2007 MIT Innovations in Management Conference :Creating and Maintaining a Sustainable Business Strategy

Aletter for you :

The 2007 MIT Innovations in Management Conference is scheduled for December 5-6, 2007. The annual conference is offered by MIT's Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) and co-sponsored by MIT Sloan. This year's theme is "Creating and Maintaining a
Introducing MIT's new Sustainable Business Lab (S-Lab), the conference will feature research outcomes, application concepts, emerging trends, best practices, and enabling technologies that address issues related toencouraging, planning, and measuring sustainability.

For more information on the conference, you can download the brochure or visit the ILP website.

We worked with the ILP to schedule the conference around the dates of some of our executive programs, allowing participants to attend both the conference and a program in one trip. The programs offered near the conference dates are:

• Developing a Leading Edge Operations Strategy, December 3-4, 2007


• IT for the Non-IT Executive, December 3-4, 2007


• Understanding and Solving Complex Business Problems, December 10-11, 2007

We hope to see you in December.

Best regards,

Diana V. García-Martínez

Director, Open Enrollment Programs

Wong Auditorium, Tang Center

From climate change and deforestation to accelerating rates of social inequality and environmental degradation, our current business models are consuming natural and social capital at unsustainable rates. How can business respond? Can sustainability and profit by aligned? How can investments in sustainable products and practices create new markets and build profitable, healthy enterprises?

Developed in conjunction with senior faculty of the MIT Sloan School of Management, this program will seek to answer the following questions:

• What kinds of businesses can be built around making products and services that address the problems of sustainability?
• How can existing profit-driven companies place sustainability at the heart of what they do? What evidence do we have that such practices work?
• How does one value the long-term and intangible costs and benefits?
• What organizational and industry structures can be created to help support and diffuse more sustainable business practices (e.g., industry consortia, public-private partnerships, etc.)?
• How can business take advantage of new scientific and engineering developments to achieve sustainability targets and create new business opportunities in sustainability-related markets?
• How can you successfully manage the change process required to implement best practices around sustainability?

Registration Fees:

Full Registration Fee: $1,750
ILP Members*: complimentary


*A $50 processing fee will apply to each complimentary registrant who fails to attend without canceling in advance. Cancellations must be received in writing via email: register@ilp.mit.edu no later than November 28, 2007.


Registration Payment Methods:

Please make checks payable to MIT.
VISA, MasterCard, American Express and Discover accepted. (Payable in US dollars only.)

Cancellation Policy:

Cancellations received in writing via email register@ilp.mit.edu on or before November 28, 2007 are entitled to a full refund less a $50 processing fee. No refunds will be made after November 28, 2007. Substitutions, may also be made in writing by by November 28, 2007, however, any substitutions after that date will be made at the Conference On-Site Registration Desk.

Accommodations:

A block of rooms has been reserved at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge hotel near the MIT campus. Please call for reservations directly at 1-800-223-1234 or 617-492-1234. Rooms are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis, and reservations must be made no later than November 4, 2007. Please refer to the MIT ILP Innovations in Management Conference to receive the $169 room rate, plus local tax, single or double occupancy.

Technorati : Sustainable Business Strategy

Research :Functional divergence of former alleles may explain an asexual organism's evolutionary success

Asexual organisms typically have gone extinct within one million years because a lack of genetic exchange doesn't allow for the removal of deleterious mutations or the sharing of advantageous ones. But a class of aquatic invertebrates called bdelloid rotifers have persisted for 35 to 40 million years, earning the term "ancient asexuals."

The divergence of alleles into separate genes with different but advantageous functions could explain the puzzling evolutionary success of certain asexual organisms, researchers report today in Science.

"This could point the way, in part, as to why bdelloids are so successful," David Mark Welch of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., told The Scientist.

Alan Tunnacliffe at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues examined genes associated with surviving dry spells, or desiccation tolerance, and found two copies for lea genes, which are known to preserve enzymes during desiccation in multiple organisms. Their sequences differed by about 13 percent, which is greater than allele differences in sexual animals. The researchers also localized the genes to different chromosomes, which would be expected of alleles from the same gene, and therefore also expected in former alleles.

Tunnacliffe and his colleagues found that the two genes provide different protective benefits to the animal during desiccation. One gene protects proteins from aggregating, while the other appears to associate with the cell membrane, perhaps preventing it from leaking. "Sequence divergence and subsequent functional divergence helped these organisms survive desiccation," Tunnacliffe told The Scientist.

The evidence supports the idea that these were former alleles that accumulated enough mutations to become separate genes, a process termed the "Meselson effect." Matthew Meselson at Harvard University and Mark Welch first described the process in bdelloids in 2000 in a paper that has been cited more than 140 times. The difference in Tunnacliffe's findings, said Mark Welch, is "he was able to come up with some functional assays," rather than just divergent sequences.

Such divergence gives asexual organisms an advantage, the authors argue -- the effect could not occur in sexually reproducing animals, because alleles become homogenized during recombination. The findings suggest asexual reproduction could actually be an "evolutionary mechanism for the generation of diversity," they write.

So far the Meselson effect has not been observed in other organisms, perhaps because the phenomenon is unique and linked to bdelloid's desiccation tolerance, said Mark Welch, who wrote an accompanying commentary in Science. Another reason is that very few asexual organisms do not undergo meiosis, which is part of the definition of the effect.

However, Roger Butlin at the University of Sheffield told The Scientist that additional genes are not necessarily a straightforward solution to asexuality. "Having more copies of genes doesn't get you out of the problem of [disadvantageous] mutation accumulation," he said. "I think we have to look elsewhere for how they've managed to remain asexual for so long." Butlin said bdelloids' large population size and ability to distribute widely might have contributed to their success.

Butlin said the next step will be to look at the evolutionary fates of other gene copies in bdelloids and Tunnacliffe said he will start to look for other functionally divergent genes. "I think this must be going on throughout the genome," Tunnacliffe said.

The authors assume these genes were former alleles, rather than gene duplication, but their assumption makes sense, Mark Welch noted. "If it was a gene duplication, and if we are right about the structure of the bdelloid genome, then there should be four copies," he said. But because Tunnacliffe found only two divergent genes, it appears they were former alleles. "I personally think they've got it right."

Tunnacliffe's functional assays were done in vitro. He said he would like to do more studies on the activities of the two genes' proteins. "What we'd really like to know is, do these proteins do the same job in a living animal?"

Technorati : Genetic benefits of asexuality

This new mechanism could help explain the ear's remarkable ability to sense and discriminate sounds.

MIT finds new hearing mechanism
Discovery could lead to improved hearing aids

MIT researchers have discovered a hearing mechanism that fundamentally changes the current understanding of inner ear function. This new mechanism could help explain the ear's remarkable ability to sense and discriminate sounds. Its discovery could eventually lead to improved systems for restoring hearing.

The research is described in the advance online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of October 8.

MIT Professor Dennis M. Freeman, working with graduate student Roozbeh Ghaffari and research scientist Alexander J. Aranyosi, found that the tectorial membrane, a gelatinous structure inside the cochlea of the ear, is much more important to hearing than previously thought. It can selectively pick up and transmit energy to different parts of the cochlea via a kind of wave that is different from that commonly associated with hearing.

Ghaffari, the lead author of the paper, is in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, as is Freeman. All three researchers are in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics. Freeman is also in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

It has been known for over half a century that inside the cochlea sound waves are translated into up-and-down waves that travel along a structure called the basilar membrane. But the team has now found that a different kind of wave, a traveling wave that moves from side to side, can also carry sound energy. This wave moves along the tectorial membrane, which is situated directly above the sensory hair cells that transmit sounds to the brain. This second wave mechanism is poised to play a crucial role in delivering sound signals to these hair cells.

In short, the ear can mechanically translate sounds into two different kinds of wave motion at once. These waves can interact to excite the hair cells and enhance their sensitivity, "which may help explain how we hear sounds as quiet as whispers," says Aranyosi. The interactions between these two wave mechanisms may be a key part of how we are able to hear with such fidelity - for example, knowing when a single instrument in an orchestra is out of tune.

"We know the ear is enormously sensitive" in its ability to discriminate between different kinds of sound, Freeman says. "We don't know the mechanism that lets it do that." The new work has revealed "a whole new mechanism that nobody had thought of. It's really a very different way of looking at things."

The tectorial membrane is difficult to study because it is small (the entire length could fit inside a one-inch piece of human hair), fragile (it is 97 percent water, with a consistency similar to that of a jellyfish), and nearly transparent. In addition, sound vibrations cause nanometer-scale displacements of cochlear structures at audio frequencies. "We had to develop an entirely new class of measurement tools for the nano-scale regime," Ghaffari says.

The team learned about the new wave mechanism by suspending an isolated piece of tectorial membrane between two supports, one fixed and one moveable. They launched waves at audio frequencies along the membrane and watched how it responded by using a stroboscopic imaging system developed in Freeman's lab. That system can measure nanometer-scale displacements at frequencies up to a million cycles per second.

The team's discovery has implications for how we model cochlear mechanisms. "In the long run, this could affect the design of hearing aids and cochlear implants," says Ghaffari. The research also has implications for inherited forms of hearing loss that affect the tectorial membrane. Previous measurements of cochlear function in mouse models of these diseases "are consistent with disruptions of this second wave," Aranyosi adds.

Because the tectorial membrane is so tiny and so fragile, people "tend to think of it as something that's wimpy and not important," Freeman says. "Well, it's not wimpy at all." The new discovery "that it can transport energy throughout the cochlea is very significant, and it's not something that's intuitive."

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health

Using a stroboscopic imaging system developed in MIT Professor Dennis Freeman's lab, Freeman's team obtained this video of wave motion along the ear's tectorial membrane (at top, the actual video showing nanometer-scale displacements, and at bottom, the same video, motion magnified (Liu et al., 2005) to make the motion more apparent).
View via MIT TechTV

Technorati : hearing mechanism

passenger screening machines for Airlines"millimeter-wave passenger imaging technology"

It's the newest weapon in the TSA's air safety arsenal. It's called "millemeter" wave technology" and it's on the job beginning Thursday at the Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.

The machine creates a 3-d image of the passenger's body then sends it to a viewing station in another room where a TSA agent looks for potential threats.

"It's passenger imaging technology, so it allows us to see the entire image of the passenger's body and anything that might be hidden on the person" said Ellen Howe of TSA.

The new technology includes new privacy protection also. The screener in the viewing room can't see the passenger's face and the images from the machine are deleted, once the traveler is cleared to fly.

You'll see the new machine after passing through the first layer of airport security. It's an option for travelers selected for extra screening who don't want to be patted down by an officer.

"This way, they won't have to have anyone touch them, and they can get through the process very quickly" said Howe.

"You don't have to worry about being patted down, they don't have to have somebody there to pat you down. It'll save time, I think, if anything" said traveler Mark Bongiovi.

"Any time they can improve the process, make it more efficient for travelers, it's a good thing" said traveler Wendy Gilpin.

TSA officials say from start to finish the scan takes about 60 seconds. The field tests start Thursday in Phoenix and in the weeks ahead the TSA will be testing in other major cities.

THEnew type of walk-through security machine will debut at several U.S. airports in the coming days as the Transportation Security Administration tries out the latest in body scanning technology.

It's called "millimeter-wave passenger imaging technology," and it produces a more detailed picture than the metal detectors in use now at airports to screen for weapons and explosives..

Because it produces such a detailed image, however, technology and privacy experts at the American Civil Liberties Union are not satisfied that the new technology meets privacy standards.

In a written statement issued Thursday, Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU said the technology can pick up graphic body images and even medical details like whether a passenger has a colostomy bag.

Steinhardt called the screening an "assault on the essential dignity of passengers that citizens in a free nation should not have to tolerate."

TSA spokeswoman Elle Howe said privacy will be respected with the new millimeter-wave technique.

"We want to preserve passengers' privacy and make them feel comfortable with trying a technology like this," she said.

A TSA officer will escort a passenger to the machine for the test, but the person looking at the actual body scans will be at a different location and will not see the passenger, the TSA said.

In addition, the scans will have a "modesty filter" to blur out faces, and no images will be saved.

But the ACLU expressed concern that TSA officers would not be able to resist the temptation to save images of certain people, such as celebrities, and that the plan to blur faces might later be changed.

This is how the new scanners work. The passenger steps into a machine where he or she is quickly scanned with radio waves.

Those waves reflect off the body to transmit a three-dimensional image of the passenger that looks like a fuzzy photo negative. A TSA officer studies the image on a screen and looks for unusual shapes that might mean a passenger is carrying something suspicious.

Passengers who are asked to undergo a second screening can choose a pat-down search or the millimeter-wave test.

The TSA says the machines scan a passenger twice, each scan taking less than two seconds. But it takes another minute or two for a screener to review the scans before signaling a passenger to move on.

The TSA demonstrated the screening technology at a news conference Wednesday near Washington
Howe said the millimeter wave is harmless and "can see more than a magnetometer," which is the first screening machine airport passengers encounter.

"A magnetometer only picks up metal or weapons, so this could see other materials that might be hidden on the body and it also produces an image" rather than just a beep, she said.

Asked if the millimeter wave could detect an object hidden in a body cavity, she said only that the TSA will learn more about the technology as it's tested at U.S. airports.

The TSA has been testing another type of imaging technology called backscatter. This technology also came under some fire because it shows very detailed body images -- which led some critics to call it an electronic strip search. So, the backscatter was altered and blurred to show more of an outline of the body.

The TSA will continue to test the backscatter scanners in some airports. TSA officials said they are a long way from deciding whether they'll settle on just one of these imaging technologies.

Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, begins using the new machines Thursday -- to be offered as an option for people who are asked to be screened a second time.

Los Angeles International Airport in California and John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport in New York are also slated to try the machines

Britain, Spain, Japan, Australia, Mexico, Thailand and the Netherlands are using the millimeter wave screening. In the United States, some courthouses and jails are trying it

Technorati : "millimeter-wave passenger imaging technology