Structuring reality through the faultlines lens: the effects of structure, fairness, and status conflict on the activated faultlines-performance relationship

We investigate how activated team faultlines represent an informal sensemaking structure through which teammates interpret their social reality. Constructed from inter-subgroup comparisons, activated faultlines likely result in status perceptions that are ambiguous or illegitimate. Thus, activated faultlines threaten the justice climate within the team, which drives status conflict, impairing team performance. We explore the effects of team structure clarity in providing certainty or legitimacy around status and structure, ameliorating the negative effect of activated faultlines on team justice climate. We tested our model using a multi-source (three sources), multi-wave cross-lagged design (four waves) on a sample of 271 employees and 41 leaders in 41 teams. We found that the negative relationship between activated faultlines and team performance was mediated by the team justice climate—status conflict causal chain. We also found that team structure clarity reduced activated faultlines negative effect on team justice climate. The results highlight the value of using team faultlines, the social identity approach, and justice theories to understand how diverse teams interpret their social reality that influences their performance. Furthermore, our research provides practical guidance to managers in building clear team structures that minimize the harmful effects of activated faultlines on justice perceptions and team performance.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The effect of soy phytoestrogen supplementation on thyroid status and cardiovascular risk markers in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism: A randomized, double-blind, crossover study

Context: There is concern whether soy phytoestrogens may affect thyroid function. If true, soy phytoestrogens may be expected to have a greater impact in subjects with subclinical hypothyroidism. Objective: The primary aim was to determine the effect of soy phytoestrogen supplementation on thyroid function, with a secondary aim of assessing the effects on cardiovascular risk indices in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism. Design and Setting: We conducted a randomized, double-blind, crossover study in a tertiary care setting. Participants: Sixty patients with subclinical hypothyroidism participated in the study. Intervention: Patients were randomly assigned to either low-dose phytoestrogen (30 g soy protein with 2 mg phytoestrogens, representative of a Western diet) or high-dose phytoestrogen (30 g soy protein with 16 mg phytoestrogens, representative of a vegetarian diet) supplementation for 8 wk, then crossed over after an 8-wk washout period. Main Outcome Measures: The primary outcome was progression to overt hypothyroidism, with secondary outcome measures of blood pressure, insulin resistance, lipids, and highly sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP). Results: Six female patients in the study progressed into overt hypothyroidism with a standardized rate ratio of 3.6 (95% confidence interval, 1.9, 6.2) after 16-mg phytoestrogen supplementation. Both systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased with 16 mg phytoestrogens, whereas systolic pressure alone decreased with 2 mg phytoestrogens. Insulin resistance (homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance, 3.5 ± 0.09 vs. 2.6 ± 0.08; P < 0.02) and hsCRP (4.9 ± 0.04 vs. 3.9 ± 0.03; P < 0.01) decreased with 16 mg phytoestrogens. Lipid profile remained unchanged. Conclusion: There is a 3-fold increased risk of developing overt hypothyroidism with dietary supplementation of 16 mg soy phytoestrogens with subclinical hypothyroidism. However, 16-mg soy phytoestrogen supplementation significantly reduces the insulin resistance, hsCRP, and blood pressure in these patients. Copyright © 2011 by The Endocrine Society

Why national health research systems matter

Some of the most outstanding problems in Computer Science (e.g. access to heterogeneous information sources, use of different e-commerce standards, ontology translation, etc.) are often approached through the identification of ontology mappings. A manual mapping generation slows down, or even makes unfeasible, the solution of particular cases of the aforementioned problems via ontology mappings. Some algorithms and formal models for partial tasks of automatic generation of mappings have been proposed. However, an integrated system to solve this problem is still missing. In this paper, we present AMON, a platform for automatic ontology mapping generation. First of all, we show the general structure. Then, we describe the current version of the system, including the ontology in which it is based, the similarity measures that it uses, the access to external sources, etc

Real world and tropical cyclone world. Part I: high-resolution climate model verification

Recent global climate models with sufficient resolution and physics offer a promising approach for simulating real-world tropical cyclone (TC) statistics and their changing relationship with climate. In the first part of this study, we examine the performance of a high-resolution (;40-km horizontal grid) global climate model, the atmospheric component of the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) based on the Met Office Unified Model (UM8.5) Global Atmosphere (GA6.0). The atmospheric model is forced with observed sea surface temperature, and 20 years of integrations (1990–2009) are analyzed for evaluating the simulated TC statistics compared with observations. The model reproduces the observed climatology, geographical distribution, and interhemispheric asymmetry of global TC formation rates reasonably well. The annual cycle of regional TC formation rates over most basins is also well captured. However, there are some regional biases in the geographical distribution of TC formation rates. To identify the sources of these biases, a suite of model-simulated large-scale climate conditions that critically modulate TC formation rates are further evaluated, including the assessment of a multivariate genesis potential index. Results indicate that the model TC genesis biases correspond well to the inherent biases in the simulated large-scale climatic states, although the relative effects on TC genesis of some variables differs between basins. This highlights the model’s mean-state dependency in simulating accurate TC formation rates

A randomized phase II trial of interleukin 2 and interleukin 2-interferon alpha in advanced renal cancer.

A randomized phase II trial was performed to compare the efficacy and toxicity of interleukin 2 (IL-2) with an IL-2 and interferon alpha (IFN-alpha) regimen for the treatment of metastatic renal carcinoma. Sixty patients with recurrent renal cell carcinoma (RCC) who had previously undergone a nephrectomy were randomized to receive three cycles of IL-2 or IL-2 with IFN-alpha2b. Eighteen MU of IL-2 were administered subcutaneously on Mondays-Fridays for 3 weeks out of 4. Those patients randomized to receive the combination received the same regimen of IL-2 with 9 MU of IFN-alpha2b subcutaneously on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for 3 weeks out of 4. Thirty patients were randomized to receive each arm. Twenty-nine were evaluable in each arm. Twenty-two patients received three cycles of IL-2 but only 14 patients received three cycles of IL-2/IFN-alpha because of the greater toxicity of the combination. The principal toxicities included nausea, fatigue and fever. There were no complete responses in either arm and only two patients who were treated with IL-2 attained a partial response. Twelve patients in each arm had stable disease and 15 patients in the IL-2 arm and 16 patients in the IL-2/IFN-alpha arm progressed through treatment. There were no significant differences in survival. Ten patients who received IL-2 are alive with a median follow-up of 266 days, whereas six patients who received IL-2/IFN-alpha are alive after a median of 278 days. The median survival from the time of identification of metastatic disease is 444 days in the IL-2 arm and 381 days in the IL-2/IFN-alpha arm. The IL-2/IFN-alpha combination is more toxic than IL-2 alone and this resulted in a reduced number of cycles of treatment. However, the median survival of the two groups was the same, suggesting that further evaluation of the IL-2/IFN-alpha combination should be confined to large prospective randomized clinical trials

Sequential administration of varying doses of dacarbazine and fotemustine in advanced malignant melanoma.

There is increasing experimental evidence to suggest that expression of O6-alkylguanine-DNA-alkyltransferase (ATase) is a major factor in resistance to dacarbazine (DTIC). We recently demonstrated a progressive ATase depletion in human peripheral lymphocytes with nadir levels occurring at 4-6 h after DTIC administration (Lee et al., 1991). Therefore in an attempt to improve the clinical response rate of DTIC, fotemustine was administered 4 h after DTIC administration; since in the case of fotemustine, ATase removes the chloroethyl lesions from the O6-position of guanine, thereby preventing the formation of the cytotoxic cross-links. Sixty patients with widely metastatic melanoma received DTIC at 400, 500 or 800 mg m-2 followed by fotemustine (100 mg m-1) at 4 h after DTIC administration. Treatment was repeated every 28 days with a total of 169 cycles of chemotherapy administered; 75, 57 and 37 treatment cycles with 400, 500 and 800 mg m-2 DTIC groups respectively. Eighteen of the 60 patients responded (with three complete response); response rates were linearly related to dose, being 24%, 30% and 40% in patients receiving 400, 500 and 800 mg m-2 of DTIC respectively and the overall response rate was 30%. Median survival was 3.6 months (range, 1-15 months) with no statistically significant difference between the different DTIC treatment groups (P = 0.67). Nine patients are alive at 5 to 26 months (median 10 months); three patients with no tumour and five patients with stable disease. A statistically significant relationship was seen between the development of severe haematological toxicity (WHO > or = 3) with increasing dosage of DTIC and significant subclinical pulmonary damage was seen in 11 patients where the lung function was monitored during the course of treatment. In conclusion, it appears that with this small group of patients, escalation of DTIC dosage might not significantly affect response rates but does increase haematological toxicity. The present study provides a framework for other studies in an attempt to modulate ATase-mediated drug resistance in tumour tissues but the associated toxicity will need careful monitoring