Strategic Expansion Research Articles

Quadruple C-H activation coupled to hydrofunctionalization and C-H silylation/borylation enabled by weakly coordinated palladium catalyst

Unlike the well-reported 1,2-difunctionalization of alkenes that is directed by classic pyridine and imine-containing directing groups, oxo-palladacycle intermediates featuring weak Pd-O coordination have been less demonstrated in C-H activated cascade transformations. Here we report a quadruple C-H activation cascade as well as hydro-functionalization, C-H silylation/borylation sequence based on weakly coordinated palladium catalyst. The hydroxyl group modulates the intrinsic direction of the Heck reaction, and then acts as an interrupter that biases the reaction away from the classic β-H elimination and toward C-H functionalization. Mechanistically, density functional theory calculation provides important insights into the key six-membered oxo-palladacycle intermediates, and indicates that the β-H elimination is unfavorable both thermodynamically and kinetically. In this article, we focus on the versatility of this approach, which is a strategic expansion of the Heck reaction.

Strategic expansion of existing forest monitoring plots: a case study using a stratified GIS-based modelling approach

Background: Understanding the relationship between sites and the plant species they support is essential for effective vegetation management. Site-species matching requires knowledge of the growth response of a given species to the full range of environmental conditions in potential planting sites. This can be achieved by repeatedly measuring species growth at a comprehensive network of sample plots that cover a range of environmental conditions, including topography, climate, and soil factors. The New Zealand Dryland Forests Initiative has established permanent sample plots (PSPs) of a plantation species, Eucalyptus bosistoana F.Muell., across New Zealand. However, these PSPs do not cover the entire range of environmental conditions available for the species and hence there is a need to expand the network of sites. The aim of this study was to determine optimal locations for new PSPs to provide more unique information to support site-species matching studies for Eucalyptus bosistoana in New Zealand.Methods: A geographic information system (GIS) and stratified random sampling method were used to generate a model to identify optimal locations for E. bosistoana PSP establishment. The variables used in this study included topography, climate, and soil data. Redundancy between the initial set of potential explanatory variables was reduced by a multi-collinearity analysis. The potential habitat for the species was restricted to land with environmental conditions that could support E. bosistoana. All environmental variables were stratified and an initial priority index for each stratum in each variable was calculated. Then a weighted-overlay analysis was conducted to create the final priority index, which was mapped to identify high-priority areas for targeted PSP expansion.Results: The existing PSP network for E. bosistoana generally covers the environmental conditions in low-elevation New Zealand dry lands, which are located alongside the east coast of the South Island, and the southern part of the North Island. The model identified high priority areas for PSP expansion, including several large regions in the North Island, especially in Rangitikei and Taupo Districts.Conclusions: The model successfully allowed identification of areas for a strategic expansion of permanent sample plots for E. bosistoana. Newly identified areas expand upon the topographic, climatic, and soil conditions represented by the existing PSP network. The new area for PSP expansion has potential to provide valuable information for further site-species matching studies. The methodology in this paper has potential to be used for other plot networks of a different species, or even natural forests.

Extinction risk and threats to plants and fungi

Societal Impact StatementThere is increasing awareness that plants and fungi, as natural solutions, can play an important role in tackling ongoing global environmental challenges. We illustrate how understanding current and projected threats to plants and fungi is necessary to manage and mitigate risks, while building awareness of gaps and bias in current assessment coverage is essential to adequately prioritize conservation efforts. We highlight the state of the art in conservation science and point to current methods of assessment and future studies needed to mitigate species extinction.SummaryPlant and fungal biodiversity underpin life on earth and merit careful stewardship in an increasingly uncertain environment. However, gaps and biases in documented extinction risks to plant and fungal species impede effective management. Formal extinction risk assessments help avoid extinctions, through engagement, financial, or legal mechanisms, but most plant and fungal species lack assessments. Available global assessments cover c. 30% of plant species (ThreatSearch). Red List coverage overrepresents woody perennials and useful plants, but underrepresents single‐country endemics. Fungal assessments overrepresent well‐known species and are too few to infer global status or trends. Proportions of assessed vascular plant species considered threatened vary between global assessment datasets: 37% (ThreatSearch), and 44% (International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species). Our predictions, correcting for several quantifiable biases, suggest that 39% of all vascular plant species are threatened with extinction. However, other biases remain unquantified, and may affect our estimate. Preliminary trend data show plants moving toward extinction. Quantitative estimates based on plant extinction risk assessments may understate likely biodiversity loss: they do not fully capture the impacts of climate change, slow‐acting threats, or clustering of extinction risk, which could amplify loss of evolutionary potential. The importance of extinction risk estimation to support existing and emerging conservation initiatives is likely to grow as threats to biodiversity intensify. This necessitates urgent and strategic expansion of efforts toward comprehensive and ongoing assessment of plant and fungal extinction risk.

On the Looming Physician Shortage and Strategic Expansion of Graduate Medical Education.

Among many other things, the novel coronavirus pandemic of 2020 highlighted the significance of physician shortages in the United States. Current projections anticipate a national shortage of up to 122,000 physicians by 2032, with shortfalls in both primary care physicians and specialists. Yet while this figure highlights the magnitude of the problem, it does not capture the distributional aspect of American physician shortages. Though some specialties and geographic areas have a surplus of physicians, others have a chronic undersupply. Appropriately addressing the looming physician shortage therefore requires not only creating more physicians, but also ensuring that those physicians practice in the areas of greatest societal need. This review explores the nature of physician shortages in the United States, identifies the present bottleneck in physician training at the level of graduate medical education, and considers potential legislative and policy solutions to allow strategic and deliberate expansion of graduate medical education and physician practice.

Learning by supplying and competition threat

This study proposes a model of learning by supplying in an international outsourcing framework, where the supplier of a relationship-specific input can reverse engineer and become a competitor to its partner in the final goods market. Transmitting knowledge to a more capable supplier therefore creates competitive threat despite the benefits it brings within an outsourcing relationship. In particular, in markets with less differentiated products and for standard inputs that require less knowledge to be shared, choosing an intermediate capability level supplier prompts a strategic expansion of output to deter supplier entry in the final goods market, resulting in higher profits and welfare. A highly capable supplier is instead accommodated as a rival and is a source of royalty income when the relationship-specific input embeds more knowledge about the final product and when the competing varieties are differentiated.

Late!: 100% social

Learning outcomes The learning outcomes are designing an empresarial strategy and considering different business strategies and environment variables. Case overview/synopsis On November of 2015, Eduardo Castillo, General Manager of Late! (B Corporation) programed a directory reunion in which he had to pose a proposal of strategic expansion and growth for the company for future years. A fine of October 2015 publicly revealed the collusion of the two large conglomerates of tissue paper in the Chilean market, with this situation Eduardo took advantage of the discomfort of the consumers and looked alternative brands, he evaluates the launching of a new product: toilet paper Late!. Eduardo had to present at the board meeting the backgrounds to decide the expansion and the strategic growth of the company, taking advantage of the collusion case of the toilet paper or continue their successful project of bottled water. Complexity academic level This case focuses primarily on the processes of social enterprise for undergraduate or graduate courses in social entrepreneurship, business model innovation, sustainability, strategic management, emerging markets and business in Chile. Also, this case is also ideal to teach the “business model canvas” and “B Corp.” Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 11: Entrepreneurship.

Up the Wadi: Development of an Iron Age Industrial Landscape in Faynan, Jordan

ABSTRACT In 2014, the Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Project renewed excavations at Khirbat al-Jariya (KAJ), an Iron Age copper smelting site in Faynan, Jordan. Located roughly 3 km from the prominent smelting center Khirbat en-Nahas (KEN), KAJ was an integral component of Early Iron Age (ca. 1200–800 b.c.) copper production in Faynan, one of the largest copper ore deposits in the southern Levant. To date, the site had only been investigated by surveys and limited excavation; the 2014 excavations opened two areas (the largest extant building and a slag mound sounding) to explore the social dynamics and temporal intricacies of copper production. The excavation results, detailed site remapping, paleobotanical analysis, and new radiocarbon dates suggest KAJ more rapidly developed into a large-scale copper production center than previously believed, likely as a strategic expansion to the industry at KEN. This reinterpretation sheds new light on the development of the Iron Age industrial landscape in Faynan.

Agricultural exports from Russia to Asian countries: Analysis of prospects and trends

The recent recovery in Russian agriculture is due not only to the producers support from the State, but also to an increase in the production of foodstuffs substituting the imported ones. This was a result of negative foreign policy factors, and now further promising guidelines for Russian agriculture are expected to be developed by the government. The article is relevant due to the fact that the expansion of agricultural exports is a strategically important task for the entire Russian economy. The article analyzes the dynamics of agricultural production in Russia by farm categories over the past 19 years, as well as the production of main types of import-substituting foods for 2017-2018. The main agricultural exports to the Asian countries are identified and grouped. The current state and the possibility of a potential increase in exports of agricultural products by sectors of agro-industry have been studied. On the example of priority agro industries, ensuring the strategic expansion of exports to Asian countries, the current financial and economic state of the largest agro-industrial enterprises has been studied using special indicators of the SPARK system (system of professional analysis of markets and firms in Russia). The analysis showed that more than 90% of companies fall into the low-risk group by composite risk indicator, which is undoubtedly a positive development. This increases the likelihood of these entities stable development and the growth of their exports to Asian countries.

Agricultural exports from Russia to Asian countries: Analysis of prospects and trends

The recent recovery in Russian agriculture is due not only to the producers support from the State, but also to an increase in the production of foodstuffs substituting the imported ones. This was a result of negative foreign policy factors, and now further promising guidelines for Russian agriculture are expected to be developed by the government. The article is relevant due to the fact that the expansion of agricultural exports is a strategically important task for the entire Russian economy. The article analyzes the dynamics of agricultural production in Russia by farm categories over the past 19 years, as well as the production of main types of import-substituting foods for 2017-2018. The main agricultural exports to the Asian countries are identified and grouped. The current state and the possibility of a potential increase in exports of agricultural products by sectors of agro-industry have been studied. On the example of priority agro industries, ensuring the strategic expansion of exports to Asian countries, the current financial and economic state of the largest agro-industrial enterprises has been studied using special indicators of the SPARK system (system of professional analysis of markets and firms in Russia). The analysis showed that more than 90% of companies fall into the low-risk group by composite risk indicator, which is undoubtedly a positive development. This increases the likelihood of these entities stable development and the growth of their exports to Asian countries.

Historicising Wanghong economy: connecting platforms through Wanghong and Wanghong incubators

ABSTRACT Wanghong, short for ‘wangluo hongren’ (Chinese for ‘people who have gone viral on the internet’), is often used as the vernacular term for influencers and microcelebrities in China, which are increasingly defined by their acute ability to convert internet viewer traffic to money with diverse economic models in its contemporary context of wanghong economy. This essay historicises the emergence of wanghong economy in which both the meanings and practices of wanghong are being produced and reproduced and it examines how wanghong economy’s developing trajectory and economic models are underpinned by the strategic expansion of major domestic platform companies. Using the leading wanghong incubator, Ruhnn Holding Limited, as a case study, this essay deconstructs the profitable model of e-commerce wanghong that is widely adopted so far as a prototype across the wanghong industry. Such value chain integrates advertising and e-commerce and it further connects two powerful platforms, Weibo and Alibaba, by facilitating a transplatform business ecosystem that benefits, and is promoted by, both companies.

Is skin bleaching a moral wrong? An African bioethical perspective.

Focusing on black communities in Africa, in this paper, I attempt an African bioethico-aesthetic deconstruction of the falsehood in colorist definitions of beauty purveyed by the migration of non-surgical cosmetics to Africa. I provide a novel ethical evaluation of the act of skin bleaching using principles of the African ethic of communion. I argue that skin bleaching is morally wrong to the extent that it promotes disharmonious relations and false identity in the beauty industry in Africa. Drawing on scientific studies that link toxic ingredients in many skin-bleaching products to adverse health effects, I discuss the public health impact of bleaching cosmetics and other problems occasioned by their strategic expansion into African markets. I propose that there is an urgent need for a relational ethic of polycentric governance that would harmoniously regulate the production and distribution of cosmetic products across regions in order to avoid the exploitation of consumers in black African societies, while also protecting consumers' right to make informed choices through education.

Incorporating the Protests: The NFL, Social Justice, and the Constrained Activism of the “Inspire Change” Campaign

On January 11, 2019, the National Football League (NFL) launched “Inspire Change,” a campaign for the league’s social justice efforts. The campaign, which would serve as the umbrella under which the NFL’s US$89 million social justice partnership with the players would be housed, launched with its own website, hashtag, commercial, and documentary series. This article textually examines the “Inspire Change” campaign and its associated media materials, contextualizing it against the kneeling protests carried out by Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players as well as the NFL’s reactions to those protests. In doing so, I argue that NFL’s response to its players’ call for social justice is at once a strategic expansion by the league that seeks to capitalize on the emergent activist power of professional players to build the league’s brand as an authoritative and inclusive American institution contributing to social good. At the same time, however, under withering criticism from President Trump and conservative media, it reestablishes league control over the voice of rebellious Black players by subsuming their social justice efforts under the auspices of a campaign that evades the ideological confrontation of the kneeling protests in favor of a more positive, market-friendly version of “justice” based in calls of unity.

Beneficial land use change: Strategic expansion of new biomass plantations can reduce environmental impacts from EU agriculture

Society faces the double challenge of increasing biomass production to meet the future demands for food, materials and bioenergy, while addressing negative impacts of current (and future) land use. In the discourse, land use change (LUC) has often been considered as negative, referring to impacts of deforestation and expansion of biomass plantations. However, strategic establishment of suitable perennial production systems in agricultural landscapes can mitigate environmental impacts of current crop production, while providing biomass for the bioeconomy. Here, we explore the potential for such “beneficial LUC” in EU28. First, we map and quantify the degree of accumulated soil organic carbon losses, soil loss by wind and water erosion, nitrogen emissions to water, and recurring floods, in ∼81.000 individual landscapes in EU28. We then estimate the effectiveness in mitigating these impacts through establishment of perennial plants, in each landscape. The results indicate that there is a substantial potential for effective impact mitigation. Depending on criteria selection, 10–46% of the land used for annual crop production in EU28 is located in landscapes that could be considered priority areas for beneficial LUC. These areas are scattered all over Europe, but there are notable “hot-spots” where priority areas are concentrated, e.g., large parts of Denmark, western UK, The Po valley in Italy, and the Danube basin. While some policy developments support beneficial LUC, implementation could benefit from attempts to realize synergies between different Sustainable Development Goals, e.g., “Zero hunger”, “Clean water and sanitation”, “Affordable and Clean Energy”, “Climate Action”, and “Life on Land”.

Risk Management by University Lawyers in Work Integrated Learning Programs

The strategic expansion of work integrated learning (‘WIL’) programs by Australian universities is not without legal risk. The primary sources of that legal risk are the participation of third party entities that host students in the workplace and the placement of students in a workplace environment that they may be unfamiliar with. Managing the legal risks associated with WIL is not only a commercial imperative, but is mandatory under higher education law. University lawyers, a relatively unknown category of in-house counsel, have a central role in risk management. A case study involving 13 Australian university lawyers represents the first known systematic study of risk management in WIL from the perspective of university lawyers. The insights and recommendations provided by university lawyers can educate stakeholders about risk management and the role of university lawyers, and can be used as a basis for evaluating and improving risk management in WIL programs.

Strategic narrative in multi‐academy trusts in England: Principal drivers for expansion

Multi‐academy trusts (MATs) are now a common feature of the English educational landscape. Yet numerous high‐profile failures indicate that they present substantial challenges in terms of leadership and governance. One of the areas that most exercises school leaders and boards is the setting of strategic direction for the MAT. This includes elements such as its expansion. This article draws on 30 interviews with school leaders and trustees from 6 MATs and 10 interviews with national leaders of governance in looking to respond to the research question: What are the principal drivers for strategic expansion in MATs? The article begins by contextualising the research in light of recent policy, then moves to consider why theory on strategy as narrative was chosen in preference to other strategic approaches, and how it was employed to analyse data. The article concludes that within this sample there are a number of drivers for MAT expansion and that these fall under six principal categories: opportunities, values, pressures, feelings, risks and resources. It also concludes that resources and business viability play a substantial part in decisions to expand, and that strategy appears to be an iterative learning process. As such, it contributes to theory on the governance of multi‐level organisations and to practice in terms of the Department for Education's focus on MAT growth.

Multidisciplinary classification of Canadian river reaches to support the sustainable management of freshwater systems

Climate change is altering the hydrology of Canadian rivers to an unprecedented degree. Consequently, sustainable freshwater management practices need to adapt, which include the development of integrated water resource strategies and environmental flow recommendations. A particular challenge arises for these assessments due to the highly diverse nature of river ecosystems across Canada. This diversity can be addressed by using a classification system to create manageable spatial units. Building upon and adapting the results of a global river reach classification scheme, we present a multidisciplinary K-means clustering approach to categorize all river reaches of Canada into 23 types at fine spatial resolution. The typology is based on classifier variables related to hydrology, mostly derived from modelled long-term means of monthly discharges, physiography, climate, and fluvial geomorphology. Resulting maps provide baseline information for rivers of all size classes, from small headwater streams to very large rivers, across the entire country, including unmonitored regions such as the High Arctic. The classification system also points to some strategic expansion opportunities for the current Canadian monitoring network of river gauging stations.

1286-P: U.S. Air Force Project ECHO Diabetes: Our Seven-Year Experience

The U.S. Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) provides medical care for active duty and retired service members and their families, which includes approximately 50,000 patients with diabetes at 76 clinics worldwide. With only 12 AFMS endocrinologists, the majority of diabetes care is provided by primary care providers (PCPs). In a strategic PCP knowledge expansion effort in 2012, the AFMS Diabetes Center of Excellence (DCOE) established a continuing telemedicine education program patterned after the Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) model. Content of twice monthly video teleconference sessions included various diabetes standard of care topics and opportunities to discuss actual cases in real time. After seven years, this program has reached 560 unique individuals at 93 locations across the three military services and the Veterans’ Administration. Over time, groups of participants have expanded from providers only to a spectrum of diabetes care delivery disciplines: PCP, specialists, PharmD, NP, PA, RN, RD, and educators. From April through September 2018 alone, 11 presentations resulted in 499 potential CMEs at 33 locations. A total of 200 out of a potential 499 surveys were completed (40% response rate), which indicated an increase in moderate or strong agreement from 28 to 84% in knowledge sufficiency as a result of ECHO session participation. More importantly, those who felt moderate or strong confidence in the treatment of complex diabetes patients increased from 33 to 72%. Virtually all survey participants (96%) indicated a likelihood to make changes to their treatment practice based on content learned during ECHO sessions. In contrast to a traditional tertiary care referral model, models like Project ECHO Diabetes provide far greater reach, leveraging expert knowledge to increase the quality of diabetes care at the primary care level. In the context of the national diabetes epidemic and endocrinologist shortage, this model represents a realistic and responsible use of diabetes experts. Disclosure D. Beckman: None. M.W. True: None. C.C. Morrow: None. N. Watson: None. J.L. Wardian: None. J.M. Tate: None. T.J. Sauerwein: Speaker's Bureau; Self; AstraZeneca, Merck & Co., Inc.

The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Biomarkers Consortium: Past Accomplishments and New Strategic Direction.

The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) Biomarkers Consortium (BC) is a public–private partnership that aims to facilitate drug development with biomarkers across a range of therapeutic areas. The BC is organized to address specific precompetitive biomarker projects, giving participating stakeholders a role in the design and conduct of projects and making the results freely public. Ultimately, the goals of the BC are to accelerate the development of new medicines, inform regulatory decision making, and improve patient care. Here, we describe how the BC works and briefly highlight its accomplishments. The BC has had many notable successful biomarker projects in the past 12 years, including I‐SPY2, which has improved clinical trials and biomarker use for breast cancer, and an evidentiary framework for biomarker qualification. Recently, the BC has undergone a strategic expansion of its scope to include related drug development tools along the lines of the Biomarkers, Endpoints, and other Tools (BEST) resource.

"Game of Platforms: Strategic Expansion into Rival (Online) Territory"

Online platforms, such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon, are constantly expanding their activities while increasing the overlap in their service offerings. This paper asks: Is expansion into rival platforms’ services profit-maximizing when users’ platform choices endogenously change with expansion? We model an expansion game between two online platforms, both incumbents in distinct service markets, that provide their services free of charge to users and earn ad-based revenues. Platforms decide whether or not to expand by adding the service already offered by their rival. Expansion is costly and impacts users’ platform choice—namely, their choice of single- vs. multihoming, which, in turn, affects platform prices and profits derived from the advertisers’ side of the market. We demonstrate that, in equilibrium, platforms may choose not to expand. Strategic “no expansion” decisions are due to the quantity and price effects of changes in the user partition resulting from expansion. We further analyze the effects of expansion-driven changes in interplatform compatibility, expansion costs, probability of users’ ad engagement, switching costs, and intraplatform service complementarity and quality on the optimal expansion strategy. We then incorporate these considerations to derive an optimal expansion rule that can be used to guide managerial decision-making regarding expansion into a rival’s “territory.”

Growing Gardens Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities Facing the Strategic Expansion of Anchorage, Alaska’s Community Garden System

Anchorage’s community gardening program is administered by the Municipality of Anchorage Parks and Recreation program and part of their mission is to provide “a food system where locally produced, affordable, and nutritious food is available to all”. The demand for access to community gardens far outweighs the supply raising the question, how can the city of Anchorage strategically and sustainably expand their community garden system? To explore this question, the Municipality of Anchorage partnered with the University of Alaska Anchorage to better understand how expanding community gardens can bridge a gap in the local food system and increase access to fresh foods by the city’s most vulnerable and diverse individuals. To do this, we developed a multi-faceted needs assessment that included a community survey, stakeholder workshop, and key informant interviews. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges of expanding Anchorage’s community gardens and offers expansion strategies that balance the needs of the community’s diverse populations with the city’s community gardening mission. The findings of this study show that to sustainably meet the needs of diverse audiences, community garden expansion efforts should focus on 1) making new gardens accessible by identifying safe, convenient, and functional locations; 2) building gardener capacity through education and outreach programs; and 3) strengthening partnerships with other community organizations to share resources and capabilities. The methods used and the associated findings revealed through this study can be adapted and applied in other cities looking to develop a sustainable and strategic model for community gardening.