Aspects and values of buddhism for the women of the west

Living in India, which is not yet linked into the electronic autobahn at quite the screaming pace of the rest of the world, I received my information about this conference in two barely legible faxes, which arrived more than three weeks apart and presented me with two different titles for my paper. The first was "Aspects and Values of Buddhism That Are Attractive to Peoples in the West" and the second was that printed in the conference program, "Aspects and Values of Buddhism for Women in the West." These are rather different topics, but in another way they are not so different. ..

Environmental Degradation and the Legal Imperatives of Improvement: Forest Policy in Western Australia from European Settlement to 1918

The Australian forests have experienced deforestation since European settlement in 1788. According to Bradshaw, Australia has lost nearly 40% of its forests and the remaining forest is highly fragmented and degraded. In Western Australia (WA), Australia’s only biodiversity hotspot, forests cover approximately 16% or 21.0 million hectares. In the southwest and central parts of the state these forests are significantly cutover and degraded. In some instances, particularly in the wheatbelt, the local cutover has been complete. For example, in the Avon Botanical District (the central part of the wheatbelt) over 93% of the original vegetation and 97% of the woodlands were removed. William Wallace, an officer of the Forest Department, estimated that between 1829 and 1920, 1 million acres of forest was cut. The Forests Department Annual 1921 Report lamented: [S]eventy five years of practically uncontrolled cutting, and entirely uncontrolled burning have reduced this national asset to such a condition that only a negligible quantity of sound young trees is growing to the acre on the portion that has been cutover. Today the only significant forests that remain in Western Australia are the Jarrah, Karri and Wandoo forests. However, these forests have been significantly degraded and contain approximately 30% of their original forest cover

The Prevalence of Victimization and Use of Victims\u27 Services on College Campuses: Are There Differences in the LGBQT Community?

Research has identified the prevalence of victimization among college students, but the extent to which LGBQT college students experience victimization and how that may vary by type of victimization is unknown. Additionally, differences among these groups in the utilization of available victim services on college campuses have not been examined. In order to explore these concerns, the current study uses data from The National College Health Assessment by The American College Health Association (ACHA-NCHA), which includes data on students enrolled in universities and colleges from across the United States. Results from this study have policy and practice implications for both LGBQT and other college students and institutions of higher learning

Cyperaceae of East Africa - III

Volume: XX

Cyperaceae of East Africa - V

Volume: 2

Designing route buses: from bespoke to mass customisation

Designing route buses: from bespoke to mass customisatio

The Job Task Model as a Means for Understanding Computer Usage in the Work Place

A qualitative study of a workplace was conducted through the use of interviews and observation of ten participants working in hardware and software engineering. The study arose from a lack of information on computer usage in workplace settings and a lack of identified functional needs for skills-based training. There were three primary guiding questions and areas of findings in this study: l.Does the job task model define the areas of computer literacy for the individual worker? The job task model proved to be an effective method for analyzing tasks, tools, and the environment for usage of computer technologies in specialized professions. 2.Does the type of job task influence the functional needs for computer usage in the areas of training, hardware and software usage, application of individual anthropometric data, and workstation design? The job tasks did not influence how the participants were trained in the use of computers. The primary method of learning to use computer hardware and software was through self-instruction. However, the type of job task did influence the type of hardware and software needed to perform a task. Professional employees needed to know how to use both general and specific types of hardware and software. The job task affected the ergonomic arrangement of work areas, but the participants generally lacked training in how to identify and correct risk factors that may lead to computer-related injury.3.What are the stress factors in this workplace setting? Do the stress factors influence computer-related injury rates in this workplace and if so, how can those types of injuries be reduced? The stress factors identified in this setting included job demand factors, psychosocial factors, and ergonomic factors. Although these types of stress factors have been associated with computer-related injury through research, none of the participants reported injury associated with computer usage. It was also found that the participants did not consider musculoskeletal disorders to be injuries but rather illnesses. Implications of the study suggest that the job task model provides a balanced approach to the design of instructional materials. Further, by allowing one category of the job task model to be dominant in the instructional content also appears to weaken the overall instructional validity

Exploring the structural relationships between personality and 360-degree feedback

The process of using multiple sources or raters (i.e., self, supervisor, peers, subordinates, and others) in the assessment of managerial performance has been used pervasively in organizations with the primary goal of motivating behavioral change through feedback (Bracken, Timmrick, & Church, 2001). Multi-source or 360-degree feedback programs are especially suited to help measure behaviors related to performance and assess outcomes, such as leadership, interpersonal relationships, coaching, and communication (London & Smither, 1995). Typically, 360-degree feedback dimensions are measured by meta-categories of behavior called competencies.Bartram (2005) stated that these competencies could be defined as the search for characteristics that separate the best workers from the rest, usually related to characteristics, such as personality traits, that span across all jobs. However, DeNisi and Kluger (2000) stated that problems arise when managerial feedback is related to components of the ideal self (e.g., traits or individual differences) rather than feedback related to performance. Spencer and Spencer (1993) proposed two kinds of competencies: skill-based competencies and trait-based competencies. Due to the negative outcomes associated with feedback disrupting the ideal self (i.e., decreased self-esteem, self-efficacy, and productivity), the present study sought to test whether 360-degree feedback competencies are related to personality traits of a person. Moreover, the present research tested Schmidt and Hunter\u27s (1996) claim that interpreting the 360-degree feedback ratings as inter-rater correlations serving as reliability coefficients between ratings could represent a method of assessing the construct validity of 360-degree feedback ratings. Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the present research modeled 360-degree feedback competencies by averaging across rater types (with and without self-ratings) and hierarchically across feedback items. Confirmatory models were then transformed into structural models in which personality characteristics of the Big Five were hypothesized to globally predict trait-based competencies, while not predicting skill-based competencies. The present study indicates that hierarchical confirmatory models of the 360-degree feedback competencies have the most clear fit indices and validity coefficients. Mixed results were found for the hypothesis of personality characteristics of the Big Five predicting trait-based competencies, while the hypothesis regarding skill-based competencies was not supported. Detailed findings and implications of the research are discussed

Treatment Strategies in Acute Myelogenous Leukemia : Investigating HSP90 and P53 as Targets

Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) is the deadliest of the lymphatic and bone marrow cancers. Patients diagnosed with AML have a five year survival rate of 23.4%. AML is characterized by an accumulation of undifferentiated and functionless myeloid precursors in the bone marrow and blood. Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) inhibitors, such as 17-AAG, an analog of geldanamycin (GM), are currently undergoing phase I, and II and III clinical trials for various cancers with mixed results. I found distinct responses to 17-AAG treatment among the AML cell lines tested. I also discovered two mutant TP53 alleles in Kasumi-3 cells, an AML cell line that was very sensitive to 17-AAG. I hypothesized that this high sensitivity was due to the degradation of mutant p53, a known Hsp90 binding protein. Although I was not able to show that this mutant p53 was acting in an oncogenic fashion, it still raises the possibility that tailoring 17-AAG treatment to patients with known oncogenic TP53 alleles might prove to be very effective. Kasumi-3 cells will provide a valuable model to determine which biomarkers may indicate sensitivity to Hsp90 inhibition. In addition to studying the role of Hsp90 inhibition in cancer, I also explored the hypothesis that Hsp90 acts as a morphological capacitor for evolution in a mammalian model. EML cells were used as a model for hematopoiesis and treated with GM to inhibit Hsp90. It was postulated that this treatment would cause a trans-differentiation event or have an effect on differentiation. What was observed was an increase in GM treated cell survival when selective conditions were applied. This data suggests that GM treatment was giving the cells a selective advantage. Unfortunately, experimental results were very variable and I was unable to obtain consistent results upon numerous replicate experiments. The various diverse responses to Hsp90 inhibition presented in these studies may help explain the mixed results of 17-AAG in clinical trials

Electron Transfer through Thin Organic Films and Highly Curved Donor-Bridge-Acceptor Molecules.

Electron-transfer rate constants were measured for a variety of molecular systems. Therate constant was found to depend upon the nature of the medium between the electron donor andacceptor moieties. Using a superexchange model to calculate the electronic coupling betweendonor and acceptor, the effect of orbital energetics was studied. For photoinduced electrontransfer, aromatic moieties with large electron affinities promote large electronic couplingmagnitudes. In the electrochemical systems studied involving a gold electrode and animmobilized ferrocene tethered alkanethiol, alkane chains were found to be more efficient atpromoting electron transfer than chains incorporating ether linkages. This indicates a dominanthole-transfer mechanism for the electrochemical systems. Chemical modification of adjacentdiluent alkanethiols also resulted in alteration of the rate constant. This suggests intermolecularinteractions are important in electron transfer in these systems