bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Au-delà de l’autonomie du patient : l’ « esprit de soin » dans les trajectoires de cancer avancé
Authors: Marche Hélène
Published: May 2015

Dans un contexte de transformation des institutions médicales, la question de la reconnaissance de la subjectivité des patients dans les soins se pose avec acuité. Partant d’une enquête ethnographique réalisée au sein de services destinés à des patients atteints de cancer avancé, l’article vise à montrer les enjeux que cette prise en compte soulève en s’intéressant, d’une part, aux conceptions morales du malade en tant que sujet auxquelles les professionnels recourent dans le travail relationnel et, d’autre part, aux interactions de soins pour lesquelles les conduites des patients et les attentes des soignants divergent. L’attention portée à ces situations et la mobilisation d’études de cas permettent de saisir la diversité des critères retenus par les soignants pour qualifier les « besoins » des malades, au-delà de l’évolution de la maladie ou de la mise en place des traitements. En pointant l’existence d’une hiérarchisation morale et sociale de l’humain dans l’esprit de soin, mais aussi les capacités de négociation ou les résistances déployées par les malades à son encontre, la recherche menée constitue une illustration des tensions et des limites du développement de la démocratie sanitaire.
L’expertise profane dans la prise en charge hospitalière du VIH/SIDA au Cameroun : entre bénévolat et emploi
Authors: Kpoundia Fadimatou Mounsade
Published: May 2015

Les politiques nationales de lutte contre le sida au Cameroun permettent l’intervention du patient VIH+, membre d’association, dans les activités de soins à l’hôpital afin d’assurer l’accompagnement psychosocial des pairs séropositifs. Le statut du patient expert reste peu défini dans l’organisation hospitalière. Cet article analyse l’intervention du patient expert comme accompagnateur psychosocial dans la prise en charge hospitalière du VIH/sida, en relevant les éléments contextuels qui rendent difficile sa reconnaissance dans un corps de métier à part entière. L’article se fonde sur un matériau ethnographique collecté dans 5 régions du Cameroun à l’aide d’observations directes et d’entretiens individuels auprès de 193 acteurs de soins dans 15 hôpitaux et 26 associations de lutte contre le sida.
Investment Strategies for Implementing Cloud Systems in Supply Chains
Authors: Zhang Li Zhong
Published: May 2015

Advances in computing technologies have presented the management of supply chain firms with opportunities to enhance the competitive advantages of their organisations. Some of those opportunities arise from the deployment of modern systems that encompass the three most important components in supply chains management: namely, enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and e-commerce. The current technology available in cloud systems appears to satisfy the needs of supply chain firms for managing resource planning, customer relationship, and e-commerce simultaneously. The main purpose of this chapter is to alert supply chain firms to the risks that they could face if their cloud system implementation is not carefully managed or if not appropriately selected and supported. The proposed investment strategies could assist supply chain firms in ensuring that their cloud system activities are positioned to assist and sustain their competitive advantages.
Business Transformation though Cloud Computing in Sustainable Business
Authors: Jasmine K. S.  , Sudha M.
Published: May 2015

The changing market trends make it mandatory for businesses to constantly innovate and improve while keeping the expenditures at lowest. For any business, irrespective of size, information technology is playing a major role. Cloud computing is emerging as a driving factor for all types of businesses. Although cloud computing is widely recognized as a technology transformer, its potential for driving business innovation is not exploited to the fullest. Cloud computing promises to decrease capital expenditures and offer higher utilization rates on existing hardware. To exploit the cloud computing capability to enable organizations to enhance their revenue streams and improved customer relationships while increasing business agility, organizations need to determine how best to employ cloud enabled business models that promote sustainable competitive advantage, as this chapter discusses. By completely leveraging cloud computing opportunities, organizations can focus on process improvement by driving inefficiencies out of repeatable processes and providing agility to reuse elements of business logic.
Strategies for Evaluating Cloud System Providers during the Transformation of Businesses
Authors: Firdhous Mohamed Fazil Mohamed
Published: May 2015

This chapter takes a comprehensive look at the strategies and mechanisms developed for evaluating cloud services during business transformation. During business transformation, enterprises need to make decisions that would have long lasting impacts on the performance and profitability of the businesses. One of the important decisions business leaders are required to make is whether to own and manage their own IT infrastructure or outsource them from a public cloud provider. Due to the attractiveness of cloud computing, there are many cloud providers in the market creating a confusion in the minds of the customers who to select. Hence it is necessary to use proper strategies and mechanisms to evaluate the performance and the suitability of the service providers in meeting the customer requirements. This chapter takes an in depth look at some of the strategies, frameworks, mechanisms and tools proposed by researchers for evaluating cloud services in the literature with reference to their applicability, suitability, advantages and disadvantages.
Cloud Integration for Effective Delivery of IT Services
Authors: Puri Roma
Published: May 2015

Cloud computing is a state-of-the-art Internet technology being recently adapted by enterprises. The cloud computing models are implemented by business to improve existing practices. With improvement in the standards of the Web and affordability of mobile devises, the customer has accepted the online way of shopping. Cloud computing has been extensively used to deliver e-commerce, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). E-commerce models have undergone considerable changes in order to attract customers online. This chapter showcases the requirement of e-commerce model to integrate cloud computing technology. This chapter puts forward cloud computing applications for E-commerce, CRM and ERP by describing the significant characteristics of the cloud. For enterprises to bring into play cloud based e-commerce, CRM and ERP, certain significant issues need to be handled. These issues are the points of discussion in the chapter. In addition, the chapter introduces big data framework for building efficient e-commerce framework.
Evaluation of Cloud System Success Factors in Supply-Demand Chains
Authors: Soliman Fawzy
Published: May 2015

Cloud systems could help companies to optimize the structure and operation of supply chain and improve organizational performance into a higher level. In this chapter, the advantages and basic operation methods of cloud computing are analyzed, and the essential factors that contribute to the success of the cloud system are evaluated through some business examples. Supply chain firms rely on cloud system to share resources and to achieve integration through the Internet. Cloud systems could transform customer relationship and internal operation to achieve sustainable competitive advantages. Cloud services are providing the ability to share information to the supply chain at any time anywhere. This chapter explores the relationship between supply chain organization and cloud computing. This chapter also discusses the benefits and advantage to evaluate of cloud system in successful factors.
Could Cloud TQM Drive Sustainable Development?
Authors: Happy Anwara
Published: May 2015

This chapter proposes Cloud TQM (Total Quality Management) as a driving force behind sustainable development (SD). The aim of this chapter is to identify how sustainable development could be achieved by effectively integrating TQM philosophy in the organization where Cloud system could be used to help minimize the cost of sustainability. Specifically, this chapter focuses a better way to fill the differences (gap) between customer expectation and supplier perception that are usually identified in respect to delivered goods and service to the customer. The gaps that this chapter is focusing on are quality, cost, and delivery time. However, the essence of Cloud TQM is to focus on all related functions of an organisation in a consistent manner and on a regular basis. To focus on the continuous improvement process, this chapter emphasises the importance of implementing a technique of reducing or minimising such gaps, thereby contributing towards successful operation of firms to drive sustainable development.
Eco-Innovation Practices
Authors: Fernando Yudi , Xin Wah Wen
Published: May 2015

This chapter describes a study which seeks to test whether there is a significant difference between levels of eco-innovation practices on the type of ownership in green technology sector. Malaysian fully owned companies and joint venture companies have no difference in environmental regulatory compliance. Both types of ownership have the knowledge and expertise to ensure companies meet all environmental regulatory mandates. Both types of ownership have not much difference in terms of attainment after successful completion of environmental compliance. As reinforcement, in Malaysia environment law, companies are required to have inspection visits by regulatory. For these reasons environmental inspection is carried out periodically for both types of ownership. The regulation of inspection and monitoring can address wider environment issues.
Sustainable Business Transformation through Ambidextrous Practices
Authors: Bhattacharyya Dipak Kumar
Published: May 2015

This chapter explores how an innovative organization can ensure sustainable development by embracing ambidextrous human resource management (HRM) practices. The chapter at the outset examines the debate on business innovation and business invention, and delineates the role of organization from business invention, which fits well for those who are engaged in fundamental and so also creative research. Thereafter the chapter details the importance of innovation for organizational development for long term organizational sustainability. The next phase of the chapter raises the debate how such sustainable organizational development can be achieved through ambidextrous human resource management (HRM) practices. To validate the arguments, the chapter examines the literatures in the context of one of the largest Central Public Sector Enterprises of India, i.e., Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).
Sustainable Programs
Authors: Yeung Shirley Mo-ching
Published: May 2015

According to the study of Louw (2013, p. 56), UNESCO calls for educational sustainable development in the coming 10 years with the four main goals identified in relation to education, that is, rethinking and revising education from nursery school to university to include a clear focus of current and future societies on the development of knowledge, skills, perspectives and values related to sustainability. In order to fulfill the needs of UNESCO and increase the employability of learners, this chapter focuses on demonstrating the way to link the delivery of a module in an undergraduate programme to develop learners' interest in internet learning with global partnership for developing higher order thinking skills, e.g. problem-solving and solution-seeking skills, and to raise educators' awareness of generating new business via internet-learning.
Design Considerations for a Corporate Cloud Service Catalog
Authors: Stephens R. Todd
Published: May 2015

This chapter will focus on building an end user service cloud catalog which will bridge the gap from the design requirements to the technology delivery organization. Once in the hands of IT, a more traditional service catalog can be used to leverage the service orchestration and delivery components. The author examines designing, building, and reviewing the impact of a more end user focused service catalog. Success will be measured by reviewing the business metrics in order to show the criticality of great design techniques and using familiar models like e-commerce.
Establishing Synergy between Cloud Computing and Colloborative Technology in Medical Informatics
Authors: Rao N. Raghavendra
Published: May 2015

The Health care sector needs information driven service. Information is a major resource which is important to health of individual patient and the success of hospitals. The understanding between medical professionals and software professionals can be a main force behind the design, management and use of health care data and information. Health care information systems need to move from traditional integrated database to knowledge based database. Generally, data in health care sector is available as disperse elements; when it is compiled into a meaningful pattern, then it becomes information. And as information is converted into valid basis for action, then it becomes knowledge. This chapter explains making use of the concepts such as cloud computing, pervasive computing, virtual reality along with the other collaborative technology which will facilitate to create knowledge based health care system.
Virtual Machine Placement Strategy for Cloud Data Center
Authors: Addya Sourav Kanti , Sahoo Bibhudutta , Turuk Ashok Kumar
Published: May 2015

The data center is the physical infrastructure layer in cloud architecture. To run a large data center requires a huge amount of power. A proper strategy can minimize the number of servers used. Minimization of active servers caused minimization of power consumption. But the maximum number of virtual machine placement will be a monetary benefit for cloud service providers. To earn maximum revenue, the CSP is to maximize resource utilization. VM placement is one of the major issues to achieve minimum power consumption as well as to earn maximum revenue by CSP. In this research chapter, we have formulated an optimization problem for initial VM placement in the data center. An iterative heuristic using simulated annealing has been used for VM placement problem. The proposed heuristic has been analysis to be scalable and the coding scheme shows that the proposed technique is outperforming traditional FFD on bin packing technique.
Modeling Retail Chain Expansion and Maturity through Wave Analysis
Authors: Joseph Lawrence , Kuby Michael
Published: May 2015

This article examines retail store deployment through the analysis of waves. Based on concepts originally developed in coastal geomorphology and adapted to medical geography, a theory of retail chain expansion and maturity is presented whereby retailers expand in waves with alternating periods of faster and slower growth. Using a space-time matrix of new store openings, four stages are identified: prospective, deploying, saturation, and revisiting. By analyzing the net change from one period to the next at increasing distances from a retailer's original store, the stages can be represented as swash, backwash, and re-swash waves. Target and Walmart adopted dissimilar strategies, with Walmart diffusing gradually from Arkansas and Target growing from the coasts inward. They were similar, however, in that after expanding into an area they reached a point of saturation and opened fewer stores, then moved on to other areas, only to revisit the earlier areas for new store deployment.
Creating an Interactive Web Map
Authors: Rawlings Lesli M.
Published: May 2015

Service-learning is a form of experiential learning that integrates curriculum objectives to address needs in the community. It also provides students with an opportunity to apply geospatial technology concepts in a real-world setting. This paper describes a service-learning project requiring students to create an interactive Google Map depicting historic buildings and artwork for the City of Wayne, Nebraska. Students create maps by using handheld GPS receivers and editing HTML and JavaScript. The objectives of this project align with several building blocks and critical work functions in the Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GTCM). This model, developed in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Labor, attempts to identify the knowledge and abilities needed in the geospatial industry workforce. In addition the methods, assessment, and challenges for developing and executing this project are described.
A Civic Engagement Graduation Requirement on an Urban College Campus
Authors: Chapman Christopher
Published: May 2015

As civic engagement is an essential part of a democratic society, many college educators believe that it should be encouraged or required of students. The survey reported here gathered information on past and present civic activities from 2,327 students at a large, very diverse urban community college. Results showed strong agreement with the proposition that the college had a responsibility to develop civically engaged students. Principal components analysis of responses revealed four distinct factors: general non-political civic engagement, and low-effort, high-effort, and unconventional political activities. Many students did not regard themselves as civically engaged yet reported extensive activity. More civically engaged students tended to be male, older, and not employed full-time. Ethnicity was related to engagement in complex ways. Students with a service-oriented program of study were expected to report more civic engagement, but evidence for this was minimal. Political party identification was a poor predictor of student responses.
Attitudinal Measures of Political Consumption as a Form of Civic Engagement in a Developing Country
Authors: Adugu Emmanuel , Ampadu-Ameyaw Richard
Published: May 2015

The use of the marketplace as a site for political action with social change motives is referred as political consumption. The phenomenon of political consumption has been widely studied in post-industrialized nations such as the United States of America but less is written about such social change-oriented behaviors in developing countries. This paper aims at determining the attitudinal measures of political consumption in Ghana, a developing nation in West Africa. The study is based on data collected in August 2013 from a total of 356 Ghanaians sampled from higher institutions of learning. Findings suggest that influence over government (political efficacy) is a consistent predictor of the respective attitudinal measures of political consumption. To some extent this pattern of behavior of engagement in political consumption contradicts findings in post-industrialized nations where it is consistently linked to variables such as: socio-demographics, political interest, and trust in institutions.
Women Artisans' Information Needs, Sources and Seeking Behaviour and the Implication for Empowerment in a Semi-Urban Area in Nigeria
Authors: Nwosu M.C. , Igwe K.N. , Emezie N.A.
Published: May 2015

This study examined the information needs, sources, information-seeking behavior of women artisans and the implications for empowerment in Offa, a semi-urban area in Kwara State of Nigeria. Survey research method was adopted with questionnaire as tool for data collection, involving 210 women artisans. Findings revealed that women artisans have information needs related to their work, but with information accessibility challenges due to unavailability of accessible information sources like libraries, as well as absence of empowerment programmes from government. It further revealed that the major sources of information for most women artisans were verbal or face-to-face mode of communications. The paper concludes that women constitute a vital asset of Nigeria and are a resourceful group with a good number practicing artisanship. Therefore, there is need to develop the information consciousness of the women artisans by the provision of efficient, effective and reliable formal information delivery mechanisms to them, such as community information centres.
Gender Inference for Arabic Language in Social Media
Authors: Al-Ghadir Abdul Rahman I. , Alabdullatif Abdullatif , Azmi Aqil M.
Published: May 2015

The widespread usage of social media has attracted a new group of researchers seeking information on who, what and, where the users are. Some of the information retrieval researchers are interested in identifying the gender, age group, and the educational level of the users. The objective of this work is to identify the gender in the Arabic posts in the social media. Most of the works related to gender classification has been for English based content in the social media. Work for other languages, such as Arabic, is almost next to none. Typically people express themselves in the social media using colloquial, so this study is geared towards the identification of genders using the Saudi dialect of the Arabic language. To solve the gender identification problem the authors, a novel method called k-Top Vector (k-TV), which is based on the k-top words based on the words occurrences and the frequency of the stems, was introduced. Part of this work required compiling a dataset of Saudi dialect words. For this, a well-known widely used social site was relied on. To test the system, we compiled 1200 samples equally split between both genders. The authors trained Support Vector Machine (SVM) and k-NN classifiers using different number of samples for training and testing. SVM did a better job and achieved an accuracy of 95% for gender classification.
Semantic Emergence From Social Tagging Systems
Authors: Alruqimi Mohammed , Aknin Noura
Published: May 2015

Recently, Social tagging systems (folksonomies) have become very popular platforms where content is created collaboratively by users. This kind of environments allows users to assign shared resources with freely chosen keywords (tags). Folksonomies provide a valuable addition to the knowledge organization methods since they allow users to choose vocabularies that meet their real tastes and cognition. However, the lacking of standardization and the flat structure of tags in folksonomies pose challenges for folksonomy searching and information retrieval. Several researches have been proposed to overcome these drawbacks. In this paper, the authors present, describe and compare the most relevant approaches to capturing hidden semantics in folksonomies and turning it into ontologies. The authors also present and describe many techniques, tools and online resources that can be useful in working on such systems. Finally, the authors propose an approach to extract ontology from social tagging systems.
Green Supply Chain Management in Chinese Electronic Manufacturing Organisations
Authors: Plant Eoin , Xu Yusen , White Gareth R.T.
Published: May 2015

Green supply chain management and reverse logistics has emerged as a key area of research interest. Recent environmental regulations have also stimulated interest in this field. However, information sharing is a prerequisite to efficient and effective logistics utilisation. Manufacturing organisations in China were argued to be 10-20 years behind their Western counterparts in relation to information sharing in their supply chains (). This barrier needs to be addressed if China is going to maintain and grow its manufacturing position in the world, attempt to address green supply chain issues and their negative externalities. A systematic literature review was undertaken and green supply chain management theoretical framework adopted. The paper explores the perceptions of senior management toward green logistics and information sharing in Chinese electronic manufacturers. Previous research has concentrated on the focal companies (brand owners). This research concentrated on SME organisations further up the supply chain. Semi-structured interviews of eighteen senior managers of electronic manufactures in Jiangsu province China were conducted in 2012. Thematic analysis is applied and the findings contrasted to other research. The paper provides insight to the current status of managers' views on information sharing and green supply chain initiatives. Information platform, skills, investment, and trust emerged as key influences on their willing to engage in information sharing in relation to green supply chains. This research, among others, assists to inform policy for optimal evidence based intervention. Future research directions are also considered.
Antecedents of Customer Satisfaction Affecting Broadband Loyalty
Authors: Lartey Franklin M. , Hargiss Kathleen , Howard Caroline
Published: May 2015

Many customer satisfaction studies in the service industry use SERVQUAL, an instrument developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1998). Similarly, many studies on customer loyalty use the Net Promoter System™ (NPS®) developed by . Even though researchers acknowledge a relationship between satisfaction and loyalty, there is currently no empirical evidence demonstrating such relationship using SERVQUAL and NPS. In that regard, this study analyzed the antecedents of satisfaction measured by SERVQUAL that influence loyalty as measured by NPS in the context of the residential broadband service industry. To that effect, 208 broadband customers in the U.S. Midwest region were surveyed online. A confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the latent structure of collected data, validating the use of the five SERVQUAL factors as predictors. An ordinal logistic regression (OLR) model built on the collected data confirmed the existence of a statistically significant relationship between Empathy (one of the factors) and customer loyalty, suggesting that increasing empathy by one point increased the odds of becoming a promoter by 11.73%. The final model was validated using the Akaike information criterion (AIC), a single sample cross-validation model.
Codes of Ethics, Ethical Behavior, and Organizational Culture from the Managerial Approach
Authors: Villegas Marta , McGivern Michael H.
Published: May 2015

This qualitative case study explored managerial perceptions regarding codes of ethics, ethical behavior, and the relationship of these concepts to organizational culture in a Colombian bank ZOX (pseudonym), in a South-American environment. The data-collection phase contained a purposive sample of ten ZOX senior managers, by including four one-on-one interviews, a focus-group interview, and company documents. The findings include the facts that codes of ethics are mandatory and they demand that the individual has his/her own values; ethical behavior follows general principles and values as ethical guides of duty regardless of the consequences; and the organizational culture is influenced by the leaders' ethical behavior. The findings also serve to trace and describe empirically and theoretically the components of a multi-dimensional approach of an ethical organizational culture. A suggestion for further research might be the testing of this multi-dimensional approach in other settings and going deeper into the relationship among its components.
Countering Cross-Site Scripting in Web-based Applications
Authors: Ray Loye Lynn
Published: May 2015

Today's dynamic web-based applications have become a normal and critical asset to an organizations business. They come with an increase in the number of web vulnerabilities and attacks. These weaknesses allow hackers to focus their attention on attacking this important information source. The most common vulnerability is cross-site scripting (XSS) and one of the Open Web Application Security project (OWASP) top ten web-threats. XSS occurs when a Web-based application allows untrusted information be accepted and sent back to a browser. Also they can execute scripts within a browser that can deface web sites, redirect users to malicious content and hijack browsers. One reason for this problem was the lack of developers understanding the causes of XSS. In this paper, the authors address the causes of XSS and countermeasures to defense against these threats.
T5
Authors: Ahamer Gilbert
Published: May 2015

This article provides a technology-based quantitative tool for the sharing of hypotheses, scenarios, political applications, and didactic strategies related to planning, developing, managing, using and evaluating technological targets towards climate protection and global sustainability in academia, administration, education and policy consulting. This article illustrates a problem-based educational technique and dialogic use of technology in education. The approach is to produce an improved scientific basis for the implementation of climate protection targets by assessing trends of energy-related CO2 emissions for each country. The complete logical chain of cause and effect “socio-economic driving forces => CO2 emissions => CO2 concentration => global carbon cycle => resulting climate change => necessary measures to be taken” is used as an educational basis for advocating the global necessity and potential technological feasibility of CO2 reduction. Global structural transitions can make use of intrinsic saturation effects detected by the proposed educational tool. By technologically oriented university classes, a set of CO2 abatement measures can be identified and assessed by the analysis of intrinsic societal, economic, energy-related and technological trends and the systemic transitions proposed by such analysis. In educational and technological practice, students can undertake a detailed analysis of the energy system of any country by means of a dynamics-as-usual case as baseline for measures and a historical long-term trend analysis of the structural change in socio-economic and energy parameters.
What 21st Century Students Want
Authors: Leach Lesley F. , Winn Pam , Erwin Susan , Benedict Liza P.
Published: May 2015

Enrollment numbers in graduate Educational Leadership programs are dwindling in many public higher education institutions across the United States. At the same time, for-profit institutions and institutions with private marketing partnerships have experienced increasingly greater enrollments. In this article, the authors present survey results of graduate students in Educational Leadership programs (N=100) to determine the factors that motivate students to select a particular graduate Educational Leadership program. Results suggest that Master's and doctoral-level students primarily select an Educational Leadership program based on the course delivery methods (with hybrid courses most preferred) and the convenience that the program offers in terms of scheduling and location.
Micro-Credentials, Nano Degrees, and Digital Badges
Authors: Lemoine Pamela A. , Richardson Michael D.
Published: May 2015

Digital technologies offer myriad access to learning; entree to education is still a necessity for economic success, with access increasingly promoted to those wishing access to furthering their skills (; Pascarella & Terezini, 2005; ). As new technologies and traditional education paradigms have collided, credentialing paradigms have also needed review (; European Association for International Education (EAIA), 2012, 2015; ). Traditionally, academic credentials and professional certifications were awarded as students emerged from education and vocational/technical programs (Ledesma, 2012). By 2015, global higher education institutions were considering validation of knowledge from online learning coursework in one single common, broad-based credentialing platform (EAIA, 2012, 2015). Accreditation for online learning or Massive Open Online Coursework provides challenges for universities to accept and acknowledge learning as credited coursework; awarding credit for different types of educational coursework disrupts higher education's traditional, formal educational processes for financial and educational accountability (; ; ). The challenge for post-secondary institutions is to look at online learning opportunities through a lens of reform and innovation and equally, as an opportunity to increase higher education participation. (; ).
Food niche segregation among co-occurring endemic fish species in Sri Lanka
Authors: Shirantha R.R.A.R. , Wijeyaratne M.J.S. , Amarasinghe U.S.
Published: May 2015

The food and feeding habits of six endemic freshwater fish species namely, Belontia signata, Rasbora vaterifloris, Puntius cumingii, Puntius nigrofasciatus, Puntius titteya and Garra ceylonensis inhabiting the streams of the Kalu and Kelani river basins in Sri Lanka were studied from October 1998 to September 2000 with the objective of quantifying the food niche overlap and evaluating the degree of competition for food resources among them. All fish species studied except R. vaterifloris were found to be omnivorous, feeding on different varieties of food items. R. vaterifloris was found to be strictly carnivorous. P. titteya and B. signata were highly selective for diatoms, aquatic insects and rotifers while P. cumingii, although highly selective for diatoms, was non-selective for aquatic insects and filamentous algae. P. nigrofasciatus was selective for diatoms, aquatic macrophytes and non-selective for green algae. R. vateriflons and G. ceylonensis were selective for aquatic insects and crustaceans and non­selective for diatoms, rotifers and detritus.P. nigrofasciatus showed a moderate dietary overlap with P. cumingii and a low dietary overlap with other co-occurring species. R. vaterifloris showed moderate dietary overlap with G. ceylonensis and a low dietary overlap with other co-occurring species. A moderate dietary overlap was observed among B. signata, P. cumingii, P. titteya and G. ceylonensis. The results indicated that there is very little or no interspecific competition among these species due to low or moderate dietary overlap and different degree of selectivity for different food items, which has enabled them to co-exist.
Population dynamics of Indian mackerel Rastrelliger kanagurta in northwestern coastal waters of Sri Lanka
Authors: Fernando P.A.T.
Published: May 2015

The population dynamics of Rastrelliger kanagurta from the northwestern coastal waters of Sri Lanka were studied based on the length frequency data collected from October 1993 to September 1994. The resource is mainly exploited by gillnets and beach seines. The length frequency distributions ofRastreIliger kanagurta for the two gear types were similar with two prominent peaks at 13.5-15.5 cm and 20.524.5 cm (total length) length ranges. In addition, smaller individuals with total lengths varying from 7.5-10.5 cm were also observed among the beach seine catches.Population parameters were estimated using the FiSAT software package. The asymptotic length, growth constant and the growth performance index were estimated to be 28.0 cm (total length), 1.5 year -1 and 3.07 respectively. The estimated value for the natural mortality coefficient using the Pauly's empirical formula was 2.37 year-1. The fishing mortality coefficient for the combined fishery was estimated at 2.62 year-1 while the estimated values for the total mortality coefficient and the exploitation rates were 4.99 year-1 and 0.53 respectively. The recruitment was continuous with two peaks per year.The length based Thompson and Bell model was used in the bio­economic prediction. Of the possible scenarios, increasing the gillnet effort while maintaining that of the beach seines at the present level appeared to be the most realistic in accordance with the existing social and legal framework. The maximum sustainable yield and maximum sustainable economic yield for the combined fishery were estimated at 207 MT and 200 MT respectively. As the corresponding effort levels were 3 and 1.6 times the present effort, it is reasonable to conclude that the stocks are not over­exploited at present.
Comparative ecology of conifer-feeding spruce budworms (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)
Authors: Nealis V.G.
Published: May 2015

The comparative ecology of conifer-feeding budworms in the genusChoristoneuraLederer (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) in Canada is reviewed with emphasis on publications since 1980. Systematics and life history are updated and historical outbreak patterns and their current interpretation summarised. Recent evidence is analysed in the context of ecological interactions among three trophic levels; host plant, budworm herbivore, and natural enemies. The influence of weather and climate are viewed as modulating factors. The population behaviour of budworms is interpreted as the result of tri-trophic interactions that vary at different scales. The result of these multi-scale interactions is that despite shared phylogenetic constraints and common adaptations, different budworm species display different population behaviour because of specific ecological relationships with their respective hosts and natural enemies.
Cutting Edge: Developmental Regulation of IFN-γ Production by Mouse Neutrophil Precursor Cells
Authors: Sturge Carolyn R. , Burger Elise , Raetz Megan , Hooper Lora V. , Yarovinsky Felix
Published: May 2015

Neutrophils are an emerging cellular source of IFN-γ, a key cytokine that mediates host defense to intracellular pathogens. Production of IFN-γ by neutrophils, in contrast to lymphoid cells, is TLR- and IL-12–independent and the events associated with IFN-γ production by neutrophils are not understood. In this study, we show that mouse neutrophils express IFN-γ during their lineage development in the bone marrow niche at the promyelocyte stage independently of microbes. IFN-γ accumulates in primary neutrophilic granules and is released upon induction of degranulation. The developmental mechanism of IFN-γ production in neutrophils arms the innate immune cells prior to infection and assures the potential for rapid release of IFN-γ upon neutrophil activation, the first step during responses to many microbial infections.
Two new subspecies of Dietes (Iridaceae: Iridoideae), Dietes iridioides subsp. angolensis from Angola and Dietes bicolor subsp. armeniaca from eastern South Africa, with notes and range extensions for Dietes butcheriana and Dietes iridioides
Authors: Goldblatt Peter , Manning John C.
Published: May 2015

Background: Recent collections of Dietes have extended the known geographical range and morphological variation in several species.Objectives: To describe additional taxa in Dietes to reflect the morphological and geographical variation in the species more accurately and to record significant range extensions. Method: Recent collections were compared with existing herbarium material and published literature.Results: Two new subspecies in Dietes are described, viz. Dietes iridioides subsp. angolensis from Angola, constituting the first record of the species from that country, and Dietes bicolor subsp. armeniaca from eastern South Africa, which represents a range extension into southern KwaZulu-Natal. We also document a range extension for the local endemic Dietes butcheriana from KwaZulu-Natal into the Eastern Cape and discuss an anomalous population of D. iridioides, with long-lived flowers, from near Hankey in the Eastern Cape.Conclusions: The range extensions and new infraspecific taxa increase our understanding of the diversity of Dietes in southern and south tropical Africa.
Strategies for reducing visual impairment and blindness in rural and remote areas of Africa
Authors: Oduntan Olalekan O. , Mashige Khathutshelo P. , Hansraj Rekha , Ovenseri-Ogbomo Godwin
Published: May 2015

The prevalence of visual impairment (VI) and blindness in Africa is one of the highest in the world; a large proportion of the causes are preventable. The prevalence is particularly high in rural and remote areas, where many of the continent’s inhabitants live. This is of great concern because of the low number and poor distribution of primary eye care practitioners, as well as poor eye care infrastructure services in those areas. Uncorrected refractive errors are a major cause of avoidable VI and blindness, and optometrists play a major role in refractive error correction on the continent. However, as with other healthcare providers in Africa, optometrists are few and tend to be mainly in major cities. This paper highlights possible strategies, in alignment with the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, that can reduce VI in rural and remote areas of the continent. The strategies include increasing the eye care workforce, attracting them to rural areas and retaining them there, improving the eye care infrastructure, service improvement such as equitable distribution of eye care practitioners, implementing preventive measures such as vision screening and affordable spectacles, and eye health education such as eye health promotions, school health programmes and eye care awareness campaigns. Such strategies could drastically reduce the prevalence of VI and blindness in rural and remote areas of Africa.
Adherence to antiretroviral treatment by adults in a rural area of Botswana
Authors: Ehlers Valerie J. , Tshisuyi Emmanuel T.
Published: May 2015

Background: As antiretroviral therapy (ART) is becoming increasingly available to people in developing countries, ART adherence challenges assume ever greater significance. Often underlying treatment failure is the fact that suboptimal adherence to ART is the strongest predictor of failure to achieve viral suppression below the level of detection.Objectives: The study’s main objective was to identify factors affecting ART adherence levels, as well as the impact on immunologic and virologic responses in adult patients in one rural district in Botswana.Methods: A cross-sectional quantitative survey, was used. Structured interviews were conducted with 300 ART patients between November 2011 and February 2012. Data were analysed, then presented in charts, graphs and frequency tables.Results: The prevalence of non-adherence to ART was 14.0%. Motivators of good adherence included disclosure of HIV-positive status to more than one person, frequent adherence counselling, self-efficacy for adherence to ART, positive interactions between patients and healthcare providers; and using adherence partners. Barriers to adherence were forgetfulness, transportation costs to and from the clinic, time away from work and side-effects. There was a strong positive correlation between adherence, CD4 counts and viral load. Adherence was closely tied to immunologic and virologic improvements. Respondents with poor adherence were likely to have unsuppressed viral loads (OR 12.98, 95% CI 4.9–34).Conclusion: Adherence to ART is closely tied to virologic, immunologic, and clinical outcomes. Increases in adherence levels resulted in significant improvements in these outcomes. Near perfect adherence, however, is required to maximise the likelihood of long-term clinical success, which could pose challenges to many ART patients, especially in resource-limitedrural settings.
Sending a boy to do a man’s job: Hegemonic masculinity and the ‘boy’ Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas
Authors: Stewart Eric
Published: May 2015

SStudies of masculinity have shown that masculinity is a socially acknowledged gender status. Rather than automatically attaining such a status simply through physical maturation, boys must ‘earn’ such status by matching the social conventions associated with masculinity. Boys earn such status through ‘doing gender’, that is, acting in ways that are assessed by others as meeting gendered norms. Failure to meet these norms can result in suggestions that boys are unmanly. For elite Romans, masculinity was attained through the domination of others, including spouse, children and enemies. Though Jesus is presented as a child in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, his actions lend themselves to interpretation in terms of expectations for elite Roman males. In this text, Jesus is described as behaving in ways normally associated with hegemonic masculinity in the Roman world. He is able to defeat opponents in violent ways through the power of his word, he is able to teach his teachers, and he is able to provide for his family. Throughout the text, Jesus is described more in terms of an adult male than a child.
The occurrence of Culicoides species, the vectors of arboviruses, at selected trap sites in Zimbabwe
Authors: Gordon Stuart J.G. , Bolwell Charlotte , Rogers Chris , Musuka Godfrey , Kelly Patrick , Labuschagne Karien , Guthrie Alan J. , Denison Eric , Mellor Philip S. , Hamblin Chris
Published: May 2015

A study of the distribution of Culicoides species was conducted by establishing 12 light trap sites over five rainy seasons between 1998 and 2003 covering all the geo-climatic natural regions of Zimbabwe. In total, 279 919 specimens of Culicoides were trapped over a total of 163 trapping nights. The highest median counts of Culicoides per trapping night were recorded in natural region III, which has climatic conditions conducive to the successful development of the larvae. Culicoides imicola, the major vector of bluetongue and African horse sickness viruses in Africa, was found to be the most abundant species (80.4%), followed by Culicoides enderleini (5.9%) and Culicoides milnei (5.2%). This study identified 10 species of Culicoides that had not been previously described in Zimbabwe, including Culicoides loxodontis and Culicoides miombo, which are members of the C. imicola complex. A total of 23 994 Culicoides midges were collected from five trap sites in Harare, Zimbabwe, with the dominant species, C. imicola, representing 91.6% of the total collection. Seventeen arboviruses were isolated from these midges, 15 of which were bluetongue virus. The predominant bluetongue virus serotype was serotype 11, followed by serotypes 1, 8, 12 and 15. Bluetongue virus serotypes 1, 2, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16 and 18, detected in this study, had not been previously reported in Zimbabwe.
Development and validation of the gambling problems scale
Authors: Arterberry Brooke J. , Martens Matthew P. , Takamatsu Stephanie K.
Published: May 2015

The purpose of the present study was to examine the initial psychometric properties of the Gambling Problems Scale (GPS), developed for the college student population. Participants were college students recruited for an ongoing larger clinical trial from a Midwestern university who reported gambling in the past 60 days and who were experiencing gambling-related problems, scoring +3 on the South Oaks Gambling Screen or +1 on the Brief Biopsychosocial Gambling Index (N = 334). Factor analyses and reliability analyses were conducted to examine the validity of score interpretation and the reliability of scores for the measure. Results suggested a 16-item unidimensional measure provided the best parsimony and theoretical fit. Examination of concurrent and incremental validity of scores provided additional support for the psychometric properties of the GPS. The GPS may be a useful tool for researchers and clinicians interested in examining gambling-related problems among college students and other young adults.