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Tenets
Kinds of Tenets Selected AbstractsGeorge Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIAPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 3 2008Richard D. White Jr. George Tenet served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1997 to 2004, an intense period spanning the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and covering the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Few other central intelligence directors have served for so long, so energetically, or amid so much controversy. This profile examines the steep trajectory of Tenet's career, his response to the al-Qaeda threat, the role he played during the invasion of Iraq, and the eventual reorganization of the nation's intelligence community. It describes a public servant caught between the warring factions of the White House decision-making process, his own agency's intelligence priorities, and, ultimately, his own conscience. [source] Student and Instructor Beliefs and Attitudes about Target Language Use, First Language Use, and Anxiety: Report of a Questionnaire StudyMODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 3 2003Glenn S. Levine This article presents the results of an anonymous, Internet-based questionnaire study on target language (TL) and first language (L1) use in university-level foreign language (FL) classes. The participants were 600 FL students and 163 FL instructors. The goals of the study were to develop preliminary components of a descriptive model of TL and L1 use and explore the relationships between TL use and student anxiety about TL use. It was hypothesized that (a) amounts of TL use would vary according to constellation of interlocutors and communicative contexts, and (b) the amount of TL use overall would correlate positively with student anxiety about it. The results support the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis was not supported. Analysis of the data revealed a negative relationship between reported amounts of TL use and reported TL-use anxiety. Tenets are offered for maximizing TL use while at the same time granting to L1 pedagogically sound functions. [source] Life history and population size variability in a relict plant.DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS, Issue 1 2008Different routes towards long-term persistence ABSTRACT A central tenet of conservation biology is that population size affects the persistence of populations. However, many narrow endemic species combine small population ranges and sizes with long persistence, thereby challenging this tenet. I examined the performance of three different-sized populations of Petrocoptis pseudoviscosa (Caryophyllaceae), a palaeoendemic rupicolous herb distributed along a small valley in the Spanish Pyrenees. Reproductive and demographic parameters were recorded over 6 years, and deterministic and stochastic matrix models were constructed to explore population dynamics and extinction risk. Populations differed greatly in structure, fecundity, recruitment, survival rate, and life span. Strong differentiation in life-history parameters and their temporal variability resulted in differential population vulnerability under current conditions and simulated global changes such as habitat fragmentation or higher climatic fluctuations. This study provides insights into the capacity of narrow endemics to survive both at extreme environmental conditions and at small population sizes. When dealing with species conservation, the population size,extinction risk relationship may be too simplistic for ancient, ecologically restricted organisms, and some knowledge of life history may be most important to assess their future. [source] Do the Transtheoretical Model processes of change, decisional balance and temptation predict stage movement?ADDICTION, Issue 5 2009Evidence from smoking cessation in adolescents ABSTRACT Aims To examine the effects of processes of change (POC) on forward stage movement directly, indirectly through decisional balance and temptation, and total effects as a test of the key hypothesis of the Transtheoretical Model (TTM). Design Prospective cohort study. Setting United Kingdom. Participants A total of 1160 adolescents aged 13,14 years who were current or former smokers at baseline. Measurements Stage was assessed with the standard algorithm three times, once every 3 months. On each occasion the POC, decisional balance and temptation were measured with the standard questionnaires. Path analysis was used to examine the direct, indirectly mediated and total contribution of POC and the other constructs to stage movement 3 months later. Findings Four of the 24 analyses showed evidence that the theoretically appropriate POC predicted stage transition, with statistically significant total effects. Effect sizes were small. When the POC were summarized to experiential and behavioural process means, one transition from pre-contemplation was predicted by experiential processes and, contrary to the TTM, one transition predicted by behavioural processes. There was slightly more evidence that decisional balance (attitudes towards smoking) and temptation (ability to resist the urge to smoke) was associated with stage transition. Conclusions POC use was not associated generally with stage transition and evidence that effects, if missed, must be modest, giving no support to the central tenet of the TTM. [source] Alcohol and mortality: methodological and analytical issues in aggregate analysesADDICTION, Issue 1s1 2001Thor Norström This supplement includes a collection of papers that aim at estimating the relationship between per capita alcohol consumption and various forms of mortality, including mortality from liver cirrhosis, accidents, suicide, homicide, ischaemic heart disease, and total mortality. The papers apply a uniform methodological protocol, and they are all based on time series data covering the post-war period in the present EU countries and Norway. In this paper we discuss various methodological and analytical issues that are common to these papers. We argue that analysis of time series data is the most feasible approach for assessing the aggregate health consequences of changes in population drinking. We further discuss how aggregate data may also be useful for judging the plausibility of individual-level relationships, particularly those prone to be confounded by selection effects. The aggregation of linear and curvilinear risk curves is treated as well as various methods for dealing with the time-lag problem. With regard to estimation techniques we find country specific analyses preferable to pooled cross-sectional/time series models since the latter incorporate the dubious element of geographical co-variation, and conceal potentially interesting variations in alcohol effects. The approach taken in the papers at hand is instead to pool the country specific results into three groups of countries that represent different drinking cultures; traditional wine countries of southern Europe, beer countries of central Europe and the British Isles and spirits countries of northern Europe. The findings of the papers reinforce the central tenet of the public health perspective that overall consumption is an important determinant of alcohol-related harm rates. However, there is a variation across country groups in alcohol effects, particularly those on violent deaths, that indicates the potential importance of drinking patterns. There is no support for the notion that increases in per capita consumption have any cardioprotective effects at the population level. [source] PRECLINICAL STUDY: FULL ARTICLE: Altered architecture and functional consequences of the mesolimbic dopamine system in cannabis dependenceADDICTION BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2010Saturnino Spiga ABSTRACT Cannabinoid withdrawal produces a hypofunction of mesencephalic dopamine neurons that impinge upon medium spiny neurons (MSN) of the forebrain. After chronic treatment with two structurally different cannabinoid agonists, ,9 -tetrahydrocannabinol and CP55 940 (CP) rats were withdrawn spontaneously and pharmacologically with the CB1 antagonist SR141716A (SR). In these two conditions, evaluation of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-positive neurons revealed significant morphometrical reductions in the ventrotegmental area but not substantia nigra pars compacta of withdrawn rats. Similarly, confocal analysis of Golgi,Cox-stained sections of the nucleus accumbens revealed a decrease in the shell, but not the core, of the spines' density of withdrawn rats. Administration of the CB1 antagonist SR to control rats, provoked structural abnormalities reminiscent of those observed in withdrawal conditions and support the regulatory role of cannabinoids in neurogenesis, axonal growth and synaptogenesis by acting as eu-proliferative signals through the CB1 receptors. Further, these measures were incorporated into a realistic computational model that predicts a strong reduction in the excitability of morphologically altered MSN, yielding a significant reduction in action potential output. These pieces of evidence support the tenet that withdrawal from addictive compounds alters functioning of the mesolimbic system and provide direct morphological evidence for functional abnormalities associated with cannabinoid dependence at the level of dopaminergic neurons and their postsynaptic counterpart and are coherent with recent hypothesis underscoring a hypodopaminergic state as a distinctive feature of the ,addicted brain'. [source] THE LOCUS OF EVOLUTION: EVO DEVO AND THE GENETICS OF ADAPTATIONEVOLUTION, Issue 5 2007Hopi E. Hoekstra An important tenet of evolutionary developmental biology ("evo devo") is that adaptive mutations affecting morphology are more likely to occur in the cis -regulatory regions than in the protein-coding regions of genes. This argument rests on two claims: (1) the modular nature of cis -regulatory elements largely frees them from deleterious pleiotropic effects, and (2) a growing body of empirical evidence appears to support the predominant role of gene regulatory change in adaptation, especially morphological adaptation. Here we discuss and critique these assertions. We first show that there is no theoretical or empirical basis for the evo devo contention that adaptations involving morphology evolve by genetic mechanisms different from those involving physiology and other traits. In addition, some forms of protein evolution can avoid the negative consequences of pleiotropy, most notably via gene duplication. In light of evo devo claims, we then examine the substantial data on the genetic basis of adaptation from both genome-wide surveys and single-locus studies. Genomic studies lend little support to the cis -regulatory theory: many of these have detected adaptation in protein-coding regions, including transcription factors, whereas few have examined regulatory regions. Turning to single-locus studies, we note that the most widely cited examples of adaptive cis -regulatory mutations focus on trait loss rather than gain, and none have yet pinpointed an evolved regulatory site. In contrast, there are many studies that have both identified structural mutations and functionally verified their contribution to adaptation and speciation. Neither the theoretical arguments nor the data from nature, then, support the claim for a predominance of cis -regulatory mutations in evolution. Although this claim may be true, it is at best premature. Adaptation and speciation probably proceed through a combination of cis -regulatory and structural mutations, with a substantial contribution of the latter. [source] False Uniqueness: the Self-Perception of New Entrants to Higher Education in the UK and Its Implications for Access , a Pilot Study1HIGHER EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2007Andy Thorpe A central tenet of contemporary education policy relates to the desire to extend higher education (HE) provision to less advantaged groups (,widening participation'). Our paper contends that a key behavioural obstacle to widening participation lies in the erroneous belief that persists among potential entrants from disadvantaged backgrounds as to their capabilities of succeeding within the HE environment , a perception that serves to deflate application/recruitment rates from such groupings. We test this ,false uniqueness' thesis using a sample of 127 new UK undergraduates, finding that students drawn from lower social class backgrounds consistently underestimated their abilities vis-à-vis the overall cohort. [source] A critical review of appropriate conceptual models for use by coronary care nursesINTERNATIONAL NURSING REVIEW, Issue 1 2008F. Timmins bns ffnrcsi nfesc rnt rgn phd msc bsc Background:, There is little evidence of the extent of conceptual model use within cardiovascular nursing. Concern exists within nursing that nursing theory and conceptual model use within practice is less than optimal. It is further suggested that there is little evidence of nursing theory occupying its true position as the central tenet of nursing practice and cardiovascular nurses have been challenged to reconsider this aspect of practice. Aim:, The aim of this review is to explore the effectiveness of conceptual models used within cardiovascular nursing to further explore their potential benefit. Methods:, Using key terms, a search was conducted using electronic databases CINAHL and PUBMED; yielding seven papers that fulfilled selection criteria. Findings:, Few papers related to research studies in the area. However, of those identified significant examination and testing of concepts emerged within the studies. Rather than merely using concepts as an organizing framework or a component of the study, theories alluded to were scrutinized and consistently applied. Although studies identified mostly referred to specific testing and examination of aspects of conceptual models, the notion of self-care and support for clients emerges as a strong theme within the review. The relationship between nurse and client seemed to be pivotal in any noted improvements. Conclusions:, The findings have limited application to practice. In the absence of large-scale longitudinal studies, only selected aspects of conceptual models or theory were scrutinized. Further research is required in this area to identify conceptual models of nursing that are most appropriate for cardiovascular nursing care. [source] Why the Capability Approach is JustifiedJOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2007SANDRINE BERGES abstract Sen and Nussbaum's capability approach has in the past twenty years become an increasingly popular and influential approach to issues in global justice. Its main tenet is that when assessing quality of life or asking what kind of policies will be more conducive to human development, we should look not to resources or preference satisfaction, but to what people are able to be and to do. This should then be measured against a more or less narrow conception of what any human being should be able to be and do, i.e. which functions are essentially human. To have a capability is to be able to function in that way. Thomas Pogge has recently argued that despite its many attractions, the capability approach did not present a sufficiently strong challenge to Rawlsian resourcism. In this paper, I address Pogge's criticisms of the capability approach, and I argue that from the point of view of Nussbaum's Aristotelian version of the approach, his objections are not successful. [source] Stability of choices in a risky decision-making task: a 3-year longitudinal study with children and adultsJOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DECISION MAKING, Issue 3 2007Irwin P. Levin Abstract In a 3-year follow-up to Levin and Hart's (2003) study, we observed the same children, now 9,11 years old, and their parents in the same risky decision-making task. At the aggregate level the same pattern of means was observed across time periods. At the individual level the key variables were significantly correlated across time periods for both children and adults. Taken together with the results from the original study and earlier studies, these results solidify the following conclusions: children utilize both probability and outcome information in risky decision-making; the tendency to make more risky choices to avoid a loss than to achieve a gain of equal magnitude, which is a major tenet of the leading theories of risky decision-making, occurs for children as well as adults; children make more risky choices than adults; temperamental predictors of risky choice are valid for children as well as for adults. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Negotiation of parental roles within family-centred care: a review of the researchJOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 10 2006Jo Corlett MSc Aims and objectives., To review research published in the past 15 years about how children's nurses' negotiate with parents in relation to family-centred care. Background., Family-centred care is a basic tenet of children's nursing and requires a process of negotiation between health professionals and the family, which results in shared decision-making about what the child's care will be and who will provide this. The literature highlights inconsistencies in the degree to which nurses are willing to negotiate with parents and allow them to participate in decisions regarding care of their child. There is need to explore further the extent to which nurses communicate and negotiate shared care with children and their parents. Conclusions., Three themes emerged from this review of the literature relating to whether role negotiation occurred in practice, parental expectations of participation in their child's care and issues relating to power and control. Parents wanted to be involved in their child's care but found that nurses' lack of communication and limited negotiation meant that this did not always occur. Nurses appeared to have clear ideas about what nursing care parents could be involved with and did not routinely negotiate with parents in this context. Relevance to clinical practice., For family-centred care to be a reality nurses need to negotiate and communicate with children and their families effectively. Parents need to be able to negotiate with health staff what this participation will involve and to negotiate new roles for themselves in sharing care of their sick child. Parents should be involved in the decision-making process. However, research suggests that a lack of effective communication, professional expectations and issues of power and control often inhibit open and mutual negotiation between families and nurses. [source] Sexual conflict over care: antagonistic effects of clutch desertion on reproductive success of male and female penduline titsJOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 5 2007I. SZENTIRMAI Abstract A fundamental tenet of sexual conflict theory is that one sex may increase its reproductive success (RS) even if this harms the other sex. Several studies supported this principle by showing that males benefit from reduced paternal care whereas females suffer from it. By investigating penduline tits Remiz pendulinus in nature, we show that parental conflict may be symmetric between sexes. In this small passerine a single female (or male) cares for the offspring, whereas about 30% of clutches are deserted by both parents. Deserting parents enhance their RS by obtaining multiple mates, and they reduce the RS of their mates due to increased nest failure. Unlike most other species, however, the antagonistic interests are symmetric in penduline tits, because both sexes enhance their own RS by deserting, whilst harming the RS of their mates. We argue that the strong antagonistic interests of sexes explain the high frequency of biparental desertion. [source] Contrasting pragmatic and suffering-centred approaches to fish welfare in recreational anglingJOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY, Issue 10 2009R. Arlinghaus Two views dealing with fish welfare in recreational fishing are discussed in an effort to stimulate the current discourse on the topic. The pragmatic approach asks whether and how strongly recreational fishing compromises the health and fitness of individual fishes and what can be done to avoid or mitigate such effects. Its implementation rests on accepting recreational fishing as a principally legitimate activity. The second approach to fish welfare focuses on suffering and pain in fishes and is usually morally prescriptive. Its central tenet is that some or all recreational fishing practices may be unacceptable unless sufficient benefits to humans are created, which justify the supposedly cruel treatment of the fishes. The pragmatic approach to fish welfare is preferred because it relies on objectively measurable variables of impaired fish welfare (e.g. physiological, behavioural or fitness indicators) and does not question recreational fishing on moral grounds. Contrary to a suffering-centred approach to fish welfare, a pragmatic perspective emphasizes positive messages and facilitates constructive dialogue among stakeholders. In contrast, a suffering-centred approach to fish welfare tends to promote tension and enduring conflict that cannot be reconciled objectively and thus should be avoided. [source] Analysing Texts in Context: Current Practices and New Protocols for Critical Discourse Analysis in Organization StudiesJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 6 2010Shirley Leitch abstract Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in organization studies would be strengthened by an increased focus on a central CDA tenet that texts should be analysed in context. Context has, for the most part, been afforded a taken-for-granted status that is misplaced because of the diverse ways in which it may be defined and applied. These generally unacknowledged differences relate to whether context is treated as space, time, practice, change, or frame. The result is a confusing array of studies claiming some degree of CDA status without core agreement , or acknowledgement of disagreements , about what is meant by context or how it should be linked to texts. To remedy this situation we identify in this Point article nine methodological protocols related to conceptual definitions, data selection, and data analysis which we argue benefit the consistency and rigour with which CDA in organization studies is applied. Use of these protocols may also serve as criteria against which the rigour of CDA research papers may be assessed. [source] Is there a ,New Managerial Work'?JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 7 2006A Comparison with Henry Mintzberg's Classic Study 30 Years Later abstract This comparative study of top executives' work aimed at examining the stability of top managerial behaviour reveals a relatively different pattern of behaviour compared with the study by Henry Mintzberg. The main differences are a much larger workload, a contact pattern to a larger degree oriented towards subordinates in group-settings, a greater emphasis on giving information, and less preoccupation with administrative work. One important finding is that fragmentation of time , in previous studies highlighted as a central tenet of managerial work , was not as prevalent in the new study. The different results can be attributed (with caution) to the impact of the management discourse about leadership and corporate culture, and to factors such as organizational structure and geographical dispersion of companies. However, there are also significant similarities between the two studies which indicate that claims of the emergence of a radically different managerial work are much exaggerated. Instead the empirical data shows that new work-practices are combined with older practices, both in a complex and context-specific ways. Therefore, there is a need for better integration between theoretical development and empirical investigations in this field of inquiry. [source] Evidence for two conductive pathways in P2X7 receptor: differences in modulation and selectivityJOURNAL OF NEUROCHEMISTRY, Issue 3 2010Susanna Alloisio J. Neurochem. (2010) 113, 796,806. Abstract The P2X7 receptor (P2X7R) is an ATP-gated cation channel whose biophysical properties remain to be unravelled unequivocally. Its activity is modulated by divalent cations and organic messengers such as arachidonic acid (AA). In this study, we analysed the differential modulation of magnesium (Mg2+) and AA on P2X7R by measuring whole-cell currents and intracellular Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i) and Na+ ([Na+]i) dynamics in HEK293 cells stably expressing full-length P2X7R and in cells endowed with the P2X7R variant lacking the entire C-terminus tail (trP2X7R), which is thought to control the pore activation. AA induced a robust potentiation of the P2X7R- and trP2X7R-mediated [Ca2+]i rise but did not affect the ionic currents in both conditions. Extracellular Mg2+ reduced the P2X7R- and trP2X7R-mediated [Ca2+]i rise in a dose-dependent manner through a competitive mechanism. The modulation of the magnitude of the P2X7R-mediated ionic current and [Na+]i rise were strongly dependent on Mg2+ concentration but occurred in a non-competitive manner. In contrast, in cells expressing the trP2X7R, the small ionic currents and [Na+]i signals were totally insensitive to Mg2+. Collectively, these results support the tenet of a functional structure of P2X7R possessing at least two distinct conductive pathways one for Ca2+ and another for monovalent ions, with the latter which depends on the presence of the receptor C-terminus. [source] Maternal employment and teenage childbearing: Evidence from the PSIDJOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2005Leonard M. LopooArticle first published online: 17 NOV 200 Over the last 30 years, the tenet of promoting self-sufficiency through work has become one of the primary objectives of many social welfare policies in the United States. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the author asks if a mother's work hours influence her daughter's teenage fertility. The findings suggest a negative relationship, with the largest effects for the daughters of mothers who work more than 1,000 hours per year. Results among AFDC recipients suggest that an increase in a mother's work hours from zero to 20 hours per week reduces her daughter's probability of a teen birth by 33 percent. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [source] Prospective comparison of subjective arousal during the pre-sleep period in primary sleep-onset insomnia and normal sleepersJOURNAL OF SLEEP RESEARCH, Issue 2 2007JENNIFER A. ROBERTSON Summary Psychophysiological insomnia (PI) is the most common insomnia subtype, representing 12,15% of all sleep centre referrals. Diagnostic guidelines describe PI as an intrinsic sleep disorder involving both hyperarousal and learned sleep-preventing associations. Whilst evidence for the first component is reasonably compelling, evidence for learned (conditioned) sleep effects is markedly lacking. Indeed, to date no study has attempted to capture directly the conditioned arousal effect assumed to characterize the disorder. Accordingly, the present study explored variations in subjective arousal over time in 15 PI participants (sleep onset type) and 15 normal sleepers (NS). Self-report measures of cognitive arousal, somatic arousal and sleepiness were taken at three time points: 3 h before bedtime (early to mid-evening); 1 h before bedtime (late evening); and in the bedroom at lights out (bedtime) across four, 24-h cycles. Fluctuations in mean arousal and sleepiness values, and in day-to-day variation were examined using analyses of variance. Participants with PI were significantly more cognitive aroused and significantly less sleepy relative to NS, within the bedroom environment. These results support the tenet of conditioned mental arousal to the bedroom, although competing explanations cannot be ruled out. Results are discussed with reference to extant insomnia models. [source] Responsiveness to General Education Instruction as the First Gate to Learning Disabilities IdentificationLEARNING DISABILITIES RESEARCH & PRACTICE, Issue 3 2003Deborah L. Speece Most definitions of learning disabilities (LD) include a qualification that adequate general education instruction was received and the child with LD did not benefit. Rarely is this tenet assessed in either practice or research before a diagnosis is made. We review three studies that investigated children's responsiveness to general education reading instruction as an indicator of need for more intensive interventions. Adequacy of instruction was quantified by children's level and rate of progress, compared to classmates, as measured by curriculum-based measures of oral reading fluency. We found that the response-to-instruction model tested was valid in that (1) children who differ from their peers on level and slope of performance (dual discrepancy) have more severe academic and behavioral problems than children who have IQ-achievement discrepancies or low achievement; (2) children who demonstrate persistent nonresponsiveness over three years differ from other at-risk children on reading, reading-related, and behavioral measures; and (3) at-risk children who participated in specially designed general education interventions had better outcomes than at-risk children who did not participate. We conducted additional analyses to assess low achievement definitional variations and found that they lack sensitivity and coverage compared to a dual discrepancy definition. [source] ARE LONG-RUN PRICE STABILITY AND SHORT-RUN OUTPUT STABILIZATION ALL THAT MONETARY POLICY CAN AIM FOR?METROECONOMICA, Issue 2 2007Giuseppe Fontana ABSTRACT A central tenet of the so-called new consensus view in macroeconomics is that there is no long-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment. The main policy implication of this principle is that all monetary policy can aim for is (modest) short-run output stabilization and long-run price stability, i.e. monetary policy is neutral with respect to output and employment in the long run. However, research on the different sources of path dependency in the economy suggests that persistent but nevertheless transitory changes in aggregate demand may have a permanent effect on output and employment. If this is the case, then, the way monetary policy is run does have long-run effects on real variables. This paper provides an overview of this research and explores conceptually how monetary policy should be implemented once these long-run effects are acknowledged. [source] Beta-helix model for the filamentous haemagglutinin adhesin of Bordetella pertussis and related bacterial secretory proteinsMOLECULAR MICROBIOLOGY, Issue 2 2001Andrey V. Kajava Bordetella pertussis establishes infection by attaching to epithelial cells of the respiratory tract. One of its adhesins is filamentous haemagglutinin (FHA), a 500-Å-long secreted protein that is rich in ,-structure and contains two regions, R1 and R2, of tandem 19-residue repeats. Two models have been proposed in which the central shaft is (i) a hairpin made up of a pairing of two long antiparallel ,-sheets; or (ii) a ,-helix in which the polypeptide chain is coiled to form three long parallel ,-sheets. We have analysed a truncated variant of FHA by electron microscopy (negative staining, shadowing and scanning transmission electron microscopy of unstained specimens): these observations support the latter model. Further support comes from detailed sequence analysis and molecular modelling studies. We applied a profile search method to the sequences adjacent to and between R1 and R2 and found additional ,covert' copies of the same motifs that may be recognized in overt form in the R1 and R2 sequence repeats. Their total number is sufficient to support the tenet of the ,-helix model that the shaft domain , a 350 Å rod , should consist of a continuous run of these motifs, apart from loop inserts. The N-terminus, which does not contain such repeats, was found to be weakly homologous to cyclodextrin transferase, a protein of known immunoglobulin-like structure. Drawing on crystal structures of known ,-helical proteins, we developed structural models of the coil motifs putatively formed by the R1 and R2 repeats. Finally, we applied the same profile search method to the sequence database and found several other proteins , all large secreted proteins of bacterial provenance , that have similar repeats and probably also similar structures. [source] The illusion of progress in nursingNURSING PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2001Elizabeth A. Herdman RN Ba Social Science PhD Abstract The notion that history is a record of continuous improvement has come to dominate the Western view of the world. This paper examines how nursing has embraced this ,Enlightenment project' and continues to be guided by a faith in ,history as progress' despite the fact that its structural position remains one of subordination and struggle. Faith in progress is manifested in nursing historiography and contemporary nursing literature, in the basic tenet of nursing orthodoxy, that professionalization is both inevitable and desirable, in the alignment of nursing with medical science and technology and the belief that Western nursing is the model for nursing world wide. It is argued that this uncritical faith in a continuously improving future has obscured nursing's vision for the future and rendered it powerless in the face of rapid global economic and social change. [source] Homophobia and Conservative Religion: Toward a More Nuanced UnderstandingAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY, Issue 1 2007Christopher H. Rosik PhD The failure of homophobia scales to consider the normative assumptions of religious communities may result in findings that are less useful in addressing this problem. In this study, 155 undergraduate students at a Christian university were surveyed, separately assessing attitudes toward celibate versus sexually active homosexual men and women. Results of multiple regression analyses found that participants who emphasized a person-behavior distinction (an accepted tenet of conservative religious ideology) held more negative attitudes toward lesbian women than those who were comparatively more accepting and did not emphasize such a distinction. However, participants who emphasized the person-behavior distinction held more positive attitudes toward gay men than those who were comparatively more rejecting and did not emphasize such a distinction. These relationships were significant even after accounting for variance attributable to general measures of religious commitment. Attempts to reduce homophobia within conservative religious communities may benefit from a more sensitive approach to their belief systems. [source] Violence, non-violence, and blood donation in IndiaTHE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 2 2008Jacob Copeman This article explores the relationship between medical blood donation and concepts and enactments of violence and non-violence in India. The focus is on those north Indian devotional orders in the sant tradition whose devotees donate their blood in large quantities for transfusion. These orders profess a commitment to the Hindu Brahmanic and reformist tenet of non-violence (ahimsa). At the same time, their attempts to donate blood for Indian army personnel shows how blood donation can be a means to engage in military affairs ,from a distance'. This article also demonstrates the ways in which different modes of sacrifice surface in blood donation ideology and practice. Arguing that blood donation mediates between violence and non-violence in the subcontinent, the article concludes with a related set of points concerning the ambiguous relationship between caste concepts and blood donation. Résumé Le présent article explore la relation entre le don du sang à usage médical et les concepts et réalisations de la violence et de la non-violence en Inde. L'accent est mis sur les ordres dévots du nord de l'Inde qui suivent la tradition du sant, et dont les membres donnent beaucoup de sang pour les transfusions. Ces ordres professent leur attachement au principe de non-violence (ahimsa) de l'hindouisme brahmanique et réformiste. Dans le même temps, leur volonté de donner du sang pour les personnels de l'armée indienne montre à quel point le don de sang peut être un moyen de s'engager « à distance » dans les affaires militaires. Cet article démontre également les manières dont plusieurs modes de sacrifice apparaissent dans l'idéologie et la pratique du don de sang. Avançant que le don de sang est une médiation entre violence et non-violence dans le sous-continent, l'article se conclut par un ensemble de considérations liées, concernant la relation ambiguë entre les concepts de caste et le don de sang. [source] The success of succession: a symposium commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Buell-Small Succession StudyAPPLIED VEGETATION SCIENCE, Issue 1 2009M.L. Cadenasso Motivation: The Buell-Small Succession Study (BSS) is the longest running study of post agricultural succession in North America. To honor this program, a symposium at the Ecological Society of America meetings was organized to explore the state of succession theory and its contribution to the field of ecology and its application to restoration. The BSS was originally motivated by two controversies in the literature during the 1950's. The first was between a community versus and individual basis of secondary succession. The second was the validity of the Initial Floristic Composition hypothesis. Location: Hutcheson Memorial Forest, Somerset, New Jersey, USA Methods: Vegetation composition and cover has been continuously quantified in permanent plots established in 10 old fields. Continued Research Motivation: The rich data set has documented population and community dynamics and the spatio-temporal controls and historical contingencies that influence those dynamics. The regulation of community dynamics continues to be a line of inquiry as does the application of results to restoration and understanding the dynamics of non-native species. Conclusions: Long term vegetation studies are uncommon in ecology yet they are uniquely valuable for understanding system dynamics , particularly if the studies capture periodic events or system shifts such as droughts and invasions by non-native species. Resilient long term studies, of which the BSS is an example, maintain methods and data structure while allowing motivating questions to evolve along side advancements in the theoretical and conceptual realms of the field. Succession continues to serve as a basic tenet of ecology which is demonstrated by the papers making up this special issue. [source] Lost in the field: ensuring student learning in the ,threatened' geography fieldtripAREA, Issue 1 2010Clare Herrick As a result of its importance to the discipline's identity and epistemology, the nature of fieldwork and the fieldtrip itself have recently come under close scrutiny in the education and geographical literature. Moreover, not only is their pedagogical importance being debated, but also their future viability at a time of increasing pressure on institutions to minimise potential risk situations in the field, offer value for money to students as well as following the increasingly common and popular trend of long-haul fieldtrips. This paper therefore critically interrogates the role and use of fieldwork within geographical teaching and learning in the light of its changing and increasingly contested status within the discipline in three parts. First, it outlines and reflects upon the current debate surrounding the threat to the primacy of fieldtrips in geography at a time of ongoing upheaval in higher education. Second, through the empirical example of personal experiences teaching on second-year undergraduate urban geography fieldtrips to San Francisco in December 2007 and 2008, the paper engages with the current discussions of the pedagogical importance of fieldtrips. Third, the paper asks, to what extent teaching in ,the field' might foster the ,experiential' or ,active' learning needed to inspire the kind of ,deep learning' approaches that hold the kind of ,transformative' potential envisaged as a key goal of education more broadly. Through exploring these ideas with reference to recent and relevant experience, the paper aims to critically interrogate the role and value of fieldtrips at a time when their potential demise is being cast as a fundamental assault on geography's founding identity and pedagogical traditions. The paper concludes that despite the threats it faces, the pedagogical significance of fieldwork means that it must remain a fundamental tenet of the geographical educational experience. [source] The multiple directions of evolutionary changeBIOESSAYS, Issue 6 2008Diego Rasskin-Gutman The theory of Punctuated Equilibria challenges the neo-Darwinian tenet that evolution is a uniform process. Recently, an article by Hunt1 has found that directional change during the evolution of a lineage is relatively small (occurring only in 5% of 250 analyzed traits). Of those traits that were shown to follow a trend, size was more likely to show gradual changes, whereas shape changes were more random. Here, we provide a short view of the nature of evolutionary trends, showing that directional change within lineages and among clades provides valuable evolutionary information about the processes involved in their generation. BioEssays 30:521,525, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Violent incidents and the use of antipsychotic medication within a specialist challenging behaviour unit: an evaluation of the Poole approach to challenging behaviourBRITISH JOURNAL OF LEARNING DISABILITIES, Issue 3 2000George Rowland Summary The present paper documents a retrospective evaluation of a specialist challenging behaviour unit for individuals with severe learning disabilities according to two criteria: (1) its efficacy at reducing the frequency and severity of violent incidents; and (2) the level of reliance upon antipsychotic medication for behavioural purposes. The results were placed within the perspective of the specific approach to challenging behaviour adopted by the unit, which emphasizes communication as the fundamental tenet within the management and reduction of challenging behaviour. The results demonstrate a 92% reduction in incidents of violence towards others over the 6 years since the unit opened, alongside a 95% reduction in violence towards property. During the same period, the levels of antipsychotic medication used for behavioural purposes fell in the cases of three out of the four clients under examination. An attempt is made to highlight the predominant factors underlying this success as potential indicators for the development of services for those who exhibit challenging and violent behaviours. [source] Islam and CSR: a study of the compatibility between the tenets of Islam, the UN Global Compact and the development of social, human and natural capitalCORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2007John Zinkin Abstract Previous research has found that Muslims score elements that are assumed to matter in determining socially responsible business behaviour less highly than people of other religions. This paper looks at whether the tenets of Islam are the reason for this lower score by comparing and contrasting the UN Global Compact's ten principles with those of Islam in the affected areas. In so doing, the paper reconstructs the principles according to their impact on social, human and natural capital and explores whether Islam is supportive of responsible behaviour in these three areas. The paper concludes that, with the possible exception of Islam's focus on personal responsibility and non-recognition of the corporation as a legal person, which could undermine the concept of corporate responsibility, there is no divergence between the tenets of the religion and the principles of the UN Global Compact. Focusing on this convergence of values could help avert the threatened ,clash of civilizations'. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||