The Role Of Organizational Justice And Ethical Frameworks On Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action: The Moderating Role Of Organizational Support

The current study explores some of the challenges associated with Affirmative Action (AA) by clarifying the relationship between individuals’ ethical frameworks and equality justice norms and their effects on attitudes toward AA specifically targeting African Americans.  The study reveals that employer support for affirmative action plans and programs not only reduce negative attitudes toward AA but also moderate the effects of ethical frameworks and equality values on such attitudes. More specifically, consequentialist ethical values relate negatively and nonconsequentialist ethical values relate positively to attitudes toward affirmative action.  Additionally, organizational support positively moderates the relationship between both equality norms and consequentialist ethical values and attitudes toward affirmative action for African Americans. Implications for future research and practice are offered

Assessing the bioconfinement potential of a Nicotiana hybrid platform for use in plant molecular farming applications

Background The introduction of pharmaceutical traits in tobacco for commercial production could benefit from the utilization of a transgene bioconfinement system. It has been observed that interspecific F1Nicotiana hybrids (Nicotiana tabacum × Nicotiana glauca) are sterile and thus proposed that hybrids could be suitable bioconfined hosts for biomanufacturing. We genetically tagged hybrids with green fluorescent protein (GFP), which was used as a visual marker to enable gene flow tracking and quantification for field and greenhouse studies. GFP was used as a useful proxy for pharmaceutical transgenes. Results Analysis of DNA content revealed significant genomic downsizing of the hybrid relative to that of N. tabacum. Hybrid pollen was capable of germination in vitro, albeit with a very low frequency and with significant differences between plants. In two field experiments, one each in Tennessee and Kentucky, we detected outcrossing at only one location (Tennessee) at 1.4%. Additionally, from 50 hybrid plants at each field site, formation of 84 and 16 seed was observed, respectively. Similar conclusions about hybrid fertility were drawn from greenhouse crosses. In terms of above-ground biomass, the hybrid yield was not significantly different than that of N. tabacum in the field. Conclusion N. tabacum × N. glauca hybrids show potential to contribute to a bioconfinement- and biomanufacturing host system. Hybrids exhibit extremely low fertility with no difference of green biomass yields relative to N. tabacum. In addition, hybrids are morphologically distinguishable from tobacco allowing for identity preservation. This hybrid system for biomanufacturing would optimally be used where N. glauca is not present and in physical isolation of N. tabacum production to provide total bioconfinement

Economic evaluation of access to musculoskeletal care: The case of waiting for total knee arthroplasty

BACKGROUND: The projected demand for total knee arthroplasty is staggering. At its root, the solution involves increasing supply or decreasing demand. Other developed nations have used rationing and wait times to distribute this service. However, economic impact and cost-effectiveness of waiting for TKA is unknown. METHODS: A Markov decision model was constructed for a cost-utility analysis of three treatment strategies for end-stage knee osteoarthritis: 1) TKA without delay, 2) a waiting period with no non-operative treatment and 3) a non-operative treatment bridge during that waiting period in a cohort of 60 year-old patients. Outcome probabilities and effectiveness were derived from the literature. Costs were estimated from the societal perspective with national average Medicare reimbursement. Effectiveness was expressed in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained. Principal outcome measures were average incremental costs, effectiveness, and quality-adjusted life years; and net health benefits. RESULTS: In the base case, a 2-year wait-time both with and without a non-operative treatment bridge resulted in a lower number of average QALYs gained (11.57 (no bridge) and 11.95 (bridge) vs. 12.14 (no delay). The average cost was $1,660 higher for TKA without delay than wait-time with no bridge, but$1,810 less than wait-time with non-operative bridge. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio comparing wait-time with no bridge to TKA without delay was $2,901/QALY. When comparing TKA without delay to waiting with non-operative bridge, TKA without delay produced greater utility at a lower cost to society. CONCLUSIONS: TKA without delay is the preferred cost-effective treatment strategy when compared to a waiting for TKA without non-operative bridge. TKA without delay is cost saving when a non-operative bridge is used during the waiting period. As it is unlikely that patients waiting for TKA would not receive non-operative treatment, TKA without delay may be an overall cost-saving health care delivery strategy. Policies aimed at increasing the supply of TKA should be considered as savings exist that could indirectly fund those strategies

An orange fluorescent protein tagging system for real-time pollen tracking

BACKGROUND: Monitoring gene flow could be important for future transgenic crops, such as those producing plant-made-pharmaceuticals (PMPs) in open field production. A Nicotiana hybrid (Nicotiana. tabacum x Nicotiana glauca) shows limited male fertility and could be used as a bioconfined PMP platform. Effective assessment of gene flow from these plants is augmented with methods that utilize fluorescent proteins for transgenic pollen identification. RESULTS: We report the generation of a pollen tagging system utilizing an orange fluorescent protein to monitor pollen flow and as a visual assessment of transgene zygosity of the parent plant. This system was created to generate a tagged Nicotiana hybrid that could be used for the incidence of gene flow. Nicotiana tabacum \u27TN 90\u27 and Nicotiana glauca were successfully transformed via Agrobacterium tumefaciens to express the orange fluorescent protein gene, tdTomato-ER, in pollen and a green fluorescent protein gene, mgfp5-er, was expressed in vegetative structures of the plant. Hybrids were created that utilized the fluorescent proteins as a research tool for monitoring pollen movement and gene flow. Manual greenhouse crosses were used to assess hybrid sexual compatibility with N. tabacum, resulting in seed formation from hybrid pollination in 2% of crosses, which yielded non-viable seed. Pollen transfer to the hybrid formed seed in 19% of crosses and 10 out of 12 viable progeny showed GFP expression. CONCLUSION: The orange fluorescent protein is visible when expressed in the pollen of N. glauca, N. tabacum, and the Nicotiana hybrid, although hybrid pollen did not appear as bright as the parent lines. The hybrid plants, which show limited ability to outcross, could provide bioconfinement with the benefit of detectable pollen using this system. Fluorescent protein-tagging could be a valuable tool for breeding and in vivo ecological monitoring

Molecular Pathways Underlying Adaptive Repair of the Injured Kidney: Novel Donation After Cardiac Death and Acute Kidney Injury Platforms

International audienceObjective: To test the hypothesis that gene expression profiling in peripheral blood from patients who have undergone kidney transplantation (KT) will provide mechanistic insights regarding graft repair and regeneration.Background: Renal grafts obtained from living donors (LD) typically function immediately, whereas organs from donation after cardiac death (DCD) or acute kidney injury (AKI) donors may experience delayed function with eventual recovery. Thus, recipients of LD, DCD, and AKI kidneys were studied to provide a more complete understanding of the molecular basis for renal recovery.Methods: Peripheral blood was collected from LD and DCD/AKI recipients before transplant and throughout the first 30 days thereafter. Total RNA was isolated and assayed on whole genome microarrays.Results: Comparison of longitudinal gene expression between LD and AKI/DCD revealed 2 clusters, representing 141 differentially expressed transcripts. A subset of 11 transcripts was found to be differentially expressed in AKI/DCD versus LD. In all recipients, the most robust gene expression changes were observed in the first day after transplantation. After day 1, gene expression profiles differed depending upon the source of the graft. In patients receiving LD grafts, the expression of most genes did not remain markedly elevated beyond the first day post-KT. In the AKI/DCD groups, elevations in gene expression were maintained for at least 5 days post-KT. In all recipients, the pattern of coordinate gene overexpression subsided by 28 to 30 days.Conclusions: Gene expression in peripheral blood of AKI/DCD recipients offers a novel platform to understand the potential mechanisms and timing of kidney repair and regeneration after transplantation

Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) for the Subaru Telescope: Overview, recent progress, and future perspectives

PFS (Prime Focus Spectrograph), a next generation facility instrument on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope, is a very wide-field, massively multiplexed, optical and near-infrared spectrograph. Exploiting the Subaru prime focus, 2394 reconfigurable fibers will be distributed over the 1.3 deg field of view. The spectrograph has been designed with 3 arms of blue, red, and near-infrared cameras to simultaneously observe spectra from 380nm to 1260nm in one exposure at a resolution of ~1.6-2.7A. An international collaboration is developing this instrument under the initiative of Kavli IPMU. The project is now going into the construction phase aiming at undertaking system integration in 2017-2018 and subsequently carrying out engineering operations in 2018-2019. This article gives an overview of the instrument, current project status and future paths forward.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures. Proceeding of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 201

Fermi Large Area Telescope Constraints on the Gamma-ray Opacity of the Universe

The Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) includes photons with wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared, which are effective at attenuating gamma rays with energy above ~10 GeV during propagation from sources at cosmological distances. This results in a redshift- and energy-dependent attenuation of the gamma-ray flux of extragalactic sources such as blazars and Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). The Large Area Telescope onboard Fermi detects a sample of gamma-ray blazars with redshift up to z~3, and GRBs with redshift up to z~4.3. Using photons above 10 GeV collected by Fermi over more than one year of observations for these sources, we investigate the effect of gamma-ray flux attenuation by the EBL. We place upper limits on the gamma-ray opacity of the Universe at various energies and redshifts, and compare this with predictions from well-known EBL models. We find that an EBL intensity in the optical-ultraviolet wavelengths as great as predicted by the "baseline" model of Stecker et al. (2006) can be ruled out with high confidence.Comment: 42 pages, 12 figures, accepted version (24 Aug.2010) for publication in ApJ; Contact authors: A. Bouvier, A. Chen, S. Raino, S. Razzaque, A. Reimer, L.C. Reye