The ‘space’ of friendship: young children's understandings and expressions of friendship in a reception class

The purpose of this study has been to explore young children's understandings and experiences of friendship as these manifested in children's behaviours, in a reception class setting. Drawing on an evolutionary, ecological framework, friendship is seen as not only the expression and further development of social understandings and cognitive advances; more than that, making and maintaining friends is seen as an evolutionary trait and a ‘drive’ to relate to similarly minded others. Through ‘niche picking’, children select the environments and opportunities that suit them in order to develop their dispositions and individual traits. The research employed a participatory design in order to capture the children's views and experiences. It took place in a reception class setting, where children's everyday experiences were observed and discussed with them. The study identified six themes of analysis and offered some suggestions about creating enabling educational environments that allow the ‘space’ for niche construction.     

Organisational justice and employee perceptions on hospital management.

PURPOSE: The purpose to clarify what kind of managerial challenges employees experience regarding organisational justice in hospitals. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: This exploratory study of 8,971 employees working in 14 hospitals and examines the concept of organisational justice in management with qualitative and quantitative methods. FINDINGS: An inductive content analysis of the comments revealed five integrative frames describing challenges in hospital management at respondents' workplaces. These frames should be regarded as major managerial challenges in hospitals. These findings illustrate important antecedents of organisational justice and suggest that work units tend to share the same perceptions of justice. They also reveal that individually produced comments reflect collective experiences in organisational justice. Further, the results indicate that problems in management and policies are often experienced in a complex way, and people making justice judgements do not separate procedural and interactional factors. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: Although the commentators producing qualitative data represented many organisational hierarchy levels, the results should not be generalised to apply to horizontal, informal social relationships. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: This paper gives useful information regarding challenges in human resources management in hospitals. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The paper suggests that people making fairness judgements do not make a distinction between procedural and interpersonal factors. Instead, they use any information available to judge the righteousness of the management events. This paper serves to guide hospital managers towards a better understanding of the importance of organisational justice and its collective nature.     

Cytogenetic and biochemical reactions of experimental animals to combined exposure to low-intensity radiation and chemical factors]

Combined exposure of mice to a mixture of chemicals in small quantities and gamma-radiation at a total dose of 30 sGy cause partial summation of biological effects assessed by cytogenetic disorders in nuclear cells of the bone marrow and changes in erythrocyte metabolism. The level of cytogenetic damages in bone marrow cells remained increased till day 14 of recovery, whereas following exposure to chemicals or radiation alone the number of chromosomal aberrations (ChA) was nearly same as in control at this point of recovery The anaphase method showed prevalence of ChA in the form of fragments over bridges in marrow karyocites. The combination of factors suppressed energy-producing processes in erythrocytes (reliable reductions in lactate dehydrogenase and lactate) and activated oxidation processes (reliable decrease in reduced glutathione). Functional shifts in erythrocyte metabolism persisted till day 30 of recovery Based on results of the investigation, functional status of organism following low-intensity exposures can be assessed, along with cytogenetic, also by indices of erythrocyte metabolism.     

The afferent innervation of the thymus gland in the rat

The afferent nervous supply to the thymus gland has been investigated by means of the retrograde transport of horseradish peroxidase. It has been shown that the thymus receives an afferent supply from the nodose ganglia of the vagus and from the dorsal root ganglia C₁–C₇. The afferent innervation of the right and left thymic lobes is bilaterally organized; the fibers of a small celled population of nodose ganglion neurons cross outside the thymus and those of a larger celled population cross within the thymus gland. The functional implications of these findings are discussed in the context of central nervous system-immune system interactions.     

A Comparison of adults with antisocial personality traits with and without childhood conduct disorder.

BACKGROUND: Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) in DSM-IV is unique among personality disorder diagnoses in requiring the individual to satisfy a number of childhood criteria in addition to relevant traits exhibited in adulthood. We examined the validity of this childhood requirement. METHODS: Personality disordered individuals assessed using the International Personality Disorder Examination and exhibiting a sufficient number of adult antisocial traits to meet criterion A of DSM-IV were subdivided into those who exhibited antisocial traits in both adulthood and childhood and those who had such traits in adulthood only. The two groups were then compared on a number of historical, clinical, and self-report measures. RESULTS: Thirty individuals meeting both childhood and adult criteria (ASPD) were compared with 39 meeting adult antisocial criteria only (ASS). Few differences were found between the two groups on the measures examined, although those in the ASPD group appeared more severe and had higher anger scores on the STAXI-2 psychometric test. CONCLUSIONS: This failure to find clinically important differences between the two groups is in agreement with previous reports and needs to be taken into account in future revisions of ASPD in DSM.     

Brain uptake of radiolabeled N‐oleoyl‐dopamine in the rat

N‐acyl‐dopamines are a novel class of biologically active lipids that have recently been identified in the brain and have the potential to interact with neural signaling pathways. This study seeks to determine the ability of N‐oleoyl‐dopamine, a synthetic amide of oleic acid and dopamine, to cross the blood brain barrier. We determined the tissue content of radioactivity in selected brain regions, in a short‐run study design, following injections of [³H]N‐oleoyl‐dopamine (0.4 µCi) into the internal carotid artery in the rat. These results were compared with intracarotid injections of [³H]dopamine and with intravenous injections of both radiolabeled compounds. The level of radioactivity was determined using liquid scintillation and was expressed as the percentage of its total dose injected per gram of tissue. We found that the 15‐min brain uptake of radioactivity, with no distinct regional variations, amounted to about 6% following the intracarotid [³H]N‐oleoyl‐dopamine, which was a significant 3–4‐fold increase over that following similar administration of [³H]dopamine. Intravenous injections of [³H]N‐oleoyl‐dopamine gave a much smaller yield of radioactivity in brain tissue samples which was still severalfold greater than that for intravenous [³H]dopamine. Qualitative thin‐layered chromatography screening showed the presence of unchanged N‐oleoyl‐dopamine in the brain following injections. We conclude that N‐oleoyl‐dopamine has an appreciable ability to cross the blood‐brain barrier, which contrasts the limited transfer of dopamine alone. N‐oleoyl‐dopamine might exert physiological effects due to its known affinity for the central vanilloid receptors or to better satisfying the brain tissue demand for dopamine. The study suggests a potential pharmacological role for N‐oleoyl‐dopamine delivered exogenously in helping regulate the brain function. Drug Dev. Res. 60:217–224, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.