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The rationale of interorganizational linkages to connect multiple sites of expertise, knowledge production, and knowledge transfer: an example from HIV/AIDS services for the inner city.

This paper presents the rationale for a long-running project in which various community-based and tertiary-based providers are being linked to each other in order to understand, reach, and engage high-risk, hard-to-reach inner-city residents for prevention, treatment, and management of HIV/AIDS. Not simply a program to link disparate actors, the work has developed into a more fundamental approach through which to build and maintain the infrastructure required to generate and sustain knowledge development and integration within and between systems. This work is grounded in the recognition that each type of provider, as well as patients and clients themselves, has a particular type of expertise. All forms of expertise are necessary to fight HIV/ AIDS. Different forms of expertise are necessary to diagnose, treat, prevent, and cure HIV/AIDS and its sequelae. This work suggests revisions in traditional approaches to expertise and to the content and geometry of dissemination networks, and ultimately challenges the very concepts of dissemination and the lay/scientific boundary.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

Population and family planning in China.

As the most populous country of the world, China pursues an integrated programme for socio-economic development with family planning as a vital part of it. The aim is to ensure that population growth does not outpace the economic development, the availability of natural resources and environmental protection efforts. Current policy on family planning includes: the promotion of late marriage and deferred child bearing, advocating the practice of "one couple, one child", to encourage birth spacing for those who want a second child. Technical guidelines are: contraception as the priority; comprehensive use of various contraceptive methods in men and women; induced abortion allowed on request if no contraindications; state provided contraceptives, barrier devices and technical services. The birth rate of 33.34/1000, death rate of 7.6/1000 and natural increase rate of 25.83/1000 in 1970 was brought down to 21.04/1000, 6.7/1000 and 14.26/1000 respectively in 1985. A total fertility for 1950 of 5.87 was gradually brought down to 2.31 in 1990. 260 million births were averted between 1970-1991; the world's "5-billion population day" was postponed for 2 years and Asian "3-billion population day" was postponed for 3 years. The State Family Planning Commission under the State Council was set up in 1981. The China Family Planning Association, the China Population Association and non-governmental organisations promote family planning work in a coordinated way. The current family planning policy is now well accepted in the urban area, and gaining increasing momentum in the rural area. Persistant education is still important to break the millennia old tradition of having more children and more boys.

Aging↗

Flies, fish and food.

Dried fish are an important part of the traditional diet in many developing countries. But, during sun drying, the fish can become infested by maggots, leading to comprehensive destruction of the crop. Understanding the life cycles and seasonal abundance of the flies and their larvae is an essential step in the development of sustainable management programmes to reduce losses.

Animals↗

Impaired development of the thymic primordium after neural crest ablation.

Impaired thymic development as a result of ablation of neural crest has been observed in embryos late in development. The present study was initiated to determine what changes are effected early in thymic development by neural crest ablation. The epithelial primordia of the thymus were studied in chick embryos on the sixth day of incubation. Embryos with neural crest ablations were compared with sham-operated and untreated controls. Neural crest ablation inhibited formation of epithelial thymic primordia. Primordia in experimental embryos were fewer in number and were smaller than in shams and untreated controls. When primordia from shams and controls were transplanted to the chorioallantoic membrane of chick hosts, they were able to develop into organs with the typical features of embryonic thymus. Similar transplantation from neural crest-ablated animals, on the other hand, led to small, predominantly epithelial structures with meager lymphoid development. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that mesenchyme derived from cranial neural crest is critical in initiating and sustaining the development from pharyngeal pouches of epithelial structures competent to attract and support the proliferation and differentiation of lymphoid stem cells.

Allantoin↗

Effect of teaching context and tutor workshop on tutorial skills.

Effective faculty development workshops are essential to develop and sustain the quality of faculty's teaching. In an integrated problem-based curriculum, tutors expressed the needs to further develop their skills in facilitating students' content learning and small-group functioning. Based on the authors' prior observations that tutors' performance depends on their teaching context, a workshop was designed not only tailored to the tutors' needs but also organized within their respective teaching unit. The purposes of this study are (1) to evaluate whether this workshop is effective and improves tutors' teaching skills, and (2) to assess whether workshop effectiveness depends on tutors' performance before the workshop and on their teaching unit environment. Workshop effectiveness was assessed using (a) tutors' perception of workshop usefulness and of their improvement in tutorial skills, and (b) students' ratings of tutor performance before and after the workshop. In addition, an analysis of variance model was designed to analyse how tutors' performance before the workshop and their teaching unit influence workshop effectiveness. Tutors judged the workshop as helpful in providing them with new teaching strategies and reported having improved their tutorial skills. Workshop attendance enhanced students' ratings of tutors' knowledge of problem content and ability to guide their learning. This improvement was also long-lasting. The workshop effect on tutor performance was relative: it varied across teaching units and was higher for tutors with low scores before the workshop. A workshop tailored to tutors' needs and adapted to their teaching unit improves their tutorial skills. Its effectiveness is, however, influenced by tutors' level of performance before the workshop and by the environment of their teaching unit. Thus, to be efficient, the design of a workshop should consider not only individual tutors' needs, but also the background of their teaching units, with special attention to their internal organization and tutor group functioning.

Analysis of Variance↗

Pulmonary vein contracts in response to hypoxia.

Hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV) is an important regulatory mechanism in matching regional blood flow and ventilation. The HPV response has been well documented on the arterial side, but the response of pulmonary veins to hypoxia has received little attention. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether isolated rat pulmonary veins contract in response to decreased PO2 and, if so, to compare the venous response with that of the pulmonary artery. Rat pulmonary venous and arterial rings were attached to force transducers and precontracted with either a submaximal dose of KCl or norepinephrine under normoxic conditions and then made hypoxic. The pulmonary venous hypoxic response consisted of a single sustained contraction, whereas the arterial response to hypoxia was biphasic, consisting of an initial rapid contraction and then a slowly developed but sustained contraction. The venous hypoxic contraction was significantly greater in magnitude than either phase 1 or phase 2 of the arterial response. Endothelium denudation did not affect the venous hypoxic response. However, the venous hypoxic response was dependent on the level of precontractile tone and also appeared to be dependent on the specific contractile agonist. Unlike the isolated arterial phase 1 hypoxic response (but similar to the arterial phase 2 response) the pulmonary venous hypoxic contraction was inhibited in Ca(2+)-free media or by Ca2+ channel blockers. In summary, pulmonary venous smooth muscle contracts to a relatively greater degree in response to severe hypoxia than does pulmonary arterial smooth muscle. The venous hypoxic response is endothelium independent, as is phase 2 of the arterial response.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Animals↗

Long-term effect of interferon therapy on incidence of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma in Thai patients with chronic hepatitis B.

The aim of this study was to assess the long-term effects of interferon (IFN) therapy on the incidence of disease progression to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in Thai patients with chronic hepatitis B. Sixty-seven patients with hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-positive chronic hepatitis B who received IFN therapy were retrospectively analyzed. The average duration of follow-up was 59.4+/-30.9 months (ranging from 20 to 119 months). Seventy-two untreated patients with comparable clinical data and mean duration of follow-up served as a control group. During follow-up, 24 (35.8%) treated and 7 (9.7%) untreated patients had a sustained loss of HBeAg. However, none of the treated patients or controls became negative for hepatitis B s antigen (HBsAg). Among treated patients, the response was independent of type and dose of IFN, as well as the presence of steroid priming. In addition, 1 of 24 (4.2%) sustained responders and 6 of 43 (14%) non-responders progressed to cirrhosis whereas 16 of 72 (22.2%) in the control group progressed to such sequelae. The overall incidence of new cirrhosis in sustained responders was significantly lower than in the control group (p=0.04). HCC appeared in 11 cirrhotic patients: 9 (12.5%) in the control group and 2 (4.7%) of the non-responders, whereas none of the sustained responders developed HCC. The average period to detection of HCC was 70.5+/-12.4 months for non-responders and 65.3+/-27.6 months for the control group, with no significant differences between these groups. In conclusion, our data suggest that IFN therapy might prevent the progression of cirrhosis and the development of HCC in patients with chronic hepatitis B. These beneficial effects were particularly observed in those who achieved a sustained virological response to treatment.

Adult↗