The Asian Studies Parade

The Asian Studies Parade reflects a lifetime of commitment to the field by Paul van der Velde, a leading Asian studies innovator, scholar, and publisher. The first chapters examine aspects of the Dutch colonial presence in Asia and its intellectual support system in the Netherlands. The author's engagement with historical biography emerges in studies of such contrasting figures as Japanese interpreter Imamura Gen’emon Eisei, pioneering anthropologist P.J. Veth, and anti-colonialist Jacob Haafner. Van der Velde then continues to describe the development of Asia-Europe links at the end of the 20th century and the emergence of the ‘New Asia Scholar’ in the 21st century. This unique work will interest anyone concerned with wider issues in Asian studies

The Asian studies parade: archival, biographical, institutional and post-colonial approaches

The Asian Studies Parade reflects a lifetime of commitment to the field by Paul van der Velde, a leading Asian studies innovator, scholar, and publisher. The first chapters examine aspects of the Dutch colonial presence in Asia and its intellectual support system in the Netherlands. The author's engagement with historical biography emerges in studies of such contrasting figures as Japanese interpreter Imamura Gen’emon Eisei, pioneering anthropologist P.J. Veth, and anti-colonialist Jacob Haafner. Van der Velde then continues to describe the development of Asia-Europe links at the end of the 20th century and the emergence of the ‘New Asia Scholar’ in the 21st century. This unique work will interest anyone concerned with wider issues in Asian studies

Effects of critical coronary stenosis on global systolic left ventricular function quantified by pressure-volume relations during dobutamine stress in the canine heart

AbstractObjectives. In this study we quantified the effects of a critical coronary stenosis on global systolic function using pressure-volume relations at baseline and during incremental dobutamine stress.Background. The effects of coronary stenosis have previously been analyzed mainly in terms of regional (dys)function. Global hemodynamics are generally considered normal until coronary flow is substantially reduced. However, pressure-volume analysis might reveal mechanisms not fully exposed by potentially load-dependent single-beat parameters. Moreover, no systematic analysis by pressure-volume relations of the effects of dobutamine over a wide dose range has previously been presented.Methods. In 14 dogs left ventricular volume and pressure were measured by conductance and micromanometer catheters, and left circumflex coronary flow by Doppler probes. Measurements in control and with left circumflex stenosis were performed at baseline and at five levels of dobutamine (2.5 to 20 μg/kg/min). The end-systolic pressure-volume relation (ESPVR) dP/dtMAX− vs. end-diastolic volume (dP/dtMAX− VED) and the relation between stroke work and end-diastolic volume (preload recruitable stroke work [PRSW]) were derived from data obtained during gradual caval occlusion.Results. In control, dobutamine gradually increased heart rate up to 20 μg/kg/min, the inotropic effect blunted at 15 μg/kg/min. With stenosis, the chronotropic effect was similar, however, contractile state was optimal at approximately 10 μg/kg/min and tended to go down at higher levels. At baseline, the positions of ESPVR and PRSW, but not of dP/dtMAX− VED, showed a significant decrease in function with stenosis. No differences between control and stenosis were present at 2.5 μg/kg/min; the differences were largest at 15 μg/kg/min.Conclusions. Pressure-volume relations and incremental dobutamine may be used to quantify the effects of critical coronary stenosis. The positions of these relations are more consistent and more useful indices than the slopes. The positions of the ESPVR and PRSW show a reduced systolic function at baseline, normalization at 2.5 μg/kg/min and a consistent significant difference between control and stenosis at dobutamine levels of 5 μg/kg/min and higher

Sorption–desorption of flucarbazone and propoxycarbazone and their benzenesulfonamide and triazolinone metabolites in two soils

5 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, 17 references.Sorption–desorption interactions of pesticides with soil determine the availability of pesticides in soil for transport, plant uptake and microbial degradation. These interactions are affected by the physical and chemical properties of the pesticide and soil and, for some pesticides, their residence time in the soil. While sorption–desorption of many herbicides has been characterised, very little work in this area has been done on herbicide metabolites. The objective of this study was to characterise sorption–desorption of two sulfonylaminocarbonyltriazolinone herbicides, flucarbazone and propoxycarbazone, and their benzenesulfonamide and triazolinone metabolites in two soils with different physical and chemical properties. Kf values for all four chemicals were greater in clay loam soil, which had higher organic carbon and clay contents than loamy sand. Kf−oc ranged from 29 to 119 for the herbicides and from 42 to 84 for the metabolites. Desorption was hysteretic in every case. Lower desorption in themore sorptive system might indicate that hysteresis can be attributed to irreversible binding of the molecules to soil surfaces. These data show the importance of characterisation of both sorption and desorption of herbicide residues in soil, particularly in the case of prediction of herbicide residue transport. In this case, potential transport of sulfonylaminocarbonyltriazolinone herbicidemetabolites would be overpredicted if parent chemical soil sorption values were used to predict transport.Peer reviewe

Validation of New Gene Variant Classification Methods:a Field-Test in Diagnostic Cardiogenetics

Background: In the molecular genetic diagnostics of Mendelian disorders, solutions are needed for the major challenge of dealing with the large number of variants of uncertain significance (VUSs) identified using next-generation sequencing (NGS). Recently, promising approaches using constraint metrics to calculate case excess scores (CE), etiological fractions (EF), and gnomAD-derived constraint scores have been reported that estimate the likelihood of rare variants in specific genes or regions that are pathogenic. Our objective is to study the usability of these constraint data into variant interpretation in a diagnostic setting, using our cardiomyopathy cohort. Methods and Results: Patients (N = 2002) referred for clinical genetic diagnostics underwent NGS testing of 55–61 genes associated with cardiomyopathies. Previously classified likely pathogenic (LP) and pathogenic (P) variants were used to validate the use of data from CE, EF, and gnomAD constraint analyses for (re)classification of associated variant types in specific cardiomyopathy subtype-related genes. The classifications corroborated in 94% (354/378) of cases. Next, we reclassified 23 unique VUSs to LP, increasing the diagnostic yield by 1.2%. In addition, 106 unique VUSs (5.3% of patients) were prioritized for co-segregation or functional analyses. Conclusions: Our analysis confirms that the use of constraint metrics data can improve variant interpretation, and we, therefore, recommend using constraint scores on other cohorts and disorders and its inclusion in variant interpretation protocols

A state-of-the-art review on studies examining the psychological contract

The psychological contract describes the perceived mutual obligations between an employee and the organization (Rousseau, 1989, 2001). Since 1990 numerous studies have been published examining the effects of psychological contracts. Previous reviews on these studies have focused on the history of the term ‘psychological contract’(Roehling, 1997), and on explaining the description, meaning, and usefulness of the psychological contract (Anderson & Schalk, 1998; Taylor & Tekleab, 2004; Van den Brande, 1999). Guest and Conway (2003) published the first review in which an actual overview of studies on psychological contracts was presented. However, the sample of reviewed studies was rather small (k=9) and only operationalizations of the psychological contract and correlations with dependent variables were reported. A review on more specific information, like survey design, sample, and measurement of the psychological contract is still lacking. As a consequence, the aim of this review was to examine the conceptualization and measurement of the psychological contract

Leeftijd, het psychologisch contract, en werkattitudes: een meta-analyse.

The meta-analysis investigated the relations between age and psychological contracts. It was expected that age would be positively related to the employer obligations, and that age would moderate the relations between contract breach and job attitudes. The hypotheses were tested by means of a meta-analysis of 76 studies with in total 28,773 respondents. It was found that age is related negatively but marginally to the psychological contract, and that age moderated the relations between psychological contract breach and job attitudes. The relations between contract breach on the one hand and trust and affective commitment on the other hand were stronger for older workers, whereas the relation between contract breach and job satisfaction was stronger among younger workers. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed

IRaPPA: information retrieval based integration of biophysical models for protein assembly selection

Motivation: In order to function, proteins frequently bind to one another and form 3D assemblies. Knowledge of the atomic details of these structures helps our understanding of how proteins work together, how mutations can lead to disease, and facilitates the designing of drugs which prevent or mimic the interaction. Results: Atomic modeling of protein-protein interactions requires the selection of near-native structures from a set of docked poses based on their calculable properties. By considering this as an information retrieval problem, we have adapted methods developed for Internet search ranking and electoral voting into IRaPPA, a pipeline integrating biophysical properties. The approach enhances the identification of near-native structures when applied to four docking methods, resulting in a near-native appearing in the top 10 solutions for up to 50% of complexes benchmarked, and up to 70% in the top 100. Availability and Implementation: IRaPPA has been implemented in the SwarmDock server ( http://bmm.crick.ac.uk/ approximately SwarmDock/ ), pyDock server ( http://life.bsc.es/pid/pydockrescoring/ ) and ZDOCK server ( http://zdock.umassmed.edu/ ), with code available on request. Contact: [email protected]. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online

Effectiveness of medication withdrawal in older fallers: Results from the improving medication prescribing to reduce risk of falls (IMPROveFALL) trial

Objectives: to investigate the effect of withdrawal of fall-risk-increasing-drugs (FRIDs) versus 'care as usual' on reducing falls in community-dwelling older fallers. Design: randomised multicentre trial. Participants: six hundred and twelve older adults who visited an Emergency Department (ED) because of a fall. Interventions: withdrawal of FRIDs. Main Outcomes and Measures: primary outcome was time to the first self-reported fall. Secondary outcomes were time to the second self-reported fall and to falls requiring a general practitioner (GP)-consultation or ED-visit. Intention-to-treat (primary) and a per-protocol (secondary) analysis were conducted. The hazard ratios (HRs) for time-to-fall were calculated using a Cox-regression model. Differences in cumulative incidence of falls were analysed using Poisson regression. Results: during 12 months follow-up, 91 (34%) control and 115 (37%) intervention