Consumer perspectives on the African sharptooth catfish in rural and urban areas of the Northern Province

This study evaluated consumer behavioural patterns in relation to meat products, with special reference to the African sharptooth catfish, in the Northern Province. Personal interviews were conducted in rural Ga‐Mamphaka and urban Giyani. The major meat type purchased was found to be chicken (71 per cent in the rural and 46 per cent in the urban community). The sharptooth catfish was found to be acceptable to the majority of respondents, both urban (69 per cent) and rural (57 per cent). Most respondents also indicated that they would like to purchase canned catfish. A potential market for catfish would seem to exist at a price competitive with that of chicken.     

Meeting the challenge of corporate entrepreneurship

To be competitive, companies must grow innovative new businesses. Corporate entrepreneurship, however, isn't easy. New ventures face innumerable barriers and seldom mesh smoothly with well-established systems, processes, and cultures. Nonetheless, success requires a balance of old and new organizational traits-and unless companies keep those opposing forces in equilibrium, their new businesses will flounder. The authors describe the challenges companies face when they pursue new businesses, as well as the usual problematic responses to those challenges. Such companies, they say, must perform three balancing acts: Develop strategy by trial and error, which includes narrowing potential choices, learning from small samples, using prototypes to test business models, tracking progress through nonfinancial measures, and knowing how and when to pull the plug on a new venture. Find the best combination of old and new operational processes by staffing new ventures with "mature turks", changing veterans' thinking, knowing which capabilities to develop and which to acquire, and having old and new businesses share responsibility for operating decisions. Strike the right balance of integration and autonomy by assigning both corporate and operating sponsors to new ventures, establishing criteria for handoffs to existing divisions, and using creative organizational structures. The authors provide a detailed look at IBM's Emerging Business Opportunity system, which manages all these balancing acts simultaneously.     

Party voting discipline and the power of parties, legislators and states

We examine the distribution of decision-making power among the principal actors of a federal legislative system; parties, legislators, and constituencies. We are especially interested in how the balance of power between legislators and constituencies depends on the voting discipline exercised by the parties.We derive power measures that are related to the Banzhaf-Coleman index of decision-making power and illustrate with a simple example. Our power measures are novel because they are based on an explicit representation of party voting discipline as well as the structural properties of the decision-making process, whereas previous analyses concentrate on structurally determined power alone.     

Opportunistic hiring and employee fit

Most research on selection processes and organizational fit deals with existing, unfilled positions where expectations and tasks are known and measurable. This article instead evaluates the reasons, processes, and implications of opportunistic hiring—hiring employees before their jobs exist. Examples from an exploratory study show how “fit” factors into selection decisions. A typology is offered along the dimensions of whether opportunistic hiring is used to meet immediate or anticipated needs and the extent to which these needs are articulated prior to selection. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

MRI of Budd-Chiari syndrome

A retrospective study was undertaken to reassess the various magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features of Budd-Chiari syndrome (BCS). MRI examinations of 22 patients with pathologically confirmed BCS were studied. Spin-echo (SE) T1- (TR = 300–450 ms/TE = 12–15 ms), and SE T2-weighted (TR = 1600–2000 ms/TE = 30–60/90–120 ms) MRI images were obtained in all patients. Gradient-recalled-echo (GRE) images (TR = 7–60 ms/TE = 3–19 ms, flip angle = 10–40°) were obtained in 14 patients. MRI showed thrombosis of three or two hepatic veins in 19 (86%) and 3 (14%) patients, respectively. Spontaneous intrahepatic anastomoses was depicted in five (23%) patients. Ascites appeared in 15 patients (68%). Thrombosis or external compression of the inferior vena cava (IVC) by an enlarged caudate lobe was depicted in six (27%) and five (23%) patients, respectively. Prominent azygos and hemiazygos veins were demonstrated in seven (32%) patients (six of whom had thrombosis of the IVC). MRI showed hepatomegaly in all patients and enlarged caudate lobe in 18 (82%) patients. SE T1- and SE T2-weighted MRI images revealed inhomogeneous signal intensity of hepatic parenchyma in 14 (64%) patients. SE T1- and SE T2-weighted MRI images showed homogeneous signal intensity of hepatic parenchyma in eight (36%) patients. Our results demonstrate that BCS displays various features on MRI images, and such information is important for diagnosis.