Introduction: The Life and Legacies of Kenneth Kaunda in Southern Africa

Zambia’s first President, Kenneth Kaunda (known widely as KK), passed away on 17 June 2021 at the age of 97. This marked the end of an era for many, and not only in Zambia. Kaunda belonged to the last of a generation of African leaders who fought for independence from colonial rule and had his own brand of political and economic philosophies (Cheeseman and Sishuwa, 2021). Given the momentous occasion of the passing of one of Africa’s biggest icons, as editors we felt it was timely to organise a conference dedicated to Kaunda and his legacy, which took place in Lusaka in November 2021. This special issue features papers presented at this conference

Common genetic variants in the CLDN2 and PRSS1-PRSS2 loci alter risk for alcohol-related and sporadic pancreatitis

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR, and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two significant genome-wide associations identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 (1×10-12) and x-linked CLDN2 (p < 1×10-21) through a two-stage genome-wide study (Stage 1, 676 cases and 4507 controls; Stage 2, 910 cases and 4170 controls). The PRSS1 variant affects susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous (or hemizygous male) CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men – male hemizygous frequency is 0.26, female homozygote is 0.07

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Introduction: The Life and Legacies of Kenneth Kaunda in Southern Africa

Zambia’s first President, Kenneth Kaunda (known widely as KK), passed away on 17 June 2021 at the age of 97. This marked the end of an era for many, and not only in Zambia. Kaunda belonged to the last of a generation of African leaders who fought for independence from colonial rule and had his own brand of political and economic philosophies (Cheeseman and Sishuwa, 2021). Given the momentous occasion of the passing of one of Africa’s biggest icons, as editors we felt it was timely to organise a conference dedicated to Kaunda and his legacy, which took place in Lusaka in November 2021. This special issue features papers presented at this conference

Design jam as a pedagogy: teaching design thinking to computer science students at scale

Design thinking is an integral component of HCI education. Yet the scale of undergraduate class sizes and limited teaching resources makes the incorporation of traditional studio-based learning challenging. This paper details our deployment of the Design Jam (DJ); a single-day pedagogical exercise for introducing design thinking to two undergraduate classes of >175 computer science undergraduates. Based on thematic analysis of 77 reflective essays and an online survey, we find evidence that the DJ helped to legitimise the design thinking process, engaged students with designerly activities and fostered transferable skills which were later applied to coursework. Yet difficulties emerged with peer learning between DJ attendees and non-attendees. The paper offers suggestions to prospective DJ facilitators for how the DJ may be leveraged as a means of legitimising design thinking and motivating student engagement and learning among non-designers. Further, how these benefits may be achieved at the scale of modern computer science cohorts and declining instructor/student ratio

The Essentials of Business Research Methods, 3rd Edition

Increasingly, managers must make decisions based on almost unlimited information. How can they navigate and organize this vast amount of data? Essentials of Business Research Methods provides research techniques for people who aren\u27t data analysts. The authors offer a straightforward, hands-on approach to the vital managerial process of gathering and using data to make clear business decisions. They include critical topics, such as the increasing role of online research, ethical issues, data mining, customer relationship management, and how to conduct information-gathering activities more effectively in a rapidly changing business environment. This is the only text that includes a chapter on qualitative data analysis, and the coverage of quantitative data analysis is more extensive, and much easier to understand than in other texts. The book features a realistic continuing case throughout that enables students to see how business research information is used in the real world. It includes applied research examples in all chapters, as well as ethical dilemma mini cases, and exercises.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/facbooks2016/1001/thumbnail.jp

The Essentials of Business Research Methods

Increasingly, managers must make decisions based on almost unlimited information. How can they navigate and organize this vast amount of data? Essentials of Business Research Methods provides research techniques for people who aren\u27t data analysts. The authors offer a straightforward, hands-on approach to the vital managerial process of gathering and using data to make clear business decisions. They include critical topics, such as the increasing role of online research, ethical issues, data mining, customer relationship management, and how to conduct information-gathering activities more effectively in a rapidly changing business environment. This is the only text that includes a chapter on qualitative data analysis, and the coverage of quantitative data analysis is more extensive, and much easier to understand than in other texts. The book features a realistic continuing case throughout that enables students to see how business research information is used in the real world. It includes applied research examples in all chapters, as well as ethical dilemma mini cases, and exercises.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/facbooks2015/1006/thumbnail.jp

International marketing

xxxii, 682 pages : illustrations (colour), maps (colour) ; 28 cm