1,129 research outputs found
Human Resources and the Resource Based View of the Firm
The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has influenced the field of strategic human resource management (SHRM) in a number of ways. This paper explores the impact of the RBV on the theoretical and empirical development of SHRM. It explores how the fields of strategy and SHRM are beginning to converge around a number of issues, and proposes a number of implications of this convergence
The four or more medicines (FOMM) support service:results from an evaluation of a new community pharmacy service aimed at over-65s
Background: 57% of all prescriptions dispensed in the UK in 2003 were for people aged ≥60, where ≥20% of them were prescribed ≥ five medicines. Inappropriate prescribing and non-adherence have a significant impact on hospital admissions and patient quality of life. The English government has identified that community pharmacy could make a significant contribution to reducing non-adherence and improving the quality of prescribing, reducing both hospital admissions and medicines wastage. Objective: To evaluate a community pharmacy service aimed at patients over the age of 65 years prescribed four or more medicines. Method: Patients were invited to participate in the service by the community pharmacy team. The pharmacist held regular consultations with the patient and discussed risk of falls, pain management, adherence and general health. They also reviewed the patient’s medication using STOPP/START criteria. Data wereas analysed for the first six months of participation in the service. Key findings: 620 patients were recruited with 441 (71.1%) completing the six month study period. Pharmacists made 142 recommendations to prescribers in 110 patients largely centred on potentially inappropriate prescribing of NSAIDs, PPIs or duplication of therapy. At follow-up there was a significant decrease in the total number of falls (mean -0.116 (-0.217 - -0.014)) experienced and a significant increase in medicines adherence (mean difference in MMAS-8: 0.513 (0.337 – 0.689)) and quality of life. Cost per QALY estimates ranged from £11,885 to £32,466 depending on the assumptions made. Conclusion: By focussing on patients over the age of 65 years with four or more medicines, community pharmacists can improve medicines adherence and patient quality of life
Modifying Effects of the HFE Polymorphisms on the Association between Lead Burden and Cognitive Decline
Background: As iron and lead promote oxidative damage, and hemochromatosis (HFE) gene polymorphisms increase body iron burden, HFE variant alleles may modify the lead burden and cognitive decline relationship. Objective: Our goal was to assess the modifying effects of HFE variants on the lead burden and cognitive decline relation in older adults. Methods: We measured tibia and patella lead using K-X-ray fluorescence (1991–1999) among participants of the Normative Aging Study, a longitudinal study of community-dwelling men from greater Boston. We assessed cognitive function with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) twice (1993–1998 and 1995–2000) and genotyped participants for HFE polymorphisms. We estimated the adjusted mean differences in lead-associated annual cognitive decline across HFE genotype groups (n = 358). Results: Higher tibia lead was associated with steeper cognitive decline among participants with at least one HFE variant allele compared with men with only wild-type alleles (p interaction = 0.03), such that a 15 μg/g increase in tibia lead was associated with a 0.2 point annual decrement in MMSE score among HFE variant allele carriers. This difference in scores among men with at least one variant allele was comparable to the difference in baseline MMSE scores that we observed among men who were 4 years apart in age. Moreover, the deleterious association between tibia lead and cognitive decline appeared progressively worse in participants with increasingly more copies of HFE variant alleles (p-trend = 0.008). Results for patella lead were similar. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that HFE polymorphisms greatly enhance susceptibility to lead-related cognitive impairment in a pattern consistent with allelelic dose
Statistical Genetics and Evolution of Quantitative Traits
The distribution and heritability of many traits depends on numerous loci in
the genome. In general, the astronomical number of possible genotypes makes the
system with large numbers of loci difficult to describe. Multilocus evolution,
however, greatly simplifies in the limit of weak selection and frequent
recombination. In this limit, populations rapidly reach Quasi-Linkage
Equilibrium (QLE) in which the dynamics of the full genotype distribution,
including correlations between alleles at different loci, can be parameterized
by the allele frequencies. This review provides a simplified exposition of the
concept and mathematics of QLE which is central to the statistical description
of genotypes in sexual populations. We show how key results of Quantitative
Genetics such as the generalized Fisher's "Fundamental Theorem", along with
Wright's Adaptive Landscape, emerge within QLE from the dynamics of the
genotype distribution. We then discuss under what circumstances QLE is
applicable, and what the breakdown of QLE implies for the population structure
and the dynamics of selection. Understanding of the fundamental aspects of
multilocus evolution obtained through simplified models may be helpful in
providing conceptual and computational tools to address the challenges arising
in the studies of complex quantitative phenotypes of practical interest.Comment: to appear in Rev.Mod.Phy
First Steps towards Underdominant Genetic Transformation of Insect Populations
The idea of introducing genetic modifications into wild populations of insects to stop them from spreading diseases is more than 40 years old. Synthetic disease refractory genes have been successfully generated for mosquito vectors of dengue fever and human malaria. Equally important is the development of population transformation systems to drive and maintain disease refractory genes at high frequency in populations. We demonstrate an underdominant population transformation system in Drosophila melanogaster that has the property of being both spatially self-limiting and reversible to the original genetic state. Both population transformation and its reversal can be largely achieved within as few as 5 generations. The described genetic construct {Ud} is composed of two genes; (1) a UAS-RpL14.dsRNA targeting RNAi to a haploinsufficient gene RpL14 and (2) an RNAi insensitive RpL14 rescue. In this proof-of-principle system the UAS-RpL14.dsRNA knock-down gene is placed under the control of an Actin5c-GAL4 driver located on a different chromosome to the {Ud} insert. This configuration would not be effective in wild populations without incorporating the Actin5c-GAL4 driver as part of the {Ud} construct (or replacing the UAS promoter with an appropriate direct promoter). It is however anticipated that the approach that underlies this underdominant system could potentially be applied to a number of species.
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The Infrared Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) for TMT: Instrument Overview
We present an overview of the design of IRIS, an infrared (0.85 - 2.5 micron)
integral field spectrograph and imaging camera for the Thirty Meter Telescope
(TMT). With extremely low wavefront error (<30 nm) and on-board wavefront
sensors, IRIS will take advantage of the high angular resolution of the narrow
field infrared adaptive optics system (NFIRAOS) to dissect the sky at the
diffraction limit of the 30-meter aperture. With a primary spectral resolution
of 4000 and spatial sampling starting at 4 milliarcseconds, the instrument will
create an unparalleled ability to explore high redshift galaxies, the Galactic
center, star forming regions and virtually any astrophysical object. This paper
summarizes the entire design and basic capabilities. Among the design
innovations is the combination of lenslet and slicer integral field units, new
4Kx4k detectors, extremely precise atmospheric dispersion correction, infrared
wavefront sensors, and a very large vacuum cryogenic system.Comment: 13 pages, SPIE Proceedings 201
The InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) for TMT: Overview of innovative science programs
IRIS (InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph) is a first light near-infrared
diffraction limited imager and integral field spectrograph being designed for
the future Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). IRIS is optimized to perform
astronomical studies across a significant fraction of cosmic time, from our
Solar System to distant newly formed galaxies (Barton et al. [1]). We present a
selection of the innovative science cases that are unique to IRIS in the era of
upcoming space and ground-based telescopes. We focus on integral field
spectroscopy of directly imaged exoplanet atmospheres, probing fundamental
physics in the Galactic Center, measuring 10^4 to 10^10 Msun supermassive black
hole masses, resolved spectroscopy of young star-forming galaxies (1 < z < 5)
and first light galaxies (6 < z < 12), and resolved spectroscopy of strong
gravitational lensed sources to measure dark matter substructure. For each of
these science cases we use the IRIS simulator (Wright et al. [2], Do et al.
[3]) to explore IRIS capabilities. To highlight the unique IRIS capabilities,
we also update the point and resolved source sensitivities for the integral
field spectrograph (IFS) in all five broadband filters (Z, Y, J, H, K) for the
finest spatial scale of 0.004" per spaxel. We briefly discuss future
development plans for the data reduction pipeline and quicklook software for
the IRIS instrument suite.Comment: Proceedings of the SPIE, 9147-36
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