Bone marrow is the main site for hematopoiesis in adults. It acts as a niche for hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and contains non‐hematopoietic cells that contribute to stem cell dormancy, quiescence, self‐renewal, and differentiation. HSC also exist in resting spleen of several species, although their contribution to hematopoiesis under steady‐state conditions is unknown. The spleen can however undergo extramedullary hematopoiesis (EMH) triggered by physiological stress or disease. With the loss of bone marrow niches in aging and disease, the spleen as (...) an alternative tissue site for hematopoiesis is an important consideration for future therapy, particularly during HSC transplantation. In terms of harnessing the spleen as a site for hematopoiesis, here the remarkable regenerative capacity of the spleen is considered with a view to forming additional or ectopic spleen tissue through cell engraftment. Studies in mice indicate the potential for such grafts to support the influx of hematopoietic cells leading to the development of normal spleen architecture. An important goal will be the formation of functional ectopic spleen tissue as an aid to hematopoietic recovery following clinical treatments that impact bone marrow. For example, expansion or replacement of niches could be considered where myeloablation ahead of HSC transplantation compromises treatment outcomes. (shrink)

This study presents a description of an open database on scientific output of Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities, one that corrects for the shortcomings in current research publication databases such as data duplication, slow update, and a substantial cost of doing science. Here, using scientists’ self-reports, open online sources and cross-checking with Scopus database, we introduce a manual system and its semi-automated version of the database on the profiles of 657 Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities who (...) have published in Scopus-indexed journals from 2008 to 2018. The final system also records 973 foreign co-authors, 1,289 papers, and 789 affiliations. The data collection method, highly applicable for other sources, could be replicated in other developing countries while its content be used in cross-section, multivariate, and network data analyses. The open database is expected to help Vietnam revamp its research capacity and meet the public demand for greater transparency in science management. (shrink)

It has been contended that ostracism is prevalent in the workplace, and there has been increasing research interest in its potential effects. This paper extends the theoretical framework of workplace ostracism by linking it with affective commitment and intention to leave from the perspective of job embeddedness. Using time-lagged data from China, we apply job embeddedness theory to confirm that workplace ostracism decreases the cultivation of job embeddedness, which in turn undermines affective commitment and induces intention to leave. We also (...) find that intrinsic work motivation strengthens the detrimental effects of workplace ostracism on job embeddedness such that the negative relationship is stronger when intrinsic motivation is high rather than low. We further discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and offer future research directions. (shrink)

Hong Kong is undergoing a public debate on the need to reform and future directions of reforming its health care system. This paper highlights the debates and considerations brought up by the Hospital Authority, the largest provider of public health care in Hong Kong, on the ethical principles and societal values underlying the upcoming reform. It is recognized that the exact meanings behind each ethical principle and value must be debated and clarified during the reform process. In a (...) modern day society like Hong Kong, societal values are likely to be diversified. A health care system also has to fulfil different and often conflicting objectives of equity, efficiency, quality and choice. It would be difficult for a health care system to satisfy these different values and objectives based on a single value parameter. The Hong Kong experience shows that a society may prefer a combination of strategies in addressing different societal values. The re-structuring of the health care system in Hong Kong should therefore be based on a balanced and optimum combination of various financing and delivery strategies. (shrink)

ABSTRACTInattentional blindness occurs when observers fail to detect unexpected objects or events. Despite the adaptive importance of detecting unexpected threats, relatively little research has examined how stimulus threat influences IB. The current study was designed to explore the effects of stimulus threat on IB. Past research has also demonstrated that individuals with elevated negative affectivity have an attentional bias towards threat-related stimuli; therefore, the current study also examined whether state and trait levels of negative affectivity predicted IB for threat-related stimuli. (...) One hundred and eleven participants completed an IB task that included both threat-related and neutral unexpected stimuli, while their eye movements were tracked. Participants were significantly more likely to detect the threatening stimulus than the neutral stimulus p =.035, odds ratio = 4.0, 95% confidence interval OR [1.13, 14.17]. Neither state nor trait... (shrink)

Prior research finds that firms with strong business ethics are less likely to be tax aggressive. Labor union is one of the key stakeholders influencing firm’s tax aggressive behavior, whereas the bargaining process between labor union and firms exhibits ethical dilemma. Although industry-wide labor union coverage is commonly used in prior study to explore the monitoring role of labor unions in constraining management’s aggressive financial and tax decisions of their associated firms, we argue that firm-specific labor unions, which represent a (...) different bargaining power of the employees, do play an important role in determining firms’ tax ethical decisions. Specifically, we examine whether and how the firm-specific labor union coverage impacts firms’ tax aggressiveness decisions over and above industry-wide labor union coverage. We hypothesize and find that firm-specific labor unions influence the associated firms to be more tax aggressive, which results in higher levels of residual cash flows. We also find that industry-wide labor unions influence the associated firms to be less tax aggressive, which is consistent with prior findings. We perform further analyses and find that the results are more pronounced for the firms with greater industry-wide labor unions representation. These results demonstrate that the inclusion of and interaction between the firm-specific and industry-wide labor unions matter in determining corporate’s tax aggressiveness decisions, which highlight firm’s ethical perplexity between tax savings and social commitments. (shrink)

COVID-19 often manifests with different outcomes in different patients, highlighting the complexity of the host-pathogen interactions involved in manifestations of the disease at the molecular and cellular levels. In this paper, we propose a set of postulates and a framework for systematically understanding complex molecular host-pathogen interaction networks. Specifically, we first propose four host-pathogen interaction (HPI) postulates as the basis for understanding molecular and cellular host-pathogen interactions and their relations to disease outcomes. These four postulates cover the evolutionary dispositions involved (...) in HPIs, the dynamic nature of HPI outcomes, roles that HPI components may occupy leading to such outcomes, and HPI checkpoints that are critical for specific disease outcomes. Based on these postulates, an HPI Postulate and Ontology (HPIPO) framework is proposed to apply interoperable ontologies to systematically model and represent various granular details and knowledge within the scope of the HPI postulates, in a way that will support AI-ready data standardization, sharing, integration, and analysis. As a demonstration, the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework were applied to study COVID-19 with the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), leading to a novel approach to rational design of drug/vaccine cocktails aimed at interrupting processes occurring at critical host-coronavirus interaction checkpoints. Furthermore, the host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) relevant to COVID-19 were predicted and evaluated based on prior knowledge of curated PPIs and domain-domain interactions, and how such studies can be further explored with the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework is discussed. (shrink)

This paper investigates the drivers and inhibitors of Internet privacy concern. Applying the Multidimensional Development Theory to the online environment, we identify the important factors under four dimensions—i.e., environmental, individual, information management, and interaction management. We tested our model using data from an online survey of 2417 individuals in Hong Kong. The results show that the factors under all four dimensions are significant in the formation of Internet privacy concern. Specifically, familiarity with government legislation, Internet knowledge, benefit of information (...) disclosure, privacy protection, and social presence reduce Internet privacy concern, while individuals’ previous privacy invasion experience, risk avoidance personality, and sensitivity of information requested by websites increase Internet privacy concern. We conducted an analysis of unobserved heterogeneity to confirm the significance of these factors. A follow-up moderation analysis shows that the individual factors moderate the effects of the information management factor and the interaction management factors. The findings provide an integrated understanding of the formation of Internet privacy concern. (shrink)

A better understanding of how schistosomes exploit host nutrients, neuro‐endocrine hormones and signalling pathways for growth, development and maturation may provide new insights for improved interventions in the control of schistosomiasis. This paper describes recent advances in the identification and characterisation of schistosome tyrosine kinase and signalling pathways. It discusses the potential intervention value of insulin signalling, which may play an important role in glucose uptake and carbohydrate metabolism in schistosomes, providing the nutrients essential for parasite growth, development and, notably, (...) female fecundity. Significant progress has also been made in the characterisation of other schistosome growth factor receptors, such as transforming growth factor beta receptor and epidermal growth factor receptor, and in our understanding of their roles in the host‐parasite molecular dialogue and parasite development. The use of parasite signal transduction components as novel vaccine or drug targets may prove invaluable in prevention, treatment and control strategies to combat schistosomiasis. (shrink)

The ease with which genotyping technologies generate tremendous amounts of data on research participants has been well chronicled, a feat that continues to become both faster and cheaper to perform. In parallel to these advances come additional ethical considerations and debates, one of which centers on providing individual research results and incidental findings back to research participants taking part in genetic research efforts. In 2006 the Industry Pharmacogenomics Working Group offered some ‘Points-to-Consider’ on this topic within the context of the (...) drug development process from those who are affiliated to pharmaceutical companies. Today many of these points remain applicable to the discussion but will be expanded upon in this updated viewpoint from the I-PWG. The exploratory nature of pharmacogenomic work in the pharmaceutical industry is discussed to provide context for why these results typically are not best suited for return. Operational challenges unique to this industry which cause barriers to returning this information are also explained. (shrink)

Background This study assessed patient perceptions of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act and opinions toward physicians who receive gifts and/or payments from pharmaceutical or medical device companies. Methods During their office visit, patients attending different specialty clinics volunteered to complete our survey. The survey asks if the patient knows what the Sunshine Act is, then asks questions on 5-point response scales to assess the patient's opinions toward physicians who receive compensation from companies, their self-rated knowledge of physician compensation, and how (...) they believe this compensation affects the cost of care. Results Over 13 months, 523 responses were collected: 8.6% of patients reported having knowledge of the Sunshine Act, 56.8% rated their knowledge of physician compensations as “poor,” and 67.1% agreed with the statement that patients should be aware of the compensation physicians receive. When asked how their opinion toward their physician would change if they learned the physician received free meals or gifts from companies, 58.9% replied “not at all,” and 36.11% of patients did not believe their cost of care would increase if their physician received compensation from companies. Conclusions Most patients were unfamiliar with the Sunshine Act, and believe their knowledge of physician compensation is poor. Over half of the respondents would not change their opinion of their physician based on knowledge of their physician receiving payments/gifts from companies, and over one-third of respondents did not believe such compensation increased the cost of care. The majority of respondents agreed that patients should be aware of payments/gifts to physicians. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the obvious advantages of controlling population growth and the probable problems with old-age security and female infanticide, the one-child program in China could have latent ramifications. It could drastically reduce the size and significance of the patrilineal lineage, promote the popularity of uxorilocal marriage, and encourage women to make nontraditional career choices. The sum of these effects could finally allow China to make major advances in achieving its unrealized goal of eliminating gender-based inequality.

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04854-9.

The sociologist Fred Davis (1979) was the first to propose that nostalgic reverie plays a role in connecting temporally distinct aspects of the self. His proposal has stood the test of time. Yet, t...

1. Tasi chʻannŭn kyŏngjŏn -- 2. Tasi ponŭn yŏksa.

Every year, the Vietnamese people reportedly burned about 50,000 tons of joss papers, which took the form of not only bank notes, but iPhones, cars, clothes, even housekeepers, in hope of pleasing the dead. The practice was mistakenly attributed to traditional Buddhist teachings but originated in fact from China, which most Vietnamese were not aware of. In other aspects of life, there were many similar examples of Vietnamese so ready and comfortable with adding new norms, values, and beliefs, even contradictory (...) ones, to their culture. This phenomenon, dubbed “cultural additivity”, prompted us to study the co-existence, interaction, and influences among core values and norms of the Three Teachings –Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism–as shown through Vietnamese folktales. By applying Bayesian logistic regression, we evaluated the possibility of whether the key message of a story was dominated by a religion (dependent variables), as affected by the appearance of values and anti-values pertaining to the Three Teachings in the story (independent variables). Our main findings included the existence of the cultural additivity of Confucian and Taoist values. More specifically, empirical results showed that the interaction or addition of the values of Taoism and Confucianism in folktales together helped predict whether the key message of a story was about Confucianism, β{VT ⋅ VC} = 0.86. Meanwhile, there was no such statistical tendency for Buddhism. The results lead to a number of important implications. First, this showed the dominance of Confucianism because the fact that Confucian and Taoist values appeared together in a story led to the story’s key message dominated by Confucianism. Thus, it presented the evidence of Confucian dominance and against liberal interpretations of the concept of the Common Roots of Three Religions (“tam giáo đồng nguyên”) as religious unification or unicity. Second, the concept of “cultural additivity” could help explain many interesting socio-cultural phenomena, namely the absence of religious intolerance and extremism in the Vietnamese society, outrageous cases of sophistry in education, the low productivity in creative endeavors like science and technology, the misleading branding strategy in business. We are aware that our results are only preliminary and more studies, both theoretical and empirical, must be carried out to give a full account of the explanatory reach of “cultural additivity”. (shrink)

This study examined the relationship between CEO ethical leadership and corporate social responsibility by focusing on the mediating role of organizational ethical culture and the moderating role of managerial discretion. Based on a sample of 242 domestic Chinese firms, we found that CEO ethical leadership positively influences corporate social responsibility via organizational ethical culture. In addition, moderated path analysis indicated that CEO founder status strengthens while firm size weakens the direct effect of CEO ethical leadership on organizational ethical culture and (...) its indirect effect on corporate social responsibility. Theoretical and managerial implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

Recent reports of CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in parasitic helminths open up new avenues for research on these dangerous pathogens. However, the complex morphology and life cycles inherent to these parasites present obstacles for the efficient application of CRISPR/Cas9‐targeted mutagenesis. This is especially true with the trematode flukes where only modest levels of gene mutation efficiency have been achieved. Current major challenges in the application of CRISPR/Cas9 for study of parasitic worms thus lie in enhancing gene mutation efficiency and overcoming issues (...) involved in host passage so that mutated parasites survive. Strategies developed for CRISPR/Cas9 studies on Caenorhabditis elegans, protozoa and mammalian cells, including novel delivery methods, the choice of selectable markers, and refining mutation precision represent novel tactics whereby these impediments can be overcome. Furthermore, employing CRISPR/Cas9‐mediated gene drive to interfere with vector transmission represents a novel approach for the control of parasitic worms that is worthy of further exploration. (shrink)

Though hippocampal volume reduction is a pathological hallmark of schizophrenia, the molecular pathway responsible for this degeneration remains unknown. Recent reports have suggested the potential role of impaired blood-brain barrier function in schizophrenia pathogenesis. However, direct evidence demonstrating an impaired BBB function is missing. In this preliminary study, we used immunohistochemistry and serum immunoglobulin G antibodies to investigate the state of BBB function in formalin-fixed postmortem samples from the hippocampus and surrounding temporal cortex of patients with schizophrenia and controls without (...) schizophrenia matched for age, sex, and race. Since a functional BBB prevents the extravasation of IgGs, detection of IgGs in the parenchyma is used as direct evidence of BBB breakdown. We also developed a semi-quantitative approach to quantify the extent of IgG leak and therein BBB breach. Analysis of our immunohistochemistry data demonstrated a significantly higher incidence of IgG leak in patients with schizophrenia compared to controls. Further, BBB permeability was significantly higher in advanced-age patients with schizophrenia than both advanced-age controls and middle-aged patients with schizophrenia. Male patients with schizophrenia also demonstrated a significant increase in IgG permeability compared to control males. Interestingly, the extravasated IgGs also demonstrated selective immunoreactivity for neurons. Based on these observations, we suggest that BBB dysfunction and IgG autoantibodies could be two key missing pathoetiological links underwriting schizophrenia hippocampal damage. (shrink)

This study examined the relationship between workplace sexual harassment as perceived by female employees and the family satisfaction of their husbands. It also considered the mediating roles of employees’ job tension and work-to-family conflict and the moderating role of employees’ work–home segmentation preference in this relationship. The results, based on data from 210 Chinese employee–spouse dyads collected at four time points, indicated that employees’ perceptions of sexual harassment were positively related to their job tension, which in turn increased WFC. Moreover, (...) WFC was negatively related to spouse family satisfaction. The negative relationship between sexual harassment and spouse family satisfaction was mediated by employees’ job tension and WFC. Finally, work–home segmentation preference attenuated the relationship between job tension and WFC. Our results provided insightful theoretical contributions and managerial implications for the sexual harassment and work–family literatures. (shrink)

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

1. Mŏrimal -- 2. Inyŏm taerip kwa chŏngch'i hyŏnsil -- 3. Kŏdae han ch'akkak -- 4. Chayu sasang ŭi pyŏnch'ŏn kwa posu chŏngsin -- 5. T'arinyŏmjŏk inyŏm ŭi ppuri -- 6. Posujuŭi chŏngsin ŭi chaebalgyŏn -- 7. Sasil, chinsil kwa sahoe t'onghap -- 8. Maejŭmmal : yŏmwŏn kwa hyŏnsil.

Using professional accountants as respondents in Hong Kong, this study strives to develop a model to depict the effect of ethical reasoning on the relationships between guanxi and auditors; behaviour in an audit conflict situation. The results of the study found that (1) there is a significant relationship between an auditor's ethical judgement and one's moral cognitive development; (2) there is a relationship between an auditor's ethical judgement and the existence of guanxi; and (3) the impact of guanxi on (...) an auditor's judgement is depending on the level of ethical reasoning. (shrink)