Bereavement and the role of religious and cultural factors.

yesThe aim of this article is to give an overview of some of the key dimensions of variation in cultural and religious rituals during the immediate period after a death and in the longer term, in order to inform service delivery in multi-cultural societies. For each area we give examples of different customs, and consider their functions and possible impact. Dimensions considered in the immediate period after bereavement are: The time and space given to formal rituals, expression of feelings, assertion of status and disposal of the body. In the longer term, we look at variations in remembering the deceased and in continuing bonds. Throughout we consider the interplay between individual responses and the person¿s cultural and religious context. Our objective is to provide an accessible introduction for practitioners new to working with bereavement and provide a succinct reference point for more experienced bereavement workers.Full text made available 1st May 2014 at the end of the publisher's embargo period

Revealed Preference Dimension via Matrix Sign Rank

Given a data-set of consumer behaviour, the Revealed Preference Graph succinctly encodes inferred relative preferences between observed outcomes as a directed graph. Not all graphs can be constructed as revealed preference graphs when the market dimension is fixed. This paper solves the open problem of determining exactly which graphs are attainable as revealed preference graphs in $d$-dimensional markets. This is achieved via an exact characterization which closely ties the feasibility of the graph to the Matrix Sign Rank of its signed adjacency matrix. The paper also shows that when the preference relations form a partially ordered set with order-dimension $k$, the graph is attainable as a revealed preference graph in a $k$-dimensional market.Comment: Submitted to WINE `1

Couple’s Relationship After the Death of a Child: a Systematic Review

When a child dies, the parents must address the changes in their relationship as well as the way that these changes affect their individual adjustment. These two perspectives are addressed in this systematic review. Five databases were systematically searched for papers published in English between January 2000 and February 2014. Of the 646 publications, 24 papers met the inclusion criteria. The results suggest that a child’s death can cause cohesive as well as detrimental effects on a couple’s relationship. Variables that may produce differential outcomes for the marital relationship include situational factors, such as the cause and type of death and the child’s age at the time of death; dyad-level factors, such as surviving children, the pre-death characteristics of the relationship, communication and incongruent grieving; and individuallevel factors, such as the family of origin’s processing of trauma, social support, religious affiliation and finding meaning. Aspects such as marital quality and the couple’s interdependence were found to influence each parent’s individual adjustment. Larger, prospective, ethically conducted studies should be implemented to consolidate these findings. Mental health professionals may benefit from a deeper understanding of the risk and protective factors regarding marital adjustment after a child’s death

Antisense inhibition of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase reduces survival of methionine-dependent tumour lines

Transformed cells have been documented to be methionine-dependent, suggesting that inhibition of methionine synthesis might be useful for cancer therapy. Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase synthesises 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, the methyl donor utilised in methionine synthesis from homocysteine by vitamin B12-dependent methionine synthase. We hypothesised that methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase inhibition would affect cell viability through decreased methionine synthesis. Using medium lacking methionine, but containing homocysteine and vitamin B12 (M-H+), we found that nontransformed human fibroblasts could maintain growth. In contrast, four transformed cell lines (one colon carcinoma, two neuroblastoma and one breast carcinoma) increased proliferation only slightly in the M-H+ medium. To downregulate methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase expression, two phosphorothioate antisense oligonucleotides, EX5 and 677T, were used to target methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase in the colon carcinoma line SW620; 400 nM of each antisense oligonucleotide decreased cell survival by approximately 80% (P<0.01) and 70% (P<0.0001), respectively, compared to cell survival after the respective control mismatched oligonucleotide. Western blotting and enzyme assays confirmed that methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase expression was decreased. Two neuroblastoma and two breast carcinoma lines also demonstrated decreased survival following EX5 treatment whereas nontransformed human fibroblasts were not affected. This study suggests that methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase may be required for tumour cell survival and that methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase inhibition should be considered for anti-tumour therapy

Adenovirus-mediated stromal cell-derived factor-1 alpha gene transfer improves cardiac structure and function after experimental myocardial infarction through angiogenic and antifibrotic actions

Stromal cell-derived factor 1α (SDF-1) is not only a major chemotactic factor, but also an inducer of angiogenesis. The effects of SDF-1α on the left ventricular remodeling in a rat myocardial infarction (MI) model were analyzed. Myocardial infarction was induced by ligation of the left coronary artery in rats. 0.5 × 1010 pfu/ml AdV-SDF-1 or 0.5 × 1010 pfu/ml Adv-LacZ were immediately injected into the infarcted myocardium, 120 μl cell-free PBS were injected into the infarcted region or the myocardial wall in control, and sham group, respectively. We found that AdV-SDF-1 group had higher LVSP and ±dP/dtmax, lower LVEDP compared to control or Adv-LacZ group. The number of c-Kit+ stem cells, and gene expression of SDF-1, VEGF and bFGF were obviously increased, which was associated with reduced infarct size, thicker left ventricle wall, greater vascular density and cardiocytes density in infarcted hearts of AdV-SDF-1 group. Furthermore, the expression of collagen type I and type III mRNA, and collagen accumulation in the infarcted area was lower, which was associated with decreased TGF-β1, TIMP-1 and TIMP-2 expression in AdV-SDF-1 group. Conclusion: SDF-1α could improve cardiac structure and function after Myocardial infarction through angiogenic and anti-fibrotic actions

Serum antibodies against genitourinary infectious agents in prostate cancer and benign prostate hyperplasia patients: a case-control study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Infection plays a role in the pathogenesis of many human malignancies. Whether prostate cancer (PCa) - an important health issue in the aging male population in the Western world - belongs to these conditions has been a matter of research since the 1970 s. Persistent serum antibodies are a proof of present or past infection. The aim of this study was to compare serum antibodies against genitourinary infectious agents between PCa patients and controls with benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH). We hypothesized that elevated serum antibody levels or higher seroprevalence in PCa patients would suggest an association of genitourinary infection in patient history and elevated PCa risk.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 434 males who had undergone open prostate surgery in a single institution were included in the study: 329 PCa patients and 105 controls with BPH. The subjects' serum samples were analysed by means of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, complement fixation test and indirect immunofluorescence for the presence of antibodies against common genitourinary infectious agents: human papillomavirus (HPV) 6, 11, 16, 18, 31 and 33, herpes simplex virus (HSV) 1 and 2, human cytomegalovirus (CMV), Chlamydia trachomatis, Mycoplasma hominis, Ureaplasma urealyticum, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Treponema pallidum. Antibody seroprevalence and mean serum antibody levels were compared between cases and controls. Tumour grade and stage were correlated with serological findings.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>PCa patients were more likely to harbour antibodies against Ureaplasma urealyticum (odds ratio (OR) 2.06; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.08-4.28). Men with BPH were more often seropositive for HPV 18 and Chlamydia trachomatis (OR 0.23; 95% CI 0.09-0.61 and OR 0.45; 95% CI 0.21-0.99, respectively) and had higher mean serum CMV antibody levels than PCa patients (p = 0.0004). Among PCa patients, antibodies against HPV 6 were associated with a higher Gleason score (p = 0.0305).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Antibody seropositivity against the analyzed pathogens with the exception of Ureaplasma does not seem to be a risk factor for PCa pathogenesis. The presence or higher levels of serum antibodies against the genitourinary pathogens studied were not consistently associated with PCa. Serostatus was not a predictor of disease stage in the studied population.</p

Family Businesses and Adaptation: A Dynamic Capabilities Approach

The main objective of this research was to propose a framework centred on the dynamic capabilities approach, and to be applied in the context of family businesses’ adaption to their changing business environment. Data were gathered through interviews with ten FBs operating in Western Australia. Based on the findings, the clusters of activities, sensing, seizing, and transforming emerged as key factors for firms’ adaptation, and were reinforced by firms’ open culture, signature processes, idiosyncratic knowledge, and valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable attributes. Thus, the usefulness of the proposed framework was confirmed. Implications and future research opportunities are presented. © 2018, The Author(s)

A new research agenda for managing socio-cultural integration

Post-acquisition socio-cultural integration has received increasing attention from both scholars and practitioners since the early 1990s. During the past decade, research has increasingly focused on emotions and identity in mergers and acquisitions. This chapter introduces the reader to the vibrant research field and its relevance. This section sets the scene for the book, which provides a deeper understanding of how emotions—both positive and negative—as well as values and identity enable a deeper socio-cultural integration after a merger or acquisition, and how leadership plays a crucial role in making it all happen. This chapter also highlights how the Nordic approach to post-acquisition socio-cultural integration refers to a large community of Nordic academics focusing on the softer social and human side of acquisition, often relying on a huge variety of qualitative methods, and to Nordic companies that are not afraid of adopting a more collaborative approach to post-acquisition integration

Discrimination in lexical decision.

In this study we present a novel set of discrimination-based indicators of language processing derived from Naive Discriminative Learning (ndl) theory. We compare the effectiveness of these new measures with classical lexical-distributional measures-in particular, frequency counts and form similarity measures-to predict lexical decision latencies when a complete morphological segmentation of masked primes is or is not possible. Data derive from a re-analysis of a large subset of decision latencies from the English Lexicon Project, as well as from the results of two new masked priming studies. Results demonstrate the superiority of discrimination-based predictors over lexical-distributional predictors alone, across both the simple and primed lexical decision tasks. Comparable priming after masked corner and cornea type primes, across two experiments, fails to support early obligatory segmentation into morphemes as predicted by the morpho-orthographic account of reading. Results fit well with ndl theory, which, in conformity with Word and Paradigm theory, rejects the morpheme as a relevant unit of analysis. Furthermore, results indicate that readers with greater spelling proficiency and larger vocabularies make better use of orthographic priors and handle lexical competition more efficiently