Embedding sustainability in an organization is often linked to effective leadership. By design, changes in leadership within the organization may lead to changes in commitment or perceived importance of sustainability in organizations.  While some leaders in organizations are interested in embedding sustainability within an organizational structure, other leaders believe in putting their own stamp on sustainability efforts. Using a mixed methodology approach to interviews and literature review, to confirm or dispel the underscored notion of the importance of leadership play in embedding sustainability within city organization. The research inquiry includes in-person interviews with top city staff and elected officials in a large Midwestern city, and a review of the internal documents and reports from the past 5 years, to examine the role that elected and appointed officials have in embedding sustainability within cities, and whether a change in leadership may have an impact on continuity of sustainability implementation and long term viability of such policies. The paper focuses on the implementation of sustainable energy policies within a municipal organizational structure as a mean of constructing a better understanding of leadership on sustainability implementation and embedment.  While the further inquiry is needed, the research points out that an active partnership between city managers, administrators, and elected officials must be in place to support integrating sustainability from within and that sustainability thrives where exhaustive leadership support such initiatives and efforts.  

This paper analyzes several foundational concepts and questions regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR).  Its primary contribution is a statistical examination of fundamental correlations between CSR and Newsweek's 2012 Green Rankings using forensic-based financial and accounting measures.  It slightly replicates a previous study and further introduces new variables in looking at CSR from an economic perspective.  The paper is interdisciplinary in that it synthesizes preceding studies' conceptions of CSR through finance, consumer behavior, branding, and ethics — a mix which has so far been regularly neglected — in an attempt to better characterize and measure corporate social responsibility.

We present the reservoir pH replica exchange (R-pH-REM) method for constant pH simulations. The R-pH-REM method consists of a two-step procedure; the first step involves generation of one or more reservoirs of conformations. Each reservoir is obtained from a standard or enhanced molecular dynamics simulation with a constrained (fixed) protonation state. In the second step, fixed charge constraints are relaxed, as the structures from one or more reservoirs are periodically injected into a constant pH or a pH-replica exchange (pH-REM) simulation. The benefit of this two-step process is that the computationally intensive part of conformational search can be decoupled from constant pH simulations, and various techniques for enhanced conformational sampling can be applied without the need to integrate such techniques into the pH-REM framework. Simulations on blocked Lys, KK, and KAAE peptides were used to demonstrate an agreement between pH-REM and R-pH-REM simulations. While the reservoir simulations are not needed for these small test systems, the real need arises in cases when ionizable molecules can sample two or more conformations separated by a large energy barrier, such that adequate sampling is not achieved on a time scale of standard constant pH simulations. Such problems might be encountered in protein systems that exploit conformational transitions for function. A hypothetical case is studied, a small molecule with a large torsional barrier; while results of pH-REM simulations depend on the starting structure, R-pH-REM calculations on this model system are in excellent agreement with a theoretical model.

ABSTRACT The paper focuses on the role of the ‘Balkanist discourse’, as a collection of negative prejudices on the Balkan people and cultures, in constructing the individual and collective identities of labour migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Particular emphasis is given to investigating to what extent the Balkanist discourse meta-narrative affects the integration of the labour migrants in host countries’ societies and their reintegration into BiH upon their temporary or permanent return. Based on an analytical model that emphasizes the mutual conditionality of everyday and public discourses, i.e. the typology of Balkanist discourse variations, this study undertakes a discourse analysis of the life stories of 10 young labour migrants from BiH. The research results show that variations of the Balkanist discourse are a dominant referential framework for the migrants in interpreting their own experience and social phenomena in both host country and BiH, regardless of the migrants embracing these Balkanist discourse stereotypes as part of their personal identity or feeling resistance towards them.

Purpose Intimate partner violence (IPV) represents a widespread social and public health problem. Researchers have been shown association between IPV and mental health problems. The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the literature on relationship between wide ranges of mental health problems. Design/methodology/approach Research papers related to mental health problems among IPV perpetrators and published in leading academic journals in UK and abroad from 1987 to 2017 were identified and reviewed. Findings Although there were some equivocal findings, the authors found that most of the available research suggests that there is a variety of psychological health problems among IPV perpetrators. Specifically, there was evidence of a significant relationship between anger problems, anxiety, depression, suicidal behaviour, personality disorders, alcoholism or problem gambling and perpetration of IPV. Results from analysed studies identified high rates of co-morbid disorders in IPV perpetrators. Practical implications The findings highlight the need for treatment services to undertake screening and assessment of wide range of psychological difficulties to be able to provide best treatment approaches. Originality/value To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic review that has included studies evaluating various psychological health problems among perpetrators of IPV.

Paper description: Ethanol in alcoholic drinks causes liver injury. Cow whey and pumpkin seed oil have shown hepatoprotective effects in many studies. The effects of whey and pumpkin oil supplementation on the blood biochemical parameters of liver function in male Wistar rats subjected to chronic daily intake of 12% ethanol ad libitum were examined. Ethanol consummation in small doses for 6 weeks changed lipid metabolism, but did not induce extensive liver damage. Both whey and pumpkin seed oil showed some protective potential, but pumpkin seed oil and whey together with ethanol elevated lactate dehydrogenase. Abstract: We studied the effects of whey and pumpkin seed oil supplementation on the biochemical parameters in blood serum of male rats after chronic ad libitum alcohol consumption. The levels of AST, ALT, total bilirubin, ALP, LDH, triglycerides, total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, VLDL, triglyceride/HDL ratio, total cholesterol/HDL ratio (cholesterol ratio) and LDL/HDL ratio (index of atherosclerosis) were determined in rats after six weeks of treatment with: (i) ethanol (12% ethanol, ad libitum ), (ii) whey (2 g/kg per day), (iii) pumpkin seed oil (2 mL/kg per day), (iv) both ethanol and whey, and (v) both ethanol and pumpkin seed oil. The results showed no changes in the levels of AST, ALT, total bilirubin, ALP, total cholesterol, HDL and VLDL in alcoholic rats when compared to the controls (fed with a standard laboratory diet ad libitum ) and rats supplemented with whey and pumpkin seed oil. Our results suggest that alcohol consumption in small doses for 6 weeks changes lipid metabolism and significantly elevates the LDL/HDL ratio (index of atherosclerosis) but does not induce extensive liver damage. Ethanol consumption in our experimental conditions lowered the triglyceride level as well as the triglyceride/HDL ratio, suggesting lipid redistribution and the induction of some cardio-protective effect. However, ethanol induced a higher index of atherosclerosis. Pumpkin seed oil showed some protective potential in alcoholic rats by lowering the total cholesterol/HDL ratio, but it elevated the LDH. Whey consumption prevented elevation of the atherosclerosis index, pointing to its protective role, probably through the redistribution of lipids. However, whey in combination with ethanol elevated LDH. https://doi.org/10.2298/ABS180320014R Received: March 20, 2018; Revised: March 30, 2018; Accepted: March 30, 2018; Published online: April 17, 2018 How to cite this article: Radic I, Nestorovic V, Mijovic M, Tatalovic N, Joksimovic B, Lukic V, Mitic M, Adžic M, Blagojevic D, Velickovic S, Bulajic S, Đerkovic B, Miric M, Janicijevic-Hudomal S. The effects of whey and pumpkin seed oil on blood biochemical parameters of liver function and lipid profile in rats chronically drinking low concentrations of ethanol. Arch Biol Sci. 2017;70(3):…

Small RNA (sRNA) molecules are key factors in the communication between hosts and their interacting pathogens, where they function as effectors that can modulate both host defense and microbial virulence/pathogenicity through a mechanism termed cross-kingdom RNA interference (ck-RNAi). Consistent with this recent knowledge, sRNAs and their double-stranded RNA precursor have been adopted to control diseases in crop plants, demonstrating a straight forward application of the new findings to approach agricultural problems. Despite the great interest in natural ck-RNAi, it is astonishing to find just a few additional examples in the literature since the first report was published in 2013. One reason might be that the identification of sRNA effectors is hampered both by technical challenges and lack of routine bioinformatics application strategies. Here, we suggest a practical procedure to find, characterize, and validate sRNA effectors in plant–microbe interaction. The aim of this review is not to present and discuss all possible tools, but to give guidelines toward the best established software available for the analysis.

In order to determine influence of extraction method on volatile oil composition of Artemisia annua L., steam distillation, hydrodistillation, organic solvent extraction, and headspace sampling have been applied. The relative abundance of volatile compounds from the odorous aerial parts of A. annua, obtained by different extraction techniques, was analyzed by GC-MS. Exactly fifty constituents were identified. The leaf and flower essential oil yield ranged from 0.9 to 2.3% (v/w). Oxygenated monoterpenes were predominant in all samples ranged from 42.6% for steam-distilled fraction of petroleum ether extract to 70.6% for headspace of plant material. Essential oils isolated by steam distillation and hydrodistillation indicate that A. annua belongs to artemisia ketone chemotype with its relative content of 30.2% and 28.3%, respectively. The principal constituent in headspace sample of plant material was also artemisia ketone (46.4%), while headspace of petroleum ether extract had camphene (25.6%) as the major compound. The results prove the combined approaches to be powerful for the analysis of complex herbal samples.

In recent years, traffic accidents are one of the main causes of high mortality rates in Brazil, especially among men and young people. In this sense, the municipality of Natal / RN presents considerable numbers of traffic accidents. but this is also a worldwide problem. Thus, the objective of this text is to analyze, through various factors (number of deaths, gender, age, type of involvement and size of the fleet), the evolution of traffic accidents with fatalities occurring in the municipality of Natal / RN, between 1999 and 2014. It is mainly a descriptive study, based on secondary data provided by the Ministry of Health and Denatran. The study has shown that traffic accidents with fatalities are becoming more frequent, most of them are caused by males, young people, motorcyclists and pedestrians. It should be noted that the focus of the profile observations was directed at the ones who caused the accidents, rather than the victims. This information would be justified by the constant increase of the fleet of vehicles in the studied period. Thus, these data reveal the need for greater intervention by the State in the implementation of preventive programs, in the execution of its social functions, in the application of effective enforcement actions, and in studies on the quality of investments in relation to the reduction of accident rates for these would minimize the number of deaths.

Despite evidence supporting the effectiveness of best practices of infection prevention and management, many surgeons worldwide fail to implement them. Evidence-based practices tend to be underused in routine practice. Surgeons with knowledge in surgical infections should provide feedback to prescribers and integrate best practices among surgeons and implement changes within their team. Identifying a local opinion leader to serve as a champion within the surgical department may be important. The “surgeon champion” can integrate best clinical practices of infection prevention and management, drive behavior change in their colleagues, and interact with both infection control teams in promoting antimicrobial stewardship.

Abstract Background: Bullying as a stressor in the workplace has been evaluated in numerous settings. It has never been evaluated in the emergency medical service (EMS) environment where bullying can occur from many different sources. The Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R) is a 22-question validated tool for evaluating bullying. Our hypothesis was that we could identify a shortened version of the NAQ-R that identifies bullying as accurately as the full screening tool. Methods: This was a cross sectional study of EMS providers in our local EMS transport agency. The local EMS agency transports approximately 50,000 patients per year and is a paramedic level response system. Results on the NAQ-R were on a 5-point Likert scale for each of 22 different categories of bullying that were summed by adding each questions 1–5 response for the 22 questions. Respondents were also categorized as victims or non-victims of bullying based on being positive for any of the 22 types of bullying at least once a week. We performed a binomial decision tree analysis and a cross-validation. Results: Data were collected from 153 providers. Mean age was 33 ± 10 years and 50% were male. Total years in EMS were 8 ± 8 years. NAQ-R summed results in our group ranged between 22 and 88, with an average of 40 ± 15. A NAQ-R score of 33 or less was 91% accurate in identifying non-victims and a score of 45 or more was 94% accurate in identifying victims. The majority at 51% (77/152) of respondents were victims of one or more types of bullying. A combination of five questions was 94% accurate in identifying a victim of bullying among EMS providers. Cross validation resulted in a misclassification risk estimate of 0.12 ± .03. Conclusion: NAQ-R bullying scores in EMS are similar or higher than numbers in other fields. Five questions on the NAQ-R were 94% accurate in identifying victims of bullying in EMS providers.

The displacement of the hyoid bone is one of the key components evaluated in the swallow study, as its motion during swallowing is related to overall swallowing integrity. In daily research settings, experts visually detect the hyoid bone in the video frames and manually plot hyoid bone position frame by frame. This study aims to develop an automatic method to localize the location of the hyoid bone in the video sequence. To automatically detect the location of the hyoid bone in a frame, we proposed a single shot multibox detector, a deep convolutional neural network, which is employed to detect and classify the location of the hyoid bone. We also evaluated the performance of two other state-of-art detection methods for comparison. The experimental results clearly showed that the single shot multibox detector can detect the hyoid bone with an average precision of 89.14% and outperform other auto-detection algorithms. We conclude that this automatic hyoid bone tracking system is accurate enough to be widely applied as a pre-processing step for image processing in dysphagia research, as well as a promising development that may be useful in the diagnosis of dysphagia.