Diagnosis and implementation: How a large cooperative employed a series of proposals for restructuring based upon the Viable Systems Model

Currently cooperatives of more than 11 members are facing organizational crisis: structure is imperative but traditional methods using authority and obedience are anathema. This paper recounts an attempt to use the Viable Systems Model to design an effective organizational structure within the constraints of cooperative working practices. It begins with the diagnosis, describes how the resulting conclusions were received by the cooperative, and gives an account of the resulting organizational structure. The success of the project is assessed.     

Action Research: Its Role in the University/Business Relationship

The Action Research (AR) PhD program at Monash University had its genesis in Systems Thinking and Organizational Learning. This paper discusses the role of the university in AR projects in business and the central role that AR projects can have in a Faculty's strategic positioning. The issues that have emerged in the project to date are discussed.     

Glycine enhances NMDA-receptor mediated synaptic potentials in neocortical slices

One class of excitatory amino-acid receptors, the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, mediates transmission at a small, but important, group of synapses in the neocortex. These receptors are implicated in neuronal plasticity during development in young mammals and in memory acquisition in adults. Recently, responses of isolated membrane patches to NMDA were shown to be greatly enhanced by glycine. This, together with the demonstration that the strychnine-insensitive glycine-binding site is distinct from, but linked to, the NMDA receptor has excited intense interest in glycine as a synaptic modulator. Before proposing a physiological function, however, it is important to determine whether glycine could enhance synaptic responses to NMDA receptor activation in intact, adult tissue. An earlier study failed to demonstrate enhancement of NMDA responses when glycine was applied and it was proposed that in intact tissue the high-affinity glycine site was already saturated by endogenous glycine. It remained possible that glycine concentrations can be maintained at low levels close to synaptic receptors. We have examined responses of neurons in slices of adult neocortex to focal applications of excitatory amino acids and glycine and report enhancement by glycine of NMDA receptor-mediated excitatory postsynaptic potentials.     

The cyclops mutation blocks specification of the floor plate of the zebrafish central nervous system

The floor plate is a set of epithelial cells present in the ventral midline of the neural tube in vertebrates that seems to have an important role in the developmental patterning of central nervous system fibre pathways, and arrangements of specific neurons. The floor plate arises from dorsal ectodermal cells closely associated with the mesoderm that forms notochord, and it may depend on interactions from the notochord for its specification. To learn the nature of these interactions we have analysed mutations in zebrafish (Brachydanio rerio). We report here that in wild-type embryos the floor plate develops as a simply organized single cell row, but that its development fails in embryos bearing the newly discovered zygotic lethal 'cyclops' mutation, cyc-1(b16). Mosaic analysis establishes that cyc-1 blocks floor plate development autonomously and reveals the presence of homeogenetic induction between floor plate cells.     

Diurnal rhythm of ethanol metabolism in the rat

Summary Male Sprague-Dawley rats injected with 2.0 g/kg of ethanol and analyzed 1 h later at 8 specific times of the day showed diurnal rhythms for alcohol concentrations in the blood, urine, brain and liver tissues. The circadian fluctuation noted for the concentrations of blood and tissue ethanol might indicate a diurnal variation in the enzymatic metabolism of ethanol.Supported by a grant from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration.