The matching of motivations to affordances among Maltese elected local government volunteers : implications for sustaining civil society

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to both understand the motives for volunteering in local government (a strong/structured context) and determine how such motivation and other demographics interact with organisational contexts to influence volunteering outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts a functional approach to volunteerism. The Volunteer Functions Inventory is modified to better assess the motivations of elected local government volunteers. The responses of 152 Maltese local councillors were used to answer four research questions empirically. Findings – Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported the introduction of a seventh VFI dimension, namely the political function. The study provides evidence that local councillors who received greater amounts of functionally relevant benefits reported more satisfaction and a stronger intention to continue volunteering in local government. The aggregated effect of multiple motives as well as other person-based determinants (marital status and education) produced a significant impact on volunteering outcomes in this strong/structured situational context of this public sector environment. Originality/value – This study contributes to a better understanding and assessment of the motivations of elected local government volunteers. It addresses practical recommendations for sustaining civil society, while acknowledging the potential and contribution of volunteers with various demographic characteristics

Is participation in a clinical trial associated with a survival benefit in patients with bladder cancer?

Bladder cancer that is unresponsive to intravesical therapies is difficult to treat. Patients with this disease usually have to try salvage therapies, partial cystectomy, or radical cystectomy. Unfortunately, the population afflicted by bladder cancer is older and frailer than those afflicted by other cancers with mortality approaching 1.5% and readmission rates approaching 64%. These patients are left with no other options aside from participating in a clinical trial to delay or avoid surgery. We hypothesized that participation in a clinical trial provides survival benefits when controlling for tumor stage and pathology in the case of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer that is refractory to intravesical Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG). Using our Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved Columbia Urologic Oncology Database, 55 patients with BCG-refractory NMIBC (29 clinical trial patients, 26 non-clinical trial patients) were identified between 2008 and 2012. Clinical characteristics, demographics, and outcomes were obtained from the medical records. Non-clinical trial patients had fewer mean BCG instillations than their clinical trial counterparts (7.8 versus 11.5 doses, p < .01). Kaplan Meier (KP) curves for Overall Survival (OS) and Cancer Specific Survival (CSS) indicate an increased survival benefit for patients enrolled in a clinical trial (OS: χ2 = 8.802, p< 0.01, median of 6.68 years versus 3.15 years; CSS: χ2 = 10.205, p < 0.01, mean 5.6 years versus 2.65 years). The data support the notion that there may be an inherent survival benefit gained by virtue of being included in a clinical trial. The drivers of this survival benefit may include more interactions with the hospitals and clinics, greater patient involvement in their health care, and increased surveillance by clinicians

Long noncoding RNA are aberrantly expressed in vivo in the cystic fibrosis bronchial epithelium.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged recently as key regulatory molecules with diverse roles at almost every level of the regulation of gene expression. The roles of these RNAs in the pathogenesis of cystic fibrosis (CF); a lethal multisystem, autosomal recessive disorder have yet to be explored. Our aim was to examine the expression profile of lncRNA, in the airway epithelium of people with CF. We examined the expression of 30,586 lncRNAs by microarray (Human LncRNA Array v3.0, Arraystar, Inc.), in vivo in bronchial cells isolated from endobronchial brushings obtained from CF and non-CF individuals. In total, we identified 1,063 lncRNAs with differential expression between CF and non-CF individuals (fold change ≥3, p≤0.001). The microarray also contained probes for ∼26,109 protein coding transcripts, of which 720 were differentially expressed between CF and non-CF brush samples (fold change ≥3, p≤0.001). Confirmation of a selection of differentially expressed coding mRNA and lncRNA transcripts such as XIST and TLR8 was achieved using qRT-PCR. Gene ontology bioinformatics analysis highlighted that many processes over-represented in the CF bronchial epithelium are related to inflammation. These data show a significantly altered lncRNA and mRNA expression profile in CF bronchial cells in vivo. Dysregulation of some of these lncRNAs may play important roles in the chronic infection and inflammation that exists in the lungs of people with CF

Crosslinking and Mechanical Properties Significantly Influence Cell Attachment, Proliferation, and Migration Within Collagen Glycosaminoglycan Scaffolds.

Crosslinking and the resultant changes in mechanical properties have been shown to influence cellular activity within collagen biomaterials. With this in mind, we sought to determine the effects of crosslinking on both the compressive modulus of collagen-glycosaminoglycan scaffolds and the activity of osteoblasts seeded within them. Dehydrothermal, 1-ethyl-3-3-dimethyl aminopropyl carbodiimide and glutaraldehyde crosslinking treatments were first investigated for their effect on the compressive modulus of the scaffolds. After this, the most promising treatments were used to study the effects of crosslinking on cellular attachment, proliferation, and infiltration. Our experiments have demonstrated that a wide range of scaffold compressive moduli can be attained by varying the parameters of the crosslinking treatments. 1-Ethyl-3-3-dimethyl aminopropyl carbodiimide and glutaraldehyde treatments produced the stiffest scaffolds (fourfold increase when compared to dehydrothermal crosslinking). When cells were seeded onto the scaffolds, the stiffest scaffolds also showed increased cell number and enhanced cellular distribution when compared to the other groups. Taken together, these results indicate that crosslinking can be used to produce collagen-glycosaminoglycan scaffolds with a range of compressive moduli, and that increased stiffness enhances cellular activity within the scaffolds

Excavations and the afterlife of a professional football stadium, Peel Park, Accrington, Lancashire: towards an archaeology of football

Association football is now a multi-billion dollar global industry whose emergence spans the post-medieval to the modern world. With its professional roots in late 19th-century industrial Lancashire, stadiums built for the professionalization of football first appear in frequency in the North of England. While many historians of sport focus on consumerism and ‘topophilia’ (attachment to place) regarding these local football grounds, archaeological research that has been conducted on the spectator experience suggests status differentiation within them. Our excavations at Peel Park confirm this impression while also showing a significant afterlife to this stadium, particularly through children’s play

Webometric analysis of departments of librarianship and information science: a follow-up study

This paper reports an analysis of the websites of UK departments of library and information science. Inlink counts of these websites revealed no statistically significant correlation with the quality of the research carried out by these departments, as quantified using departmental grades in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise and citations in Google Scholar to publications submitted for that Exercise. Reasons for this lack of correlation include: difficulties in disambiguating departmental websites from larger institutional structures; the relatively small amount of research-related material in departmental websites; and limitations in the ways that current Web search engines process linkages to URLs. It is concluded that departmental-level webometric analyses do not at present provide an appropriate technique for evaluating academic research quality, and, more generally, that standards are needed for the formatting of URLs if inlinks are to become firmly established as a tool for website analysis

A Unified Account of the Moral Standing to Blame

Recently, philosophers have turned their attention to the question, not when a given agent is blameworthy for what she does, but when a further agent has the moral standing to blame her for what she does. Philosophers have proposed at least four conditions on having “moral standing”: 1. One’s blame would not be “hypocritical”. 2. One is not oneself “involved in” the target agent’s wrongdoing. 3. One must be warranted in believing that the target is indeed blameworthy for the wrongdoing. 4. The target’s wrongdoing must some of “one’s business”. These conditions are often proposed as both conditions on one and the same thing, and as marking fundamentally different ways of “losing standing.” Here I call these claims into question. First, I claim that conditions (3) and (4) are simply conditions on different things than are conditions (1) and (2). Second, I argue that condition (2) reduces to condition (1): when “involvement” removes someone’s standing to blame, it does so only by indicating something further about that agent, viz., that he or she lacks commitment to the values that condemn the wrongdoer’s action. The result: after we clarify the nature of the non-hypocrisy condition, we will have a unified account of moral standing to blame. Issues also discussed: whether standing can ever be regained, the relationship between standing and our "moral fragility", the difference between mere inconsistency and hypocrisy, and whether a condition of standing might be derived from deeper facts about the "equality of persons"

Nudges and other moral technologies in the context of power: Assigning and accepting responsibility

Strawson argues that we should understand moral responsibility in terms of our practices of holding responsible and taking responsibility. The former covers what is commonly referred to as backward-looking responsibility , while the latter covers what is commonly referred to as forward-looking responsibility . We consider new technologies and interventions that facilitate assignment of responsibility. Assigning responsibility is best understood as the second- or third-personal analogue of taking responsibility. It establishes forward-looking responsibility. But unlike taking responsibility, it establishes forward-looking responsibility in someone else. When such assignments are accepted, they function in such a way that those to whom responsibility has been assigned face the same obligations and are susceptible to the same reactive attitudes as someone who takes responsibility. One family of interventions interests us in particular: nudges. We contend that many instances of nudging tacitly assign responsibility to nudgees for actions, values, and relationships that they might not otherwise have taken responsibility for. To the extent that nudgees tacitly accept such assignments, they become responsible for upholding norms that would otherwise have fallen under the purview of other actors. While this may be empowering in some cases, it can also function in such a way that it burdens people with more responsibility that they can (reasonably be expected to) manage

Incidence of Primary Mitochondrial Disease in Children Younger Than 2 Years Presenting With Acute Liver Failure

Background: Mitochondrial liver disease (MLD), and in particular mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) depletion syndrome (MDS) is an important cause of acute liver failure (ALF) in infancy. Early and accurate diagnosis is important because liver transplantation (LT) is often contraindicated. It is unclear which methods are the best to diagnose MLD in the setting of ALF. Objective: The aim of the study was to determine the incidence of MLD in children younger than 2 years with ALF and the utility of routine investigations to detect MLD. Methods: Thirty-nine consecutive infants with ALF were admitted to a single unit from 2009 to 2011. All were extensively investigated using an established protocol. Genes implicated in mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome were sequenced in all cases and tissue mtDNA copy number measured where available. Results: Five infants (17%) had genetically proven MLD: DGUOK (n ¼ 2), POLG (n ¼ 2), and MPV17 (1). Four of these died, whereas 1 recovered. Two had normal muscle mtDNA copy number and 3 had normal muscle respiratory chain enzymes. An additional 8 children had low hepatic mtDNA copy number but pathogenic mutations were not detected. One of these developed fatal multisystemic disease after LT, whereas 5 who survived remain well without evidence of multisystemic disease up to 6 years later. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy did not distinguish between those with and without MLD. Conclusions: Low liver mtDNA copy number may be a secondary phenomenon in ALF. Screening for mtDNA maintenance gene mutations may be the most efficient way to confirm MLD in ALF in the first 2 years of life