical compound is a substance formed by the combination of two or more elements in definite proportions.
    The main types of bonds are ionic bonds and covalent bonds:
    Ionic bonds: An ionic bond is formed when 1 or more electrons are transferred from one atom to another.
    Ions: positively or negatively charged atoms
    Covalent bonds: A covalent bond forms when electrons are shared between atoms.
    Bonds are only dealing with the giving or sharing of electrons.
    Molecule: The molecule is the smallest unit of most compounds. Ex: water molecule-2 hydrogen atoms, 1 oxygen atom.
    When molecules are close together, a slight attraction can develop between the oppositely charged regions of nearby molecules. Chemists call such intermolecular forces of attraction, van der Waals forces.
    2-2 A water molecule is polar because there is an uneven distribution of electrons between the oxygen and hydrogen atoms.
    Cohesion: an attraction between molecules of the same substance. Ex: water
    Adhesion: an attraction between molecules of different substances.
    A mixture is a material composed of two or more elements or compounds that are physically mixed together but not chemically combined.
    Solution: type of mixture
    Solute: The substance that is dissolved.
    Solvent: The substance in which the solute dissolves.
    An acid is any compound that forms H+ ions in solution.
    A base is a compound that produces hydroxide ions in solution.
    Monomers: smaller units of macromolecules.
    Polymers: chains or joined monomers.
    Four groups of organic compounds found in living things are carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins.
    Monosaccharides: single sugar molecules, carbs.
    Polysaccharides: large macromolecules formed from monosaccharides.
    Nucleic acids store and transmit hereditary, or genetic, information. Two kinds: RNA and DNA.
    Nucleotides: Individual monomers
    Proteins are polymers or molecules called amino acids (20 kinds)
    Some proteins control the rate of reactions and regulate cell processes. Some are used to form bones and muscles. Others transport substances into or out of cells or help to fight disease.
    Reactants are compounds entering the reaction, the compounds produced are called products.
    Activation energy: energy needed to get a reaction started.
    Catalyst: a substance that speeds up the rate of a chemical reaction.
    Enzymes are proteins that act as biological catalysts.
    Substrates: the reactants of enzyme-catalyzed reactions are known a substrates.
    Chapter 7
    Cells: the basic units of all forms of life.
    Cell theory:
    • All living things are composed of cells.
    • 9. Cells are the basic units of structure and function in living things.
    • 10. New cells are produced from existing cells.
    Cell Membrane: a thin, flexible barrier around the cell.
    Cell Wall (plants only): strong layer around cell.
    Cell walls and cell membranes protect and support cells, while allowing them to interact with their surroundings.
    Nucleus: a large structure that contains all genetic material and controls cell activities.
    Cytoplasm: material inside the cell membrane.
    Biologists divide cells into two categories: eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The cells of eukaryotes have a nucleus, but the cells of prokaryotes do not.
    Organelles: specialized structures that perform important cellular functions.
    The main function of the cell wall is to provide support and protection for the cell.
    Nucleolus: assembly of ribosomes
    Nuclear envelope: double-membrane layer surrounding the nucleus.
    Cytoskeleton: helps support the cell. The cytoskeleton is a network of protein filaments that helps the cell to maintain its shape. The cytoskeleton is also involved with many forms of cell movement.
    Microtubules: hollow tubes of protein that maintain cell shape and serve as “tracks” along which organelles are moved.
    Microfilaments: long, thin fibers that function in the movement and support of the cell.
    Proteins are assembled on ribosomes, small particles of RNA and protein.
    Ribosomes: produce proteins following coded instructions that come from the nucleus.
    Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER): smooth-no ribosomes, rough-ribosomes. The ER is the organelle in which components of the cell membrane are assembled and some proteins are modified.
    Golgi Apparatus: Enzymes in the Golgi Apparatus attach carbohydrates and lipids to proteins.
    Lysosomes: Small organelles filled with enzymes that break down lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins from food into particles that can be used by the rest of the cell. Also break down old organelles to not clutter up the cell.
    Vacuoles: Saclike structures used to store water, salts, proteins, and carbohydrates. Plant cells have a single large vacuole. Makes it possible for plants to support heavy structures.
    Chloroplasts: Found in plants. Chloroplasts use the energy from sunlight to make energy-rich food molecules in a process known as photosynthesis.
    Mitochandria: Organelles that release energy from stored food molecules. Mitochandria use energy from food to make high-energy compounds that the cell can use to power growth, development, and movement.
    The cell membrane regulates what enters and leaves the cell and also provides protection and support.
    Lipid bilayer: The core of nearly all cell membranes is a double-layered sheet called the lipid bilayer.
    The concentration of a solution is the mass of solute in a given volume of solution, or mass/volume.
    Diffusion: The process by which molecules move from an area where there is a higher concentration of molecules to an area of less concentration. When concentration is equal, it is at an equilibrium.
    Diffusion causes many substances to move across a cell membrane but does not require the cell to use energy.
    Selectively permeable: Most membranes are selectively permeable, meaning that some substances can pass through them and others cannot.
    A process called osmosis allows water molecules to pass easily through most biological membranes. Osmosis is the diffusion of water through a selectively permeable membrane.
    Isotonic: concentrations equal inside and outside of membrane
    Hypotonic: more concentration on outside of membrane.
    Hypertonic: more concentration inside of membrane.
    Facilitated diffusion: helps diffusion of molecules across the membrane.
    Active transport: The material moves from an area of lower concentration to an area of greater concentration in a process called active transport.
    Endocytosis: taking material into the cell through infoldings, or pockets of the cell membrane.
    Phagocytosis: engulfing of large particles located on the outside of the membrane.
    Exocytosis: removal of large amounts of material.
    Cells are the basic units of all organisms
    A single-celled organism is also called a unicellular organism.
    They grow, respond to the environment, and reproduce.
    Colonial organisms live in groups of individuals of the same species that are attached to one another but have few specialized structures.
    Organisms made up of many cells that work together are called multi-cellular organisms.
    Multi-cellular organisms have cell specialization, or separate roles for each type of cell.
    Cells in multicellular organisms are specialized to perform particular functions within the organisms.
    Levels of organization:
    The levels of organization in a multicellular organism are individual cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems.
    Tissue: a tissue is a group of similar cells that perform a particular function.
    Four main types:
    • Muscle, epithelial, nervous, and connective.
    Epithelial tissues, such as skin cover or line body surfaces. Connective tissues include bone, blood, cartilage, and lymph.
    Many groups of tissues work together as an organ.
    A group of organs that work together to perform a specific function is called an organ system.
    Energy and Life:
    Plants and some other types of organisms are able to use light energy from the sun to produce food. Organisms such as plants, which can make their own food, are called autotrophs. Other organisms, such as animals, cannot use the sun’s energy directly. These organisms, known as heterotrophs, obtain energy from the foods they consume.
    ATP=Adenosine triphosphate
    ADP=Adenine diphosphate
    The characteristics of ATP make it an exceptionally useful molecule that is used by all types of cells as their basic energy source.
    CO2 + H20 + energy (sunlight)=C6H12O6(glucose) + O2.
    Jan van Helmont discovered water was a reactant through his plant and water experiment.
    Priestly discovered oxygen as a product through his candle experiment with the glass jar.
    Ingenhousz found sunlight as a reactant by performing Preistly’s experiment in the dark.
    The experiments performed by van Helmont, Priestly, Ingenhousz, and other scientists reveal that in the presence of light, plants transform carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates and release oxygen.
    Photosynthesis uses the energy of sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and high energy sugars.
    In addition to water and carbon dioxide, photosynthesis requires light and chlorophyll, a molecule in chloroplasts.
    Plants gather the sun’s energy with light-absorbing molecules called pigments. The plants’ principal pigment is chlorophyll.
    Two types, chlorophyll a, and chlorophyll b.
    Photosynthesis takes place inside chloroplasts. Saclike photosynthetic membranes called thylakoids. Thylakoids are arranged in stacks known as grana.
    The Calvin cycle takes place in the stroma, the region outside the thylakoid membrane.
    A carrier molecule is a compound that can accept pair of high-energy electrons and transfer them along with most of their energy to another molecule.
    The light-dependent reactions produce oxygen gas to convert ADP and NADP+ into the energy carriers ATP and NADPH.
    The Calvin cycle uses ATP and NADPH from the light dependent reactions to produce high energy sugars.
    Factors Affecting Photosynthesis
    -shortage of water can slow or stop photosynthesis
    -intensity of light also affects the rate at which photosynthesis occurs.
    A calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degrees Celsius.
    Glycolysis releases a small amount of energy.
    Glycolysis, the Krebs cycle, and the electron transport chain make up a process called cellular respiration.
    TermDefinitionautotrophorganisms such as plants, which make their own foodheterotrophorganisms such as animals, which obtain energy from foods they consumeATPone of the main chemical compounds that living things use to store energyphotosynthesiswhen plants use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and high-energy carbsohydrateschlorophyllthe plants principal pigmentthylakoidthe saclike photosynthetic membranes in chloroplastsstromathe region outside the thylakoid membranesNADP+a carrier moleculelight dependent reactionthe recation in plants which require lightATP synthasea protien contained in the membrane of the electron transport chaincalvin cyclewhen plants use the energy that ATP and NADPH contain to build high-energy compounds that can be stored for a long timecaloriethe amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 celcuis degreeglycolysisa process that releases only a small amount of energycellular respirationthe process that releases energy by breaking down food molecules in the presence of oxygenNAD+an electron carrier that accepts 4 electronsfermentationthe process of a non-present oxygen pathway and glycolysisanaerobicmeans to not require oxygenaerobicthe pathways in cellular respiration, which require oxygemkrebs cyclepyruvic acid produced in glycolysis, which passes to the second stage of cellular respirationelectron transport chainthe electrons passed from the carriers


Field Camera, 9x12 cm format

There are many advantages with large format cameras. The large size of the film, the large optical format, produces crisp and sharp images. This kind of cameras is also equipped with some special features that are not found on smaller format cameras. The lens and back have tilt, swing and shift adjustments that enables restitution of the perspective and manipulation of the sharpness plane.

I made this camera from scratch starting with a plank of wood and some brass raw material. I didn't make the screws or the rack and pinions but all the rest. The wood is elm (Ulmus glabra) and comes from a tree that grew nearby a house of an old man that my father knew. He bought the logs because he saw furniture in it, I asked for a piece because I saw a camera in it.

I have a few lenses for this camera that origin from a Linhof Technica. This particular one is a Schneider-Kreuznach, Tele-Arton 1:5,5/240 mm.


AVR Microcontroller Projects

AVR microcontroller projects: This section of EG Labs has interesting microcontroller projects based on AVR microcontrollers. These AVR projects can serve as a good reference for final year electronics engineering projects and other hobby purposes.
Latest Projects

This tutorial explains how to make your own power supply unit for all your electronics and embedded system experiments. It also has a backup battery which will be used in case of power cuts and a display.

Have you ever wondered of operating a toy car with you own mobile phone? Yes I have made such a thing. This project involves the communication between your mobile phone and the car. Here I have used the internal accelerometers of the mobile phone to operate my toy car.

The system communicates wirelessly over Bluetooth interface, thus we require a phone with Bluetooth compatibility. Moreover I have made an Android Application for the same task therefore the phone must have ANDROID operating system J

Timers are used in many different applications for example in Industrial Applications, to switch ON or switch OFF any device or a machine load for a specific period of time.  In the same way the timers are used in Domestic Appliances like in Air Conditioners, Microwave Ovens, Washing Machines, Food Processors etc. The applications for the timers could also be seen in Military Applications and Space Applications, to trigger any Bomb or a Missile or to ignite booster rockets for lift offs at a specific time. Here the given project demonstrates the fully featured and customized timer built using AVR Microcontroller ATMega32.


General News

Women's 1500m

Bahraini Maryam Yusuf Jamal continued her fine late season form with a comprehensive victory in the 1500, the first ever in the event for Asia.

Forging to the lead at the bell, Jamal allowed Russia’s double World Champion Tatyana Tomashova to give chase before pulling away midway through the backstraight en route to a 4:00.84 World Cup record.

“I was feeling good and could position myself as I wanted, said Jamal, who yesterday celebrated her 22nd birthday. “In those conditions, I don’t fear anybody.”

In a repeat of last weekend’s World Athletics Final, Tomashova, the European champion, again finished runner-up in 4:02.45, equalling her position from Madrid four years ago. Australian Sarah Jamieson, eighth in Madrid, improved significantly this time around, finish third for Oceania in 4:02.82. With a strong close of her own, Bulgarian Daniela Yordanova was fourth for Europe, reaching the finish in 4:02.97 to complete the fastest en masse finish ever in the World Cup. Only once, in 1994, did a race produce more than one sub 4:03 runner.

Bob Ramsak

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posted a question
1.How is the security of a firm's information system and data affected by its people, organization, and technology? Is the contribution of one of these dimensions any more important than the other? Why?

2.Differentiate between intangible and tangible benefits and list three examples of each. In what types of systems are intangible benefits more predominant?

3.What additional complexities are faced in global supply chains? How does the Internet help in managing global supply chains?

4.How are RFID systems used in inventory control and supply chain management?

5.What types of relationships are possible in a relational database? Describe and give an example of each.

6.Describe four types of applications that are especially well-suited for mobile-commerce.


NOBODY WANTED WAR: Misperception in Vietnam and Other Wars by Ralph K. White

NOBODY WANTED WAR: Misperception in Vietnam and Other Wars

Vietnam as a case study of ""the psychological forces and rigidities that make any war possible""... a tricky topic, but the author generally conquers reductive temptations. He does conclude that the relevant processes are similar in different cultures, and that nationalism is a common factor in warped cognition. South Vietnamese attitudes toward the American presence; Communists' view of the war; reactions to bombing of the North; militant Americans' perception of the conflict; the validity of the domino theory--these are some of the questions raised, and White meets them by discussing political issues at length, as well as the psychology of ""self-image,"" and ""enemy-image,"" and the fallacy of attributing war to simple ""aggressive"" instinct. Much of the psychological discussion is elementary (intolerance of ambiguity, diabolism, and ""refracting-lenses"" as causes of misperception); some of his analogies are absurd (Austria 1914-North Vietnam 1958). Yet the book offers a challenge to every position, and a greater understanding of counter-positions. It will help to further the ""tough-minded empathy"" White recommends.

Pub Date: July 5th, 1968
Publisher: Doubleday


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Use this calculator to determine the maximum FHA mortgage that would be allowed for your home purchase and an estimate of your required downpayment and closing costs.


When Is the NYT Going to Start Putting Budget Numbers in Context?

Tuesday, 14 January 2014 05:11

David Leonhardt, the NYT's Washington editor, committed the paper several months ago to putting large numbers in context in response to a complaint raised by Public Editor Margaret Sullivan. There is still no evidence of this effort in the paper's budget reporting.

That is very clear in a piece today on the latest budget agreement in Congress. The article tells readers:

"The legislation also would impose new requirements for the Internal Revenue Service in reporting its activities to the public and Congress after the agency’s scrutiny of Tea Party groups’ applications for nonprofit status. The $11.3 billion appropriated for the I.R.S. is down $503 million from the level enacted in 2013.

"No money would be given to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s high-speed rail projects, or to Mr. Obama’s preschool development grants program."

Okay, how large a share of the budget is $11.3 billion? How much money did the administration request for Mr. Biden's high-speed rail projects or the preschool development grant program? Readers would have no clue how important these items are to the budget.

Later we are told:

"In contrast, Head Start, which also suffered last year, would see a $612 million increase, enough to restore the sequestration cuts."

Is this a big deal? How much does Head Start get in total now?

And we are told:

"The bill would cut $1 billion from the Affordable Care Act’s Prevention and Public Health Fund, which Republicans have long targeted, fearing the administration would use it to bolster the law’s online insurance exchanges."

Is this a one year appropriation?

For those interested, you can go to CEPR's real cool Responsible Budget Reporting calculator and find out that the $503 million cut to the IRS comes to 0.014 percent of the total budget, with the total $11.3 billion coming to 0.31 percent of the budget. (This one will actually likely cost the government money since it means that we will collect less revenue from people ripping off the government.)

Head Start will be getting around $7.7 billion in 2014 as best I can tell, that comes to 0.21 percent of the budget. The $612 million increase is 0.017 percent of the budget. And the $1 billion for the Affordable Care Act Fund would be 0.023 percent of the budget, assuming that it is a one-year appropriation.

Anyhow, this sort of context should have been in this article. As it's written it provides almost no information to almost all NYT readers. There is no defense for this sort of reporting and everyone knows it. What does it take to get the NYT to change?


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									Introduction to Organisational Behaviour

The knowledge and information explosion, global competition, total quality and diversity are some of
the bitter realities that the managers are facing today. There are many solutions being offered to deal
with these complex challenges. Yet the simple but most profound solution may be found in the words
of Sam Walton, the richest person in the world and the founder of Wal-Mart. Sam was once asked the
key to successful organizations and management. Sam quickly replied, "People are the key".
         The term paradigm comes from the Greek word 'paradigma', which means ''model, pattern or
example". First introduced over thirty years ago, by the philosophy and science historian Thomas
Khun, the term "paradigm" is now used as, a broad model, a framework, a way of thinking, and a
scheme for understanding reality. The impact of information technology, total quality and diversity
mentioned earlier has led to a paradigm shift.

The organizational behaviour has a goal lo help the managers make a transition to the new paradigm.
Some of the new paradigm characteristics include coverage of second-generation information
technology and total quality management such as empowerment, reengineering and benchmarking,
and learning organization for managing diversity of work. The new paradigm sets the stage for the
study, understanding, and application of the time-tested micro-variables, dynamics and macro-
variables. One must know why management needs a new perspective to meet the environmental
challenges and to shift to a new paradigm.

Management is generally considered to have three major dimensions—technical, conceptual and
human. The technical dimension consists of the manager's expertise in particular functional areas.
They know the requirements of the jobs and have the functional knowledge to get the job done. But
the practicing managers ignore the conceptual and human dimensions of their jobs.
          Most managers think that their employees are lazy, and are interested only in money, and
that if you could make them happy in terms of money, they would be productive. If such assumptions
are accepted, the human problems that the management is facing are relatively easy to solve.
          But human behaviour at work is much more complicated and diverse. The new perspective
assumes that employees are extremely complex and that there is a need for theoretical
understanding given by empirical research before applications can be made for managing people

The modern approach to organizational behaviour is the search for the truth of why people behave
the way they do. The organizational behaviour is a delicate and complex process. If one aims to
manage an organization, it is necessary to understand its operation. Organization is the combination
of science and people. While science and technology is predictable, the human behaviour in
organization is rather unpredictable. This is because it arises from deep needs and value systems of

Scientific Management Approach
Scientific management approach was developed by F.W. Taylor at the beginning of the 20th century.
This theory supported the use of certain steps in scientifically studying each element of a job,
selecting and training the best workers for the job arid making sure that the workers follow the
prescribed method of doing the job. It provided a scientific rationale for job specialization and mass
production. His assumption was that employees are motivated largely by money. To increase the
output, Taylor advised managers to pay monetary incentives to efficient workers.
         Yet, his theory was criticized by many employers and workers. Workers objected to the
pressure of work as being harder and faster. Critics worried that the methods took the humanity out of
labor, reducing workers to machines responding to management incentives. Therefore, Taylor's view
is now considered inadequate and narrow due to the points given by the critics.
Bureaucratic Approach
While scientific management was focusing on the interaction between workers and the task, me
researchers were studying how to structure the organization more effectively. Instead of trying to
make each worker more efficient, classical organization theory sought the most effective overall
organizational structure for workers and managers.

         The theory's most prominent advocate, Max Weber, proposed a 'bureaucratic form' of
structure, which he thought would work for all organizations. Weber's idea! bureaucracy was , logical,
rational and efficient. He made the naive assumption that one structure would work best for all

         Henry Ford, Henry Fayol and Frederick W. Taylor, the early management pioneers,
recognized the behavioral side of management. However, they did not emphasize the human
dimensions. Although there were varied and complex reasons for the emerging importance of
behavioral approach to management, it is generally recognized that the Hawthorne studies mark the
historical roots for the field of organizational behaviour.

Hawthorne Studies
Even, as Taylor and Weber brought attention with their rational, logical approaches to more efficient
productivity, their views were criticized on the ground that both approaches ignored worker's
         The real beginning of applied research in the area of organizational behaviour started with
Hawthorne Experiments. In 1924, a group of professors began an enquiry into the human aspects of
work and working conditions at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric Company, Chicago. The
findings of these studies were given a new name 'human relations' the studies brought out a number
of findings relevant to understanding human behaviour at work. The Human element in the workplace
was considerably more important. The workers are influenced by social factors and the behaviour of
the individual worker is determined by the group.
         Hawthorne studies have been criticized for their research methods and conclusions drawn.
But their impact on the emerging field of organizational behaviour was dramatic. They helped usher in
a more humanity centered approach to work.

There are mainly four approaches to organizational behaviour. They are:
• Human resources approach '
• Contingency approach
• Productivity approach
• Systems approach

Human Resources Approach
The human resources approach is concerned with the growth and development of people towards
higher levels of competency, creativity and fulfillment, because people are the central resource in any
organization. This approach help employees become better in terms of work and responsibility and
then it tries to create a climate in which they can contribute to the best of their improved abilities. This
approach is also known as 'supportive approach' because the manager's primary role changes from
control of employees to providing an active support for their growth and performance.

A Contingency Approach
A contingency approach to organizational behaviour implies that different situations require different
behavioral practices for effectiveness instead of following a traditional approach for all situations.
Each situation must be analyzed carefully to determine the significant variables that exist in order to
establish the more effective practices. The strength of this approach is that it encourages analysis of
each situation prior to action. Thus, it helps to use all the current knowledge about people in the
organization in the most appropriate manner.

Productivity Approach
Productivity is a ratio that compares units of output with units of input. It is often measured in terms of
economic inputs and outputs. Productivity is considered to be improved, if more outputs can be
produced from the same amount of inputs. But besides economic inputs and outputs, human and
social inputs and outputs also arc important.
Systems Approach
A system is an interrelated part of an organization or a society that interacts with everyone related to
that organization or society and functions as a whole. Within the organization 'people' employ
'technology' in performing the 'task' that they are responsible for, while the 'structure' of the
organization serves as a basis for co-ordinating all their different activities. The systems view
emphasizes the interdependence of each of these elements within the organization, if the
organization as a whole is to function effectively. The other key aspect of the systems view of
organization is its emphasis on the interaction between the organization and its broader environment,,
which consists of social, economic, cultural and political environment within which they operate.
         Organizations arc dependent upon their surrounding environment in two main ways: First, the
organization requires 'inputs' from the environment in the form of raw material, people, money, ideas
and so on. The organization itself can be thought of as performing certain 'transformation' processes,
on its inputs in order to create outputs in the form of products or services. Secondly, the organization
depends on environment such as, public to accept its output. The systems view of organization thus
emphasizes on the key interdependencies that organizations must manage. Within themselves the
organizations must trade off the interdependencies among people, tasks, technology and structure in
order to perform their transformation processes effectively and efficiently. Organizations must also
recognize their interdependence with the broader environments within which they exist.

Organizational behaviour can be treated as a distinct field of study. It is yet to become a science. Now
efforts are being made to synthesize principles, concepts and processes in this field of study.

Interdisciplinary Approach
Organizational behaviour is basically an interdisciplinary approach. It draws heavily from other
disciplines like psychology, sociology and anthropology. Besides, it also takes relevant things from
economics, political science, law and history. Organizational behaviour integrates the relevant
contents of these disciplines to make them applicable for organizational analysis. e.g. it addresses
issues, which may be relevant to the case, such as the following:
     What facilitates accurate perception and attribution?
     What influences individual, group and organizational learning and the development of
         individual attitudes toward .work?
     How do individual differences in personality, personal development, and career development
         affect individual's behaviours and attitudes?
     What motivates people to work, and how. does the organizational reward system influence
         worker's behaviour and attitudes?
     How do managers build effective teams?
     What contributes to effective decision-making?
     What are the constituents of effective communication?
     What are the characteristics of effective communication?
     How can power be secured and used productively?
     What factors contribute to effective negotiations?
     How can conflict (between groups or between a manager and subordinates) be resolved or
     How can jobs and organizations be effectively designed?
     How can managers help workers deal effectively with change?

An Applied Science
The basic objective of organizational behaviour is to make application of various researches to solve
the organizational problems, particularly related to the human behavioral aspect.

Normative and Value Centered
Organizational behaviour is a normative science. A normative science prescribes how the various
findings of researches can be applied to get organizational results, which are acceptable to the
society. Thus, what is acceptable by the society or individuals engaged in an organization is a matter
of values of the society and people concerned.
Humanistic and Optimistic
Organizational behaviour focuses the attention on people from humanistic point of view. It is based on
the belief that needs and motivation of people are of high' concern. Further, there is optimism about
the innate potential of man to be independent, creative, predictive and capable of contributing
positively to the objectives of the organization.

Oriented towards Organizational Objectives
Organizational behaviour is oriented towards organizational objectives. In fact, organizational
behaviour tries to integrate both individual and organizational objectives so that both are achieved

A Total System Approach
An individual's behaviour can be analyzed keeping in view his psychological framework,
interpersonal-orientation, group influence and social and cultural factors; Thus, individual's nature is
quite complex and organizational behaviour by applying systems approach tries to find solutions for
this complexity.

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Public Release:  Experimental vaccine protects nonhuman primates from Lassa fever

Findings could lead to vaccine for human use

US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases

FREDERICK, Maryland and WINNIPEG, Manitoba--A team of U.S. and Canadian scientists has developed a vaccine against Lassa fever that fully protects nonhuman primates from experimental infection with lethal doses of Lassa virus.

The research, published in the online and print editions of the journal PLoS Medicine, could eventually lead to development of a vaccine for human use. Currently there is no preventive measure available to halt the spread of Lassa fever, other than rodent control in affected areas. The disease is transmitted to humans from rodents that carry the virus.

Lassa fever is common in parts of West Africa where it causes a significant amount of death and disability among the population. Recently, Lassa fever has been imported by travelers to the United States and Europe. The Lassa virus that causes the disease is considered a potential agent of bioterrorism.

Principal investigators Thomas Geisbert of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and Heinz Feldmann and Steven Jones of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) developed the vaccine using a non-pathogenic form of vesicular stomatitis virus, or VSV, as a carrier--into which they inserted genetic material from the deadly Lassa virus.

The team then immunized four rhesus macaques with a single dose of the Lassa vaccine, while two monkeys received only the VSV "carrier" virus.Four weeks later, all six animals were experimentally infected with a lethal dose of Lassa virus. The four vaccinated monkeys survived with no signs of clinical illness, while the two control animals died.

"This is the first vaccine platform shown to completely protect nonhuman primates from Lassa virus," said Dr. Geisbert. "We are hopeful that the VSV strategy, which we have successfully demonstrated for Marburg, Ebola and now Lassa virus, could have utility against other hemorrhagic fevers as well."

"Lassa fever poses a huge public health threat in Western Africa," said Dr. Feldmann of the PHAC. "While the mortality rate of this virus is not as high as with some viral hemorrhagic fevers, there are many more cases of Lassa fever and a great number of survivors are permanently affected by complications such as hearing loss, so this vaccine may have a much broader application."

A vaccine against the Lassa virus could help to control outbreaks of the disease in Africa and protect health care and laboratory workers. Previous attempts to develop Lassa vaccines were partially successful, but none completely protected nonhuman primates against lethal doses of the virus, according to the study's authors.

"The demonstration of an effective vaccine against a hemorrhagic fever virus, such as Lassa, represents a significant leap forward in our hope for safe and efficacious vaccines for the full spectrum of potential biological threats," said Colonel George W. Korch, Jr., USAMRIID commander.

"This is the second time these scientists have worked together for the advancement of public health, which is a testament to their dedication and the value of collaboration across borders," said Canadian Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh, referring to the scientists' work on Ebola and Marburg.

Carolyn Bennett, Minister of State (Public Health) added, "Relationships like this enhance science and are a credit to the organizations involved."

While these early results are promising, further testing will need to be conducted. Some issues that must be resolved before the vaccine can be tested in humans are the safety of the VSV virus, how long the vaccine protects after the shot, and whether it is active against different genetic strains of the Lassa virus.

PHAC's National Microbiology Laboratory operates a Containment Level 4 laboratory where pathogens such as Ebola and Lassa virus can be worked with safely. The Winnipeg based laboratory has been at the forefront of research into SARS, West Nile virus, anthrax and other dangerous pathogens.

Reference: Geisbert TW, Jones S, Fritz EA, Shurtleff AC, Geisbert JB, Liebscher R, Grolla A, Stroher U, Fernando L, Daddario KM, Guttieri MC, Mothe´BR, Larsen T, Hensley LE, Jahrling PB, Feldmann H. (2005) Development of a new vaccine for the prevention of Lassa fever. PLoS Med 2(6): e183.

Funding Sources: Canadian Institute of Health Research and the Medical Chemical/Biological Defense Research Program and Military Infectious Diseases Research Program, U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command


Biomolecular INteraction Network Database
IntAct provides a freely available, open source database system and analysis tools for protein interaction data. All interactions are derived from literature curation or direct user submissions and are freely available.
The Molecular INTeraction database (MINT) focuses on experimentally verified protein-protein interactions mined from the scientific literature by expert curators. The curated data can be analyzed in the context of the high throughput data and viewed graphically with the 'MINT Viewer'.
The Unified Human Interactome is a comperehensive database of the computational and experimental based human protein interaction networks. This database is aimed to integrate diverge maps, which offers the research a flexible and direct entry gate into the human interactome.
APID (Agile Protein Interaction DataAnalyzer) is an interactive bioinformatic web-tool that has been developed to allow exploration and analysis of main currently known information about protein-protein interactions integrated and unified in a common and comparative platform.
The Human Protein Interaction Database (HPID, was designed 1) to provide human protein interaction information pre-computed by a statistical method from existing structural and experimental data, 2) to provide integrated human protein interactions derived from BIND, DIP and HPRD, and 3) to find proteins from the databases that potentially interact with proteins submitted by users.
The MIPS Mammalian Protein-Protein Interaction Database is a collection of manually curated high-quality PPI data collected from the scientific literature by expert curators. We took great care to include only data from individually performed experiments since they usually provide the most reliable evidence for physical interactions.
A database of protein-protein interactions between large proteins
PPI section of the Comprehensive Yeast Genome Database.
Interactions between HIV and host proteins at the NCBI
A database of protein-protein interactions mediated by interchain
DOMINO: a database of domain-peptide interactions. Many protein interactions are mediated by small protein modules binding to short linear peptides. DOMINO is an open-access database comprising more than 3900 annotated experiments describing interactions mediated by protein-interaction domains.
BindingDB is a public, web-accessible database of measured binding affinities, focusing chiefly on the interactions of protein considered to be drug-targets with small, drug-like molecules.
PDZBase is a manually curated protein-protein interaction database developed specifically for interactions involving PDZ domains.
SPOT (Sequence Prediction Of Target) is a procedure that is designed to infer the peptide binding specificity of any member of a family of protein binding domains: SH3, PDZ, and WW domains.
BindN for prediction of DNA and RNA binding residues in proteins
Web server for sequence-based prediction of DNA-binding residues in DNA-binding proteins.
DNA-Binding Domain Hunter (DBD-Hunter) is a knowledge-based method for predicting DNA-binding proteins function from protein structure. The method combines structural comparison and evaluation of DNA-protein interaction energy, which is calculated use a statistical pair potential derived from crystal structures of DNA-protein complexes.
This program predicts the DNA-binding in a protein from their sequence information using neural network.
ProNIT database provides experimentally determined thermodynamic interaction data between proteins and nucleic acids.
DISPLAR is a neural network method. Given the structure of a protein known to bind DNA, the method predicts residues that contact DNA.
PFplus (Path Finder Plus)is an automatic server to extract and display the largest positive electrostatic patch on a protein surface.
Protein-Protein Interaction Web site at the Jena Center for Bioinformatics
meta-PPISP is a metaserver built on three individual web servers: cons-PPISP, PINUP, and Promate.
cons-PPISP is a consensus neural network method for predicting protein-protein interaction sites. Given the structure of a protein, cons-PPISP will predict the residues that will likely form the binding site for another protein.
Identification of computational hotspots in protein interfaces: combining solvent accessibility and inter-residue potentials improves the accuracy.
Predicting the location of potential protein-protein binding sites for unbound proteins.
This server module predicts the atomic level structure of a protein complex. Given at least two protein sequences, this module first searches for homologs in a database of subunit sequences of experimentally determined protein complex structures. If all input sequences are homologous to subunits of an experimentally determined complex, our multimeric comparative modeling will be used to build three dimensional protein complex models for the sequences.
Protein binding site prediction with an empirical scoring function
WHISCY is a program to predict protein-protein interfaces. It is primarily based on conservation, but it also takes into account structural information. A sequence alignment is used to calculate a prediction score for each surface residue of your protein.
The KFC Server (Knowledge-based FADE and Contacts) predicts binding 'hot spots' within protein-protein interfaces by recognizing structural features indicative of important binding contacts.
Interaction Prediction through Tertiary Structure web-based tool to predict protein-protein interactions.
Solvent accessibility based Protein-Protein Interface iDEntification and Recognition
SNAPPI stands for Structures, iNterfaces and Alignments for Protein-Protein Interactions. The SNAPPI-Package consists of SNAPPI-DB, SNAPPI-View and SNAPPI-Predict.
Software platform for the visualization of complex interation networks.
An integrative platform for network/pathway analysis; visANT = Integrative Visual Analysis Tool for Biological Networks and Pathways.
Network Analysis, Visualization, & Graphing TORonto is a software package for visualizing and analyzing protein-protein interaction networks.
The Web Bench
Sequence Analysis with GenBeans
GenBeans SoftwareTry GenBeans: A revolutionnary free software for all molecular biologists!
Your comments & your suggestionsare appreciated. Please, notify us for resources and tools that you would like to see on this bench!


Why today's law students are not less qualified

After setting a record for first-year enrollment in 2010, law schools have seen a significant decline in interest. Application volume is down by about a third; first-year enrollments down by about a quarter. The aggregate numbers, while stunning, understate how dire the trends are at many schools. Of the 196 law schools in the contiguous 48 states and Hawaii that enrolled a class in fall 2010, all except three received fewer applications in 2013 than they did in 2010. The declines ranged from a modest 3 percent to a nightmarish 65 percent. The median decline was 38 percent.

This sudden and widespread constricting of the applicant pool has intuitively prompted concerns about the current quality of entering student cohorts. Two questions seem to predominate:

• Are today’s entering law students weaker than students from previous cohorts?

• Are desperate schools enrolling unqualified students in order to fill seats?

From my observations, it seems that assumptions relating to both questions tend to range from probably to certainly. But are these assumptions correct? Are law schools preying on witless students as a survival strategy? An in depth review of the data suggests that the assumptions are mostly, if not completely, unfounded. The culprit behind these erroneous perceptions is likely a fundamental misunderstanding of how to interpret Law School Admission Test scores.

Discussions of law student quality usually revolve around numerical indicators, such as LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs. Therefore, a conclusion that a cohort of law students is weaker compared to another cohort usually means the former has a lower LSAT/UGPA profile than the latter. Such beliefs often persist even when statistically unsupported. While an LSAT score difference may mean nothing statistically, it often carries much practical (and misplaced) significance.

So what does the LSAT/UGPA data say about differences between the fall 2013 entering cohort compared to the fall 2010 cohort? The median LSAT/UGPA profile for the fall 2010 cohort at the 196 law schools studied was 157/3.41; in fall 2013, it was 155/3.38.

So, in 2013, the typical first-year law student had an LSAT score that was two points lower and a UGPA that was three one-hundredths lower than in 2010. The UGPA difference is so insignificant that it is not even worth discussing. But what about the LSAT score difference? Is a difference of two points statistically significant? The very short answer to that question is no.

Understanding the insignificance of small differences in LSAT scores requires one to comprehend the limitations of the test. Perceptions of standardized tests too often take mythical forms. We believe they can see the unseen (the contents of a person’s brain) and with that insight predict the future (a person’s chances of success). And while standardized tests can be useful factors in the admission process, there is nothing mythical about them. Their predictive value is limited by the same variability of life to which we are all subject.

The LSAT is intended to predict first-year law school performance. A perfect predictor (which probably does not exist) would have a correlation coefficient of 1.0. LSAT coefficients range from 0.12 to 0.56, depending on the school, with a median of 0.36. The LSAT’s imprecise predictive value relates not only to the limited range of skills and abilities it measures, but also the inexact nature of the score it produces.

Probably the least acknowledged piece of information in an applicant’s LSAT score report (except maybe the writing sample) is the applicant’s score band. The score band is a range of scores that serves as an estimate of the applicant’s “true” score. This estimate is necessary because every standardized test has what is called a standard error of measurement or SEM. The SEM is essentially the difference between a test taker’s observed score and her true score. No test can guarantee that an observed score is a true score, but SEM estimates allow test makers to offer a range within which the true score might fall. The size of the score band is determined by the test’s SEM. The contours of the score band are determined by the applicant’s observed score.

The LSAT has an SEM of 2.6 points. Therefore, score bands range from -3 to +3 of an applicant’s observed score. So if an applicant has an observed score of 155, his score band would be 152-158. (The process for calculating score bands is different for the relatively few test takers with extreme observed scores.) Complicating the matter even more, this range is guaranteed to be accurate only about 68 percent of the tim e—meaning, there is almost a 1-in-3 chance that an applicant’s true score falls outside (above or below) even the score band. All of this is instructive, given both the overreliance on the LSAT and hypersensitivity to small score differences.

So with an LSAT score that is two points lower, can it be rightly be said that the typical 2013 entering student is weaker than her counterpart in the 2010 cohort? Again, the answer is no. A two-point difference in scores is statistically insignificant. It is statistically possible that either student’s true score is higher or lower than the other’s; it is also possible that both students’ true scores are the same. Put simply, it is impossible to distinguish the scores with statistical certainty. Even when quartiles and means are assessed, the differences between the cohorts are statistically indistinguishable (even though each data point is lower for the 2013 cohort).

But what about the belief that desperate law schools are enrolling unqualified students in order to fill seats? Practically every law school is admitting a larger proportion of its applicants. Among the 196 schools studied, only five had a lower admit rate in 2013 than in 2010. The overall admit rate increased from 36 percent for the fall 2010 class to 51 percent for fall 2013. Adding to (and reflecting) the competitive pressures are overall yield rates that have declined from 30 percent in 2010 to 25.5 percent in 2013. So law schools unquestionably have had to go deeper on the proverbial bench to fill their classes. But have some schools acted in bad faith? While harder to answer with certainty, this contention deserves a considerable amount of skepticism.

In exploring the question, it seems useful to first identify schools that might have the most incentive to behave in this fashion. For purposes of this discussion, I will refer to them as “desperate” schools. Large declines in application volume and large increases in admit rates might be two signs of desperation. Once desperate schools are identified, it would be useful to assess their LSAT trends, compared to non-desperate schools. The objective would be to use differences in those trends between the two groups to glean whether desperate schools have comported themselves differently than others.

Thirty-two law schools experienced declines in application volume of 50 percent or more. This type of drop would have been unimaginable just a few years ago and has surely caused many sleepless nights among enrollment managers. A robust applicant pool is essential to a strong class. Losing half or more of your application volume in just a few years is an undeniable blow. But have these schools experienced decreases in their median LSAT scores that may portend an unseemly admissions strategy?

This group of 32 schools saw their median LSAT scores decrease an average of 2.5 points between 2010 and 2013; all other schools saw their medians decrease an average of 2.15 — a seemingly insignificant difference of 0.35 points. The difference is rendered even more insignificant when you consider the decreased medians in terms of proportions. The 32 desperate schools lost an average of 1.6 percent of their median LSAT “value,” while all other schools lost an average of 1.4 percent. Lastly, the 2013 average median LSAT score for the desperate schools was 153, which produces a score band of 150-156. The average for the other schools was 156, which produces a score band of 153-159. The three-point overlap between the bands suggests a lack of statistical significance. But to the extent there is a difference, it is likely not attributable to bad faith.

How about schools with the largest increases in admit rates? Twenty-eight schools saw their admit rates increase 25 percent or more between 2010 and 2013. Could these trends be direct evidence of an unethical opening of the floodgates? This group of schools saw their median LSAT scores decrease an average of 3.17 points between 2010 and 2013. All other schools saw their medians decrease an average of 2.04 — a difference of 1.13. This difference, while seemingly tangible, likely lacks statistical significance because of overlapping score bands. The average LSAT median of 153 for the 28 schools yields a score band of 150-156, which overlaps with the 154-160 score band for the other schools (average median score is 156.5). So can these trends be used to support a conclusion that this group of law schools is preying on unqualified students? Not by my estimation.

Lastly, I thought it would be interesting to assess the outcome trends for the nine law schools that experienced both “desperate” trends. These schools saw their median LSAT scores decrease an average of 3.88 points between 2010 and 2013. All other schools saw their medians decrease an average of 2.12 — a difference of 1.76. Once again, the difference, while seemingly tangible, likely lacks statistical significance. The average median LSAT for the group of nine schools is 152, which produces a score band of 149-155. The average for the other schools is 156, which produces an overlapping score band of 153-159. The data fails to support the contention.

Law schools are employing an array of strategies to get through the current adversity. A few of these strategies directly contradict the contentions mentioned earlier. While admit rates increased between 2010 and 2013, the actual number of students admitted decreased an average of 7.5 percent per school. More significantly, the average entering class size was 21 percent smaller in 2013. Critics might say these trends were forced upon schools, and I would largely agree. But I would also note that if a school desired to simply fill its class with warm bodies, it would have little problem doing so — even today.

So given the lack of statistical support for the cynical narratives, there may be another way to frame the trends we are seeing. It is possible that schools are being forced to take a more holistic approach to assessing applicants, with LSAT misuse being a luxury no longer afforded. If this is true, entering classes just might be getting stronger, despite our willingness to assume otherwise.


NYC's Best Pizza Slices

by Adam Kuban, 10/07/2014

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  • Frank's Pizza
    2823 Middletown Road, 718-892-8202, Country Club, The Bronx
    The grandma slice (also known as a "nonna slice") is a Long Island invention that has made some inroads into New York City in the last decade. Essentially a thin-crust Sicilian, it's also defined by its thick, cooked-down, garlicky sauce—and often by the fact that said sauce goes on last, in visually pleasing diagonal stripes. Frank's nails all the hallmarks in a thoroughly old-school NYC setting.

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Creative dance classes for children in the Davisville Village area of Toronto

Propel Dance Centre offers fun, developmentally appropriate dance classes to young children with creative inclinations. We provide a safe, nurturing environment that fosters creativity and imagination in every child.

Artistic Director Savannah Hoag brings a unique combination of professional dance experience and traditional education.  Our teachers are professionally trained dancers who engage in ongoing educational development. We provide thoughtful, well-planned dance classes in many dance genres that align with your child's physical and developmental stages. Our class sizes are small and we aim to provide as low teacher to student ratio as possible. This benefits the energy and flow of the class as a whole, as well as optimizes the amount of one-on-one time your child receives.

photos: Russell Everett, Sophie Austin


Animal eye injury

Updated: 4/17/2007 1:07 pm
One of the most common eye problems among animals is injury to the cornea (KOHR-nee-uh), the eye's transparent outer layer. This may occur if the eye is scratched, when bits of grass become lodged in the eye, or foreign matter blows into the eye. Signs of corneal irritation include a red, watery eye; swelling; and pawing at the eye. Minor irritation can often be treated by flushing the eye with a solution of one teaspoon salt dissolved in a cup of purified, room- temperature water. Use a cotton ball to squeeze a stream into the eye until the solution flows out. If the eye doesn't improve within a day, have a veterinarian take a look. When damage is severe, the animal will probably keep the injured eye closed. In such cases, see a veterinarian right away. Prompt treatment can prevent permanent harm. Other eye injuries may involve trauma with a sharp object, with surgery needed to retain vision. In small, flat-faced dog breeds like the pug, a blunt trauma to the head can actually cause the eyeball to dislodge from the socket. While alarming, this condition can often be repaired if you act quickly. Stay calm and call a veterinarian for instructions. In many cases, the eye can be surgically repositioned.
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Sen. Charles Schumer, in a strongly worded Wall Street Journal op-ed piece published today, called for the Justice Department to reconsider its e-book antitrust lawsuit, noting that “the suit could wipe out the publishing industry as we know it, making it much harder for young authors to get published.” Sen. Schumer continued:

The suit will restore Amazon to the dominant position atop the e-books market it occupied for years before competition arrived in the form of Apple. If that happens, consumers will be forced to accept whatever prices Amazon sets. All of us will lose the vibrant resources a diverse publishing universe provides. As Scott Turow, president of the Author’s Guild, has explained, the Justice Department’s suit is “grim news for everyone who cherishes a rich literary culture.”

A powerful member of the Senate Judiciary Committee gets it. A bit of welcome news, this hot summer.

The full op-ed is available here.