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Discussing end-of-life issues with patients is an essential role for chaplains. Few tools are available to help chaplains-in-training develop end-of-life communication skills.This study aimed to determine whether playing an end-of-life conversation game increases the confidence for chaplain-in-trainings to discuss end-of-life issues with patients.We used a convergent mixed methods design. Chaplains-in-training played the end-of-life conversation game twice over 2 weeks. For each game, pre- and postgame questionnaires measured confidence discussing end-of-life issues with patients and emotional affect. Between games, chaplains-in-training discussed end-of-life issues with an inpatient. One week after game 2, chaplains-in-training were individually interviewed. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon rank-sum t tests. Content analysis identified interview themes. Quantitative and qualitative data sets were then integrated using a joint display.Twenty-three chaplains-in-training (52% female; 87% Caucasian; 70% were in year 1 of training) completed the study. Confidence scores (scale: 15-75; 75 = very confident) increased significantly after each game, increasing by 10.0 points from pregame 1 to postgame 2 ( P.001). Positive affect subscale scores also increased significantly after each game, and shyness subscale scores decreased significantly after each game. Content analysis found that chaplains-in-training found the game to be a positive, useful experience and reported that playing twice was beneficial (not redundant).Mixed methods analysis suggest that an end-of-life conversation game is a useful tool that can increase chaplain-in-trainings' confidence for initiating end-of-life discussions with patients. A larger sample size is needed to confirm these findings.

Improvements to risk assessments are needed to enhance our understanding of tick-borne disease epidemiology. We review tick vectors and duration of tick attachment required for pathogen transmission for the following pathogens/toxins and diseases: (1) Anaplasma phagocytophilum (anaplasmosis); (2) Babesia microti (babesiosis); (3) Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease); (4) Southern tick-associated rash illness; (5) Borrelia hermsii (tick-borne relapsing fever); (6) Borrelia parkeri (tick-borne relapsing fever); (7) Borrelia turicatae (tick-borne relapsing fever); (8) Borrelia mayonii; (9) Borrelia miyamotoi; (10) Coxiella burnetii (Query fever); (11) Ehrlichia chaffeensis (ehrlichiosis); (12) Ehrlichia ewingii (ehrlichiosis); (13) Ehrlichia muris; (14) Francisella tularensis (tularemia); (15) Rickettsia 364D; (16) Rickettsia montanensis; (17) Rickettsia parkeri (American boutonneuse fever, American tick bite fever); (18) Rickettsia ricketsii (Rocky Mountain spotted fever); (19) Colorado tick fever virus (Colorado tick fever); (20) Heartland virus; (21) Powassan virus (Powassan disease); (22) tick paralysis neurotoxin; and (23) Galactose-α-1,3-galactose (Mammalian Meat Allergy-alpha-gal syndrome). Published studies for 12 of the 23 pathogens/diseases showed tick attachment times. Reported tick attachment times varied (

Retinoic acid signaling is required for maintaining a range of cellular processes, including cell differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis. We investigated the actions of all-trans-retinoic acid (atRA) signaling in pancreatic β-cells of adult mice. atRA signaling was ablated in β-cells by overexpressing a dominant-negative retinoic acid receptor (RAR)-α mutant (RARdn) using an inducible Cre-Lox system under the control of the pancreas duodenal homeobox gene promoter. Our studies establish that hypomorphism for RAR in β-cells leads to an age-dependent decrease in plasma insulin in the fed state and in response to a glucose challenge. Glucose-stimulated insulin secretion was also impaired in islets isolated from mice expressing RARdn. Among genes that are atRA responsive, Glut2 and Gck mRNA levels were decreased in isolated islets from RARdn-expressing mice. Histologic analyses of RARdn-expressing pancreata revealed a decrease in β-cell mass and insulin per β-cell 1 mo after induction of the RARdn. Our results indicate that atRA signaling mediated by RARs is required in the adult pancreas for maintaining both β-cell function and mass, and provide insights into molecular mechanisms underlying these actions.—Brun, P.-J., Grijalva, A., Rausch, R., Watson, E., Yuen, J. J., Das, B. C., Shudo, K., Kagechika, H., Leibel, R. L., Blaner, W. S. Retinoic acid receptor signaling is required to maintain glucose-stimulated insulin secretion and β-cell mass.

A liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS – triple quadrupole) method that facilitates the qualitative and quantitative determination of multiple pesticide residues that could be present in wild and domestic vertebrate animals has been developed. The method involves the direct analysis of crude extracts from a variety of test specimens taken from (non-target) birds and mammals suspected as being victims of accidental or deliberate exposure to pesticides. Performance of the method was validated following replicate analysis of pseudo-matrices (chicken muscle and chicken liver tissue) that had been fortified with 102 different pesticides and their degradation products at two different concentration levels (0.1 mg kg−1 and 1.0 mg kg−1). Residues detected were quantified following interpolation against external calibration curves obtained using matrix-matched standards that covered a residue concentration range between 0.025 μg ml−1 and 0.5 μg ml−1. Application of the method is demonstrated through inclusion of a few examples that show screening and confirmation results of pesticide residues detected in animals involved in suspected poisoning incidents.

African approaches to development have shifted, particularly in north-eastern Africa. Donor-driven policies have given way to state-led development ‘visions’, often with a focus on large-scale infrastructure projects–feeding into and reflecting ‘Africa Rising’ discourses. In Kenya and Ethiopia, these visions include flagship projects in the geographical frontiers, areas previously viewed as buffer zones, whose people have been historically marginalised. This paper adapts the analytical framework from James Scott’s $\textit{Seeing Like a State}$ in order to compare Kenya’s and Ethiopia’s state visions, and to understand the risks to the populations intended to benefit from such visions from the unintended (but predictable) consequences such projects have had in the past.

Imaging studies are often of evidentiary value in medicolegal investigations involving animals and the role of the veterinary radiologist is to interpret those images for courts as an expert or opinion witness. With progressing interest in prosecuting animal crimes and strengthening of penalties for crimes against animals, the participation of veterinary radiologists in medicolegal investigations is expected to increase. Veterinary radiologists who are aware of radiographic and imaging signs that result in animal suffering, abuse, or neglect; knowledgeable in ways radiology and imaging may support cause of death determinations; conversant in postmortem imaging; comfortable discussing mechanisms and timing of blunt or sharp force and projectile trauma in imaging; and prepared to identify mimics of abuse can assist court participants in understanding imaging evidence. The goal of this commentary review is to familiarize veterinary radiologists with the forensic radiology and imaging literature and with the advantages and disadvantages of various imaging modalities utilized in forensic investigations. Another goal is to provide background information for future research studies in veterinary forensic radiology and imaging.

This chapter describes a meaningful life as central to the concept of the self, as articulated by children. We discuss concepts of self-identity that children foreground in discussing well-being—the moral self, the purposeful self and the authentic self—and outline the social contexts that children prioritise as important to the presentation and development of their sense of self. We present a child standpoint in terms of the sociality children experience in both intergenerational and intragenerational relations. We discuss how these relations pertain to the presentation of the self by children, in the intimate sphere of family, in friendships and in cultural practices. We also describe the significance children attach to private space for processing the meanings self has for them as individuals.

In this chapter, we explore the broad social and political discourses framing contemporary approaches to child well-being research and policy, through an historical analysis of the discourses on well-being as propounded by some key philosophers and social scientists. We identify the ways in which child well-being has, until very recently, been excluded from these discourses. We describe how in more recent research, even where children’s voices are included, hearing them as ‘real’ tends to be rendered problematic due to the research being framed by positivist, measurement-based epistemology. In this chapter, we argue that because contemporary research on child well-being typically proceeds without reference to relevant historical constructions of well-being, an elision between well-being and happiness is perpetuated. This elision, in ignoring the fact that hedonic and eudemonic concepts of well-being proceed from different philosophical bases, contributes to confusion in understanding the phenomena in terms of subjective experience.

This chapter provides an overview of the elements of a child standpoint on well-being, as identified from what participants in our research project told us well-being meant for them. We attempt to convey something of the complexity and multifaceted nature of the child standpoint as identified in our research. We outline the importance of interlocking domains of agency, security and sense of self-identity for well-being and the salience children give to health, leisure activities and economic issues when describing how they experience happiness and well-being in their day-to-day lives. We attempt to convey the significance of emotions and relationships as they underlie children’s discussions of the meaning of well-being in all identified themes. In situating children’s narratives within the social science literature on these themes, it is evident that children place more emphasis on emotions and relationships, than has previously been reflected in the literature on child well-being. Their narratives give special significance to relations of care and also to friendships as experienced in child–child relations.

This chapter positions issues of child safety and ontological security within the traditional focus on child protection and the contemporary focus on risk. The children’s narrative in this chapter points to complex interconnections between their vulnerabilities, their existential concerns and the ordering of social relations. Children emphasise the importance of home in providing both physical and ontological security; at the same time, they draw attention to the way in which adult–child asymmetrical relations, together with the way social anxieties are channelled into concerns for childhood and children, undermine safety, both in the home and in public spaces.

In this chapter we describe the epistemological approach in which our research and analysis of findings on child well-being has been situated. Our use of standpoint theory is explained in terms of our attempt to construct an understanding of child well-being based on children’s knowledge. We outline the methodological framework and methods we used for researching with children and for analysing what they told us. This framework is positioned within a tradition that has promoted the contributions of other marginalized, emic groups to knowledge-producing forums.

This chapter presents some conclusions on the nature of child well-being, derived from considering, in totality, the implications of the standpoint on child well-being as aggregated from the findings conveyed in the individual chapters in this book. We identify the significance of constructing a child standpoint on well-being from qualitative research where a structural analysis is applied. We summarise the child standpoint arrived at—in terms of the overwhelming importance of sociality and meaning in life, for child well-being—the way children’s experiences of well-being stand in tension with the emphasis on child well-becoming and the way this tension reflects the generational structuring of adult–child relations. The significance in this context of intragenerational relations for children is identified. Our analysis illustrates that inter- and intragenerational relationships are characterised by potentials for both well-being and oppression (or ill-being) of children. In drawing out the policy implications of our construction of child well-being, we comment on the importance of cultural, economic, social and historical considerations. We end the book with the concretisation of policy implications in a set of ‘Indicator Concepts’ that can provide guidance for developing more specific and concrete indicators.

In this chapter we illustrate how a child standpoint, in ‘looking up’ informs us of ways in which conventional adult discourses of healthism and developmentalism conflate health and well-being and place parents as the agents in promoting their children's health. The children’s narrative in this chapter inform us that children mediate between different sets of health discourses when discussing the significance of health to their well-being. We show that children identify health as just one aspect of well-being. In discussing what is a healthy body, children emphasise the body as functional and as sense experiencing. While dominant health discourses emphasise individual responsibility for health, children discuss health practices as occurring in multiple social sites embedded within civil society. While children engage as agents intersubjectively, in furthering their health through eating and physical practices, when we look both ‘down’ and ‘up’, we gain some understanding of the multiplicity of network relationships in which children must engage in order to acquire a sense of well-being on issues of health.

In this chapter we explore two themes regarding the relationship between children’s well-being and economic practices. We discuss how children’s economic well-being is deeply embedded in the economic well-being of their families. Children emphasise household standard of living as important to their sense of well-being but also discuss how it is children’s access to direct and indirect resources, intersubjectively negotiated within households, that is significant to their well-being. We discuss the importance that children place on being autonomous producers and consumers, a theme that has been taken up recently in economic sociology, but the realisation of which is deeply embedded in significant social relations. Underlying both themes is children’s emphasis on the importance of enacting moral practices as part of economic practices. In discussing these themes, we explore the implications of children’s experiences of economic well-being for understanding the relationship between market and society as it is relevant to the structuring of childhood and children’s well-being.

This chapter provides an in-depth discussion of children’s experiences of agency. Children tell us that the exercise of agency is relational and as such fundamental to their experiences of well-being. We explicate from what children tell us the importance of extending the concept of agency from the notion of agency as participation, or self-determination, to the notion of agency as a form of social action, or self-determination through freedom of action in everyday life. In this context, we identify the importance of distinguishing between horizontal symmetries that characterise children’s affective relations with significant others and the vertical asymmetries in adult–child relations which, where they impact on children’s agency, can be obstacles to their experiences of well-being. This discussion highlights the tension between children’s everyday practices of agency and autonomy and macro-level structuring of child–adult relations.

In this chapter we explore the dominant adultist discourse on children’s structured and unstructured activities, as centred on preparing children for becoming adults and furthering the social order. We contrast the adultist discourse with the importance children place in their narrative on leisure activities as conducive to experiences of happiness and well-being In particular we discuss how children prioritise the use of leisure in their lives over formal education and link it with virtues and skills that are socially valued, especially those required for success in the labour market. For children, leisure is associated with well-being where it is an arena for autonomous action and provides opportunities for developing competence and being recognised for this competence.

This article investigates the treatment of gender issues in “research for development“ natural resources management (NRM) projects. Through discussion of an NRM research project in the United Kingdom and India, the article explores how the use of inaccurate gender stereotypes results in projects being compromised. The article seeks to explain why this happens despite widespread appreciation of the centrality of gender issues to NRM and poverty. In explanation the article identifies the significance of difficulties in the partnerships between the natural and social science dimensions of these projects. The study demonstrates that instead of easy and equal partnership, the relationship between natural and social science practitioners and practices remains characterized by inequality and poor communication, with serious consequences for the understanding of, and response to, gender issues

This paper explores the notion of the 'subject' in studies of childrens subjective wellbeing. Increasingly, those researching children's well-being are acknowledging children as agents and including them as participants in research in order to tap into, and report on, their subjectivities. We explore this trend to show how dominant approaches privilege an 'objectivist' approach to subjectivity that informs epistemological and methodological approaches and has implications for policy and practice. An alternative approach is discussed which places children centrally as subjects.

[Author Affiliation]Theodore L Turocy, , , , T.Turocy@uea.ac.ukElizabeth Watson, , , , ewatson1@trinity.edu1. IntroductionIf you've never been surprised by the effect that a small change in instructions can have, then you've never tried it. Vernon Smith, keynote plenary session, World Meeting of the Economic Science Association, Rome, Italy, June 2007A long-standing puzzle in laboratory first-price private-values auctions is that subjects bid significantly more aggressively than predicted by the risk-neutral Nash equilibrium. The survey of Kagel (1995) outlines the history of this result. The financial consequences to subjects of this aggressive bidding are substantial relative to the scale of incentives. For instance, in Turocy, Watson, and Battalio (2007), subjects in first-price private-values auctions averaged earnings around $13.00 for participating in 60 auction periods; if a typical subject had unilaterally switched to the risk-neutral equilibrium strategy, she would have increased her earnings by $8.00.This stylized fact warrants the close attention it has received in the literature as a result of the broader roles of laboratory experiments in auctions. Auction experiments have been used to refine auction models and theories of bidding (Cox, Roberson, and Smith 1982) and have informed the design of auction mechanisms in the field (for example, Roth [2002]). In order to use the results of laboratory experiments to draw inferences about the determinants of bidding behavior in real-world auctions, we must be able to assume that subjects focus on the same strategic considerations that we believe agents in the field entertain. In the standard theory of bidding in first-price private-values auctions (Vickrey 1961; Milgrom and Weber 1982), the strategic consideration faced by a bidder is a price-probability tradeoff. A higher bid increases the probability of winning the auction but decreases the consumer surplus the bidder gains when she wins because she pays a higher price.Some recent experiments, including those of Engelbrecht-Wiggans and Katok (2007, 2008, 2009), Filiz-Ozbay and Ozbay (2007), and Ockenfels and Selten (2005), investigate the hypothesis that aggressive bidding in laboratory first-price auctions is motivated by a difference in how subjects anticipate or react to the outcomes of winning versus not winning an auction. This line of inquiry is based on the observation that the bid that is optimal ex ante will not in general be the optimal bid ex post , after the results of the auction are known. If the bidder wins an auction by submitting a bid that is strictly higher than any other bid, she may realize that she would have been able to win the auction had she submitted a lower bid and therefore could have increased her earnings; this is "winner regret." Conversely, if the bidder loses the auction, but the winning bid turns out to be less than her value, she could have bid higher and made positive earnings instead of zero earnings; this is "loser regret." Theoretical results in the literature on regret in auctions, dating to Engelbrecht-Wiggans' (1989) analysis of optimal bidding with regret, predict that higher bids result when loser regret is relatively more salient to subjects than winner regret.In this article, we examine how the exposition of the laboratory auction environment affects the strategic considerations faced by a bidder and might lead to the greater salience of loser regret implied by the results in the literature on regret in auctions. In most first-price auction experiments conducted to date, subjects are instructed that they have a privately known idiosyncratic "resale value" for the object being auctioned. The winning bidder purchases the object at the price she bid. She then sells it back to the experimenter for her resale value and earns the difference between her resale value and her bid. The other bidders do not purchase the object, have nothing to re-sell to the experimenter, and thus have earnings of zero. …

In recent years, a new type of determinist environmental thinking has emerged. It can be understood to be one strand in a much broader realm of ‘environment talk’. Many human geographers have expressed a combination of scepticism and surprise at the apparently inexorable rise of the neo-environmentalist arguments which differ from early twentieth-century environmental determinism yet continue to draw upon biologistic accounts of human culture. Although geography has in recent years been at the forefront of the academic discussions of environmental change in relation to science, institutional context, political costs and human impacts, the discipline nevertheless has to contend with a widespread misperception of the place of environment in human affairs and the world’s future. This Forum discusses the context for the rise of, and consequences of, determinist accounts.

Research which focuses on children’s perspectives of their well-being complements and challenges existing research and policy on children. The study reported on here explored children’s views of what constitutes well-being, what meaning children and young people ascribe to the concept and whether distinct dimensions or characteristics of well-being can be identified. The project was initiated by the New South Wales Commission for Children and Young People as a basis for developing an authoritative child-informed framework for monitoring of well-being of children in New South Wales, Australia. In this paper, we outline the rationale for and details of qualitative research methods employed in the project, along with details of the major findings from the research. These include, the overarching importance of relationships with others and, more specifically, the importance of agency and control in the various domains identified as relevant to their wellbeing, the importance of safety and security and the way these factors contribute to sense of self. More minor but significant domains identified were: dealing with adversity, material and economic resources, physical environments, physical health and social and moral responsibility. The significance of the findings for policy development and the particular challenge of developing indicators from the research are discussed.

The current strategy for conserving white-clawed crayfish, Austropotamobius pallipes, contained in the United Kingdom Biodiversity Action Plan includes reintroduction to isolated water, free of signal crayfish, Pacifastacus leniusculus. The purpose of this project was to improve the chances of successful reintroduction of white-clawed crayfish into the River Lathkill in the Peak District National Park and to demonstrate how the method might be applicable to other reintroduction and captive breeding schemes. The method focussed on the habitat requirements of white-clawed crayfish, in particular the need of younger crayfish to conceal themselves from predators. Cages were built which provided juvenile crayfish with hides. The cages were tested in the river and juvenile growth and survival were recorded. Adult crayfish survival was only 50% annually whilst survival of juveniles was much less. Despite this, the habitat within the cages protected crayfish during moult and is thought to have increased their sur...

We revisit the result that, in laboratory independent private values auction, the first-price sealed bid and descending clock (or Dutch) implementations are not isomorphic. We investigate the hypothesis that this arises from framing and presentation effects. Our design focuses on a careful construction of subject interfaces that present the two environments as similarly as possible. Our sessions also consist of more auction periods to test whether any initial framing effects subsequently decrease over time. We find the difference between the implementations persists. To further investigate the difference, we report on an intermediate implementation which operates like the Dutch auction, but in which the clock continues to tick to the lowest price without informing bidders when others have bid on the object.

This paper examines key elements in Frogs' "sound-portrait" of Aeschylus: 1) the aural impressions created by the character Aeschylus and 2) the sounds of the lyric passages that parody songs in Aeschylus' tragedies (i.e., Frogs 814–829 and 1265–1294). Among other points, it argues that Aristophanes' Aeschylus would have aurally evoked the comic stereotype of demagogues, as exemplified by the Paphlagonian in Knights. Its conclusion is that the sound-portrait of Aeschylus is one of several factors that helps make Frogs a sophisticated "interrogative" comedy that pointedly complicates its own political vision.

This paper describes the process and some findings of a collaborative project between the New South Wales Commission for Children and Young People and researchers at the Social Justice and Social Change Research Centre, at the University of Western Sydney. The project was designed to inform the Commission in implementing its legislative mandate to develop a set of well-being indicators to monitor children's well-being over time. Placing children centrally as research participants was fundamental to the methodological approach of the project in which children's understandings of what contributes to their well-being were explored through qualitative methods. We discuss the epistemological and methodological approaches used in the project, in the context of other, earlier research towards the development of children's well-being indicators. Some of the early findings from the collaborative project are outlined and an example given of the way in which knowledge produced by a research approach which places children centrally, differs from and is similar to knowledge produced by more traditional child social indicator research. The paper ends with a discussion of some of the implications and challenges posed by reflecting on the research process and early findings from the research.

An interlaboratory study was conducted to compare pesticide recovery from Empore C(18) and Speedisks C(18)XF solid phase extraction disks after shipping. Four pesticides were used for the comparison of the two disk extraction materials: atrazine, diazinon, metolachlor, and tebuconazole. These pesticides were chosen to provide a range of physiochemical properties. Water samples were extracted onto the disk types and shipped to a cooperating laboratory for elution and analysis. The mean recoveries from Empore disks were atrazine, 95%; diazinon, 91%; metolachlor, 92%; and tebuconazole, 83%. The recoveries from Speedisks C(18)XF were atrazine, 89%; diazinon, 87%; metolachlor, 86%; and tebuconazole, 79%. Means for each of the pesticides using the different disk types were not statistically different (alpha = 0.05), but results were more variable when using Speedisks C(18)XF as compared to Empore disks. Reasons for the increased variability are discussed, but overall results indicate that Speedisks C(18)XF could be used as an alternative to Empore disks. Speedisks C(18)XF are enclosed in a plastic housing, so they can be used more easily in remote sampling sites without the possibility of glassware breakage, no prefiltration of samples is needed, and there are realignment problems that can be associated with the Empore disks.

DNA microarray analysis has been used to investigate relative changes in the level of gene expression in the CNS, including changes that are associated with disease, injury, psychiatric disorders, drug exposure or withdrawal, and memory formation. We have used oligonucleotide microarrays to identify hypothalamic genes that respond to nutritional manipulation. In addition to commonly used microarray analysis based on criteria such as fold-regulation, we have also found that simply carrying out multiple t tests then sorting by P value constitutes a highly reliable method to detect true regulation, as assessed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), even for relatively low abundance genes or relatively low magnitude of regulation. Such analyses directly suggested novel mechanisms that mediate effects of nutritional state on neuroendocrine function and are being used to identify regulated gene products that may elucidate the metabolic pathology of obese ob/ob, lean Vgf-/Vgf-, and other models with profound metabolic impairments.

This paper outlines the characteristics of a seminar on realism which forms part of the teaching of 'ideas and methods in geography' in the department concerned. The seminar requires each of about a dozen students to answer a specific question by reading a single paper, writing a summary answer to the question based on this source, and delivering an oral presentation. The questions are structured to deal with abstract theoretical issues at first, and then to consider the implications of these issues for research practice. The experience of the seminar is intended to help students prepare for an open-book examination, and to develop the research planning for their dissertations. Student feedback is reviewed, and ideas for modification of the seminar structure are discussed.

Identifying practice patterns for therapy interventions following distal radius fractures (DRFs) is necessary to define the most frequently used examination and intervention techniques. The purpose of this study was to identify preferred practice patterns and physical and functional outcome measures used during DRF management. Two hundred forty-two therapists (PTs, OTs, and CHTs) were surveyed by questionnaire at an annual hand therapy meeting. A descriptive analysis of data was performed. Preferred practice patterns during the immobilization and the post-immobilization periods were identified. More than 75% of the surveyed therapists used upper extremity range-of-motion exercises and compressive wrap with retrograde massage during the immobilization phase. More than 90% of therapists included range-of-motion exercises and heat/cold modalities in the post-immobilization treatment plans. Physical impairment measures of outcome were used much more frequently than functional outcome questionnaires in assessing progress during treatment. This study advances the evidence-based practice of therapy by establishing a foundation for future research.

Several years ago, in a spontaneous, self-organising way, a group of colleagues and I initiated a creative act in our organisation. We generated a series of workshops for ourselves in order to improve our work, engage in problem solving, and learn from each other. Our community of practice (Wenger, 1998) enabled us as knowledge workers to develop our own small system, in context, with open invitations and shared leadership.

Librarians need professional development opportunities even during difficult economic times with limited library budgets. Fortunately, creative and frugal librarians are finding external funding for professional development, and benefiting from free or low-cost professional development tools and opportunities. Many of these frugal solutions are online. Social media, bookmarking services, e-learning platforms like WebJunction and Lyrasis, listservs, and webinars are all explored as such online solutions. Conference scholarships, interdepartmental cooperation, and community partnerships are also ways to provide free or externally funded professional development.

mtDNA studies support an African origin for modern Eurasians, but expansion events within Africa have not previously been investigated. We have therefore analyzed 407 mtDNA control-region sequences from 13 African ethnic groups. A number of sequences (13%) were highly divergent and coalesced on the "mitochondrial Eve" in Africans. The remaining sequences also ultimately coalesced on this sequence but fell into four major clusters whose starlike phylogenies testify to demographic expansions. The oldest of these African expansions dates to approximately 60,000-80,000 years ago. Eurasian sequences are derived from essentially one sequence within this ancient cluster, even though a diverse mitochondrial pool was present in Africa at the time.

The current merging of computer and communications technologies is facilitating the trend towardtelework-remote work arrangements enabled by information technology. Organizations today have ever increasing options in the management and distribution of their work processes. In this study, we review the research on telework conducted in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. We then propose a taxonomy for classifying different types of telework. Using this taxonomy, we examine the spatial, coordination, and temporal structures of different types of telework.

Recent papers hypothesize that an asymmetry in regret motivates aggressive bidding in laboratory first-price auctions. Subjects emphasize potential earnings foregone from being outbid. Proposed motivators of this asymmetry include the one-to-one relationship in the auction between winning and positive earnings and the ex-post knowledge that bidders who do not win the auction know they earned less than the winning bidder. We design a novel implementation of the first-price auction environment in which these characteristics are not present, while leaving unchanged the expected-earnings maximizing bidding strategy against any fixed beliefs about the bidding behavior of others. Bidding is significantly less aggressive in this treatment. These findings support the hypothesis that aggressive bidding is motivated in part by features of the protocol for incentivizing subjects which are not essential to the auction environment.

Sequences of macromolecules have “signals” or patterns that arise from a number of sources, particularly from shared common history or phylogeny. We discuss methods for inferring evolutionary trees from these patterns or signals under five properties desired for an ideal method. These five desiderata are that the methods be efficient (fast), consistent, powerful, robust, and falsifiable. Our conclusion is that corrections for multiple changes in sequences are the most important factor for any method to be consistent. Most optimality criteria, including compatibility and parsimony, become consistent when the sequences have appropriate corrections for multiple changes. Conversely, virtually no methods are consistent without adjustments for multiple changes. Hadamard conjugations are used to illustrate relationships between different methods and then illustrated by combining it with the closest tree optimality criterion. The data used to illustrate these recent developments include DNA sequences use...

DNA binding of the homodimeric p50 subunit of NF-kappa B was inhibited by a bacterially expressed protein containing the ankyrin repeats present in the C-terminus of the p105 precursor but not by the I kappa B protein MAD-3. However p50 was retained on protein affinity matrices containing either the C-terminal ankyrin repeats of p105 or MAD-3. To investigate the interaction between p50 and proteins containing ankyrin repeats we have used a number of approaches to probe the accessibility of the p50 nuclear localisation signal in the protein complex. A monoclonal antibody recognising a linear epitope either very close to, or including, the nuclear localisation signal of the p50 protein could immunoprecipitate p50 homodimers but was unable to precipitate the protein when it was bound to the C-terminal region of p105. A close association between the nuclear localisation signal of p50 and the C-terminal region of p105 was also suggested by protease accessibility experiments. While the nuclear localisation signal of free p50 is extremely susceptible to cleavage with trypsin the same site is masked in the presence of the C-terminal ankyrin repeats of p105 and, to a lesser extent MAD-3. Removal of the nuclear localisation signal by trypsin digestion generates a protein that is fully competent for DNA binding but is refractile to inhibition by the C-terminal ankyrin repeats of p105. Addition of DNA destabilises complexes between p50 and ankyrin repeat containing proteins, increasing the susceptibility of the nuclear localisation signal to trypsin cleavage. The data suggest that there is a rapid exchange of p50 between complexes containing DNA or I kappa B proteins via a metastable complex containing DNA, p50 and I kappa B.

Although human Y chromosomes belonging to haplogroup R1b are quite rare in Africa, being found mainly in Asia and Europe, a group of chromosomes within the paragroup R-P25(*) are found concentrated in the central-western part of the African continent, where they can be detected at frequencies as high as 95%. Phylogenetic evidence and coalescence time estimates suggest that R-P25(*) chromosomes (or their phylogenetic ancestor) may have been carried to Africa by an Asia-to-Africa back migration in prehistoric times. Here, we describe six new mutations that define the relationships among the African R-P25(*) Y chromosomes and between these African chromosomes and earlier reported R-P25 Eurasian sub-lineages. The incorporation of these new mutations into a phylogeny of the R1b haplogroup led to the identification of a new clade (R1b1a or R-V88) encompassing all the African R-P25(*) and about half of the few European/west Asian R-P25(*) chromosomes. A worldwide phylogeographic analysis of the R1b haplogroup provided strong support to the Asia-to-Africa back-migration hypothesis. The analysis of the distribution of the R-V88 haplogroup in1800 males from 69 African populations revealed a striking genetic contiguity between the Chadic-speaking peoples from the central Sahel and several other Afroasiatic-speaking groups from North Africa. The R-V88 coalescence time was estimated at 9.2-5.6 [corrected] kya, in the early mid Holocene. We suggest that R-V88 is a paternal genetic record of the proposed mid-Holocene migration of proto-Chadic Afroasiatic speakers through the Central Sahara into the Lake Chad Basin, and geomorphological evidence is consistent with this view.