In Being Interdisciplinary , Alan Wilson draws on five
decades as a leading figure in urban science to set out a systems
approach to interdisciplinarity for those conducting research in
this and ...other fields. He argues that most research is
interdisciplinary at base, and that a systems perspective is
particularly appropriate for collaboration because it fosters an
outlook that sees beyond disciplines. There is a more subtle
thread, too. A systems approach enables researchers to identify the
game-changers of the past as a basis for thinking outside
convention, for learning how to do something new and how to be
ambitious, in a nutshell how to be creative. Ultimately, the ideas
presented address how to do research.
Building on this systems focus, the book first establishes the
basics of interdisciplinarity. Then, by drawing on the author's
experience of doing interdisciplinary research, and working from
his personal toolkit, it offers general principles and a framework
from which researchers can build their own interdisciplinary
toolkit, with elements ranging from explorations of game-changers
in research to superconcepts. In the last section, the book tackles
questions of managing and organising research from individual to
institutional scales.
Alan Wilson deploys his wide experience - researcher in urban
science, university professor and vice-chancellor, civil servant
and institute director - to build the narrative. While his
experience in urban science provides the illustrations, the
principles apply across many research fields.
Much work has been done in recent years to determine the vector competence of Aedes albopictus (Skuse) for Zika virus (ZIKV). If competent, Ae. albopictus could become an important vector in the ...spread of ZIKV to areas which until now have been considered safe from the virus. Despite much speculation about Ae. albopictus' competence for ZIKV, there have been, to date, no quantitative syntheses of Ae. albopictus' competence, nor have the potentially confounding differences between studies been addressed.
This study represents a quantitative meta-analysis of the literature surrounding this topic by examining infection rates (IR) and transmission rates (TR) among sample populations of Ae. albopictus at 7 and 14 days post infection (dpi) across 15 journal articles comprising 23 studies. Our analyses examined potentially confounding variables in the studies contained therein, including: geographic origin of viral strain or mosquito population tested, whether sympatry of the tested viral strain and mosquito population was important, and freshness of blood meal. Our results suggest 1) Ae albopictus is a competent vector for ZIKV and 2) that origin of Ae. albopictus population and origin of viral strain had significant effects on the competence of Ae. albopictus to transmit ZIKV.
These results indicate a need to further explore the effects of methodology on vector competence studies and to examine in more detail the geographic variation in the competence of Ae. albopictus for ZIKV as well as the underlying causes of said variation. The ability of Ae. albopictus to carry and transmit ZIKV also points to a need to create new vector control strategies in case of a ZIKV outbreak in an area where Ae. albopictus is prominent. Finally, this study represents a potential template for future meta-analyses in the field of vector competence, where this type of study has been under-utilized despite the abundance of relevant studies.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
It is shown that Boltzmann's methods from statistical physics can be applied to a much wider range of systems, and in a variety of disciplines, than has been commonly recognized. A similar argument ...can be applied to the ecological models of Lotka and Volterra. Furthermore, it is shown that the two methodologies can be applied in combination to generate the Boltzmann, Lotka and Volterra (BLV) models. These techniques enable both spatial interaction and spatial structural evolution to be modelled, and it is argued that they potentially provide a much richer modelling methodology than that currently used in the analysis of 'scale-free' networks.
This paper examines the customer experience in relation to retailers' m-commerce mobile applications. The research aims to understand the variables capable of influencing the customer experience ...during use of retailers' m-commerce mobile applications, resulting in the development of a Mobile Application Customer Experience Model (MACE). Through the use of structural equation modelling on a sample of 1024 consumers, the findings of the research highlight the importance of utilitarian factors in driving an effective customer experience. In contrast to the e-commerce environment with regard to flow theory, this research highlights that customers are conscious of the length of time spent completing an activity on an m-commerce mobile application, thus should customers perceive to spend longer than necessary using the application, it will result in a negative customer experience. Additionally, the findings illustrate that gender and smartphone screen-size play a moderating role on the customer experience. The findings provide key managerial implications for retailers on how to provide an excellent customer experience through mobile applications as a service delivery channel.
IMPORTANCE: The neuroinflammatory hypothesis of major depressive disorder is supported by several main findings. First, in humans and animals, activation of the immune system causes sickness ...behaviors that present during a major depressive episode (MDE), such as low mood, anhedonia, anorexia, and weight loss. Second, peripheral markers of inflammation are frequently reported in major depressive disorder. Third, neuroinflammatory illnesses are associated with high rates of MDEs. However, a fundamental limitation of the neuroinflammatory hypothesis is a paucity of evidence of brain inflammation during MDE. Translocator protein density measured by distribution volume (TSPO VT) is increased in activated microglia, an important aspect of neuroinflammation. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether TSPO VT is elevated in the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and insula in patients with MDE secondary to major depressive disorder. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Case-control study in a tertiary care psychiatric hospital from May 1, 2010, through February 1, 2014. Twenty patients with MDE secondary to major depressive disorder and 20 healthy control participants underwent positron emission tomography with fluorine F 18–labeled N-(2-(2-fluoroethoxy)benzyl)-N-(4-phenoxypyridin-3-yl)acetamide (18FFEPPA). Patients with MDE were medication free for at least 6 weeks. All participants were otherwise healthy and nonsmokers. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Values of TSPO VT in the prefrontal cortex, ACC, and insula. RESULTS: In MDE, TSPO VT was significantly elevated in all brain regions examined (multivariate analysis of variance, F15,23 = 4.5 P = .001). The magnitude of TSPO VT elevation was 26% in the prefrontal cortex (mean SD TSPO VT, 12.5 3.6 in patients with MDE and 10.0 2.4 in controls), 32% in the ACC (mean SD TSPO VT, 12.3 3.5 in patients with MDE and 9.3 2.2 in controls), and 33% in the insula (mean SD TSPO VT, 12.9 3.7 in patients with MDE and 9.7 2.3 in controls). In MDE, greater TSPO VT in the ACC correlated with greater depression severity (r = 0.63 P = .005). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: This finding provides the most compelling evidence to date of brain inflammation, and more specifically microglial activation, in MDE. This finding is important for improving treatment because it implies that therapeutics that reduce microglial activation should be promising for MDE. The correlation between higher ACC TSPO VT and the severity of MDE is consistent with the concept that neuroinflammation in specific regions may contribute to sickness behaviors that overlap with the symptoms of MDE.
Purpose - This study seeks to focus on front-line service employees and their views of internal branding and the extent to which personal and job-specific factors impact on the success of internal ...branding in the reinforcement of brand identification and brand loyalty among service employees.Design methodology approach - The research, based on a multiple case study representing the hotel industry in Thailand, involved the completion of 30 in-depth qualitative interviews with customer-interface employees followed by a quantitative survey with 680 customer-interface employees located in five major hotels.Findings - Corporate service brands need to coordinate internal branding activity to enhance their employees' identification with, commitment to, and loyalty to, the brand. The relationships between the concepts of identification, commitment and loyalty of employees are determined. Personal variables such as age, education, and length of service as well as situational factors regarding their work environment are found to have moderating effects on the effectiveness of the internal branding process.Practical implications - The paper highlights the importance of internal branding on employees' brand identification, commitment and loyalty. However, management should also be aware that the impact of internal branding would not be constant across all employees within an organisation. Personal variables such as age, educational background, and length of service with the brand should also be taken into account. The impact of internal branding on an employee's attitudes and behaviour are heightened when employees are satisfied with their workplace. As such, internal branding cannot be looked at in isolation and is unlikely to be successful if the work environment is not conducive to the employees and the brand values.Originality value - Much of the work on internal branding is conceptual and based on small-scale studies undertaken with management or consultants. This paper provides empirical evidence from the front-line service employees' perspective on the relationships between internal branding and brand identification, brand commitment, brand loyalty and brand performance. It also provides an empirical investigation of potential moderators for internal branding.
The healthcare sector has undergone a number of transformations in recent years, partly due to recent advances in technology. This triggered our study to examine patients' desire to seek health ...information largely driven by increased access via the Internet and the cumulative impacts on value co-creation. We employed a sequential exploratory design involving a phenomenological approach in the qualitative phase, followed by a quantitative survey design to further our understanding of the influence of technology in co-creating value in healthcare at the micro level. Advances in technology have empowered patients to be informed, which enabled them to play an active role in clinical encounters with the doctor. The findings suggest pre-encounter information search impacts positively on improved service engagement and commitment to compliance with medical instructions. It does this by shaping the nature of interactions; enhancing provider-patient orientation; and increasing their involvement in a shared decision-making process. From a theoretical perspective, our study integrates multiple research perspectives (e.g., access to information, online information seeking and knowledge creation, healthcare consultation models, etc.) and extends research on patient integration, participation, and co-creation of value. The conceptualization of value co-creation activities in this study suggests a need for service providers to adopt delivery approaches that would effectively integrate patient resources to co-create value.
•Pre-encounter health information search impacts positively on service engagement•Online health resources usage improves consultations leading to value cocreation•Effective integration of resources impacts on outcomes and value co-creation•Enhanced provider-patient orientation does not improve patient compliance
The idea that moral virtues form some sort of “unity” has received considerable attention from virtue theorists. In this paper, I argue that the possibility of unity among intellectual virtues has ...been wrongly overlooked. My approach has two main components. First, I work to distinguish the variety of different views that are available under the description of a unity thesis. I suggest that these views can be categorised depending on whether they are versions of
standard unity
or of
strong unity
.
Standard unity
claims that the possession of one virtue implies possession of all the others.
Strong unity
claims that the virtues are, in some sense, all the same thing. By exploring what these different versions of unity would look like when applied to intellectual virtues, I aim to provide a menu of options for future work in virtue epistemology. I then develop and defend one of these options in more detail, arguing that the initially less plausible
strong unity
has merit when applied to the intellectual sphere. In these two ways, I aim to show that the possibility of unity among the intellectual virtues is deserving of serious consideration.
IMPORTANCE: For a small percentage of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) cases exhibiting additional neuropsychiatric symptoms, it was proposed that neuroinflammation occurs in the basal ganglia as ...an autoimmune response to infections. However, it is possible that elevated neuroinflammation, inducible by a diverse range of mechanisms, is important throughout the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuit of OCD. Identifying brain inflammation is possible with the recent advance in positron emission tomography (PET) radioligands that bind to the translocator protein (TSPO). Translocator protein density increases when microglia are activated during neuroinflammation and the TSPO distribution volume (VT) is an index of TSPO density. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether TSPO VT is elevated in the dorsal caudate, orbitofrontal cortex, thalamus, ventral striatum, dorsal putamen, and anterior cingulate cortex in OCD. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This case-control study was conducted at a tertiary care psychiatric hospital from May 1, 2010, to November 30, 2016. Participants with OCD (n = 20) and age-matched healthy control individuals (n = 20) underwent a fluorine F 18–labeled N-(2-(2-fluoroethoxy)benzyl)-N-(4-phenoxypyridin-3-yl)acetamide PET scan. It is a high-quality second-generation TSPO-binding PET radiotracer. All participants were drug and medication free, nonsmoking, and otherwise healthy. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The TSPO VT was measured in the dorsal caudate, orbitofrontal cortex, thalamus, ventral striatum, dorsal putamen, and anterior cingulate cortex. Compulsions were assessed with the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale. RESULTS: In the OCD and healthy groups, the mean (SD) ages were 27.4 (7.1) years and 27.6 (6.6) years, respectively, and 11 (55%) and 8 (40%) were women, respectively. In OCD, TSPO VT was significantly elevated in these brain regions (mean, 32%; range, 31%-36% except anterior cingulate cortex, 24%; analysis of variance, effect of diagnosis: P < .001 to P = .004). Slightly lower elevations in TSPO VT (22%-29%) were present in other gray matter regions. The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale measure of distress associated with preventing compulsive behaviors significantly correlated with TSPO VT in the orbitofrontal cortex (uncorrected Pearson correlation r = 0.62; P = .005). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: To our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating inflammation within the neurocircuitry of OCD. The regional distribution of elevated TSPO VT argues that the autoimmune/neuroinflammatory theories of OCD should extend beyond the basal ganglia to include the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuit. Immunomodulatory therapies should be investigated in adult OCD, rather than solely childhood OCD, particularly in cases with prominent distress when preventing compulsions.
Phosphorus (P) over-loading is often a central topic due to its linkage to harmful algal blooms (HABs) and its importance in wastewater treatment that has fueled immediate remediation attempts to ...reduce P loading from point (e.g., wastewater) and nonpoint sources (e.g., fertilizers). Conventional remediation techniques (e.g., filtration) are often expensive, ineffective, and difficult to implement at large scales. The flue gas desulfurization (FGD) gypsum produced as an energy plant waste byproduct has recently been advocated as a physiochemical remediation strategy for P through sorptive removal. However, limited research is available on the practical applications of FGD gypsum for P removal from water. Herein, batch sorption experiments were performed to investigate the sorptive removal efficiency of P by FGD gypsum under environmentally relevant P concentrations (0.01–0.25 mM). In parallel, fixed-bed column experiments packed with FGD gypsum were performed using elevated P concentrations (0.1–1.0 mM) to understand the scalability of FGD gypsum for large-scale practical applications. During batch experiments, P sorption equilibrium was reached within 24 h that includes an initially fast step (via boundary layer diffusion), followed by a slow rate-determining step (via intraparticle diffusion). P sorption kinetics followed the pseudo second-order kinetics, indicating chemisorption. P sorption at equilibrium can be simulated by both the Freundlich and Langmuir sorption isotherms. The Langmuir sorption isotherm yielded a maximum sorption capacity (Qmax) of 36.1 mM kg−1. The fixed-bed column experimental results showed that sorption rate depends on the applied flow rate, irrespective of the tested P concentrations. Our findings can be extrapolated to evaluate the feasibility and scalability of FGD gypsum in removing P to counteract P runoff and mitigate HABs and P-loaded wastewater.
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•FGD gypsum was used to sorb P in batch and flow-through packed column experiments.•Models were successfully used to simulate P sorption kinetics, isotherms, and transport.•FGD gypsum showed good capacity in sorbing P from batch and column experiments.•FGD gypsum shows the potential to remove P from different waters at large scales.
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