The use of strategy tools by chartered accountants in the South African mining

As a third of all directors in South Africa are chartered accountants (CAs), this research examined the strategising practices of CA strategists in the mining industry. Drawing on the strategy-as-practice perspective, the research aimed to answer questions pertaining to which strategy tools CA strategists use, and how their accounting background informs their decisions on which tools to use and how to use them. Empirical data were produced through semi-structured individual interviews with CA strategists selected through purposive and snowball sampling. Data were analysed through conversation analysis using thematic coding. Findings portray CA strategists as craftspeople who adapt and interpret strategy tools from an accounting perspective to serve the requirements of the situation they face. The research confirmed wide use of accounting tools in strategising. The research found that the model of strategising, albeit deliberate or emergent, as well as the educational background of the strategist, affects deciding which strategy tools are used and how they are used. Specifically, findings indicated that mostly analytical tools are used during planning and deliberate strategising whereas people and project-oriented tools are used during implementation. nderstanding how strategy is done in the South African mining industry, offers insight into the social practice of strategy.Financial Governanc

Mountain gorillas maintain strong affiliative biases for maternal siblings despite high male reproductive skew and extensive exposure to paternal kin

Evolutionary theories predict that sibling relationships will reflect a complex balance of cooperative and competitive dynamics. In most mammals, dispersal and death patterns mean that sibling relationships occur in a relatively narrow window during development and/or only with same-sex individuals. Besides humans, one notable exception is mountain gorillas, in which non-sex-biased dispersal, relatively stable group composition, and the long reproductive tenures of alpha males mean that animals routinely reside with both maternally and paternally related siblings, of the same and opposite sex, throughout their lives. Using nearly 40,000 hr of behavioral data collected over 14 years on 699 sibling and 1235 non-sibling pairs of wild mountain gorillas, we demonstrate that individuals have strong affiliative preferences for full and maternal siblings over paternal siblings or unrelated animals, consistent with an inability to discriminate paternal kin. Intriguingly, however, aggression data imply the opposite. Aggression rates were statistically indistinguishable among all types of dyads except one: in mixed-sex dyads, non-siblings engaged in substantially more aggression than siblings of any type. This pattern suggests mountain gorillas may be capable of distinguishing paternal kin but nonetheless choose not to affiliate with them over non-kin. We observe a preference for maternal kin in a species with a high reproductive skew (i.e. high relatedness certainty), even though low reproductive skew (i.e. low relatedness certainty) is believed to underlie such biases in other non-human primates. Our results call into question reasons for strong maternal kin biases when paternal kin are identifiable, familiar, and similarly likely to be long-term groupmates, and they may also suggest behavioral mismatches at play during a transitional period in mountain gorilla society

The Role of the PAX8/PPARγ Fusion Oncogene in Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid cancer is uncommon and exhibits relatively low mortality rates. However, a subset of patients experience inexorable growth, metastatic spread, and mortality. Unfortunately, for these patients, there have been few significant advances in treatment during the last 50 years. While substantial advances have been made in recent years about the molecular genetic events underlying papillary thyroid cancer, the more aggressive follicular thyroid cancer remains poorly understood. The recent discovery of the PAX8/PPARγ translocation in follicular thyroid carcinoma has promoted progress in the role of PPARγ as a tumor suppressor and potential therapeutic target. The PAX8/PPARγ fusion gene appears to be an oncogene. It is most often expressed in follicular carcinomas and exerts a dominant-negative effect on wild-type PPARγ, and stimulates transcription of PAX8-responsive promoters. PPARγ agonists have shown promising results in vitro, although very few studies have been conducted to assess the clinical impact of these agents

Arabidopsis SABRE and CLASP interact to stabilize cell division plane orientation and planar polarity

The orientation of cell division and the coordination of cell polarity within the plane of the tissue layer (planar polarity) contribute to shape diverse multicellular organisms. The root of Arabidopsis thaliana displays regularly oriented cell divisions, cell elongation and planar polarity providing a plant model system to study these processes. Here we report that the SABRE protein, which shares similarity with proteins of unknown function throughout eukaryotes, has important roles in orienting cell division and planar polarity. SABRE localizes at the plasma membrane, endomembranes, mitotic spindle and cell plate. SABRE stabilizes the orientation of CLASP-labelled preprophase band microtubules predicting the cell division plane, and of cortical microtubules driving cell elongation. During planar polarity establishment, sabre is epistatic to clasp at directing polar membrane domains of Rho-of-plant GTPases. Our findings mechanistically link SABRE to CLASP-dependent microtubule organization, shedding new light on the function of SABRE-related proteins in eukaryotes