bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
CD3 and CD8 Deficiencies
Authors: Regueiro JosÉ R , Espanol Teresa
Published: November 2023

Mature T cells detect the presence of antigens by way of a variable surface heterodimer (either α β or γ δ) termed the T cell receptor (TCR) (Fig. 16.1). TCR molecules require association with a group of invariant proteins collectively called CD3 and organized as dimers (Call et al., 2002). Since the first description of the T cell antigen receptor complex (TCR/CD3) in 1981, at least four different CD3 proteins have been reported: CD3γ, δ, ε and ζ CD3 proteins participate in TCR/CD3 assembly and surface expression. They also aid in the delivery of intracellular signals that drive T cell maturation or apoptosis in the thymus (see Chapter 4), and T cell activation, proliferation, and effector function or anergy/apoptosis after antigen recognition (see Chapter 6; Malissen et al., 1999). During early T cell development, some CD3 chains may act alone or assist immature TCR ensembles, such as those containing pre-TCR chains. CD3 chains lack intrinsic enzymatic activity for signal transduction. Rather, they rely on phosphorylation–dependent recruitment and activation of a number of cytosolic and transmembrane protein tyrosine kinases (PTK) and adaptors such as ZAP-70, Fyn, Lck, TRIM, LAT, SLP-76, and SIT (Schraven et al., 1999). Most α β TCR-bearing T cells recognize processed peptides associated with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. This interaction is facilitated by the T cell coreceptor proteins CD4 and CD8, which show considerable affinity for the MHC but not peptide moiety. Coreceptor association thus increases the stability of TCR–MHC interactions extracellularly and recruits the crucial PTK Lck intracellularly through a conserved binding motif within its cytoplasmic tail, resulting in rapid T cell activation.
Autosomal Hyper-IgM Syndromes Caused by an Intrinsic B Cell Defect
Authors: Durandy Anne , Revy Patrick , Fischer Alain
Published: November 2023

The study of inherited hyper-IgM syndromes (HIGM) has greatly contributed to our understanding of the normal processes of antibody maturation, because these syndromes have in common a defect in immunoglobulin (Ig) class switch recombination (CSR), as demonstrated by normal or elevated serum IgM levels. This is in contrast to absent or strongly decreased levels of the other immunoglobulin (Ig) isotypes. Antibody maturation leads to the production of antibodies of different isotypes and formation of B cell receptors (BCR) with high affinity for antigen. This event usually takes place in the secondary lymphoid organs (spleen, lymph nodes, tonsils) in an antigenand T lymphocyte–dependent manner. When mature (but still naive) IgM+ IgD+ B cells, after emigrating from the bone marrow (or fetal liver), encounter an antigen that is specifically recognized by their BCR, they proliferate vigorously and give birth to a unique lymphoid formation, the germinal center. In this location, B cells undergo the two major events of maturation: CSR and somatic hypermutation (SHM).
X-Linked Agammaglobulinemia: A Disease of Btk Tyrosine Kinase
Authors: Smith C I Edvard , Satterthwaite Anne B , Witte Owen N
Published: November 2023

X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA) is caused by a B lymphocyte differentiation arrest and was originally described in 1952 by the American physician Dr. (Colonel) Ogden C. Bruton. XLA is frequently recognized as the prototype primary immunodeficiency (PID) (Rosen et al., 1984) and was the first human immune disorder in which an underlying defect was clearly identified. The locus designation is BTK and the Mendelian Inheritance in Man (MIM) number is 300300. XLA is characterized by an increased susceptibility to extracellular bacterial infections (Lederman and Winkelstein, 1985; Sideras and Smith, 1995; Ochs and Smith, 1996). Enteroviral infections also frequently run a severe course, often resist therapy, and have therefore become increasingly important (Lederman and Winkelstein, 1985; McKinney et al., 1987; Ochs and Smith, 1996; Plebani et al., 2002). Through different approaches, the gene affected in XLA was isolated simultaneously by two groups and found to encode a novel cytoplasmic tyrosine kinase designated Bruton’s agammaglobulinemia tyrosine kinase, or Btk (Tsukada et al., 1993; Vetrie et al., 1993).
Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome
Authors: Ochs Hans D , Rosen Fred S
Published: November 2023

The first description of the Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS), published in 1937, defined accurately the clinical phenotype: three brothers, but not their sisters, presented shortly after birth with thrombocytopenia, bloody diarrhea, eczema, and recurrent ear infections (Wiskott, 1937). On the basis of this symptomatology, the early onset, and the predominance of male infants, Wiskott differentiated this entity from Morbus Werlhofii, a synonym for idiopathic thrombocytopenia. Seventeen years later, Aldrich described a large family with multiple affected males, clearly demonstrating X-linked inheritance (Aldrich et al., 1954). In 1957, additional cases were described (Huntley and Dees, 1957), including members of an African American family (Wolff and Bertucio, 1957).
Immunodeficiency with Centromere Instability and Facial Anomalies
Authors: Hansen R Scott , Weemaes Corry , Wijmenga Cisca
Published: November 2023

Immunodeficiency with centromere instability and facial anomalies (ICF syndrome) (MIM 242860) is a rare autosomal recessive disease characterized by a variable immunodeficiency, mild facial anomalies, and chromosome instability involving the pericentromeric regions of chromosomes 1, 9, and 16. This disease was reported for the first time in the late 1970s by two groups independently (Hultén, 1978; Tiepolo et al., 1978, 1979). The patient described earlier by Østergaard (1973) also appears to have had ICF syndrome, based on the clinical symptoms and chromosomal abnormalities reported. The acronym ICF was suggested in accordance with the characteristic features of the syndrome: Immunodeficiency, Centromeric instability, and Facial anomalies (Maraschio et al., 1988). Only about 30 ICF patients have been described in the literature thus far, but underdiagnosis of the syndrome is quite possible because of phenotypic variability and infrequent chromosome analysis. Here we summarize the common clinical features of this limited set of patients as well as the molecular defects associated with ICF.
Cell Adhesion and Leukocyte Adhesion Defects
Authors: Etzioni Amos , Harlan John M
Published: November 2023

Leukocyte trafficking from bloodstream to tissue is important for the continuous surveillance for foreign antigens and for rapid leukocyte accumulation at sites of inflammatory response or tissue injury. Leukocyte emigration to sites of inflammation is a dynamic process, involving multiple steps in an adhesion cascade. These steps must be precisely orchestrated to ensure a rapid response with only minimal damage to healthy tissue (Carlos and Harlan, 1994; Springer, 1994; von Andrian and Mackay, 2000). Leukocyte interaction with vascular endothelial cells is a pivotal event in the inflammatory response and is mediated by several families of leukocyte and endothelial adhesion molecules, including the integrins, the selectins, and members of the immunoglobulin gene superfamily (IgSF). Each is involved in a different phase of leukocyte adherence to and migration across the endothelium, and the synchronization of their surface expression and activation is crucial for the leukocyte trafficking.
Cyclic and Congenital Neutropenia Due to Defects in Neutrophil Elastase
Authors: Dale David C , Aprikyan Andrew G
Published: November 2023

Severe neutropenia predisposes patients to recurrent bacterial infections (Boxer and Dale, 2002). These infections are usually caused by organisms that are resident on body surfaces— i.e., staphylococci, streptococci, and enteric organisms. In general, the susceptibility is inversely related to the neutrophil count. Infections of two general types occur: superficial infections of the skin and oropharyngeal areas and more serious infections involving the lung and gastrointestinal tract, which may be complicated by sepsis. In general, these infections are poorly responsive to antibiotics. Both cyclic and congenital neutropenias are now effectively treated with the hematopoietic growth factor, granulocyte colony–stimulating factor (G-CSF). Recent studies have shown that both of these diseases are attributable to mutations in the gene for neutrophil elastase, a protease made and packaged in the primary granules of neutrophils early in their differentiation from the hematopoietic stem cells.
Chediak-Higashi Syndrome
Authors: Spritz Richard A
Published: November 2023

Chediak-Higashi syndrome (CHS; MIM #214500) is a frequently fatal autosomal recessive genetic disorder characterized clinically by hypopigmentation or albinism, severe immunologic deficiency, mild bleeding tendency, neurologic abnormalities, and early death from a lymphoma-like syndrome, the so-called “accelerated phase” of the disorder. Striking abnormally large granules and even giant organelles are seen in peripheral blood leukocytes and many other cell types (Spritz, 1998; Shi?ett et al., 2002; Ward et al., 2002). First reported by Beguez-Cesar (1943), a Cuban pediatrician, CHS was further described by Steinbrinck (1948), Chediak (1952), and Higashi (1954), the latter two of whose names then came to be associated with the disorder (Sato, 1955; Donohue and Bain, 1957). The incidence of CHS has been reported as 3 per 15,500 hospital admissions (Moran and Estevez, 1969), although the true frequency of the disorder appears to be far lower. CHS is very rare in almost all populations, although a cluster of cases has been described in a genetic isolate in Tachira State, high in the Venezuelan Andes (Ramirez-Duque et al., 1982).
Frankfurter among the Anarchists: The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti
Authors: Alexander Michael
Published: November 2023

On April 15, 1920, during a robbery of a shoe company in the Boston suburb of South Braintree, the bodies of the company paymaster and his guard were left dead on the factory curb. Following a short investigation, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two well-known members of the Galleanist Anarchist movement in Massachusetts, were charged with robbery and murder. The evidence against the two anarchists was substantial: multiple eyewitnesses testified to their guilt, and at the time of their arrest, Sacco and Vanzetti were found, in the words of one reviewing judge, “armed to the teeth”-Sacco with a .32 Colt automatic (the alleged murder weapon) and Vanzetti with a .38 Harrington Richardson revolver. Soon after their trial and convictions, Sacco and Vanzetti’s Galleanist cohorts exploded a bomb on Wall Street, killing 30 people and injuring 200.
The United States Market Wealth Portfolio: Components of Capital Market Values and Returns, 1947–1978
Authors: Ibbotson Roger G , Fall Carol L
Published: November 2023

The U.S. market wealth contains all the primary assets that investors would typically own. These include stocks from the various stock exchanges, corporate, government, and municipal bonds, and both farm and residential real estate. By measuring the size of each market and the returns, Ibbotson and Fall were able to create the first market wealth index, that covered most of the spectrum of assets that investors owned. A measure of U.S. wealth year-by-year, plus the component returns, is useful for the following reasons: Much of the data in this article is difficult to update without a separate study. The returns of most assets are included in Ibbotson Associates EnCorr TM databases, but the capitalizations of most categories are not readily available today. We include some updates later in the article.
How to Forecast Long-Run Asset Returns
Authors: Ibbotson Roger G , Siegel Larry
Published: November 2023

This article shows how to use components to estimate an expected return for various asset classes, including stocks, bonds, cash, real estate, small stocks, foreign stocks, and foreign bonds. In principle, these components can be used to estimate expected returns on any asset class. Of the many kinds of asset allocation models in use, perhaps the most common is that which uses historical and current data to form long-term equilibrium capital market expectations. These expectations are combined with an analysis of the liabilities of the investor (typically a pension fund). The output consists of policy, or normal, weights for asset classes held or desired to be held by the investor. This article shows how to use historical and current data to form expectations. Asset allocation models require as inputs three kinds of data for each asset class: This list of required inputs also applies to tactical asset allocation models and other variations on the theme of setting asset class weights. In tactical models, however, the expected return is typically a short-term forecast that differs from the long-run equilibrium return. The forecasts of standard deviation and correlations may also differ from long-run equilibrium in tactical models. This article focuses on the policy or strategic, rather than the tactical, situation.
The Demand for Capital Market Returns: A New Equilibrium Theory
Authors: Ibbotson Roger G , Diermeier Jeffrey J , Siegel Laurence B
Published: November 2023

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) model price risk premia that are part of the expected return of an asset. Since they are equilibrium models and assume fair pricing, they are used as the discount rate applied to the expected cash flows from an asset, in determining the asset’s present value. But these models price only systematic risk, assuming investors could diversify away from nonmarket risks. If the natural holders of an asset would find it costly or difficult to diversify, nonsystematic risk could also be priced. Furthermore, many non-risk characteristics of an asset are likely to be priced. Those include taxation, lack of marketability, information costs, and so on. Frequently the non-risk characteristics are even more important than the risk characteristics of an asset. This article presents a demand and supply framework for examining a wide range of assets, including stocks and bonds, but also real estate, venture capital, private equity, and so on. There is no “formula” presented, but instead the framework presents how an investor would be relatively averse to various asset characteristics and how summing demand across all investors gives us the equilibrium price of each asset. The article labels this
Long-Run Stock Returns: Participating in the Real Economy
Authors: Ibbotson Roger G , Chen Peng
Published: November 2023

The previous Diermeier, Ibbotson, and Siegel paper serves as the inspiration for the supply approach presented here. But, unlike the Diermeier, Ibbotson, and Siegel article, the Ibbotson and Chen paper estimates the equity risk premium directly. The estimate is based upon the actual earnings per share that firms produced over the period 1926 to 2000, as well as the dividends that they paid out. Since all work is done on a “per share” basis, it was not necessary to net out aggregate inflows and outflows from the stock market. It is still important to keep track of the flows on a per share basis though, since any money paid out in dividends becomes part of the total return investors earned over the period. The earnings growth actually achieved plus the dividends paid out represent the returns investors achieved over the period, except for the change in the P/E ratio. The increase in the P/E ratio over the period (from about 10 times to about 26 times) is considered a one time windfall. Since it is not expected to repeat, the equity growth (1.25 percent per year) is removed from the forecast.
Re-Emerging Markets
Authors: Goetzmann William N , Jorion Philippe
Published: November 2023

Thanks in large measure to the International Financial Corporation’s efforts to identify and gather data on the markets of developing countries, investors over the past 20 years have grown increasingly interested in emerging markets. Suppose we simply defined an emerging market as one that has been continuously “investable” for only a short period of time—that is, it recently emerged. Can we infer anything about its risk and return characteristics? In this article we use a simulation model to argue that recent emergence can potentially reveal a great deal about the statistical properties of a market. In particular, if a market popped up recently, we would expect it to have a low future return, high volatility, and low correlation to the world markets. The importance of this article is that we identify emerging markets as “marginal markets” in the world economy—valuable for diversification, but not obviously attractive for expected return.
The Rehnquist Court: A Review at the End of the Millennium
Authors: Belsky Martin H
Published: November 2023

An unexpected consequence of the impeachment trial of President Clinton has been the public recognition of William H. Rehnquist. Sitting as the presiding judge for more than a month at the trial of the President, he gave the desired appearance of solemnity and seriousness. News stories in all the media gave background stories on the Chief Justice. Informed citizens and even law students suddenly had an interest in this dignified personage.
Confessions, Search and Seizure, and the Rehnquist Court
Authors: Kamisar Yale
Published: November 2023

About the time William Rehnquist ascended to the Chief Justiceship of the United States, two events occurred that increased the likelihood that Miranda would enjoy a long life.
Stacked Adjectival Modification and the Structure of Nominal Phrases
Authors: Scott Gary-John
Published: November 2023

This article is a preliminary attempt to look at adjectival ordering restrictions (henceforth AOR) and aspects of the syntax of stacked adjectives across several languageswithin a broad Principles and Parameters (P&P) framework. I will be examining the notion of “fixed order” and proposing that it be considered part of Universal Grammar (UG). As a working strategy, I will attempt to explore the hypothesis that adjectival distribution follows the pattern of adverbial distribution along the lines of Cinque’ s Universal Hierarchy of Clausal Functional Projections(Cinque 1999, 106). I will argue for a framework that treats adjectives not as adjuncts, but as specifiers of distinct functional projections that are intrinsically related to aspects of their seman¬tic interpretation. At present, attributive adjectives are usually analyzed as recursively stacked adjunct specifiers of extended A’ IN’or even recursive NP projections. Yet if all adjectives had the same categorial status, the syntax, being unable to distinguish the ungrammatical from the grammatical strings, would inevitably generate fragments like *a red heavy good table.Following Zwarts (1992), this article will attempt to demonstrate how the standard lexical/functional dichotomy may be approached through a rich semantic ontology, and how the semantic universe may be studied via an independently motivated system of syntactic categories.
Identification and Management of Obese Children and Adolescents
Authors: Tershakovec Andrew M , Berkowitz Robert I
Published: November 2023

The prevalence of obesity in children is increasing dramatically (Troiano et al., 1995; Ogden et al., 2002). The most recent national data collected in 1999 and 2000 show that 15% of 6- tol9-year old children were overweight (body mass index [BMI] at or above the 95th percentile), while 10% of2- to 5-year-olds were overweight. This represents a 35% to 48% increase from the data that were collected between 1988 and 1994. Even greater increases occurred among Mexican American and non-Hispanic black children (Ogden et al., 2002). Given the dramatic increase in the prevalence of obesity, the pediatric care community needs to attain effective skills and experience in addressing this growing public health problem. This chapter focuses on the approach to identifying the obese child and subsequent interventions to prevent or treat obesity.
Ions in the Brain
Authors: Somjen George G
Published: November 2023

Ions, their transport across membranes, and their flow through specialized ion channels are central to the understanding of brain function, normal and pathological. The first part of this book deals with the regulation of ions in brain extra-and intracellular fluids. Regulation is effected by the blood-brain barrier, and by membrane ion pumps and other transport mechanisms of neurons and glial cells. Normally adjusted for optimal neural function, ion levels can change and alter the excitability of neurons and influence synaptic transmission in healthy and diseased brains. After an introduction to the electrophysiology of epilepsy, and a description of experimental seizure models, the second part discusses the roles of the faulty regulation of ions and of the diseases of ion channels in generating epileptic seizures. The mechanisms of action of various anticonvulsant drugs are also considered. The third part is devoted to the phenomenon of spreading depression and its likely role in human diseases. The final chapters of the book deal with the role of ions in the devastation caused by lack of oxygen and by insufficient blood flow to brain tissue, and the reasons for the exceptional vulnerability of certain classes of central neurons in hypoxia and stroke. The book will be of interest to neuroscientists, neurobiologists, neurophysiologists, neurologists, neurosurgeons, and to their students and trainees.
Summit Failures and Cabinet Obstacles, August 1944–July 1945
Authors: Wolpert Stanley
Published: November 2023

AS THE UNITED STATES took upon itself the lion’s share of the Allied war against Japan, Roosevelt’s frustration at Churchill’s intransigence over India grew stronger. FDR’s personal envoy, Ambassador Phillips, reported, after returning to Washington, that when he talked to Churchill about India, “Churchill banged the table and said ‘I have always been right about Hitler and everyone else in Europe. I am also right about Indian policy, any change in Indian policy now will mean a blood bath.’”1 Whenever Roosevelt himself tried to discuss India with Churchill he received “a blunt cold shoulder.” By late summer of 1944 he entirely agreed with Phillips’s forthright report of what needed to be done about British policy in India.
Bridging the Gap: How Improved Information Can Help Companies Integrate Shareholder Value and Environmental Quality
Authors: Reinhardt Forest
Published: November 2023

Environmental problems do not look the same from the perspective of a corporate executive as they do from the point of view of government officials. The most important differences arise because the corporate executive is ordinarily answerable to shareholders who expect him or her to deliver financial returns on the money they have invested in the enterprise. Hence any environmental investments that the firm undertakes must normally be justified in terms of shareholder value creation or reduction of financial risk to the firm.1
Toward a Science of Ratings
Authors: Raynes Sylvain , Rutledge Ann
Published: November 2023

Bond ratings have been a measure of relative value in the fixed income market since their invention by John Moody in 1909. From the first corporate ratings to today’s structured ratings, the meaning of the rating has evolved as the claims for the measurement power of ratings have expanded: from relative quality (quality or safety ratings) to payment certainty (default frequency) to risk-adjusted yield as we discuss in chapter 2. However, as part 1 shows, many different applications of the corporate framework have been applied to structured securities, which has opened the door to inconsistent rating results. One is compelled to ask whether the expanded claims of ratings precision and power in structured finance are justifiable. In this chapter, we put forth a critique of the corporate rating model itself, on fundamental grounds. Our critique takes a closer look at basis for treating ratings as numerical measures, by examining the statistical research (rating agency bond default studies) by which they are validated.
Trigger Theory
Authors: Raynes Sylvain , Rutledge Ann
Published: November 2023

Chapter 8 provided an extensive review of standard items in liabilities modeling, beginning with a description of the cash cycle and proceeding with the mechanics of allocation and distribution of cash to the liability accounts. The discussion delved fairly deeply into the mechanics of apportioning principal to competing claimholders. What was missing from our earlier review was a systematic discussion of triggers. The reasons for saving triggers until last are twofold. The first is practical: the lack of granularity and precision in cash flow modeling today means that triggers are not quantitatively evaluated. The second is a philosophical point. The analogy between triggers in financial structures and control structures in physics has not penetrated market awareness. Hence we have chosen to delay the discussion of triggers to the end of the book, to intimate the range of what may be accomplished through advanced liability structuring, without giving the false impression that it exists today.
Introduction
Authors: Renteln Alison Dundes
Published: November 2023

In pluralistic societies ethnic minorities and indigenous groups sometimes ask the legal system to take their cultural background into account in criminal and civil cases. More often than not, courts refuse to do so. The purpose of this book is to examine the nature of the debate surrounding the admissibility of cultural evidence in the courtroom. This study analyzes the cultural defense, which, were it to be established, would require judges to consider the cultural background of litigants in the disposition of cases before them.
Drugs
Authors: Renteln Alison Dundes
Published: November 2023

Drugs are used in different cultures for various purposes, and often the substances are ‘integral to the constitution of culture.’ When immigrants continue to use drugs from the old country in their new homeland, they may be subject to criminal penalties because the drugs whose use was taken for granted in the country of origin are now considered illegal ‘controlled substances.’ People using the drugs may have no idea that their use is illegal, as in the case of khat and kava discussed in this chapter. In fact, they may view the legal intervention as a form of harassment based on their cultural background.
Germ-Line Genetic Engineering
Authors: Peters Philip G
Published: November 2023

Many families are shadowed by an unwanted legacy of inherited genetic disease. Terrible illnesses like Tay-Sachs disease and Huntington’s disease strike these families again and again. Before this century ends, however, scientists may be able to end these legacies and save generations of future children from an awful destiny by modifying their DNA.
Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Authors: Lehman Thomas J A
Published: November 2023

The most important thing to remember in evaluating a child with fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome is to be sure the diagnosis is correct. Although these are complex syndromes that may be difficult to treat, many of the children who come to me who were originally diagnosed with these diseases had not gotten better because fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue were not the correct diagnosis. Every child with chronic pain and fatigue deserves a complete and thorough diagnostic evaluation. There should not be any significant laboratory abnormalities in children with either fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue.
Alternative Medicine
Authors: Lehman Thomas J A
Published: November 2023

Whenever I finish explaining a new medication and a parent asks me, “Is there another choice?” I know that something is worrying him or her. One of the biggest problems in medicine is fear of side effects. It’s a lot like flying. When you get on the airplane and the flight attendant talks about the life jacket under the seat in front of you, you cannot help but think, “If there’s a real chance we’re going to land in the water, I’m getting off this plane.” Surely, the flight attendant feels the same way. However, the government requires that passengers be informed about the life jacket and other safety precautions. Similarly, physicians are required to tell you about possible side effects of medications. If they thought there would be any serious ones, they would not give you the medicine. However, the physicians and the flight attendant are required to give you this information because no one knows for sure when something might go wrong.
Reconstructive Surgery
Authors: Lehman Thomas J A
Published: November 2023

Rebecca’s parents were very nervous. Rebecca had severe arthritis that had affected her hips. Despite multiple medications from a variety of physicians, things had slowly gotten worse over the last year. Now Rebecca was in my office. Rebecca and her family had hoped that I would have a medication to reverse all of her problems and allow her to walk normally again. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so. Rebecca’s hip pain was so bad that she rarely ventured out of the house except to go to school. She had begun to use a wheelchair to get from class to class in school. Careful review of her X rays made it clear that medications were not going to make Rebecca’s hips better. She needed hip replacements.
What Else Can I Do?
Authors: Lehman Thomas J A
Published: November 2023

This is a question every parent wants to be able to answer. I hope you are already doing everything you can for your child. What else can you do? You can help others! There are many volunteer organizations around the world that work with children and families with rheumatic diseases. Many of them are listed in the section on resources that follows. If you have time, energy, or resources left over after dealing with your child’s problems, you can help. Every volunteer organization needs more help in whatever way is possible.
Ancestors
Authors: Berger Iris
Published: November 2023

On August 2, 1978, while searching for bones and tools at Laetoli, thirty miles south of Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, paleontologists Mary Leakey and Paul Abell discovered a seriesnof footprints about 3.6 million years old traceable to human ancestors. Studying the pattern of the prints, Leakey concluded that three people, a woman, a man, and a child, had crossed the plain. In the midst of their walk, possibly sensing danger, the female appeared to pause and turn to the left; she then resumed her stride. Writing in National Geographic, Leakey reflected, “This motion, so intensely human, transcends time. A remote ancestor—just as you or I—experienced a moment of doubt.”1 Equally intriguing in attracting popular attention to the origins of human life is the idea that all people are descended from a single ancestor whom researchers have dubbed “Lucy.”
Democracy and Its Discontents
Authors: Berger Iris
Published: November 2023

Mile-long lines stretched outside South Africa’s polling stations in April 1994 as black and white voters waited patiently, often for more than six or seven hours, to cast ballots in the country’s first democratic election. Eager with anticipation, Albertina Sisulu, voting at Orlando West in Soweto, told her daughter-in-law, “The excitement was unbelievable—going to jail, being forced to leave my children—it was all worth it to live to see this day.”1 One unemployed black man explained to a reporter, “Now I am a human being.”
Organizational Ethics
Authors: Pearson Steven D , E.Sabin James , Emanuel Ezekiel J
Published: November 2023

The newly designated fifty-first state-the island of Utopia-set out to reform its health-care system. The Secretary of Health and Happiness identified Utopia’s most brilliant thinkers and convened a working group to determine the ethical characteristics of an ideal system. The island’s luminaries produced an ethical code of dazzling clarity, admired by all who read it. It was published in Utopia’s leading periodicals and featured on Utopian Public Radio. Unfortunately, a follow-up study of the code several years later showed that, while still referred to with respect, it had achieved no practical results. At about the same time, in the newly designated fifty-second statethe adjoining island of Pragmatica-an idealistic employee ofHardnosed Health Plan proposed creation of an organizational ethics program. He presented the idea to his boss. Her response was unambiguous. “Come on, get real! ‘Ethics’ is just a word. The French said it all years ago--’Chacun a son gout.’ Ethics is personal. We do have to follow the dumb laws our legislature is always passing, but we should let the market sort out all the rest. Didn’t you learn that at business school? Where do you think you are-Utopia? “ Organizational ethics is a new frontier for health-care ethics. Even if the United States moved from a system based on competing insurance companies to a single payer model or an individual voucher system, organizations-albeit different ones than in the market-driven managed care approach-would still be central determinants of the ethical quality of medical care. Managed care has dramatized the need for ethical standards for organizations, but it has not created this need.
The Perennial Ethical Challenges Of Health Care In Competitive Systems
Authors: Pearson Steven D , E.Sabin James , Emanuel Ezekiel J
Published: November 2023

In this chapter we return to the central reality guiding this book: as important as health is, it is not the only socially valued goal, nor are technical health-care services the only means of improving health. Thus, every advanced health-care system must cope with the ethical tensions generated by considering costs as well as the quality of health care. Priorities must be set. Difficult choices have to be made, often producing tense compromise or open disappointment. Into this atmosphere may enter a toxic combination of suspicion and resentment when individual and organizational profits are made part of the delicate balancing act. The result is a powerful ethical and political challenge: how can patients, providers, and the public trust the legitimacy and fairness of the organizations that provide health care in competitive systems? This has been the focus of our work.
What is the Evidence?
Authors: Walter Ingo
Published: November 2023

The previous five chapters of this book have considered, in sequence (1) reconfiguration of the financial services sector and its impact on strategic positioning and execution in financial intermediaries, (2) the importance of M&A transactions in that reconfiguration process, in terms of the structure of the global transaction flow, (3) where the gains and losses from M&A transactions in the financial services sector are likely to come from, and (4) the all-important issues centering on post-merger integration.
Knowledge in Organizational Settings How Organizations Generate, Disseminate, and Use Knowledge for Their Competitive Advantage
Authors: Prusak Laurence , Weiss Leigh
Published: November 2023

The early years of the knowledge management field spanned the period of approximately 1992 through 1998. During this time, an increasing number of organizations began to recognize knowledge (as opposed to information and data) as a crucial source of competitive advantage and as a factor that somehow could be managed. As knowledge became more the locus of employees’ work, questions were raised about how it could be managed more effectively for organizational gain, and knowledge became more and more the actual output of the organization. We will look first at those factors which led knowledge management to gain legitimization, and then turn to the early trends and lessons from this first phase. The timing was ripe for knowledge management to gain attention in the early 1990s. Knowledge-oriented technologies such as Lotus Notes, the World Wide Web, and a variety of vendor-introduced collaboration tools were catching on. These technologies had capabilities beyond earlier ones, which were better suited to managing data in structured formats. In addition, the forces of economic globalization, which spread employees and products around the world, required a means to spread knowledge globally.
What are the signs of menopause?
Authors: Segal Sheldon J , Mastroianni Luigi
Published: November 2023

At some point in a woman’s life she will experience bodily changes that herald the onset of the menopause. Hot flashes, sleeplessness, night sweats, and mood swings are the most familiar signs, but there are many other significant changes as a woman enters a new phase of life. This period of life is frequently called “perimenopause.” It is usually defined as the years leading up to menopause and includes up to one year after the final menses. The complaint that usually prompts the first perimenopausal visit to the doctor’s office is a change in the pattern of menstrual bleeding. Women expect this change and can tell when it is happening. Except for the pathological condition of premature menopause, I cannot recall an instance of a patient registering surprise when I confirmed that the symptoms that brought her to my office were the first signs of menopause. Many women are aware of subtle changes in body composition. They are particularly concerned about a tendency to gain weight because of fat deposition around the hips and abdomen. With just a glance in a full-length mirror, a perimenopausal woman is aware that her body shape is changing. The changes a woman feels at this time of life are the result of increasing deviations from the pattern of hormonal changes characteristic of the normal menstrual cycle. Diminishing ovarian function is the main reason for this alteration.
The first designer androgen for men
Authors: Segal Sheldon J , Mastroianni Luigi
Published: November 2023

“Designer estrogen” has become a household term. Now, the first designer androgen is in the research pipeline and may soon be available for use in androgen supplementation therapy. The term “designer” applied to either an estrogen or an androgen is meant to convey the idea that the hormone is designed to maximize certain effects and minimize others. A designer estrogen or androgen is an engineered drug that possesses some, but not all, of the actions of the original hormone. Designer estrogens are also referred to as SERMs, which stands for “selective estrogen receptor modulators.” This terminology is based on their mechanism of action at target cells. A comparable term for a designer androgen would be a SARM, a selective androgen receptor modifier. They, too, appear to have an important future for replacement therapy. In this case the user population will be aging men. What the acronym SARM conveys is that the compound is able to select androgen receptors in some tissues and exert an androgenic or anabolic effect, while avoiding cell stimulation and proliferation at other locations. Early work based on this principle led to development of antiandrogens that interfere with the action of testosterone without imparting replacement androgenic activity themselves. Cyproterone acetate is an anti-androgen that competes with testosterone at the receptor sites of target cells that are programmed to respond to androgens.
Can men safely use AST?
Authors: Segal Sheldon J , Mastroianni Luigi
Published: November 2023

An accurate term to describe the hormonal changes of older men is “partial androgen deficiency.” Androgens stimulate male anatomical structures such as the prostate gland and also effect other masculine characteristics. These hormones also influence many general metabolic functions, including bone mineral density, maintenance of muscle cells, and the hemoglobin content of blood. Strictly speaking, androgens cannot be called “male hormones” because the ovaries and adrenal glands of women also produce them. There are several androgenic hormones produced by the body or that chemists can synthesize in the test tube, but the obvious androgen to use for male replacement therapy is testosterone, the principal hormone produced by the testis. The level of testosterone production decreases in men as they age. By the time a man reaches 70 years of age, his level of biologically active testosterone has fallen to half its level at age 20. Whether this is the defining cause of aging changes, however, remains controversial. Although studies of large numbers of men show that in the general population, free testosterone (the component of the circulating hormone that is biologically active) concentrations decline by up to 1% per year, some doctors believe that a falling testosterone level is a measure of ill health in aging men. This point of view suggests that the percentage of healthy older men who need testosterone therapy is low.
Historical Setting Of Heat And Mechanics
Authors: Mccormmach Russell
Published: November 2023

The history of heat is itself a Chapter in the history of natural philosophy and cannot be fully understood apart from it. Our detour through natural philosophy in part 1 has prepared us for the subject of part 2. Let us begin with a brief overview. Heat, as it was understood in the eighteenth century, belongs either to the sense of touch or to a distinct sense. In either case, the sensation of heat is relative: Loss of heat from our body to another body occasions our sensation of cold; gain of heat occasions warmth. We perceive no heat in bodies if they are at the same temperature as our own, although we still speak of the thermometer as reading “sensible heat.” Our sensations, “imperfect and deceitful measures of heat,” are too imprecise to rely on in science, and in their place we substitute the effects of heat, which can be reduced to the expansion of bodies with heat, the principle of the thermometer.
How do we acquire language?
Authors: Napoli Donna Jo
Published: November 2023

How did you and I learn to speak and understand language? This is a difficult question to approach because even though we’ve all done it, we can’t remember doing it. Acquiring language begins in the womb, and our accessible memories don’t go back that far.

Nevertheless, many of us might be willing to attempt an answer. After all, we acquired language, so we must know something about the process. But is this true? We metabolize sugar, but unless we’ve studied chemistry, we don’t know how it’s done. It happens naturally; the body does it on its own.
Neither Paid Nor Forced The Myth of the King’s Army
Authors: Restall Matthew
Published: November 2023

When Columbus returned on his second voyage to the Caribbean island that he had named Hispaniola, he was accompanied by a Spanish army. At least, this is the impression given by a dramatic scene in the 1992 movie 1492: Conquest of Paradise, in which Spanish soldiers line up on the beach in disciplined ranks, in uniforms and with standard-issue weapons, banners waving, awaiting a drum roll before marching forward.
The Indians Are Coming to an End
Authors: Restall Matthew
Published: November 2023

Early in the seventeenth century, a descendent of the imperial dynasty of the Incas, don Felipe Huaman Poma de Ayala, wrote a book-length letter to the king of Spain, describing all that was wrong with the colony of Peru. His denunciations of the practices of corrupt colonial officials were particularly vivid, periodically punctuated by the declaration that the situation was beyond remedy and by an apparent prediction of native Andean extinction.1 An echo of Huaman Poma’s lament can be found in French historian Nathan Wachtel’s 1971 study of the Conquest of Peru, La vision des vaincus (The Vision The Indians Are Coming to an End 101 of the Vanquished).
Jonathan Low: Value Drivers for Intangibles
Authors: Chatzkel Jay L .
Published: November 2023

In this conversation, Jonathan Low explores issues that form a perspective and a set of principles for operating in our intangible assets, knowledge based economy. His research has given him cutting-edge insights as well as a basis for assessing intangibles, which make up the bulk of wealth in the new economy. He discusses how decisions are based on nonfinancial information, the major recent changes in the world’s wealth, the nine factors of value and how they work in different types of organizations, and trends that will be shaping the next phase of our era.
Hubert saint-once: Creating and Implementing a Knowledge Strategy
Authors: Chatzkel Jay L .
Published: November 2023

In this conversation, Hubert Saint-Onge delves into the perspectives, experiences, policies, and practices of one of the shapers of emerging knowledge-based enterprises. For more than a decade, Saint-Onge has been refining a model known as the Knowledge Assets Framework for the strategic integration of business plans with people management systems, using technology architecture and organizational infrastructure. Saint-Onge was formerly senior vice president for strategic capabilities at Clarica Life Insurance Company.

Clarica is a Canadian-based financial services firm offering a wide range of life and health insurance, saving and retirement products, and other financial services. One of the key elements of Saint-Onge’s man date at Clarica was to facilitate the leveraging of the firm’s business through the systematic application of knowledge management and learning organization principles.
Defending Against Rivals As A Dominant Firm: The Role Of Deterrent Actions
Authors: Grimm Curtis M , Lee Hun , Smith Ken G
Published: November 2023

For almost 100 years, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT & T) had a monopoly in providing long-distance telephone services. In the late r96os, the long-distance market was opened to competition, and AT & T responded aggressively to new competitors such as MCI by sharply lowering prices. Despite the subsequent divestiture of its local Bell System companies in 1984 and the deregulation of the industry in 1996, which allowed long-distance and local telephone companies to compete in each other’s markets, AT & T has been able to maintain its leadership in the long-distance market, holding steady with market share of about 35 percent in 2003. Its closest rival, MCI, has less than 20 percent of the market.1 General Motors has dominated its industry since r93r, when it moved past Ford Motor Company to become the number I U.S. automobile maker. Between 1976 and 1983, GM products accounted for nearly 60 percent of domestic auto production; over that period, GM engaged in aggressive product proliferation, fully occupying the available product space to discourage entry, and established a ubiquitous, exclusive distribution network that constituted a considerable entry barrier.
Strategy As Action: Integration and Evolution of Resource Positions
Authors: Grimm Curtis M , Lee Hun , Smith Ken G
Published: November 2023

Our starting point was the notion that today’s business environment has become dramatically more competitive and will become even more so in the future. Chapter 2 contained a review of the prominent economic approaches to understanding competition and competitive advantage, and chapters 3 and 4 presented frameworks to understanding a firm’s relative market and resource position. Chapter 5 introduced the action model of advantage, which extends the action-based approach and integrates elements of a firm’s relative market and resource positions. At its core, the model posits that relative internal and external resources determine actions and reactions, which in turn determine competitive advantage. Figure 11.1, the action model of advantage, highlights those relationships. Firm resources are defined as all information, knowledge, capabilities, organizational processes, and tangible assets controlled by a firm that enable the firm to undertake competitive action. Resources are heterogeneous across firms, and a key determinant of a firm’s actions is its comparative resource position in relation to that of rivals at a given point in time. Competitive actions and reactions are the crux of the model. A competitive action is a specific and observable competitive move, such as a new product introduction, advertising campaign, or price cut, initiated by a firm to build, exploit, or defend its relative competitive position. Reactions are rivals’ responses to such actions, which can be fast or slow and imitative or nonimitative.