Open Access

adhesion kinase signaling in a BCR-ABL myeloproliferative disorder causing accelerated progression of diseas

Patients' and Caregivers' Attributes in a Meaningful Care Encounter: Similarities and Notable Differences

In today's healthcare system, there is an imbalance between what patients expect of caregivers' care and their perception of the care they get. How is it possible to reduce this imbalance? The aim of this paper was to describe attributes associated with meaningful encounters in the Swedish healthcare system based on patients' and caregivers' written narratives and to note the differences and similarities between the attributes identified by the two groups. This paper is a qualitative descriptive study. The analysis was guided by qualitative content analyses. Based on patients' narratives, attributes associated with a meaningful encounter fell into four categories: the kind-hearted caregiver, the thoughtful caregiver, the mutually oriented caregiver, and the helpful caregiver. Based on caregivers' narratives, the attributes were categorized as being humane, caring through physical contact, caring by nurturing communication, joy and laughter in care, and a sense of mutuality. The results show that there are both similarities and differences in patients' and caregivers' opinions about the attributes of a meaningful encounter. Knowing more about the attributes associated with meaningful encounters makes it possible for caregivers to individualize care for patients and makes it easier to help and support patients in what they most need support with

Divorce Reform—One State’s Solution

Although New York has long been a leader in reform legislation, it has also had one of the most ineffective divorce laws in the nation. Therefore, it was not unrealistic to hope that when New York recently revised its divorce laws the new product would serve as a model for future reforms in other jurisdictions. While the new law as finally enacted is defective in several respects, its provisions reflect an attempt to accommodate the basic reform trends in current divorce law. This comment investigates briefly the evolution of governmental controls of divorce, the American tradition prior to the New York reform, and the implications of the procedures finally adopted by that state

Teachers enacting complementation and compensation in a practice under strain. Policy and practice in Swedish school-age educare

The aim of this study is to explore the way teachers enact policy regarding the tasks of complementation and compensation in Swedish School-Age Educare. As a result of numerous policy changes, school-age educare as an institution has undergone significant and substantial changes in terms of its social mandate, educational objectives, and content. In this paper, we investigate how these policy changes have transformed the everyday practice for staff working in these settings. We base our analysis on policy enactment theory, focusing on the way policy is transformed into practice. The research material consists of group interviews with 53 staff members interviewed in twelve focus groups, representing twelve different settings. The results highlight that enacting policy in Swedish school-age educare involves multiple interpretations of these concepts, being constrained by materiality in several ways, representing a mix of discourses in both policy and practice regarding the tasks of complementation and compensation. (DIPF/Orig.

The value of information in conservation planning

Conservation planning studies at small scales such as forest stands and below are uncommon. However, for retention forestry, developed during the last two decades and with current wide and increasing application in boreal and temperate regions, the need for cost-effective selection of individual trees is evident. In retention forestry certain trees are left at final harvest to promote flora and fauna. There is also a scarcity of studies on information costs and how these relate to the cost-effectiveness of conservation. We addressed both of these issues by studying whether decisions about the retention of aspen Populus tremula L. trees can be made more cost-effectively by including information about tree characteristics. We analyzed data from 12 recently harvested stands in middle Sweden containing 131 epiphytic lichen species (a biodiversity proxy) on 360 aspen trees. We related the presence of lichen species to bark and stem attributes and used those relationships to prioritize trees for retention. We estimated the value of using different sets of survey information (lichens, tree characteristics) to select retention trees to achieve various conservation goals. Depending on species or species groups of interest, and the type of tree information being collected, the value of collecting the information is up to 20% of the total value of all potential retention trees, which, given current labor costs, allows up to four hours for planning and selecting the right trees on an average-sized clearcut. The current practice of almost randomly selecting aspen trees to retain at final harvest can be improved by adding easily collected information on tree characteristics, such as black-colored bark, slow tree growth, inclining stems and speckled bark. This can lead to attainment of a given level of a conservation goal (like maximizing the number of lichen species of conservation concern) with fewer retention trees. Inventory of tree information often can be performed quickly, and if part of the gains from using such information to guide tree selection would be spent on additional conservation efforts, this would benefit biodiversity. Studies on more organism groups and tree species are needed to increase the applicability of results. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V

Increased consumer fitness following transfer of toxin tolerance to offspring via maternal effects

Adaptations and, counteradaptations are common in coevolving predatorprey systems, but little is known of the role of maternal transfer of adaptive traits in mediating species interactions. Here, we focused on tolerance against cyanobacterial toxins and asked whether this tolerance was an induced defense developed during Daphnia's lifetime, whether it was a trait that is constantly expressed, and whether such tolerance to the toxin can be transferred to the next generation through maternal effects. These questions were addressed by feeding a single clone of Daphnia magna a diet with and without algal toxin and recording changes in fitness (as intrinsic rate of population increase). Analysis of F1, F2, and F3 generations revealed that the increased tolerance to toxic Microcystis was an inducible defense developed during an individual's lifetime, and that this trait could be transferred from mother to offspring. This maternal effect was expressed in several fitness parameters, including shorter time to maturity and first reproduction, and higher numbers of offspring compared to inexperienced individuals. In some circumstances, such maternal effects may increase population production by up to 40% and may help to stabilize material and energy transfer to higher trophic levels

Considering future potential regarding structural diversity in selection of forest reserves

A rich structural diversity in forests promotes biodiversity. Forests are dynamic and therefore it is crucial to consider future structural potential when selecting reserves, to make robust conservation decisions. We analyzed forests in boreal Sweden based on 17,599 National Forest Inventory (NFI) plots with the main aim to understand how effectiveness of reserves depends on the time dimension in the selection process, specifically by considering future structural diversity. In the study both the economic value and future values of 15 structural variables were simulated during a 100 year period. To get a net present structural value (NPSV), a single value covering both current and future values, we used four discounting alternatives: (1) only considering present values, (2) giving equal importance to values in each of the 100 years within the planning horizon, (3) applying an annual discount rate considering the risk that values could be lost, and (4) only considering the values in year 100. The four alternatives were evaluated in a reserve selection model under budget-constrained and area-constrained selections. When selecting young forests higher structural richness could be reached at a quarter of the cost over almost twice the area in a budget-constrained selection compared to an area-constrained selection. Our results point to the importance of considering future structural diversity in the selection of forest reserves and not as is done currently to base the selection on existing values. Targeting future values increases structural diversity and implies a relatively lower cost. Further, our results show that a re-orientation from old to young forests would imply savings while offering a more extensive reserve network with high structural qualities in the future. However, caution must be raised against a drastic reorientation of the current old-forest strategy since remnants of ancient forests will need to be prioritized due to their role for disturbance-sensitive species

How reserve selection is affected by preferences in Swedish boreal forests

It is important to consider the preferences of the various stakeholders involved when evaluating effective reserve selection, since it is largely their preferences that determine which of a given set of potential reserve networks that actually is "the best". We interviewed eight conservation planners working at the county administrative boards in each of the eight administrative counties covering boreal Sweden to establish weightings for different structural biodiversity indicators by using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The subjective weightings were applied in a reserve selection model based on a goal programming (GP) approach. The structural indicators were derived from the Swedish National Forest Inventory (NFI) and used as proxy for biodiversity potential. A biodiversity indicator score, based on the values of those indicators, was maximized. The model adjusted this score ensuring that all indicators were represented in the selection, and further also adjusted the influence of the indicators based on the subjective weightings. We evaluated the GP approach by comparing it to a simple linear programming (LP) formulation, only maximizing the indicator richness. In all cases the model was limited either by a budget or an area. The biodiversity potential in young forests are often neglected within present conservation policies, however, the proportion of selected forest under 15 years was relatively high in all our cost-effective cases, varying between 32% and 60% using the individual planners subjective weightings, compared to 80% when using a simple LP model. The proportion of selected forest over 100 years varied between 69% and 85% in the area-effective cases using the subjective weightings, compared to 80% when using a simple LP model. Middle-aged forest was not favored in any of the selections, although they make up a substantial part of the total area. We conclude that there are differences in how conservation planners prioritize the indicators, and depending on how specific biodiversity indicators are weighted the age distribution of the selected reserves differs. This demonstrates the importance of considering how to establish appropriate weightings. It is also important to consider the, at least in our case, substantial difference in how common the different indicators are to ensure that the weightings get their intended impact on the selections. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Bryophytes of conservation concern decline and traits change in retention patches during two decades following forest harvest

Setting aside tree retention patches at final harvest is a common forest conservation measure, but the long-term responses of species of conservation concern to different types of forest retention remain unknown. This is the first long-term study of the dynamics of bryophytes of conservation concern and associated traits in small forest retention patches (0.01-0.53 ha) over almost two decades and in relation to environmental drivers. We applied joint species distribution models to compare how bryophytes changed in terms of occurrence, abundance, species richness and traits between year 2000, 2006 and 2018, and in relation to five different retention patch types, patch area, retained living tree volume per hectare, structural heterogeneity, and surrounding habitat openness. Bryophytes responded mostly negatively to the long-term environmental change, although with considerable variation depending on retention patch type. Only negative trends were detected for individual species. Still, no regional extinctions (loss of species from all local patches) occurred and there was a tendency for recovery of a few species. Bryophytes with predominantly asexual reproductive modes and small colony size (< 100 cm(2)) increased in occurrence probability over time, indicating that these traits were beneficial for the long-term persistence of species in small and exposed forest patches. We recommend forest managers to create large (preferably up to 0.5 ha) and variable retention patches, both in terms of patch type (i.e. buffer zones and free-standing groups of different dominant tree species and ground moisture) and structural heterogeneity (i.e. living tree volumes, large and small trees, and deadwood)

Climate management in tomato greenhouse market gardens

An efficient climate management is essential to achieve a high production in tomato greenhouse market gardens. Temperature, especially, is very important since it has a large influence on both the vegetative and the generative growth. The main objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of low temperature pulses (LTP) on the fruit growth. The study was carried out both through a literature study and through an empirical study done in three commercial greenhouse market gardens growing tomato. During a ten week period in the spring of 2007 weekly growth, stem diameter, leaf length, length of truss peduncle, peduncle diameter, number of fruits per truss, fruit diameter and height, total number of fruit on the plants, amount of harvested fruit, and individual fruit weights were measured. Climatic data was gathered from PRIVA environmental computers, which were used in all three market gardens. Due to reluctance from the participating growers to use LTPs, and a lack of literature on the subject, the question of whether LTP has an effect on fruit growth remains unanswered. The effect of night temperature and average temperature was also included in the study. There were correlations between night temperature and the number of fruit; the R2 values were very low however, indicating that hardly any of the variation in the plant parameters can be explained by the night temperature. Lower average temperature lead to larger but fewer fruits, while a higher average temperature lead to slightly smaller first fruits, but a higher yield; this is confirmed in the literature. The harvest was closely related to the weekly average temperature where a high average temperature one week resulted in a high yield the following week.En effektiv klimatstyrning är grundläggande för att uppnå en hög produktion i tomatväxthus. Särskilt temperaturstyrning är viktigt då temperaturen har en stor inverkan på både den vegetativa och den generative tillväxten av plantorna. Den huvudsakliga målsättningen med examensarbetet var att undersöka effekten av lågtemperaturpulser (LTP) på fruktutvecklingen. Studien omfattade både en litteraturstudie och en empirisk studie som utfördes hos tre tomatodlare i södra Sverige. Under en tioveckorsperiod våren 2007 mättes stamtillväxt, stamdiameter, bladlängd, klasstjälkslängd, klasstjälkdiameter, antal frukter per klase, fruktdiameter och –höjd, totalt antal frukter på plantan, skördemängd och individuella fruktvikter. Klimatdata samlades in från PRIVA klimatdatorer; ett system som alla tre odlarna använde sig av. På grund av odlarnas tveksamheter att använda LTP, samt bristen på relevant litteratur i ämnet, gjorde att frågan om huruvida LTP har en effekt på fruktutvecklingen förblir obesvarad. Effekten av nattemperatur samt medeltemperatur var också innefattat i studien. Det fanns korrelationer mellan nattemperatur och antalet frukter på plantorna; R2 värdena var däremot så låga att i stort sett inga av variationerna i växtparametrarna kan förklaras av förändringar i nattemperaturen. Låg medeltemperatur ledde till stora men färre frukter, medans en högre medeltemperatur ledde till något mindre frukter men en totalt högre skörd; dessa resultat bekräftas i litteraturen. Skörden var nära förknippad med medeltemperaturen: en hög medeltemperatur under en vecka ledde till en hög skörd veckan därpå