Building IT Competence in Line Management: Investigation of a Best Practice

During a prior research study, the fint author interviewed the Vice President of IS for Commou Insurance Group, one of Uie largesf life insuralce companies in Canada. She learned that the company had transferred more than forty information systems (IS) people into various managemenf jobs throughout its insurance divisions during the twelve years from 1980 to 1992. Permission to conduct an in-depth study of this unusual IS-to-line project was granted to the researchers in 1993

Evaluation of the recovery potential of modified areas in Permanent Protection Areas of watercourses in the municipality of Rio Branco, Acre

In the last decades, the state of Acre has been showing increasing deforestation, concentrated mainly on the outskirts of its capital, Rio Branco. The present study was aimed at assessing the resilience level of water courses in Permanent Protection Areas (PPA) located in the city of Rio Branco. Were used orbital images from the Landsat 5 TM sensor for the mapping of soil utilization in the year of 2009. Was carried out the superposition of this map with the soil type map, as well as with the distance from seed sources, resulting in a final map of resilience level. Although protected by law, Rio Branco has about 17% of their PPAs watercourses altered. From the aspects evaluated in this study to determine the resilience, the soil type was the most limiting factor, while the distance of the sources of seeds was the most potentiating. The methodology allowed us to estimate the percentage of altered areas in the PPAs that are more resilient, thus allowing the implementation of the more appropriate and less expensive recovery programs for each area

Disease-specific risk of venous thromboembolic events is increased in idiopathic glomerulonephritis

The risk of venous thromboembolic events is thought to be highest in patients with membranous nephropathy. This association has been recently questioned, and it is not known whether this simply reflects the severity of proteinuria. To better understand the relationship between histologic diagnosis and the risk of venous thromboembolic events we evaluated patients in the Toronto Glomerulonephritis Registry. Of 1313 patients with idiopathic glomerulonephritis, 395 were diagnosed with membranous nephropathy, 370 with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), and 548 with immunoglobulin-A nephropathy (IgAN). Risk factors were evaluated by Cox proportional hazards for 53 image-confirmed venous thromboembolic events in 44 patients during a median follow-up of 63 months. The risk was highest in patients with membranous nephropathy and FSGS (hazard ratios of 22 and 7.8, respectively) referenced to patients with IgAN. Following adjustment for gender, cancer history, proteinuria, and serum albumin by multivariable analysis, the histologic subtype remained an independent risk for venous thromboembolic events. This risk was still highest in patients with membranous nephropathy followed by FSGS with adjusted hazard ratios of 10.8 and 5.9, respectively. Thus, in this large cohort, histologic diagnosis was an independent risk factor for venous thromboembolic events. Further studies are needed to discover mechanisms responsible for this high risk in patients with membranous nephropathy

Evidence for anomalous dust-correlated emission at 8 GHz

In 1969 Edward Conklin measured the anisotropy in celestial emission at 8 GHz with a resolution of 16.2 degrees and used the data to report a detection of the CMB dipole. Given the paucity of 8 GHz observations over large angular scales and the clear evidence for non-power law Galactic emission near 8 GHz, a new analysis of Conklin's data is informative. In this paper we compare Conklin's data to that from Haslam et al. (0.4 GHz), Reich and Reich (1.4 GHz), and WMAP (23-94 GHz). We show that the spectral index between Conklin's data and the 23 GHz WMAP data is beta=-1.7+-0.1, where we model the emission temperature as T \propto nu^beta. Free-free emission has beta \approx -2.15, synchrotron emission has beta \approx -2.7 to -3. Thermal dust emission (beta \approx1.7) is negligible at 8 GHz. We conclude that there must be another distinct non-power law component of diffuse foreground emission that emits near 10 GHz, consistent with other observations in this frequency range. By comparing to the full complement of data sets, we show that a model with an anomalous emission component, assumed to be spinning dust, is preferred over a model without spinning dust at 5 sigma (Delta chi2= 31). However, the source of the new component cannot be determined uniquely.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Submitted to Ap

Functional distinctiveness of major plant lineages

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106060/1/jec12208.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106060/2/jec12208-sup-0001-Supp_Info.pd

Clinical Characteristics and Treatment Patterns of Children and Adults With IgA Nephropathy or IgA Vasculitis: Findings From the CureGN Study

Introduction: The Cure Glomerulonephropathy Network (CureGN) is a 66-center longitudinal observational study of patients with biopsy-confirmed minimal change disease, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, membranous nephropathy, or IgA nephropathy (IgAN), including IgA vasculitis (IgAV). This study describes the clinical characteristics and treatment patterns in the IgA cohort, including comparisons between IgAN versus IgAV and adult versus pediatric patients. Methods: Patients with a diagnostic kidney biopsy within 5 years of screening were eligible to join CureGN. This is a descriptive analysis of clinical and treatment data collected at the time of enrollment. Results: A total of 667 patients (506 IgAN, 161 IgAV) constitute the IgAN/IgAV cohort (382 adults, 285 children). At biopsy, those with IgAV were younger (13.0 years vs. 29.6 years, P < 0.001), more frequently white (89.7% vs. 78.9%, P = 0.003), had a higher estimated glomerular filtration rate (103.5 vs. 70.6 ml/min per 1.73 m2, P < 0.001), and lower serum albumin (3.4 vs. 3.8 g/dl, P < 0.001) than those with IgAN. Adult and pediatric individuals with IgAV were more likely than those with IgAN to have been treated with immunosuppressive therapy at or prior to enrollment (79.5% vs. 54.0%, P < 0.001). Conclusion: This report highlights clinical differences between IgAV and IgAN and between children and adults with these diagnoses. We identified differences in treatment with immunosuppressive therapies by disease type. This description of baseline characteristics will serve as a foundation for future CureGN studies

Evolutionary dynamics of a common sub-Antarctic octocoral family

Sequence data were obtained for five different loci, both mitochondrial (cox1, mtMutS, 16S) and nuclear (18S, 28S rDNA), from 64 species representing 25 genera of the common deep-sea octocoral family Primnoidae. We tested the hypothesis that Primnoidae have an Antarctic origin, as this is where they currently have high species richness, using Maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods of phylogenetic analysis. Using a time-calibrated molecular phylogeny we also investigated the time of species radiation in sub-Antarctic Primnoidae. Our relatively wide taxon sampling and phylogenetic analysis supported Primnoidae as a monophyletic family. The base of the well-supported phylogeny was Pacific in origin, indicating Primnoidae sub-Antarctic diversity is a secondary species radiation. There is also evidence for a subsequent range extension of sub-Antarctic lineages into deep-water areas of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Conservative and speculative fossil-calibration analyses resulted in two differing estimations of sub-Antarctic species divergence times. Conservative analysis suggested a sub-Antarctic species radiation occurred ∼52 MYA (95% HPD: 36–73 MYA), potentially before the opening of the Drake Passage and Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) formation (41–37 MYA). Speculative analysis pushed this radiation back into the late Jurassic, 157 MYA (95% HPD: 118–204 MYA). Genus-level groupings were broadly supported in this analysis with some notable polyphyletic exceptions: Callogorgia, Fanellia, Primnoella, Plumarella, Thouarella. Molecular and morphological evidence supports the placement of Tauroprim

Rituximab or Cyclosporine in the Treatment of Membranous Nephropathy

Background: B-cell anomalies play a role in the pathogenesis of membranous nephropathy. B-cell depletion with rituximab may therefore be noninferior to treatment with cyclosporine for inducing and maintaining a complete or partial remission of proteinuria in patients with this condition. Methods: We randomly assigned patients who had membranous nephropathy, proteinuria of at least 5 g per 24 hours, and a quantified creatinine clearance of at least 40 ml per minute per 1.73 m(2) of body-surface area and had been receiving angiotensin-system blockade for at least 3 months to receive intravenous rituximab (two infusions, 1000 mg each, administered 14 days apart; repeated at 6 months in case of partial response) or oral cyclosporine (starting at a dose of 3.5 mg per kilogram of body weight per day for 12 months). Patients were followed for 24 months. The primary outcome was a composite of complete or partial remission of proteinuria at 24 months. Laboratory variables and safety were also assessed. Results: A total of 130 patients underwent randomization. At 12 months, 39 of 65 patients (60%) in the rituximab group and 34 of 65 (52%) in the cyclosporine group had a complete or partial remission (risk difference, 8 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], -9 to 25; P=0.004 for noninferiority). At 24 months, 39 patients (60%) in the rituximab group and 13 (20%) in the cyclosporine group had a complete or partial remission (risk difference, 40 percentage points; 95% CI, 25 to 55; P<0.001 for both noninferiority and superiority). Among patients in remission who tested positive for anti-phospholipase A(2) receptor (PLA2R) antibodies, the decline in autoantibodies to anti-PLA2R was faster and of greater magnitude and duration in the rituximab group than in the cyclosporine group. Serious adverse events occurred in 11 patients (17%) in the rituximab group and in 20 (31%) in the cyclosporine group (P=0.06). Conclusions: Rituximab was noninferior to cyclosporine in inducing complete or partial remission of proteinuria at 12 months and was superior in maintaining proteinuria remission up to 24 months. (Funded by Genentech and the Fulk Family Foundation; MENTOR ClinicalTrials.gov number, .) In a randomized, controlled trial involving patients with membranous nephropathy, rituximab was noninferior to cyclosporine in inducing complete or partial remission of proteinuria at 12 months and was superior in maintaining proteinuria remission for up to 24 months.Genentech; Fulk Family Foundation6 month embargo; published July 4, 2019This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]