Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Interesting Case Study (interesting + case_study)
Selected AbstractsAdvocates unlimited: the numerus clausus and the college of justice in ScotlandHISTORICAL RESEARCH, Issue 216 2009John Finlay The college of justice established in Edinburgh in 1532 provides an interesting case study of the operation of the numerus clausus rule by which a limit was placed on the number of advocates permitted to practise there. Such a rule is found in a number of European jurisdictions; however in Scotland's central court it was unusually short-lived, and lasted for less than two decades. The focus of this article is on why the rule was so briefly employed and what consequences this had for the legal profession, the court and wider Scottish society. As well as analysis of the contemporary court record, and consideration of the growth of the legal profession subsequent to the relaxation of the rule, discussion of some of the relevant considerations is informed by a debate on the same issue to be found in some inferior courts in the eighteenth century. [source] Health Financing in Singapore: A Case for Systemic ReformsINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY REVIEW, Issue 1 2006Mukul G. Asher This paper assesses Singapore's healthcare financing arrangements in terms of their efficiency, fairness, and adequacy. Singapore represents an interesting case study because it is perhaps the only high-income, rapidly ageing country to rely on mandatory savings to finance healthcare, thus eschewing extensive risk-pooling arrangements, generally regarded as efficient and equitable. The paper argues that parametric reforms, i.e. relatively minor changes in the parameters of current schemes which preserve the existing philosophy and system design, will not be sufficient to meet healthcare financing objectives. Systemic reforms, which will bring Singapore into the mainstream of health financing arrangements found in the OECD countries, are urgently needed. Their design and timing should be based on good quality, timely and relevant data, and an environment conducive to vigorous debate. [source] Mathematical modeling of appendicular bone growth in glaucous-winged gullsJOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY, Issue 1 2009James L. Hayward Abstract Development of locomotor activity is crucial in tetrapods. In birds, this development leads to different functions for hindlimbs and forelimbs. The emergence of walking and flying as very different complex behavior patterns only weeks after hatching provides an interesting case study in animal development. We measured the diaphyseal lengths and midshaft diameters of three wing bones (humerus, ulna, and carpometacarpus) and three leg bones (femur, tibiotarsus, and tarsometatarsus) of 79 juvenile (ages 0,42 days) and 13 adult glaucous-winged gulls (Larus glaucescens), a semiprecocial species. From a suite of nine alternative mathematical models, we used information-theoretic criteria to determine the best model(s) for length and diameter of each bone as a function of age; that is, we determined the model(s) that obtained the best tradeoff between the minimized sum of squared residuals and the number of parameters used to fit the model. The Janoschek and Holling III models best described bone growth, with at least one of these models yielding an R2 , 0.94 for every dimension except tarsometatarsus diameter (R2 = 0.87). We used the best growth models to construct accurate allometric comparisons of the bones. Early maximal absolute growth rates characterize the humerus, femur, and tarsometatarsus, bones that assume adult-type support functions relatively early during juvenile development. Leg bone lengths exhibit more rapid but less sustained relative growth than wing bone lengths. Wing bone diameters are initially smaller than leg bone diameters, although this relationship is reversed by fledging. Wing bones and the femur approach adult length by fledging but continue to increase in diameter past fledging; the tibiotarsus and tarsometatarsus approach both adult length and diameter by fledging. In short, the pattern of bone growth in this semiprecocial species reflects the changing behavioral needs of the developing organism. J. Morphol., 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] The semiotics of language ideologies in Singapore1JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 3 2006Lionel Wee As an ethnically and linguistically diverse society, Singapore has had to grapple with the problem of how to manage this diversity across a range of contexts, thus making it a particularly interesting case study for language ideologies. This paper examines three particular cases taken from the history of Singapore's language policy. In the first situation, the policy remains largely unchanged, varying only in its lexical and textual realizations; in the second, performances in the service of a set of ideologies give rise to potentially serious problems; and in the third, the material consequences of implementing the ideologies lead to changes in the ideologies themselves. By drawing on recent theoretical developments in the study of language ideologies, this paper shows how attention to the sitedness of language ideologies can help provide greater specification and appreciation of the interactional processes by which the ideologies are instantiated. [source] Mitochondrial DNA patterns in the Iberian Northern plateau: Population dynamics and substructure of the Zamora provinceAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2010Luis Alvarez Abstract Several studies have shown the importance of recent events in the configuration of the genetic landscape of a specific territory. In this context, due to the phenomena of repopulation and demographic fluctuations that took place in recent centuries, the Iberian Northern plateau is a very interesting case study. The main aim of this work is to check if recent population movements together with existing boundaries (geographical and administrative) have influenced the current genetic composition of the area. To accomplish this general purpose, mitochondrial DNA variations of 214 individuals from a population located in the Western region of the Iberian Northern plateau (the province of Zamora) were analyzed. Results showed a typical Western European mitochondrial DNA haplogroup composition. However, unexpected high frequencies of U5, HV0, and L haplogroups were found in some regions. The analyses of microdifferentiation showed that there are differences between regions, but no geographic substructure organization can be noticed. It can be stated that the differences observed in the genetic pool of the sampled area at regional level results from the mixture of different populations carrying new lineages into this area at different points in history. Am J Phys Anthropol 142:531,539, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction analysis of the complex of a human anti-ephrin type-A receptor 2 antibody fragment and its cognate antigenACTA CRYSTALLOGRAPHICA SECTION F (ELECTRONIC), Issue 6 2010Vaheh Oganesyan The recombinant N-terminal domain of human ephrin type-A receptor 2 (rEphA2) has been crystallized in complex with the recombinantly produced Fab fragment of a fully human antibody (1C1; IgG1/,). These are the first reported crystals of an ephrin receptor bound to an antibody. The orthorhombic crystals belonged to space group C2221 (the 00l reflections obey the l = 2n rule), with unit-cell parameters a = 78.93, b = 120.79, c = 286.20,Å. The diffraction of the crystals extended to 2.0,Å resolution. However, only data to 2.55,Å resolution were considered to be useful owing to spot overlap caused by the long unit-cell parameter. The asymmetric unit is most likely to contain two 1C1 Fab,rEphA2 complexes. This corresponds to a crystal volume per protein weight (VM) of 2.4,Å3,Da,1 and a solvent content of 49.5%. The three-dimensional structure of this complex will shed light on the molecular basis of 1C1 specificity. This will also contribute to a better understanding of the mechanism of action of this antibody, the current evaluation of which as an antibody,drug conjugate in cancer therapy makes it a particularly interesting case study. [source] Purification, crystallization and preliminary crystallographic study of haemoglobin from camel (Camelus dromedarius): a high oxygen-affinity lowland speciesACTA CRYSTALLOGRAPHICA SECTION F (ELECTRONIC), Issue 8 2009M. Balasubramanian Haemoglobin is a prototypical allosteric protein that is mainly involved in the transportation of oxygen from the lungs to tissues and of carbon dioxide back to the lungs in an intrinsically coordinated manner to maintain the viability of cells. Haemoglobin from Camelus dromedarius provides an interesting case study of adaptation to life in deserts at extremely high temperatures. An ambition to unravel the integrated structural and functional aspects of the casual survival of this animal at high temperatures led us to specifically work on this problem. The present work reports the preliminary crystallographic study of camel haemoglobin. Camel blood was collected and the haemoglobin was purified by anion-exchange chromatography and crystallized using the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method under buffered high salt concentration using PEG 3350 as a precipitant. Intensity data were collected using a MAR 345 dtb image-plate detector system. Camel haemoglobin crystallized in the monoclinic space group P21, with one whole biological molecule (,2,2) in the asymmetric unit and unit-cell parameters a = 52.759, b = 116.782, c = 52.807,Å, , = 120.07°. [source] | |||||||||||||