Are UK SMEs with active websites more likely to achieve both innovation and growth?

Purpose: This paper examines the impact of developing more active Websites and increasing E-commerce on the relationship between innovation and growth performance in SMEs. Using the existing literature and empirical analysis the study considers the potential of engagement with the Internet to achieve the often hard to attain ambition of both innovation and growth. Design/methodology/approach: In order to examine the relationship, data is drawn from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) 'Lifting the Barriers to Growth Survey'. In order to establish whether the use of more sophisticated Websites is associated with being an innovative high performance business, whilst controlling for other firm and entrepreneurial characteristics, multivariate approaches in the form of multinominal logits and discriminant function analysis are utilised. Findings: The results suggest that although theoretically Websites with tools allowing interaction with customers or suppliers could benefit SMEs through a reduction in transaction costs and wider access to information, enabling them to jointly experience innovation and growth, in practice there is less evidence that this occurs. If anything those firms with active websites are more likely to be innovative, but no more likely to be both innovative and achieving growth. Implications: These results suggest that further work must be undertaken to establish whether SMEs should be encouraged to make such investments and if so what additional help is required to ensure that investments in this digital infrastructure achieves an appropriate return on investment. Originality/Value: The results are of importance to both SMEs and policy makers providing insight into the nature of potential benefits from Website development using a large dataset. A clear need to investigate further how more innovative SMEs can benefit from company Websites and ecommerce to grow is identified

The Turkey Ig-like receptor family: identification, expression and function.

The chicken leukocyte receptor complex located on microchromosome 31 encodes the chicken Ig-like receptors (CHIR), a vastly expanded gene family which can be further divided into three subgroups: activating CHIR-A, bifunctional CHIR-AB and inhibitory CHIR-B. Here, we investigated the presence of CHIR homologues in other bird species. The available genome databases of turkey, duck and zebra finch were screened with different strategies including BLAST searches employing various CHIR sequences, and keyword searches. We could not identify CHIR homologues in the distantly related zebra finch and duck, however, several partial and complete sequences of CHIR homologues were identified on chromosome 3 of the turkey genome. They were designated as turkey Ig-like receptors (TILR). Using cDNA derived from turkey blood and spleen RNA, six full length TILR could be amplified and further divided according to the typical sequence features into one activating TILR-A, one inhibitory TILR-B and four bifunctional TILR-AB. Since the TILR-AB sequences all displayed the critical residues shown to be involved in binding to IgY, we next confirmed the IgY binding using a soluble TILR-AB1-huIg fusion protein. This fusion protein reacted with IgY derived from various gallinaceous birds, but not with IgY from other bird species. Finally, we tested various mab directed against CHIR for their crossreactivity with either turkey or duck leukocytes. Whereas no staining was detectable with duck cells, the CHIR-AB1 specific mab 8D12 and the CHIR-A2 specific mab 13E2 both reacted with a leukocyte subpopulation that was further identified as thrombocytes by double immunofluorescence employing B-cell, T-cell and thrombocyte specific reagents. In summary, although the turkey harbors similar LRC genes as the chicken, their distribution seems to be distinct with predominance on thrombocytes rather than lymphocytes

Evaluating the Efficacy of Medication-Assisted Treatment for First Episode Psychosis: A Scoping Review

Purpose/Background The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) recommends that individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) receive medicated-assisted treatment (MAT), as a complete approach to substance use treatment (SAMHSA, 2019). However, treatment measures using combination treatment for SUD in individuals experiencing first episode psychosis (FEP) are seldom used. This scoping review assesses the efficacy of MAT in conjunction with antipsychotics compared to the use of antipsychotic monotherapy for FEP individuals on hospital readmission rates. Methods The authors conducted a literature review utilizing PubMed, EBSCO, Elsevier, Google Scholar, PsychINFO, and Medline from August 2020 to November 2022. Key phrases in the database search included: first-episode psychosis, comorbid substance use, alcohol use disorder, cannabis use disorder, medication-assisted treatment, buprenorphine, methadone, and antipsychotics. Eligibility criteria included individuals experiencing psychosis defined by hallucination, delusion, or paranoia symptoms with co-occurring substance use. Inclusion criteria include publication within the past five years, English or available English translation, full text, institutional review board-approved, and peer-reviewed. Ultimately, we selected ten articles for this scoping review. Results The ten articles demonstrated improvement of psychotic symptoms but showed mixed results in hospital readmission rates after combination therapy. The most notable restriction for this review was the paucity of published literature on MAT for FEP and comorbid substance use. Of the literature reviewed, patients experiencing comorbid FEP and SUDs were vulnerable to poor outcomes due to the illnesses, limited treatment options targeting both symptoms, and poor retention rates in MAT programs. Implications for Nursing Practice This scoping review highlights the treatment of comorbid SUD and FEP with the use of MAT to potentially reduce hospital readmission rates. There was insufficient evidence to outline targeted treatment regimens for our patient population; therefore, more research is needed in this area

Structured Multi-Label Biomedical Text Tagging via Attentive Neural Tree Decoding

We propose a model for tagging unstructured texts with an arbitrary number of terms drawn from a tree-structured vocabulary (i.e., an ontology). We treat this as a special case of sequence-to-sequence learning in which the decoder begins at the root node of an ontological tree and recursively elects to expand child nodes as a function of the input text, the current node, and the latent decoder state. We demonstrate that this method yields state-of-the-art results on the important task of assigning MeSH terms to biomedical abstracts

Mass extinctions and supernova explosions

A nearby supernova (SN) explosion could have negatively influenced life on Earth, maybe even been responsible for mass extinctions. Mass extinction poses a significant extinction of numerous species on Earth, as recorded in the paleontologic, paleoclimatic, and geological record of our planet. Depending on the distance between the Sun and the SN, different types of threats have to be considered, such as ozone depletion on Earth, causing increased exposure to the Sun's ultraviolet radiation, or the direct exposure of lethal x-rays. Another indirect effect is cloud formation, induced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere which result in a drop in the Earth's temperature, causing major glaciations of the Earth. The discovery of highly intensive gamma ray bursts (GRBs), which could be connected to SNe, initiated further discussions on possible life-threatening events in Earth's history. The probability that GRBs hit the Earth is very low. Nevertheless, a past interaction of Earth with GRBs and/or SNe cannot be excluded and might even have been responsible for past extinction events.Comment: Chapter for forthcoming book: Handbook of Supernovae, P. Murdin and A. Alsabeti (eds.), Springer International Publishing (in press

Tolerance of Artemia to static and shock pressure loading

Hydrostatic and hydrodynamic pressure loading has been applied to unicellular organisms for a number of years due to interest from food technology and extremophile communities. There is also an emerging interest in the response of multicellular organisms to high pressure conditions. Artemia salina is one such organism. Previous experiments have shown a marked difference in the hatching rate of these organisms after exposure to different magnitudes of pressure, with hydrostatic tests showing hatching rates at pressures up to several GPa, compared to dynamic loading that resulted in comparatively low survival rates at lower pressure magnitudes. In order to begin to investigate the origin of this difference, the work presented here has focussed on the response of Artemia salina to (quasi) one-dimensional shock loading. Such experiments were carried out using the plate-impact technique in order to create a planar shock front. Artemia cysts were investigated in this manner along with freshly hatched larvae (nauplii). The nauplii and cysts were observed post-shock using optical microscopy to detect motility or hatching, respectively. Hatching rates of 18% were recorded at pressures reaching 1.5 GPa, as determined with the aid of numerical models. Subjecting Artemia to quasi-one-dimensional shock loading offers a way to more thoroughly explore the shock pressure ranges these organisms can survive

Active-duty military service members’ visual representations of PTSD and TBI in masks

Active-dutymilitary service members have a significant risk of sustaining physical and psychological trauma resulting in traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Within an interdisciplinary treatment approach at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, servicemembers participated in mask making during art therapy sessions. This study presents an analysis of the mask-making experiences of service members (n = 370) with persistent symptoms from combatand mission-related TBI, PTSD, and other concurrent mood issues. Data sources included mask images and therapist notes collected over a five-year period. The data were coded and analyzed using grounded theory methods. Findings indicated that mask making offered visual representations of the self related to individual personhood, relationships, community, and society. Imagery themes referenced the injury, relational supports/losses, identity transitions/questions, cultural metaphors, existential reflections, and conflicted sense of self. These visual insights provided an increased understanding of the experiences of service members, facilitating their recovery

Distress, anxiety, and depression in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy

BACKGROUND: Chemotherapy for cancer is an intense and cyclic treatment associated with number of side-effects. The present study evaluated the effect of chemotherapy on distress, anxiety and depression. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 117 patients were evaluated by using distress inventory for cancer (DIC2) and hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS). Majority of the patients were taking chemotherapy for solid tumors (52; 44.4%). RESULTS: The mean distress score was 24, 18 (15.38%) were found to have anxiety while 19 (16.23%) had depression. High social status was the only factor found to influence distress while female gender was the only factor found to influence depression in the present study. CONCLUSION: The study highlights high psychological morbidity of cancer patients and influence of gender on depression. Construct of distress as evaluated by DIC 2 may have a possible overlap with anxiety

Chicken TREM-B1, an Inhibitory Ig-Like Receptor Expressed on Chicken Thrombocytes

Triggering receptors expressed on myeloid cells (TREM) form a multigene family of immunoregulatory Ig-like receptors and play important roles in the regulation of innate and adaptive immunity. In chickens, three members of the TREM family have been identified on chromosome 26. One of them is TREM-B1 which possesses two V-set Ig-domains, an uncharged transmembrane region and a long cytoplasmic tail with one ITSM and two ITIMs indicating an inhibitory function. We generated specific monoclonal antibodies by immunizing a Balb/c mouse with a TREM-B1-FLAG transfected BWZ.36 cell line and tested the hybridoma supernatants on TREM-B1-FLAG transfected 2D8 cells. We obtained two different antibodies specific for TREM-B1, mab 7E8 (mouse IgG1) and mab 1E9 (mouse IgG2a) which were used for cell surface staining. Single and double staining of different tissues, including whole blood preparations, revealed expression on thrombocytes. Next we investigated the biochemical properties of TREM-B1 by using the specific mab 1E9 for immunoprecipitation of either lysates of surface biotinylated peripheral blood cells or stably transfected 2D8 cells. Staining with streptavidin coupled horse radish peroxidase revealed a glycosylated monomeric protein of about 50 kDa. Furthermore we used the stably transfected 2D8 cell line for analyzing the cytoplasmic tyrosine based signaling motifs. After pervanadate treatment, we detected phosphorylation of the tyrosine residues and subsequent recruitment of the tyrosine specific protein phosphatase SHP-2, indicating an inhibitory potential for TREM-B1. We also showed the inhibitory effect of TREM-B1 in chicken thrombocytes using a CD107 degranulation assay. Crosslinking of TREM-B1 on activated primary thrombocytes resulted in decreased CD107 surface expression of about 50-70%