Ravichandran Named the Irene and Robert Bozzone '55 Distinguished Chair in the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Newswise — Troy, N.Y. – Information systems expert T. (Ravi) Ravichandran has been named the Irene and Robert Bozzone ’55 Distinguished Chair in the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. An endowed professorship is among the highest honors bestowed on a Rensselaer faculty member.

“Dr. Ravichandran is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of business strategy, information technology management, and supply chain management. Scholars in these fields recognize the strength and impact of his research, which positions Rensselaer and its students at the forefront of learning about and preparing for today’s global marketplace,” said Tom Begley, dean of the Lally School at Rensselaer. “We commend him on his appointment to the Irene and Robert Bozzone ’55 Distinguished Chair and look forward to his continued scholarly achievements in this new leadership role.”

The Bozzone Chair advances the management and technology program at the Lally School, and was established by colleagues of former Rensselaer Board of Trustees member Robert P. Bozzone ’55 to pay tribute to his exceptional career and accomplishments in building Allegheny Technologies Inc., into one of America’s outstanding corporations.

“Robert was a pioneer in leading his industrial company through the changes necessary to compete effectively internationally, and he has been a longtime loyal supporter of Rensselaer,” Begley said. “We are immensely pleased that we have the opportunity to honor the contributions of our Lally School faculty member through the efforts of Robert Bozzone.”

Ravichandran joined Rensselaer faculty in 1996 as an assistant professor at the Lally School. He was promoted to a full professor in 2009 and named associate dean for research at the Lally School in 2012.

“I feel honored to be awarded the Irene and Robert Bozzone ’55 Distinguished Chair, and would like to thank President Shirley Ann Jackson, Provost Prabhat Hajela, and Dean Tom Begley for the support I have received at Rensselaer,” said Ravichandran. “I look forward to continuing our efforts to build a pre-eminent business school at Rensselaer that creates and disseminates knowledge to leverage advanced management practices, analytical insights, and technology for the benefit of society.”

Ravichandran’s research focuses on the strategic implications of information technology, supply chain management, business-to-business electronic markets, innovation diffusion, and assimilation and organizational renewal/growth through innovation. This work examines how information technology creates value for firms and transforms organizations, industrial supply chains, and industries. His research has developed deep insights about how the competitive behaviors of firms are shaped by the information systems and about the mechanisms to facilitate the effective design, development, assimilation, and use of information systems within organizations and in value networks.

Ravichandran has published more than 100 research papers in leading academic journals and conference proceedings. He currently serves as a department editor for IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. He has also served as an associate editor of Information Systems Research and an associate editor of MIS Quarterly.

Ravichandran also works closely with several large firms on IT strategy, supply chain management, and innovation management. He has had extensive business experience as a consultant to the Reliance Group, Bombay; as the assistant director of the National Productivity Council, India; and as a production manager in Flakt AB (now Asea Brown Boveri). He has also been a successful entrepreneur, starting an IT services firm.

Ravichandran received his doctoral degree in business administration with a focus on information systems from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; a postgraduate diploma in industrial and systems engineering from the National Productivity Council in India; and a bachelor’s degree in production engineering from the University of Madras.
For more information about the Lally School of Management, visit: http://lallyschool.rpi.edu/.

For more information regarding Ravichandran and his research at Rensselaer, visit: http://lallyschool.rpi.edu/faculty/ravit.html.

Follow Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/RPInews

For more story ideas, visit the Rensselaer research and discovery blog at: http://approach.rpi.edu

Breast Milk Protein May Be Key to Protecting Babies From HIV Infection

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Released: 10/16/2013 3:15 PM EDT
Embargo expired: 10/21/2013 3:00 PM EDT
Source Newsroom: Duke Medicine

Newswise — DURHAM, N.C. – A substance in breast milk that neutralizes HIV and may protect babies from acquiring HIV from their infected mothers has been identified for the first time by researchers at Duke Medicine.

The protein, called Tenascin-C or TNC, had previously been recognized as playing a role in wound healing, but had not been known to have antimicrobial properties. The discovery could lead to potential new HIV-prevention strategies.

Reporting in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of Oct. 21, 2013, the researchers describe how the TNC protein in breast milk binds to and neutralizes the HIV virus, potentially protecting exposed infants who might otherwise become infected from repeated exposures to the virus.

“Even though we have antiretroviral drugs that can work to prevent mother-to-child transmission, not every pregnant woman is being tested for HIV, and less than 60 percent are receiving the prevention drugs, particularly in countries with few resources,” said senior author Sallie Permar, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics, immunology and molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke. “So there is still a need for alternative strategies to prevent mother-to-child transmission, which is why this work is important.”

Worldwide in 2011, an estimated 330,000 children acquired HIV from their mothers during pregnancy or birth, or through breastfeeding according to UNICEF. As international health organizations have set a goal of eliminating mother-to-child infections, researchers have worked to develop safe and affordable alternatives to antiretroviral therapy that can be used to block HIV transmission to infants.

Permar and colleagues focused on breast milk, which has long been recognized as having some protective quality that inhibits mother-to-child transmission despite multiple daily exposures over months and even years of nursing. Earlier studies had identified some antiviral properties in breast milk, but the majority of the HIV-neutralizing activity of breast milk remained unexplained. More recent studies pointed to a large protein that had yet to be identified.

In their study, the Duke team screened mature milk samples from uninfected women for neutralizing activity against a panel of HIV strains, confirming that all of the detectable HIV-neutralization activity was contained in the high molecular weight portion. Using a multi-step protein separation process, the researchers narrowed the detectable HIV-neutralization activity to a single protein, and identified it as TNC.

“TNC is a component of the extracellular matrix that is integral to how tissues hold themselves together,” Permar said, noting that co-author Harold Erickson, Ph.D., professor of cell biology at Duke, was among the first to identify and describe TNC in the 1980s. “This is a protein involved during wound healing, playing a role in tissue repair. It is also known to be important in fetal development, but its reason for being a component of breast milk or its antiviral properties had never been described.”

Further analysis described how TNC works against HIV by blocking virus entry. The protein is uniquely effective in capturing virus particles and neutralizes the virus, specifically binding to the HIV envelope. These properties provide widespread protection against infection.

“It’s likely that TNC is acting in concert with other anti-HIV factors in breast milk, and further research should explore this,” Permar said. “But given TNC’s broad-spectrum HIV-1-binding and neutralizing activity, it could be developed as an HIV-prevention therapy, given orally to infants prior to breastfeeding, similar to the way oral rehydration salts are routinely administered to infants in developing regions.”

Permar said TNC would also appear to be inherently safe, since it is a naturally occurring component of breast milk, and it may avoid the problem of HIV resistance to antiretroviral regimens that complicate maternal/infant applications.

“The discovery of the HIV inhibiting effect of this common protein in breast milk provides a potential explanation for why nursing infants born to HIV-infected mothers do not become infected more often than they do,” said Barton F. Haynes, M.D., director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. “It also provides support for inducing inhibitory factors in breast milk that might be even more protective, such as antibodies, that would completely protect babies from HIV infection in this setting.”

In addition to Permar, co-senior author was S. Munir Alam. Other authors include Genevieve G. Fouda, Frederick H. Jaeger, Joshua D. Amos, Carrie Ho, Erika L. Kunz, Kara Anasti, Lisa W. Stamper, Brooke E. Liebl; Kimberly H. Barbas, Tomoo Ohashi, M. Arthur Moseley, Hua-Xin Liao and Harold P. Erickson.

The study was funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Award; Duke University School of Medicine; Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology; and the National Institute of Allergic and Immunologic Diseases (U19 AI067854) (K08AI087992) (CA047056).

###

Lifestyle factors could put college-age women at increased risk of breast cancer

Newswise - Breast cancer prevention must become a conversation shared among women of all ages, as you can attack at any age and is usually more aggressive when diagnosed in women younger than 50 years. In the hope of awakening that discussion, Isabelle Mercier, PhD, Assistant Professor of research at the University of Sciences, compiled some tips of the awareness of key prevention for young women.

"Unfortunately, college-age women generally are not considered at risk for breast cancer," said Dr. Mercier. "However, there are several risk factors that contribute to the development of breast cancer that must understand early in life to prevent the development of the breast cancer in the road."

At the end of 2013, expected more than 230,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer being diagnosed in the United States of those cases, not survive approximately 40,000 people, said Dr. Mercier. Women in their 20s should be early be aware of some key risk factors associated with breast cancer:

(1) See its family tree. A family history of breast cancer, particularly in a mother or sister, may increase the likelihood of developing breast cancer. Genetic tests are recommended for young women with prevalence of breast cancer in their families.

(2) Care for their weight. Obesity is responsible for up to 20 percent of the deaths associated with cancer in women. Being overweight or obese increases the risk of breast cancer through the creation of an environment conducive to cancer through the fat cells.

(3) Exercising regularly. Women striving for at least 2.5 hours of moderate, such as walking-intensity activity - reduce your risk of cancer of breast by 18 percent.

(4) Limit the consumption of alcohol. According to new research from the Washington University School of Medicine, if a woman an average of one drink a day increases your risk of breast cancer by 11 percent. Studies show that alcohol has estrogenic activity, thus promoting the growth of breast cancer cells.

(5) Visit yearly doc. Although mammograms are not recommended for women under 40 years of age, young women should still see their primary care physicians each year for the clinical breast exams. You are also encouraged to perform breast self-exam throughout the year.

(6) Limit the use of tobacco. Women who smoke have an increased risk of developing breast cancer, especially if they become smoking early in life. Smokers have increased levels of estrogen and testosterone that could disrupt the endocrine system of signalling in women and contribute to the development of these tumors.

An important part of the research of Dr. Mercier focuses on cancer prevention. The role of the intake of vitamin C in the development of breast cancer, progression, repetition and response to cancer therapy remains unclear. That is why Dr. Mercier and his research team are currently studying the role of dietary supplements in cancer risk, as well as assess new biomarkers for the early detection of breast cancer. He received his Ph.d. in Physiology and BS in Biochemistry from the University of Montreal. For assistance in making arrangements to interview Dr. Mercier, please contact Lauren Whetzel or Brian Kirschner.

At the University of Sciences, students embark on a challenging learning experience in a testing ground for successful professionals in science and health-related fields. A private institution dedicated to education, research and service, and distinguished as the first University in the nation's pharmacy, the University has produced leaders in science and health markets since its founding in 1821. Five universities in USciences students learn to Excel in scientific analysis and to apply their skills to improve health care in the lives of people around the world through such disciplines such as pharmacy, biology, chemistry, psychology, physics, physical therapy, business and political health of health. For more information, visit usciences.edu or Twitter @USciences.

Patients Report Doctors Not Telling Them of Overdiagnosis Risk in Screenings

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Newswise — A survey finds that most patients are not being told about the possibility of overdiagnosis and overtreatment as a result of cancer screenings, according to report in a research letter by Odette Wegwarth, Ph.D., and Gerd Gigerenzer, Ph.D., of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.

Cancer screenings can find treatable disease at an earlier stage but they can also detect cancers that will never progress to cause symptoms. Detection of these early, slow-growing cancers can lead to unnecessary surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, the authors write in the study background.

Researchers conducted an online survey of 317 U.S. men and women ages 50 to 69 years to find out how many patients had been informed of overdiagnosis and overtreatment by their physicians and how much overdiagnosis they would tolerate when deciding whether to start or continue screening.

Of the group, 9.5 percent of the study participants (n=30) reported their physicians had told them about the possibility of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. About half (51 percent) of the participants reported that they were unprepared to start a screening that results in more than one overtreated person per one life saved from cancer death. However, nearly 59 percent reported they would continue the cancer screening they receive regularly even if they learned that the test results in 10 overtreated people per one life saved from cancer death.

“The results of the present study indicate that physicians’ counseling on screening does not meet patients’ standards,” the study concludes.
(JAMA Intern Med. Published online October 21, 2013. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.10363. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)

Editor’s Note: This study was funded by the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, a nonprofit research site. Please see article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.

# # #

Bottle Feeding Associated with Increased Risk of Stomach Obstruction in Infants

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Newswise — Bottle feeding appears to increase the risk infants will develop hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (HPS), a form of stomach obstruction, and that risk seems to be magnified when mothers are older and have had more than one child, according to a study published by JAMA Pediatrics, a JAMA Network publication.

HPS typically occurs during an infant’s first two months of life and surgery is needed to correct the obstruction, which occurs because of a thickening of the smooth muscle layer of the pylorus (the passage between the stomach and small intestines). Despite how frequently the condition occurs (about 2 cases per 1,000 births), its cause remains unknown, the authors write in the study background.

Jarod P. McAteer, M.D., M.P.H., of the Seattle Children’s Hospital, and colleagues used Washington state birth certificates and discharge data to examine births between 2003 and 2009. The study included 714 infants admitted with HPS who had a procedure code for HPS surgery (pyloromyotomy). Study controls were infants without HPS. Breastfeeding status was recorded on Washington state birth certificates for all infants during the study period.

The findings indicate that that the incidence of HPS decreased from 14 per 10,000 births in 2003 to 9 per 10,000 births in 2009. Breastfeeding prevalence increased during that time from 80 percent in 2003 to 94 percent in 2009. Infants who developed HPS were more likely to be bottle fed compared with controls (19.5 percent vs. 9.1 percent). The odds of an infant developing HPS also increased when mothers were 35 years and older and multiparous (having given birth more than once).

“These data suggest that bottle feeding may play a role in HPS etiology, and further investigations may help to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the observed effect modification by age and parity,” the study concludes.
(JAMA Pediatr. Published online October 21, 2013. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.2857. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)

Editor’s Note: Please see the articles for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.

Editorial: Epidemiology to Enlighten the Pathogenesis of Hypertrophic Pyloric Stenosis

In a related editorial, Douglas C. Barnhart, M.D., M.S.P.H., of the Primary Children’s Hospital, Salt Lake City, writes: “One thing that one could hope for is to understand the cause of a disease that is among the most common causes for operation in infants. The fact that pyloric stenosis is still described as idiopathic despite its incidence of 2 per 1,000 is disappointing. In this issue of JAMA Pediatrics, McAteer and colleagues bring us a step closer to being able to drop idiopathic from hypertrophic pyloric stenosis.”

“While the data seem convincing that bottle feeding increases the risk, the reason is not clear,” he continues.

“Further understanding of the pathogenesis of hypertrophic pyloric stenosis will come from both basic research and more detailed epidemiologic studies,” Barnhart concludes.
(JAMA Pediatr. Published online October 21, 2013. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.3899. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)

Editor’s Note: Please see the articles for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.

# # #

New Offering: Essentials of Management Leadership Program (EMLP)

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Newswise — The newest addition to the Tuck Executive Education portfolio, Essentials of Management Leadership Program (EMLP), is designed to develop effective leaders in general management. The immersive five-day program provides successful functional managers and new middle managers with an integrated view of the fundamentals of business, strategy and leadership.

In explaining the rationale for creating this new program, faculty director William Joyce explains, “There is no shortage of leadership programs available today. But we discovered that offerings at other schools and corporate in-house programs often fail to address what rising middle managers really need to be successful at the next level—namely the integration of ‘soft’ leadership skills combined with a broad understanding of the ‘hard’ fundamentals of business. That’s what participants will get by working with Tuck MBA faculty in EMLP.”

Participant Profile?

The program is specifically designed for successful functional managers with 5-10 years management experience. Participants have just taken on or are about to assume broader middle management responsibilities.

EMLP is also appropriate for technical professionals with scientific, engineering, technology, R&D, project management, healthcare management and other technical backgrounds who are transferring to broader management.

Program Takeaways

Learn the hard skills of business, strategy and finance combined with the softer skills of leadership, including how to influence others in the organization without direct authority
Become a more effective leader by moving beyond functional expertise towards executing on the broader objectives of the organization to make a bigger impact.

Who are the faculty teaching in EMLP?

The same faculty who have made Tuck’s MBA program among the world’s highest ranked also teach in the Essentials of Management Leadership Program. They are highly accessible during the program and care deeply about helping participants develop their business acumen and self-awareness as a leader.

William “Bill” Joyce is the program’s faculty director. An expert on strategy and organizational design, Bill is joined by Tuck’s top faculty in the areas of leadership, influence, finance, operations, marketing and strategy.

See the full faculty list.
See program details.
Dates and Location

EMLP will be held November 17-22 at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, in Hanover, NH. For more information, please visit the program website or contact us.

Founded in 1900, Tuck is the first graduate school of management in the country and consistently ranks among the top business schools worldwide. Tuck remains distinctive among the world's great business schools by combining human scale with global reach, rigorous coursework with experiences requiring teamwork, and valued traditions with innovation.

New Study Indicates Risk of Amazon Rainforest Dieback Due to Global Warming is Higher than Previously Projected

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Newswise — (BOSTON) A new study co-authored by Boston University Professor of Earth & Environment Ranga Myneni suggests the southern portion of the Amazon rainforest is at a much higher risk of dieback due to climate change than projections made in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If severe enough, the loss of rainforest could cause the release of large volumes of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It could also disrupt plant and animal communities in one of the regions of highest biodiversity in the world.

Using ground-based rainfall measurements from the last three decades, the researchers found that since 1979, the dry season in southern Amazonia has lasted about a week longer per decade. At the same time, the annual fire season has become longer. According to the study, the most likely explanation for the lengthening dry season is global warming.

“The dry season over the southern Amazon is already marginal for maintaining rainforest,” says Rong Fu, co-author and professor at The University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences Fu. “At some point, if it becomes too long, the rainforest will reach a tipping point.”

The new results are in stark contrast to forecasts made by climate models used by the IPCC. Even under future scenarios in which atmospheric greenhouse gases rise dramatically, the models project the dry season in the southern Amazon to be only a few to ten days longer by the end of the century and therefore the risk of climate change-induced rainforest dieback should be relatively low.

The report appears this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The length of the dry season in the southern Amazon is the most important climate condition controlling the rainforest,” says Fu. “If the dry season is too long, the rainforest will not survive.”

To see why the length of dry season is such a limiting factor, imagine there is heavier than usual rainfall during the wet season. The soil can only hold so much water and the rest runs off. The water stored in the soil at the end of the wet season is all that the rainforest trees have to last them through the dry season. The longer the dry season lasts, regardless of how wet the wet season was, the more stressed the trees become and the more susceptible they are to fire.

The researchers say the most likely explanation for the lengthening dry season in the southern Amazon in recent decades is human-caused greenhouse warming which inhibits rainfall in two ways: First, it makes it harder for warm, dry air near the surface to rise up and freely mix with cool, moist air above. And second, it blocks cold front incursions from outside the tropics that could trigger rainfall. The climate models used by the IPCC do a poor job representing these processes, which might explain why they project only a slightly longer Amazonian dry season, says Fu.

The Amazon rainforest normally removes the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but during a severe drought in 2005, it released 1 petagram of carbon (about one tenth of annual human emissions) to the atmosphere.

“The more severe 2010 drought impacted twice the forested area than the 2005 drought and could have likely resulted in substantial carbon loss from the forests,” says Myneni, who has previously studied these droughts with NASA satellite sensor data.

Myneni and his colleagues estimate that if dry seasons continue to lengthen at just half the rate of recent decades, the Amazon drought of 2005 could become the norm, rather than the exception, by the end of this century.

Some scientists have speculated that the combination of longer dry seasons, higher surface temperatures and more fragmented forests due to ongoing human-caused deforestation could eventually convert much of southern Amazonia from rainforest to savanna.

Earlier studies have shown that human-caused deforestation in the Amazon can alter rainfall patterns. But the researchers didn’t see a strong signal of deforestation in the pattern of increasing dry season length. The dry season length increase was most pronounced in the southwestern Amazon while the most intense deforestation occurred in the southeastern Amazon.

Because the northwestern Amazon has much higher rainfall and a shorter dry season than the southern Amazon, the researchers think it is much less vulnerable to climate change.

The co-authors of this study include Rong Fu, Lei Yin, Robert Dickinson, Lei Huang and Sudip Chakraborty at The University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences; Wenhong Li at Duke University; Paola A. Arias at Universidad de Antioquia in Colombia; Katia Fernandes at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; Brant Liebmann at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); Rosie Fisher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research; and Ranga Myneni at Boston University.

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation (AGS 0937400) and NOAA Climate Program Office Modeling, Analysis, Prediction and Projection Program (NA10OAAR4310157) and the NASA Earth Science Division.

Note to Reporters: A preprint of the article is available to journalists on the following secure reporters-only web site: http://www.eurekalert.org/pio/pnas.php

About Boston University—Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized private research university with more than 30,000 students participating in undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs. As Boston University’s largest academic division, the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences is the heart of the BU experience with a global reach that enhances the University’s reputation for teaching and research. In 2012, BU joined the Association of American Universities (AAU), a consortium of 62 leading research universities in the United States and Canada.

# # #