Coalescent-based genome analyses resolve the early branches of the euarchontoglires

Despite numerous large-scale phylogenomic studies, certain parts of the mammalian tree are extraordinarily difficult to resolve. We used the coding regions from 19 completely sequenced genomes to study the relationships within the super-clade Euarchontoglires (Primates, Rodentia, Lagomorpha, Dermoptera and Scandentia) because the placement of Scandentia within this clade is controversial. The difficulty in resolving this issue is due to the short time spans between the early divergences of Euarchontoglires, which may cause incongruent gene trees. The conflict in the data can be depicted by network analyses and the contentious relationships are best reconstructed by coalescent-based analyses. This method is expected to be superior to analyses of concatenated data in reconstructing a species tree from numerous gene trees. The total concatenated dataset used to study the relationships in this group comprises 5,875 protein-coding genes (9,799,170 nucleotides) from all orders except Dermoptera (flying lemurs). Reconstruction of the species tree from 1,006 gene trees using coalescent models placed Scandentia as sister group to the primates, which is in agreement with maximum likelihood analyses of concatenated nucleotide sequence data. Additionally, both analytical approaches favoured the Tarsier to be sister taxon to Anthropoidea, thus belonging to the Haplorrhine clade. When divergence times are short such as in radiations over periods of a few million years, even genome scale analyses struggle to resolve phylogenetic relationships. On these short branches processes such as incomplete lineage sorting and possibly hybridization occur and make it preferable to base phylogenomic analyses on coalescent methods

Acupuncture reduces crying in infants with infantile colic: a randomised, controlled, blind clinical study

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether acupuncture reduces the duration and intensity of crying in infants with colic. Patients and methods 90 otherwise healthy infants, 2-8 weeks old, with infantile colic were randomised in this controlled blind study. 81 completed a structured programme consisting of six visits during 3 weeks to an acupuncture clinic in Sweden. Parents blinded to the allocation of their children met a blinded nurse. The infant was subsequently given to another nurse in a separate room, who handled all infants similarly except that infants allocated to receive acupuncture were given minimal, standardised acupuncture for 2 s in LI4. RESULTS: There was a difference (p=0.034) favouring the acupuncture group in the time which passed from inclusion until the infant no longer met the criteria for colic. The duration of fussing was lower in the acupuncture group the first (74 vs 129 min; p=0.029) and second week (71 vs 102 min; p=0.047) as well as the duration of colicky crying in the second intervention week (9 vs 13 min; p=0.046) was lower in the acupuncture group. The total duration of fussing, crying and colicky crying (TC) was lower in the acupuncture group during the first (193 vs 225 min; p=0.025) and the second intervention week (164 vs 188 min; p=0.016). The relative difference from baseline throughout the intervention weeks showed differences between groups for fussing in the first week (22 vs 6 min; p=0.028), for colicky crying in the second week (92 vs 73 min; p=0.041) and for TC in the second week (44 vs 29 min; p=0.024), demonstrating favour towards the acupuncture group. CONCLUSIONS: Minimal acupuncture shortened the duration and reduced the intensity of crying in infants with colic. Further research using different acupuncture points, needle techniques and intervals between treatments is required

How are management fashions institutionalized? The role of institutional work

We explore how transitory management fashions become institutionalized. Based on the concepts of institutional entrepreneurship and institutional work, we postulate that fashionable management practices acquire permanence when they are anchored within fieldwide institutions. The building of such institutions requires various types of institutional work, including political work, technical work and cultural work. Based on a review of the empirical literature on various management fashions, we identify the actors engaging in these different types of works, and their skills. Our results suggest that the institutionalization effect is stronger if more types of institutional work are deployed and if the skill sets of the involved actors vary. We also argue that institutional construction in the case of management fashions is likely to take the form of decentralized `partaking' rather than being led by a single dominant institutional entrepreneur. We conclude with implications for the study of management fashions and the role of agency in institutionalization

Standardization as Institutional Work: The Regulatory Power of a Responsible Investment Standard

This paper conceptualizes standardization as institutional work to study the emergence of a standard and the deployment of its regulatory power. We rely on unique access to longitudinal archival data for exploring how the FTSE4Good index, a responsible investment index, emerged as a standard for socially responsible corporate behavior. Our results show how three types of standardization work - calculative framing, engaging and valorizing - support the design, legitimation and monitoring processes whereby a standard acquires its regulatory power. Our findings reveal new facets in the dynamics of standardization by approaching standardization as a product of institutional work and in showing how unintended consequences of that work can be recaptured to strengthen the regulatory power of the standard

A multi-disciplinary education process related to the discharging of children from hospital when the child has been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes - a qualitative study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Worldwide, insulin-dependent type 1 diabetes is one of the most frequently diagnosed long-term endocrine disorders found in children and the incidences of this diseased is still increasing. In Sweden the routines are, according to national guidelines, when the child is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, the child and its family remains at the hospital for about two weeks. There is limited knowledge about how a diabetes team handles a child and its family from admission to discharge, therefore the purpose of this study was to seek a deeper understanding of how the diabetes team's parent/child education process works, from admission to discharge, among families with a child newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Qualitative data collection was used. Four focus-group interviews, with a sample of three diabetes teams from different paediatric hospitals in the south western part of Sweden, were conducted and the data recorded on tape and then analysed using qualitative content analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results indicate that achieving a status of self-care on the part of the patient is the goal of the diabetes education programme. Part of the programme is aimed at guiding the child and its parents towards self-help through the means of providing them with knowledge of the disease and its treatment to enable the whole family to understand the need for cooperation in the process. To do this requires an understanding, by the diabetes team, of the individualities of the family in order to gain an overall picture.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results of this study show that the diabetes education programme is specifically designed for each family using the internationally recommended clinical practice guidelines with its specific aims and objectives. Achieving the families' willingness to assist in the self-care of the child care is the goal of the parent education process. To achieve this, the paediatric diabetes specialist nurse and the diabetes specialist paediatrician immediately and deliberately start the process of educating the family using a programme designed to give them the necessary knowledge and skills they will need to manage their child's type 1 diabetes at home.</p

Addressing the environmental, community and health impacts of resource development: Challenges across scales, sectors and sites

Work that addresses the cumulative impacts of resource extraction on environment, community, and health is necessarily large in scope. This paper presents experiences from initiating research at this intersection and explores implications for the ambitious, integrative agenda of planetary health. The purpose is to outline origins, design features, and preliminary insights from our intersectoral and international project, based in Canada and titled the “Environment, Community, Health Observatory” (ECHO) Network. With a clear emphasis on rural, remote, and Indigenous communities, environments, and health, the ECHO Network is designed to answer the question: How can an Environment, Community, Health Observatory Network support the integrative tools and processes required to improve understanding and response to the cumulative health impacts of resource development? The Network is informed by four regional cases across Canada where we employ a framework and an approach grounded in observation, “taking notice for action”, and collective learning. Sharing insights from the foundational phase of this five-year project, we reflect on the hidden and obvious challenges of working across scales, sectors, and sites, and the overlap of generative and uncomfortable entanglements associated with health and resource development. Yet, although intersectoral work addressing the cumulative impacts of resource extraction presents uncertainty and unresolved tensions, ultimately we argue that it is worth staying with the trouble

The hip fracture incidence curve is shifting to the right: A forecast of the age-quake

Background The number of hip fractures has doubled in the last 30–40 years in many countries. Age-adjusted incidence has been reported to be decreasing in Europe and North America, but is there a decreasing trend in all age groups

Addressing the environmental, community and health impacts of resource development: Challenges across scales, sectors and sites

Work that addresses the cumulative impacts of resource extraction on environment, community, and health is necessarily large in scope. This paper presents experiences from initiating research at this intersection and explores implications for the ambitious, integrative agenda of planetary health. The purpose is to outline origins, design features, and preliminary insights from our intersectoral and international project, based in Canada and titled the “Environment, Community, Health Observatory” (ECHO) Network. With a clear emphasis on rural, remote, and Indigenous communities, environments, and health, the ECHO Network is designed to answer the question: How can an Environment, Community, Health Observatory Network support the integrative tools and processes required to improve understanding and response to the cumulative health impacts of resource development? The Network is informed by four regional cases across Canada where we employ a framework and an approach grounded in observation, “taking notice for action”, and collective learning. Sharing insights from the foundational phase of this five-year project, we reflect on the hidden and obvious challenges of working across scales, sectors, and sites, and the overlap of generative and uncomfortable entanglements associated with health and resource development. Yet, although intersectoral work addressing the cumulative impacts of resource extraction presents uncertainty and unresolved tensions, ultimately we argue that it is worth staying with the trouble

The structure of quality systems is important to the process and outcome, an empirical study of 386 hospital departments in Sweden

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Clinicians, nurses, and managers in hospitals are continuously confronted by new technologies and methods that require changes to working practice. Quality systems can help to manage change while maintaining a high quality of care. A new model of quality systems inspired by the works of Donabedian has three factors: structure (resources and administration), process (culture and professional co-operation), and outcome (competence development and goal achievement). The objectives of this study were to analyse whether structure, process, and outcome can be used to describe quality systems, to analyse whether these components are related, and to discuss implications.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A questionnaire was developed and sent to a random sample of 600 hospital departments in Sweden. The adjusted response rate was 75%. The data were analysed with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling in LISREL. This is to our knowledge the first large quantitative study that applies Donabedian's model to quality systems.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The model with relationships between structure, process, and outcome was found to be a reasonable representation of quality systems at hospital departments (p = 0.095, indicating no significant differences between the model and the data set). Structure correlated strongly with process (0.72) and outcome (0.60). Given structure, process also correlated with outcome (0.20).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The model could be used to describe and evaluate single quality systems or to compare different quality systems. It could also be an aid to implement a systematic and evidence-based system for working with quality improvements in hospital departments.</p