Barriers to local residents’ participation in community-based tourism: lessons from Houay Kaeng Village in Laos

This study aims to identify the barriers to local residents’ participation in the process of community-based tourism planning and development in a developing country. Focusing on the case of Houay Kaeng Village in Sayabouly Province, Laos, a qualitative exploratory study was conducted by adopting in-depth interviews with the various levels of local community’s members. The key barriers to local community participation identified in this research include: (1) low education levels and lack of knowledge about tourism; (2) poor living conditions and lack of financial support; (3) busy daily routine and lack of time for tourism participation; (4) local community’s perception of tourism as a seasonal business with low income; and (5) power disparities, institutional disincentives and local’s distrust in authorities. The results suggest that only a small number of the local residents in the village were satisfied with their current and on-going participation expressing their strong willingness to continue in participating in the process of tourism planning and development, whereas a large group of the residents were not willing to do it at all in the future. The paper further discusses implications for the government and communities in regard to community-based sustainable tourism development

Effects of Acute Stress on Aircrew Performance: Literature Review and Analysis of Operational Aspects

Situational stress can adversely affect the cognition and skilled performance of pilots, as well as experts in other domains. Emergencies and other threatening situations require pilots to execute infrequently practiced procedures correctly and to use their skills and judgment to select an appropriate course of action, often under high workload, time pressure, and ambiguous indications, all of which can be stressful. Our current study, consited of three parts, starting with a critical review of the research literature on the effects of stress on skilled performance, going back to World War II and continuing to recent and more sophisticated studies of the cognitive effects of anxiety. In the second part we analyzed the specific ways stress may have impaired the performance of airline crews in twelve major accidents, selected for diversity of the situations the crews encountered. The third part examined the operational significance and practical implications of the findings from the first two parts, suggested specific ways to reduce the harmful effects of stress on flight crews, and identified aspects requiring further research. Even thought this study focused on flight crews, the findings apply to the effects of stress on the skilled performance of experts in almost any domain

Editorial: Reducing the cancer burden in the population-epidemiologic evidence to support policies, systems, and environmental changes.

The underlying goal of most cancer epidemiology is to reduce the cancer burden, and the current volume of Epidemiologic Reviews comprises eleven reviews across a range of topics including cancer surveillance, risk factor identification, and the evaluation of approaches to care of patients and predictors of prognosis and death

cGMP Recombinant FIX for IV and Oral Hemophilia B Therapy

Three specific aims are proposed: Specific Aim # 1. Process engineer and scale-up the recovery and purification of transgenic recombinant human Factor IX. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Biological Process Development Facility will complete process development and scale-up, and produce clinical grade materials for preclinical studies. The endpoint is a proposed final product specification to help facilitate transfer to current Good Manufacturing Practices compliant production of clinical grade material to support an Investigational New Drug filing with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) leading to clinical trials. Specific Aim #2. Characterize and formulate transgenic recombinant human Factor IX for intravenous dosage, and evaluate in a hemophilia B dog model. These activities are directed toward characterization of the product important to assure the provision of safe and reproducibly effective hemostasis. The results of these investigations will help support an IND filing with the FDA. Specific Aim # 3. Develop an oral dosage form of transgenic recombinant human Factor IX, and evaluate in hemophilia B mice and dog models. Oral administration of coagulation therapy will obviate the invasiveness, discomfort, potential for opportunistic infection, and complications of storage and supplies that accompany intravenous administration. Oral dosage forms of Factor IX will thus greatly increase the proportion of the patient population that can be treated. There is also published evidence suggesting that oral administration may reduce the potential for complicating immune responses to replacement therapy, especially in patients with severe hemophilia

Multi-Messenger Gravitational Wave Searches with Pulsar Timing Arrays: Application to 3C66B Using the NANOGrav 11-year Data Set

When galaxies merge, the supermassive black holes in their centers may form binaries and, during the process of merger, emit low-frequency gravitational radiation in the process. In this paper we consider the galaxy 3C66B, which was used as the target of the first multi-messenger search for gravitational waves. Due to the observed periodicities present in the photometric and astrometric data of the source of the source, it has been theorized to contain a supermassive black hole binary. Its apparent 1.05-year orbital period would place the gravitational wave emission directly in the pulsar timing band. Since the first pulsar timing array study of 3C66B, revised models of the source have been published, and timing array sensitivities and techniques have improved dramatically. With these advances, we further constrain the chirp mass of the potential supermassive black hole binary in 3C66B to less than $(1.65\pm0.02) \times 10^9~{M_\odot}$ using data from the NANOGrav 11-year data set. This upper limit provides a factor of 1.6 improvement over previous limits, and a factor of 4.3 over the first search done. Nevertheless, the most recent orbital model for the source is still consistent with our limit from pulsar timing array data. In addition, we are able to quantify the improvement made by the inclusion of source properties gleaned from electromagnetic data to `blind' pulsar timing array searches. With these methods, it is apparent that it is not necessary to obtain exact a priori knowledge of the period of a binary to gain meaningful astrophysical inferences.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. Accepted by Ap

Extracellular ATP released by osteoblasts is a key local inhibitor of bone mineralisation

Previous studies have shown that exogenous ATP (>1µM) prevents bone formation in vitro by blocking mineralisation of the collagenous matrix. This effect is thought to be mediated via both P2 receptor-dependent pathways and a receptor-independent mechanism (hydrolysis of ATP to produce the mineralisation inhibitor pyrophosphate, PPi). Osteoblasts are also known to release ATP constitutively. To determine whether this endogenous ATP might exert significant biological effects, bone-forming primary rat osteoblasts were cultured with 0.5-2.5U/ml apyrase (which sequentially hydrolyses ATP to ADP to AMP + 2Pi). Addition of 0.5U/ml apyrase to osteoblast culture medium degraded extracellular ATP to <1% of control levels within 2 minutes; continuous exposure to apyrase maintained this inhibition for up to 14 days. Apyrase treatment for the first 72 hours of culture caused small decreases (≤25%) in osteoblast number, suggesting a role for endogenous ATP in stimulating cell proliferation. Continuous apyrase treatment for 14 days (≥0.5U/ml) increased mineralisation of bone nodules by up to 3-fold. Increases in bone mineralisation were also seen when osteoblasts were cultured with the ATP release inhibitors, NEM and brefeldin A, as well as with P2X1 and P2X7 receptor antagonists. Apyrase decreased alkaline phosphatase (TNAP) activity by up to 60%, whilst increasing the activity of the PPi-generating ecto-nucleotide pyrophosphatase/phosphodiesterases (NPPs) up to 2.7-fold. Both collagen production and adipocyte formation were unaffected. These data suggest that nucleotides released by osteoblasts in bone could act locally, via multiple mechanisms, to limit mineralisation

Circulating vitamin D concentrations and risk of breast and prostate cancer: a Mendelian randomization study.

BACKGROUND: Observational studies have suggested an association between circulating vitamin D concentrations [25(OH)D] and risk of breast and prostate cancer, which was not supported by a recent Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis comprising 15 748 breast and 22 898 prostate-cancer cases. Demonstrating causality has proven challenging and one common limitation of MR studies is insufficient power. METHODS: We aimed to determine whether circulating concentrations of vitamin D are causally associated with the risk of breast and prostate cancer, by using summary-level data from the largest ever genome-wide association studies conducted on vitamin D (N = 73 699), breast cancer (Ncase = 122 977) and prostate cancer (Ncase = 79 148). We constructed a stronger instrument using six common genetic variants (compared with the previous four variants) and applied several two-sample MR methods. RESULTS: We found no evidence to support a causal association between 25(OH)D and risk of breast cancer [OR per 25 nmol/L increase, 1.02 (95% confidence interval: 0.97-1.08), P = 0.47], oestrogen receptor (ER)+ [1.00 (0.94-1.07), P = 0.99] or ER- [1.02 (0.90-1.16), P = 0.75] subsets, prostate cancer [1.00 (0.93-1.07), P = 0.99] or the advanced subtype [1.02 (0.90-1.16), P = 0.72] using the inverse-variance-weighted method. Sensitivity analyses did not reveal any sign of directional pleiotropy. CONCLUSIONS: Despite its almost five-fold augmented sample size and substantially improved statistical power, our MR analysis does not support a causal effect of circulating 25(OH)D concentrations on breast- or prostate-cancer risk. However, we can still not exclude a modest or non-linear effect of vitamin D. Future studies may be designed to understand the effect of vitamin D in subpopulations with a profound deficiency

The good, the bad and the hijab: A study of implicit associations made by practicing Muslims in their native Muslim country

Recent research indicates that wearing the hijab reduces the attractiveness of female faces perceived by practicing Muslim men and women in their native Muslim country (the United Arab Emirates). The purpose of the current research was to develop this finding to investigate whether other aspects of person perception are also affected when women wear the hijab in this Muslim country. Of particular relevance is that changes in physical attractiveness often affect the personal qualities assigned to individuals. Accordingly, we sought to determine whether such effects occur when the physical attractiveness of women is altered by wearing the hijab. To do this, we used an Implicit Association Test (IAT) to investigate how native Muslim participants in the UAE associated pleasant and unpleasant connotations with images of women either wearing the hijab or with their heads uncovered. As in previous research with native Muslim participants, female faces were again perceived as significantly less attractive when the hijab was worn. However, the accompanying IAT findings showed that these less attractive hijab-wearing images were associated more with pleasant connotations than were the matched uncovered images. These findings provide fresh insight into the effects of the hijab on perceptions of Muslim women in a Muslim country and provide support for the view that cultural clothing can influence person perception beyond physical attractiveness alone.WOS:00079989440000

Health benefits of a vegetarian diet

Compared with non-vegetarians, Western vegetarians have a lower mean BMI (by about 1 kg/m2), a lower mean plasma total cholesterol concentration (by about 0.5 mmol/l), and a lower mortality from IHD (by about 25 %). They may also have a lower risk for some other diseases such as constipation, diverticular disease, gallstones and appendicitis. No differences in mortality from common cancers have been established. There is no evidence of adverse effects on mortality. Much more information is needed, particularly on other causes of death, other morbidity including osteoporosis, and long-term health in vegans. The evidence available suggests that widespread adoption of a vegetarian diet could prevent approximately 40 000 deaths from IHD in Britain each year.</jats:p