Popular critiques of consultancy and a politics of management learning?

In this short article, I argue that popular business discourse on the role of management consultancy in the promotion and translation of management ideas is often critical, informed by more or less implicit ethical and political concerns with employee security, equity, openness and the transparency and legitimacy of responsibility. These concerns are, in part, ‘sayable’ because their object is seen as a scapegoat for management. Nevertheless, combined with the popular form of their expression, they can support and legitimize critical studies of management learning, a discipline which otherwise has become overly concerned with processual and situational phenomena at the expense of broader political dynamics and of the content and consequences of management and management knowledg

Self-assembly in solution of a reversible comb-shaped supramolecular polymer

We report a single step synthesis of a polyisobutene with a bis-urea moiety in the middle of the chain. In low polarity solvents, this polymer self-assembles by hydrogen bonding to form a combshaped polymer with a central hydrogen bonded backbone and polyisobutene arms. The comb backbone can be reversibly broken, and consequently, its length can be tuned by changing the solvent, the concentration or the temperature. Moreover, we have proved that the bulkiness of the side-chains have a strong influence on both the self-assembly pattern and the length of the backbone. Finally, the density of arms can be reduced, by simply mixing with a low molar mass bis-urea

Fatty acid profile in peri-prostatic adipose tissue and prostate cancer aggressiveness in African-Caribbean and Caucasian patients

BACKGROUND: Genetic and nutritional factors have been linked to the risk of aggressive prostate cancer (PCa). The fatty acid (FA) composition of peri-prostatic adipose tissue (PPAT), which reflects the past FA intake, is potentially involved in PCa progression. We analysed the FA composition of PPAT, in correlation with the ethno-geographical origin of the patients and markers of tumour aggressiveness. METHODS: From a cohort of 1000 men treated for PCa by radical prostatectomy, FA composition of PPAT was analysed in 156 patients (106 Caucasians and 50 African-Caribbeans), 78 with an indolent tumour (ISUP group 1 + pT2 + PSA <10 ng/mL) and 78 with an aggressive tumour (ISUP group 4-5 + pT3). The effect of FA extracted from PPAT on in-vitro migration of PCa cells DU145 was studied in 72 patients, 36 Caucasians, and 36 African-Caribbeans. RESULTS: FA composition differed according to the ethno-geographical origin. Linoleic acid, an essential n-6 FA, was 2-fold higher in African-Caribbeans compared with Caucasian patients, regardless of disease aggressiveness. In African-Caribbeans, the FA profile associated with PCa aggressiveness was characterised by low level of linoleic acid along with high levels of saturates. In Caucasians, a weak and negative association was observed between eicosapentaenoic acid level (an n-3 FA) and disease aggressiveness. In-vitro migration of PCa cells using PPAT from African-Caribbean patients was associated with lower content of linoleic acid. CONCLUSION: These results highlight an important ethno-geographical variation of PPAT, in both their FA content and association with tumour aggressiveness

The lateral septum mediates kinship behavior in the rat

Kinship behavior in rodents has been documented in the laboratory setting but the neural mechanisms that mediate kinship behavior are not known. Here, the authors show that the lateral septum has a key role in organizing mammalian kinship behavior

Global estimates of mortality associated with long-term exposure to outdoor fine particulate matter.

Exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is a major global health concern. Quantitative estimates of attributable mortality are based on disease-specific hazard ratio models that incorporate risk information from multiple PM2.5 sources (outdoor and indoor air pollution from use of solid fuels and secondhand and active smoking), requiring assumptions about equivalent exposure and toxicity. We relax these contentious assumptions by constructing a PM2.5-mortality hazard ratio function based only on cohort studies of outdoor air pollution that covers the global exposure range. We modeled the shape of the association between PM2.5 and nonaccidental mortality using data from 41 cohorts from 16 countries-the Global Exposure Mortality Model (GEMM). We then constructed GEMMs for five specific causes of death examined by the global burden of disease (GBD). The GEMM predicts 8.9 million [95% confidence interval (CI): 7.5-10.3] deaths in 2015, a figure 30% larger than that predicted by the sum of deaths among the five specific causes (6.9; 95% CI: 4.9-8.5) and 120% larger than the risk function used in the GBD (4.0; 95% CI: 3.3-4.8). Differences between the GEMM and GBD risk functions are larger for a 20% reduction in concentrations, with the GEMM predicting 220% higher excess deaths. These results suggest that PM2.5 exposure may be related to additional causes of death than the five considered by the GBD and that incorporation of risk information from other, nonoutdoor, particle sources leads to underestimation of disease burden, especially at higher concentrations

From sleep spindles of natural sleep to spike and wave discharges of typical absence seizures: is the hypothesis still valid?

The temporal coincidence of sleep spindles and spike-and-wave discharges (SWDs) in patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsies, together with the transformation of spindles into SWDs following intramuscular injection of the weak GABAA receptor (GABAAR) antagonist, penicillin, in an experimental model, brought about the view that SWDs may represent ‘perverted’ sleep spindles. Over the last 20 years, this hypothesis has received considerable support, in particular by in vitro studies of thalamic oscillations following pharmacological/genetic manipulations of GABAARs. However, from a critical appraisal of the evidence in absence epilepsy patients and well-established models of absence epilepsy it emerges that SWDs can occur as frequently during wakefulness as during sleep, with their preferential occurrence in either one of these behavioural states often being patient dependent. Moreover, whereas the EEG expression of both SWDs and sleep spindles requires the integrity of the entire cortico-thalamo-cortical network, SWDs initiates in cortex while sleep spindles in thalamus. Furthermore, the hypothesis of a reduction in GABAAR function across the entire cortico-thalamo-cortical network as the basis for the transformation of sleep spindles into SWDs is no longer tenable. In fact, while a decreased GABAAR function may be present in some cortical layers and in the reticular thalamic nucleus, both phasic and tonic GABAAR inhibitions of thalamo-cortical neurons are either unchanged or increased in this epileptic phenotype. In summary, these differences between SWDs and sleep spindles question the view that the EEG hallmark of absence seizures results from a transformation of this EEG oscillation of natural sleep

A thalamic reticular networking model of consciousness

<p>Abstract</p> <p>[Background]</p> <p>It is reasonable to consider the thalamus a primary candidate for the location of consciousness, given that the thalamus has been referred to as the gateway of nearly all sensory inputs to the corresponding cortical areas. Interestingly, in an early stage of brain development, communicative innervations between the dorsal thalamus and telencephalon must pass through the ventral thalamus, the major derivative of which is the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN). The TRN occupies a striking control position in the brain, sending inhibitory axons back to the thalamus, roughly to the same region where they receive afferents.</p> <p>[Hypotheses]</p> <p>The present study hypothesizes that the TRN plays a pivotal role in dynamic attention by controlling thalamocortical synchronization. The TRN is thus viewed as a functional networking filter to regulate conscious perception, which is possibly embedded in thalamocortical networks. Based on the anatomical structures and connections, modality-specific sectors of the TRN and the thalamus appear to be responsible for modality-specific perceptual representation. Furthermore, the coarsely overlapped topographic maps of the TRN appear to be associated with cross-modal or unitary conscious awareness. Throughout the latticework structure of the TRN, conscious perception could be accomplished and elaborated through accumulating intercommunicative processing across the first-order input signal and the higher-order signals from its functionally associated cortices. As the higher-order relay signals run cumulatively through the relevant thalamocortical loops, conscious awareness becomes more refined and sophisticated.</p> <p>[Conclusions]</p> <p>I propose that the thalamocortical integrative communication across first- and higher-order information circuits and repeated feedback looping may account for our conscious awareness. This TRN-modulation hypothesis for conscious awareness provides a comprehensive rationale regarding previously reported psychological phenomena and neurological symptoms such as blindsight, neglect, the priming effect, the threshold/duration problem, and TRN-impairment resembling coma. This hypothesis can be tested by neurosurgical investigations of thalamocortical loops via the TRN, while simultaneously evaluating the degree to which conscious perception depends on the severity of impairment in a TRN-modulated network.</p

Phase-amplitude coupled persistent theta and gamma oscillations in rat primary motor cortex in vitro

In vivo, theta (4-7 Hz) and gamma (30-80 Hz) neuronal network oscillations are known to coexist and display phase-amplitude coupling (PAC). However, in vitro, these oscillations have for many years been studied in isolation. Using an improved brain slice preparation technique we have, using co-application of carbachol (10 μM) and kainic acid (150 nM), elicited simultaneous theta (6.6 ± 0.1 Hz) and gamma (36.6 ± 0.4 Hz) oscillations in rodent primary motor cortex (M1). Each oscillation showed greatest power in layer V. Using a variety of time series analyses we detected significant cross-frequency coupling 74% of slice preparations. Differences were observed in the pharmacological profile of each oscillation. Thus, gamma oscillations were reduced by the GABAA receptor antagonists, gabazine (250 nM and 2 μM), and picrotoxin (50 μM) and augmented by AMPA receptor antagonism with SYM2206 (20 μM). In contrast, theta oscillatory power was increased by gabazine, picrotoxin and SYM2206. GABAB receptor blockade with CGP55845 (5 μM) increased both theta and gamma power, and similar effects were seen with diazepam, zolpidem, MK801 and a series of metabotropic glutamate receptor antagonists. Oscillatory activity at both frequencies was reduced by the gap junction blocker carbenoxolone (200 μM) and by atropine (5 μM). These data show theta and gamma oscillations in layer V of rat M1 in vitro are cross-frequency coupled, and are mechanistically distinct. The development of an in vitro model of phase-amplitude coupled oscillations will facilitate further mechanistic investigation of the generation and modulation of coupled activity in mammalian cortex