Systemic autoimmune diseases are characterized by the production of antibodies against a broad range of self-antigens. Recent evidence indicates that the majority of these autoantigens are modified in various ways during cell death. This has led to the hypothesis that the primary immune response in the development of autoimmunity is directed to components of the dying cell. In this article, we summarize data on the modification of autoantigens during cell death and the possible consequences of this for autoimmunity. BioEssays 22:627–636, (...) 2000. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

IntroductionBisphenol A is highly debated and studied in relation to a variety of health outcomes. This large variation in the literature makes BPA a topic that is prone to selective use of literature, in order to underpin one’s own findings and opinion. Over time, selective use of literature, by means of citations, can lead to a skewed knowledge development and a biased scientific consensus. In this study, we assess which factors drive citation and whether this results in the overrepresentation of (...) harmful health effects of BPA.MethodsA citation network analysis was performed to test various determinants of citation. A systematic search identified all relevant publications on the human health effect of BPA. Data were extracted on potential determinants of selective citation, such as study outcome, study design, sample size, journal impact factor, authority of the author, self-citation, and funding source. We applied random effect logistic regression to assess whether these determinants influence the likelihood of citation.ResultsOne hundred sixty-nine publications on BPA were identified, with 12,432 potential citation pathways of which 808 citations occurred. The network consisted of 63 cross-sectional studies, 34 cohort studies, 29 case-control studies, 35 narrative reviews, and 8 systematic reviews. Positive studies have a 1.5 times greater chance of being cited compared to negative studies. Additionally, the authority of the author and self-citation are consistently found to be positively associated with the likelihood of being cited. Overall, the network seems to be highly influenced by two highly cited publications, whereas 60 out of 169 publications received no citations.ConclusionIn the literature on BPA, citation is mostly driven by positive study outcome and author-related factors, such as high authority within the network. Interpreting the impact of these factors and the big influence of a few highly cited publications, it can be questioned to which extent the knowledge development in human literature on BPA is actually evidence-based. (shrink)

In the management and business ethics literatures, stakeholder engagement has been demonstrated to lead to more ethical management practices. However, there may be limits on the extent to which stakeholder engagement can, as currently conceptualized, resolve some of the more difficult ethical challenges faced by managers. In this paper we argue that stakeholder engagement, when seen as a way of reducing five types of knowledge problems—risk, ambiguity, complexity, equivocality, and a priori irreducible uncertainty—can aid managers in resolving such ethical challenges. (...) Using a practical illustration of the ethical challenges surrounding the development and application of genetic modification technologies, we demonstrate how stakeholder engagement enables managers to better address these knowledge problems, thereby to manage more ethically. In this way, we suggest that stakeholder engagement has an even more crucial role to play in business ethics research and practice. (shrink)

For the scholastic philosopher William Ockham (c. 1285-1347), there are three kinds of heresy. The first, and most unmistakable, is an outright denial of the truths of faith. Another is so obvious that a very simple person, even if illiterate, can see how it contradicts Divine Scripture. The third kind of heresy is less clear cut. It is perceptible only after long deliberation and only to individuals who are learned, and well versed in Scripture. It is this third variety of (...) heresy that J.M.M.H. Thijssen addresses in Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris, 1200-1400. The book documents 30 cases in which university trained scholars were condemned for disseminating allegedly erroneous opinions in their teaching or writing, and focuses particularly on four academic censures that have occupied prominent positions in the historiography of medieval philosophy. Thijssen grants central importance to a number of questions so far neglected by historians regarding judicial procedures, the authorities supervising the orthodoxy of teaching, and the effects of condemnations on the careers of the accused. He also places still current questions regarding academic freedom and the nature of doctrinal authority into their medieval contexts. (shrink)

This book is a collection of papers on the metaphysics and natural philosophy of John Buridan (ca. 1295-1361), one of the most innovative and influential ...

Let us call an integer part of an ordered field any subring such that every element of the field lies at distance less than 1 from a unique element of the ring. We show that every real closed field has an integer part.

J. M. M. H. Thijssen - Nicolas d'Autrécourt et la Faculté des Arts de Paris - Journal of the History of Philosophy 46:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 46.1 172-173 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Johannes M. M. H. Thijssen Radboud University Nijmegen Stefano Caroti and Christophe Grellard, editors. Nicolas d'Autrécourt et la Faculté des Arts de Paris . Quaderni di Paideia, 4. Cesena: Stilgraf Editrice, 2006. Pp. 329. e32.00. This book is a coherent set of (...) papers resulting from a conference organized by its editors, Stefano Caroti and Christophe Grellard. In the opening paper, William Courtenay rightly observes that the 1330s are an understudied period in the intellectual history of the University of Paris, especially with respect to its.. (shrink)

Much problem solving and learning research in math and science has focused on formal representations. Recently researchers have documented the use of unschooled strategies for solving daily problems -- informal strategies which can be as effective, and sometimes as sophisticated, as school-taught formalisms. Our research focuses on how formal and informal strategies interact in the process of doing and learning mathematics. We found that combining informal and formal strategies is more effective than single strategies. We provide a theoretical account of (...) this multiple strategy effect and have begun to formulate this theory in an ACT-R computer model. We show why students may reach common impasses in the use of written algebra, and how subsequent or concurrent use of informal strategies leads to better problem-solving performance. Formal strategies facilitate computation because of their abstract and syntactic nature; however, abstraction can lead to nonsensical interpretations and conceptual errors. Reapplying the formal strategy will not repair such errors; switching to an informal one may. We explain the multiple strategy effect as a complementary relationship between the computational efficiency of formal strategies and the sense-making function of informal strategies. (shrink)

A total of 944 expressed sequence tags generated 2212 EST loci mapped to homoeologous group 1 chromosomes in hexaploid wheat. EST deletion maps and the consensus map of group 1 chromosomes were constructed to show EST distribution. EST loci were unevenly distributed among chromosomes 1A, 1B, and ID with 660, 826, and 726, respectively. The number of EST loci was greater on the long arms than on the short arms for all three chromosomes. The distribution of ESTs along chromosome arms (...) was nonrandom with EST clusters occurring in the distal regions of short arms and middle regions of long arms. Duplications of group 1 ESTs in other homoeologous groups occurred at a rate of 35.5%. Seventy-five percent of wheat chromosome 1 ESTs had significant matches with rice sequences, where large regions of conservation occurred between wheat consensus chromosome 1 and rice chromosome 5 and between the proximal portion of the long arm of wheat consensus chromosome 1 and rice chromosome 10. Only 9.5% of group 1 ESTs showed significant matches to Arabidopsis genome sequences. The results presented are useful for gene mapping and evolutionary and comparative genomics of grasses. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Global biodiversity declines are increasingly recognized as profound ecological and social crises. In areas subject to colonialization, these declines have advanced in lockstep with settler colonialism and imposition of centralized resource management by settler states. Many have suggested that resurgent Indigenous-led governance systems could help arrest these trends while advancing effective and socially just approaches to environmental interactions that benefit people and places alike. However, how dominant management and conservation approaches might be decolonized (i.e., how their underlying colonial structure (...) might be addressed, transformed, and replaced) is not always clear. Here, we describe a ‘Decolonial Model of Environmental Management and Conservation’ as an alternative paradigm to dominant approaches of conservation and management. The tenets of the model describe characteristics that might be expected of decolonized management, contrasted with those of dominant state-led approaches such as those embedded in the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. The model does not prescribe how Indigenous governments or communities ought to govern their own territories, but instead offers insights into how external management and conservation agencies and practitioners might support (or stop impeding) Indigenous-led governance. We illustrate the model with a conservation ‘bright spot’: grizzly bear stewardship in the area now referred to as the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, Canada, with a focus on work led by or in collaboration with, and within the territories of, the Haíɫzaqv, Kitasoo/xai’xais, Nuxalk, and Wuikinuxv First Nations. While acknowledging the important context-specific variability among place-based management and conservation applications, we also discuss the model’s broader applicability. (shrink)

The focus of this study was to analyze the content, distribution, and comparative genome relationships of 996 chromosome bin-mapped expressed sequence tags accounting for 2266 restriction fragments on the homoeologous group 3 chromosomes of hexaploid wheat. Of these loci, 634, 884, and 748 were mapped on chromosomes 3A, 3B, and 3D, respectively. The individual chromosome bin maps revealed bins with a high density of mapped ESTs in the distal region and bins of low density in the proximal region of the (...) chromosome arms, with the exception of 3DS and 3DL. These distributions were more localized on the higher-resolution group 3 consensus map with intermediate regions of high-mapped-EST density on both chromosome arms. Gene ontology classification of mapped ESTs was not significantly different for homoeologous group 3 chromosomes compared to the other groups. A combined analysis of the individual bin maps using 537 of the mapped ESTs revealed rearrangements between the group 3 chromosomes. Approximately 232 of the consensus mapped ESTs matched sequences on rice chromosome 1 and revealed large- and small-scale differences in gene order. Of the group 3 mapped EST unigenes ∼21 and 32% matched the Arabidopsis coding regions and proteins, respectively, but no chromosome-level gene order conservation was detected. (shrink)

This article presents the Pilgrimage Model as a template for educators wishing to lead students on site-specific studies of engaged learning. During the 2015–2016 academic year, a group of Georgeto...

Introduction: The Dutch Euthanasia Act states that euthanasia is not punishable if the attending physician acts in accordance with the statutory due care criteria. These criteria hold that: there should be a voluntary and well-considered request, the patient’s suffering should be unbearable and hopeless, the patient should be informed about their situation, there are no reasonable alternatives, an independent physician should be consulted, and the method should be medically and technically appropriate. This study investigates whether physicians experience problems with these (...) criteria in medical practice.Methods: In 2006, questionnaires were sent to a random, stratified sample of 2100 Dutch physicians . Physicians were asked about problems in their decision-making related to requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide after enforcement of the 2002 Euthanasia Act.Results: Of all physicians who had received a request for euthanasia or assisted suicide , 25% had experienced problems in the decision-making with regard to at least one of the criteria of due care. Physicians who had experienced problems mostly indicated to have had problems related to evaluating whether or not the patient’s suffering was unbearable and hopeless and whether or not the patient’s request was voluntary or well considered .Discussion: Physicians in The Netherlands most frequently reported problems related to aspects in which they have to evaluate the patient’s subjective perspective. However, it can be questioned whether placing emphasis on these subjective aspects is an adequate fulfilment of the duties imposed on physicians, as laid down in the Dutch Euthanasia Act. (shrink)

This qualitative research study with a content analysis approach aimed to explore families’ experiences of an organ donation request after brain death. Data were collected through 38 unstructured and in-depth interviews with 14 consenting families and 12 who declined to donate organs. A purposeful sampling process began in October 2009 and ended in October 2010. Data analysis reached 10 categories and two major themes were listed as: 1) serenity in eternal freedom; and 2) resentful grief. The central themes were peace (...) and honor versus doubt and regret. The findings indicated that the families faced with an organ donation request of a brain-dead loved one experienced a lasting effect long after the patient's demise regardless of their decision to donate or refusal to donate. In conclusion, this study highlights the importance of family support and follow-up in an efficient healthcare system aimed at developing trust with the families and providing comfort during and after the final decision. (shrink)