Analysis of state laws on informed consent for clinical genetic testing in the era of genomic sequencing

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143694/1/ajmgc31608_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143694/2/ajmgc31608.pd

The sound of violets: the ethnographic potency of poetry?

This paper takes the form of a dialogue between the two authors, and is in two halves, the first half discursive and propositional, and the second half exemplifying the rhetorical, epistemological and metaphysical affordances of poetry in critically scrutinising the rhetoric, epistemology and metaphysics of educational management discourse. Phipps and Saunders explore, through ideas and poems, how poetry can interrupt and/or illuminate dominant values in education and in educational research methods, such as: • alternatives to the military metaphors – targets, strategies and the like – that dominate the soundscape of education; • the kinds and qualities of the cognitive and feeling spaces that might be opened up by the shifting of methodological boundaries; • the considerable work done in ethnography on the use of the poetic: anthropologists have long used poetry as a medium for expressing their sense of empathic connection to their field and their subjects, particularly in considering the creativity and meaning-making that characterise all human societies in different ways; • the particular rhetorical affordances of poetry, as a discipline, as a practice, as an art, as patterned breath; its capacity to shift phonemic, and therewith methodological, authority; its offering of redress to linear and reductive attempts at scripting social life, as always already given and without alternative

Contested resources: unions, employers, and the adoption of new work practices in US and UK telecommunications

The pattern of adoption of high-performance work practices has been explained in terms of strategic contingency and in terms of union presence. We compare the post-deregulation/privatization changes in work practice at AT&T, Bell Atlantic and British Telecom. On the basis of these cases, we argue that the choice of new work practices should be understood as a consequence not only of the company's resources or changes in its environment, nor of a simple union presence, but also as a consequence of the practices' effects on union power, the nature of the union's engagement, and the union's strategic choices

The Kondo Effect in Non-Equilibrium Quantum Dots: Perturbative Renormalization Group

While the properties of the Kondo model in equilibrium are very well understood, much less is known for Kondo systems out of equilibrium. We study the properties of a quantum dot in the Kondo regime, when a large bias voltage V and/or a large magnetic field B is applied. Using the perturbative renormalization group generalized to stationary nonequilibrium situations, we calculate renormalized couplings, keeping their important energy dependence. We show that in a magnetic field the spin occupation of the quantum dot is non-thermal, being controlled by V and B in a complex way to be calculated by solving a quantum Boltzmann equation. We find that the well-known suppression of the Kondo effect at finite V>>T_K (Kondo temperature) is caused by inelastic dephasing processes induced by the current through the dot. We calculate the corresponding decoherence rate, which serves to cut off the RG flow usually well inside the perturbative regime (with possible exceptions). As a consequence, the differential conductance, the local magnetization, the spin relaxation rates and the local spectral function may be calculated for large V,B >> T_K in a controlled way.Comment: 9 pages, invited paper for a special edition of JPSJ "Kondo Effect -- 40 Years after the Discovery", some typos correcte

Teams between Neo-Taylorism and Anti-Taylorism

The concept of teamworking is the product of two distinct developments. One: a neo- Tayloristic form of organization of work, of which Toyota has shown that it can be very profitable, was packaged and reframed to make it acceptable to the Western public. Two: anti-Tayloristic ways of organizing work, inspired by ideals of organizational democracy, were relabeled to make these acceptable to profit-oriented managers. Drawing on empirical research in Scandinavia, Germany, The Netherlands and the UK, as well as on published case studies of Japanese companies, the paper develops a neo-Tayloristic and an anti-Tayloristic model of teamworking. Key concerns in the teamworking literature are intensification of work and the use of shop floor autonomy as a cosmetic or manipulative device. Indeed, all the features of neo-Tayloristic teamworking are geared towards the intensification of work. However, one of the intensification mechanisms, the removal of Tayloristic rigidities in the division of labor, applies to anti-Tayloristic teamworking as well. This poses a dilemma for employee representatives. In terms of autonomy, on the other hand, the difference between neo-Tayloristic and anti-Tayloristic teamworking is real. In anti-Tayloristic teamworking, there is no supervisor inside the team. The function of spokesperson rotates. All team members can participate in decision-making. Standardization is not relentlessly pursued; management accepts some measure of worker control. There is a tendency to alleviate technical discipline, e.g. to find alternatives for the assembly line. Buffers are used. Remuneration is based on proven skill level; there are no group bonuses. In contrast, in neo-Tayloristic teamworking, a permanent supervisor is present in the team as team leader. At most, only the team leader can participate in decision-making. Standardization is relentlessly pursued. Management prerogatives are nearly unlimited. Job designers treat technical discipline, e.g. short-cycled work on the assembly line, as unproblematic. There are no buffers. A substantial part of wages consists of individual bonuses based on assessments by supervisors on how deeply workers cooperate in the system. Group bonuses are also given. The instability and vulnerability of anti-Tayloristic teamworking imply that it can only develop and flourish when managers and employee representatives put determined effort into it. The opportunity structure for this contains both economic and political elements. In mass production, the economic success of Toyota, through skillful mediation by management gurus, makes the opportunity structure for anti-Tayloristic teamworking relatively unfavorable

Containing, embracing and hyper-activating Britishness: British-based foreign-owned firms

There are in the UK ownership forms different to the characteristics of Britishness – British-based foreign-owned firms where dominant owners may have differentiated control interests. These may contain, that is, override, national institutional characteristics embedded in a particular national capitalism. Accordingly, separating the agency of these firms from presumed business system structures may reveal how diverse patterns of firm ownership – those associated with British-based foreign-owned firms – can inform dynamic ownership developments in British capitalism which contain and hyper-activate Britishness. The article theorizes British-based foreign-owned firms and provides empirical detail on how ownership characteristics influence financial commitment and strategic control in 10 of these firms

Tunneling into Current-Carrying Surface States of High Tc_c Superconductors

Theoretical results for the ab-plane tunneling conductance in the d-wave model for high Tc superconductors are presented. The d-wave model predicts surface bound states below the maximum gap. A sub-dominant order parameter, stabilized by the surface, leads to a splitting of the zero-bias conductance peak (ZBCP) in zero external field and to spontaneous surface currents. In a magnetic field screening currents shift the quasiparticle bound state spectrum and lead to a voltage splitting of the ZBCP that is linear in H at low fields, and saturates at a pairbreaking critical field of order 3 Tesla. Comparisons with recent experimental results on Cu/YBCO junctions are presented.Comment: 4 pages in a RevTex (3.0) file plus 3 Figures in PostScript. To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Pretransplant neutropenia is associated with poor-risk cytogenetic features and increased infection-related mortality in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes.

A retrospective cohort analysis was performed to determine the impact of neutropenia on the outcome of hematopoietic cell transplantation (HSCT) in patients with myelodysplasia (MDS). Among 291 consecutive patients, 178 (61%) had absolute neutrophil counts (ANCs) or =1500/microL within 2 weeks before HSCT. Neutropenic patients more often had poor-risk karyotypes (34% versus 12%, P < .0001) and high-risk International Prognostic Scoring System scores (37% versus 18%, P = .0006). After HSCT, the rate of infections caused by Gram-positive bacteria and invasive fungal infections was significantly increased among neutropenic patients (rate ratio [RR] 1.77, P = .02 and RR = 2.56, P = .03, respectively), whereas infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria were not affected (RR 1.33, P = .53). The hazards of nonrelapse mortality (NRM) (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.62 [1.1-2.4], P = .01), overall mortality (HR = 1.55 [1.1-2.1], P = 0.007), and infection-related mortality (HR = 2.22 [1.2-4.2], P = .01) were increased in neutropenic patients, whereas relapse, engraftment, and graft-versus-host-disease were not affected. After adjusting for cytogenetic risk and marrow myeloblast percentages, neutropenic patients remained at significant hazard for infection-related mortality (HR = 1.94 [1.0-3.8], P = .05), but not for overall mortality or NRM. We propose that intensified strategies to prevent infections should be implemented in MDS patients with preexisting neutropenia who undergo HSCT

Calculations of the Knight Shift Anomalies in Heavy Electron Materials

We have studied the Knight shift $K(\vec r, T)$ and magnetic susceptibility $\chi(T)$ of heavy electron materials, modeled by the infinite U Anderson model with the NCA method. A systematic study of $K(\vec r, T)$ and $\chi(T)$ for different Kondo temperatures $T_0$ (which depends on the hybridization width $\Gamma$) shows a low temperature anomaly (nonlinear relation between $K$ and $\chi$) which increases as the Kondo temperature $T_0$ and distance $r$ increase. We carried out an incoherent lattice sum by adding the $K(\vec r)$ of a few hundred shells of rare earth atoms around a nucleus and compare the numerically calculated results with the experimental results. For CeSn_3, which is a concentrated heavy electron material, both the ^{119}Sn NMR Knight shift and positive muon Knight shift are studied. Also, lattice coherence effects by conduction electron scattering at every rare earth site are included using the average-T matrix approximation. Also NMR Knight shifts for YbCuAl and the proposed quadrupolar Kondo alloy Y_{0.8}U_{0.2}Pd_{3} are studied.Comment: 31 pages of RevTex, 22 Postscript figures, submmitted to PRB, some figures are delete