Advances in the corporate governance practices of Johannesburg Stock Exchange companies

Since the 20th century, corporate governance mechanisms have been developed globally to curb the negative effects of the agency problem. South Africa was a pioneer with the publication of the first King Report on corporate governance in 1994. Given the paucity of research on corporate governance in the country, the researchers set out to investigate the corporate governance practices of 230 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange over the period 2002 to 2010. Annual corporate governance scores were compiled by means of content analysis of the sample companies’ annual reports. The empirical findings revealed an increasing compliance trend towards 2010. Although the sample companies tended to improve the disclosure of their corporate governance practices over time, their practices were not per se acceptable (where acceptability implies meeting the King II recommendations). Inexperienced directors and managers might benefit from more training to enhance their understanding of the application of corporate governance principles.Keywords: corporate governance, King II Report, South Africa, compliance, disclosur

Ixodes ricinus Tick Lipocalins: Identification, Cloning, Phylogenetic Analysis and Biochemical Characterization

BACKGROUND: During their blood meal, ticks secrete a wide variety of proteins that interfere with their host's defense mechanisms. Among these proteins, lipocalins play a major role in the modulation of the inflammatory response. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Screening a cDNA library in association with RT-PCR and RACE methodologies allowed us to identify 14 new lipocalin genes in the salivary glands of the Ixodes ricinus hard tick. A computational in-depth structural analysis confirmed that LIRs belong to the lipocalin family. These proteins were called LIR for "Lipocalin from I. ricinus" and numbered from 1 to 14 (LIR1 to LIR14). According to their percentage identity/similarity, LIR proteins may be assigned to 6 distinct phylogenetic groups. The mature proteins have calculated pM and pI varying from 21.8 kDa to 37.2 kDa and from 4.45 to 9.57 respectively. In a western blot analysis, all recombinant LIRs appeared as a series of thin bands at 50-70 kDa, suggesting extensive glycosylation, which was experimentally confirmed by treatment with N-glycosidase F. In addition, the in vivo expression analysis of LIRs in I. ricinus, examined by RT-PCR, showed homogeneous expression profiles for certain phylogenetic groups and relatively heterogeneous profiles for other groups. Finally, we demonstrated that LIR6 codes for a protein that specifically binds leukotriene B4. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This work confirms that, regarding their biochemical properties, expression profile, and sequence signature, lipocalins in Ixodes hard tick genus, and more specifically in the Ixodes ricinus species, are segregated into distinct phylogenetic groups suggesting potential distinct function. This was particularly demonstrated by the ability of LIR6 to scavenge leukotriene B4. The other LIRs did not bind any of the ligands tested, such as 5-hydroxytryptamine, ADP, norepinephrine, platelet activating factor, prostaglandins D2 and E2, and finally leukotrienes B4 and C4.Journal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tSCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

WhatsApp-propriate? A retrospective content analysis of WhatsApp use and potential breaches in confidentiality among a team of doctors at a district hospital, South Africa

Background. There has been a steady increase in the use of electronic media and instant messaging among healthcare professionals, where it has been almost universally adopted in the workplace. The use of WhatsApp and its perceived benefits in healthcare have been extensively studied; however, there are concerns regarding the potential for ethical breaches in confidentiality through shared electronic patient information.Objectives. To identify the usage characteristics and incidence of shared patient information with WhatsApp use in a team of medical doctors in an unobserved and unregulated setting.Methods. We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional content analysis of WhatsApp messages (n=3 340) among a team of 20 doctors in a South African district hospital over 6 months. All messages found within this time period were allocated unique identifiers. The text and image messages were thematically grouped into four categories, i.e. clinical care, resource allocation, social and administrative. Messages that contained patient-identifying information were included in the analysis.Results. Of a total of 3 340 messages sent, 220 (6.6%) contained patient-identifying information. Of these, 109 (3.3%) contained non-anonymised patient information, while in 111 (3.3%) messages, the information was anonymised. The likelihood of sharing patient identifiers was proportionally much higher in shared images (odds ratio (OR) 5.1; 95% confidence interval (CI) 3.2 - 8.2; p<0.0001) compared with text messages, and in messages that related to clinical care (OR 9.3; 95% CI 2.2 - 38.8; p=0.0023) compared with those sent for resource allocation, and social or administrative purposes.Conclusions. Non-anonymised patient identifiers were found in 3.3% of messages, constituting the potential for breaching patient confidentiality. While WhatsApp groups have significant utility in co-ordinating aspects of clinical care, resource allocation, as well as social and administrative functions, the safe use of WhatsApp should be promoted to ensure that patient confidentiality is maintained

Automated team selection and compliance checking in business processes

Plenty of activities in many business contexts must be performed collaboratively, e.g., in a hospital or when organising a conference. Tasks such as team composition and allocation are usually performed manually and on the ground of limited criteria such as individual skills, a.o. because adequate automatic support is missing. This paper addresses this shortcoming. We present an approach for team selection and compliance checking in business processes, which includes (i) a language for describing teams; (ii) a way to de- ne team selection conditions and policies related to team composition; and (iii) a mechanism for the automatic resolution of the team selection conditions and for team-related compliance checking based on formal ontologies.Austrian Research Funding Association (FFG) 845638 (SHAPE)Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2009-07366 (SETI)Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2012-32273 (TAPAS)Junta de Andalucía TIC-5906 (THEOS

The transcriptome of the salivary glands of the female western black-legged tick \u3cem\u3eIxodes pacificus\u3c/em\u3e (Acari: Ixodidae)

Sequencing of an Ixodes pacificus salivary gland cDNA library yielded 1068 sequences with an average undetermined nucleotide of 1.9% and an average length of 487 base pairs. Assembly of the expressed sequence tags yielded 557 contigs, 138 of which appear to code for secreted peptides or proteins based on translation of a putative signal peptide. Based on the BLASTX similarity of these contigs to 66 matches of Ixodes scapularis peptide sequences, only 58% sequence identity was found, indicating a rapid divergence of salivary proteins as observed previously for mosquito and triatomine bug salivary proteins. Here we report 106 mostly full-length sequences that clustered in 16 different families: Basic-tail proteins rich in lysine in the carboxy-terminal, Kunitz-containing proteins (monolaris, ixolaris and penthalaris families), proline-rich peptides, 5-, 9.4- and 18.7-kDa proteins of unknown functions, in addition to metalloproteases (class PIII-like) similar to reprolysins. We also have found a family of disintegrins, named ixodegrins that display homology to variabilin, a GPIIb/IIIa antagonist from the tick Dermacentor variabilis. In addition, we describe peptides (here named ixostatins) that display remarkable similarities to the cysteine-rich domain of ADAMST-4 (aggrecanase). Many molecules were assigned in the lipocalin family (histamine-binding proteins); others appear to be involved in oxidant metabolism, and still others were similar to ixodid proteins such as the anticomplement ISAC. We also identified for the first time a neuropeptide-like protein (nlp-31) with GGY repeats that may have antimicrobial activity. In addition, 16 novel proteins without significant similarities to other tick proteins and 37 housekeeping proteins that may be useful for phylogenetic studies are described. Some of these proteins may be useful for studying vascular biology or the immune system, for vaccine development, or as immunoreagents to detect prior exposure to ticks

Clinical Processes - The Killer Application for Constraint-Based Process Interactions?

For more than a decade, the interest in aligning information systems in a process-oriented way has been increasing. To enable operational support for business processes, the latter are usually specified in an imperative way. The resulting process models, however, tend to be too rigid to meet the flexibility demands of the actors involved. Declarative process modeling languages, in turn, provide a promising alternative in scenarios in which a high level of flexibility is demanded. In the scientific literature, declarative languages have been used for modeling rather simple processes or synthetic examples. However, to the best of our knowledge, they have not been used to model complex, real-world scenarios that comprise constraints going beyond control-flow. In this paper, we propose the use of a declarative language for modeling a sophisticated healthcare process scenario from the real world. The scenario is subject to complex temporal constraints and entails the need for coordinating the constraint-based interactions among the processes related to a patient treatment process. As demonstrated in this work, the selected real process scenario can be suitably modeled through a declarative approach.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

Squamous cell carcinoma of the breast: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Squamous cells are normally not found inside the breast, so a primary squamous cell carcinoma of the breast is an exceptional phenomenon. There is a possible explanation for these findings.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 72-year-old woman presented with a breast abnormality suspected for breast carcinoma. After the operation the pathological examination revealed a primary squamous cell carcinoma of the breast.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The presentation of squamous cell carcinoma could be similar to that of an adenocarcinoma. However, a squamous cell carcinoma of the breast could also develop from a complicated breast cyst or abscess. Therefore, pathological examination of these apparent benign abnormalities is mandatory.</p

Multidisciplinary Collaboration in the Treatment of Patients With Type 2 Diabetes in Primary Care: Analysis Using Process Mining

[EN] Background: Public health in several countries is characterized by a shortage of professionals and a lack of economic resources. Monitoring and redesigning processes can foster the success of health care institutions, enabling them to provide a quality service while simultaneously reducing costs. Process mining, a discipline that extracts knowledge from information system data to analyze operational processes, affords an opportunity to understand health care processes. Objective: Health care processes are highly flexible and multidisciplinary, and health care professionals are able to coordinate in a variety of different ways to treat a diagnosis. The aim of this work was to understand whether the ways in which professionals coordinate their work affect the clinical outcome of patients. Methods: This paper proposes a method based on the use of process mining to identify patterns of collaboration between physician, nurse, and dietitian in the treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and to compare these patterns with the clinical evolution of the patients within the context of primary care. Clustering is used as part of the preprocessing of data to manage the variability, and then process mining is used to identify patterns that may arise. Results: The method is applied in three primary health care centers in Santiago, Chile. A total of seven collaboration patterns were identified, which differed primarily in terms of the number of disciplines present, the participation intensity of each discipline, and the referrals between disciplines. The pattern in which the three disciplines participated in the most equitable and comprehensive manner had a lower proportion of highly decompensated patients compared with those patterns in which the three disciplines participated in an unbalanced manner. Conclusions: By discovering which collaboration patterns lead to improved outcomes, health care centers can promote the most successful patterns among their professionals so as to improve the treatment of patients. Process mining techniques are useful for discovering those collaborations patterns in flexible and unstructured health care processes.This paper was partially funded by the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research, the Formation of Advanced Human Capital Program and the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (CONICYT-PCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2016-21161705 and CONICYT-FONDECYT/1150365; Chile). The authors would like to thank Ancora UC primary health care centers for their help with this research. The founding sponsors had no role in the design of the study in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.Conca, T.; Saint Pierre, C.; Herskovic, V.; Sepulveda, M.; Capurro, D.; Prieto, F.; Fernández Llatas, C. (2018). Multidisciplinary Collaboration in the Treatment of Patients With Type 2 Diabetes in Primary Care: Analysis Using Process Mining. JOURNAL OF MEDICAL INTERNET RESEARCH. 20(4). https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.8884S204Chen, C.-C., Tseng, C.-H., & Cheng, S.-H. (2013). Continuity of Care, Medication Adherence, and Health Care Outcomes Among Patients With Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes. 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Bilayer manganites: polarons in the midst of a metallic breakdown

The exact nature of the low temperature electronic phase of the manganite materials family, and hence the origin of their colossal magnetoresistant (CMR) effect, is still under heavy debate. By combining new photoemission and tunneling data, we show that in La{2-2x}Sr{1+2x}Mn2O7 the polaronic degrees of freedom win out across the CMR region of the phase diagram. This means that the generic ground state is that of a system in which strong electron-lattice interactions result in vanishing coherent quasi-particle spectral weight at the Fermi level for all locations in k-space. The incoherence of the charge carriers offers a unifying explanation for the anomalous charge-carrier dynamics seen in transport, optics and electron spectroscopic data. The stacking number N is the key factor for true metallic behavior, as an intergrowth-driven breakdown of the polaronic domination to give a metal possessing a traditional Fermi surface is seen in the bilayer system.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, includes supplementary informatio