scholarly journals Genomics research in Africa and its impact on global health: insights from African researchers

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. S. Munung ◽  
B. M. Mayosi ◽  
J. de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Disease Surveillance ◽  
Disease Burden ◽  
Research Priorities ◽  
Treatment And Prevention ◽  
Genomics Research ◽  
African Populations ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
High Disease Burden

Africa may be heading for an era of genomics medicine. There are also expectations that genomics may play a role in reducing global health inequities. However, the near lack of genomics studies on African populations has led to concerns that genomics may widen, rather than close, the global health inequity gap. To prevent a possible genomics divide, the genomics ‘revolution’ has been extended to Africa. This is motivated, in part, by Africa's rich genetic diversity and high disease burden. What remains unclear, however, are the prospects of using genomics technology for healthcare in Africa. In this qualitative study, we explored the views of 17 genomics researchers in Africa on the prospects and challenges of genomics medicine in Africa. Interviewees were researchers in Africa who were involved in genomics research projects in Africa. Analysis of in-depth interviews suggest that genomics medicine may have an impact on disease surveillance, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. However, Africa's capacity for genomics medicine, current research priorities in genomics and the translation of research findings will be key defining factors impacting on the ability of genomics medicine to improve healthcare in Africa.

IC & OI The impact of intellectual capital on organizational innovation

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 1257-1265
Author(s):  
Fouad El-Gamal
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Capital ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Organizational Innovation ◽  
Sustainable Competitive Advantage ◽  
Dominant Dimension ◽  
Structural Capital ◽  
Corporate Innovation ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depth Interviews

Intellectual capital can generate value for organizations and improve organizational innovation. This study aims to investigate the effects of intellectual capital on corporate innovation. Mixed research methodology approach has been used by combining both qualitative and quantitative analysis to explore and empirical examine the research model. The targeted population of interest is the licensed pharmaceutical manufactures, 90 organizations in the Egyptian pharmaceutical industry throughout its three main sectors (11 public, 70 local private and 9 MNCs). Statistical analyses are employed based on the questionnaires gathered from 39 pharmaceutical manufactures’ companies (44% response rate). In addition, sixty-three “63” in depth interviews have been conducted with both top and middle managers. The research findings indicate that all dimensions of intellectual capital (human, structural, and relational capital) have positive significant effects on organizational innovation of pharmaceutical manufactures’ companies. The study clarifies that the most dominant dimension is structural capital, which provides the largest and strongest support to pharmaceutical manufactures’ companies. The deep realization of the importance intellectual capital and its impact on innovation helps leaders to adopt accurate system to run organizational innovation in a better way, which lead to sustainable competitive advantage for organizations.

Diabetes, Diabetic Complications, and Phosphate Toxicity: A Scoping Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 674-689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald B. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Scoping Review ◽  
Diabetic Complications ◽  
Inorganic Phosphate ◽  
Dietary Intervention ◽  
Neuronal Degeneration ◽  
Ectopic Calcification ◽  
Treatment And Prevention ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Serum Inorganic Phosphate ◽  
Prevention Of Diabetes

This article presents a scoping review and synthesis of research findings investigating the toxic cellular accumulation of dysregulated inorganic phosphate—phosphate toxicity—as a pathophysiological determinant of diabetes and diabetic complications. Phosphorus, an essential micronutrient, is closely linked to the cellular metabolism of glucose for energy production, and serum inorganic phosphate is often transported into cells along with glucose during insulin therapy. Mitochondrial dysfunction and apoptosis, endoplasmic reticulum stress, neuronal degeneration, and pancreatic cancer are associated with dysregulated levels of phosphate in diabetes. Ectopic calcification involving deposition of calcium-phosphate crystals is prevalent throughout diabetic complications, including vascular calcification, nephropathy, retinopathy, and bone disorders. A low-glycemic, low-phosphate dietary intervention is proposed for further investigations in the treatment and prevention of diabetes and related diabetic pathologies.

576 PREDICTORS OF HIGH DISEASE BURDEN IN CHILDREN WITH ACUTE RECURRENT OR CHRONIC PANCREATITIS*

2021 ◽  
Vol 160 (6) ◽  
pp. S-112-S-113
Author(s):  
Aliye Uc ◽  
Laura Rubin ◽  
Gretchen Cress ◽  
Ying Yuan ◽  
Mark Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Pancreatitis ◽  
Disease Burden ◽  
High Disease Burden

Strategic objectives for improving understanding of informant discrepancies in developmental psychopathology research

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 669-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andres De Los Reyes
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Developmental Psychopathology ◽  
Research Priorities ◽  
Informant Discrepancies ◽  
Multiple Informants ◽  
Strategic Objectives ◽  
Behavioral Assessments ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Developmental Assessments

AbstractDevelopmental psychopathology researchers and practitioners commonly conduct behavioral assessments using multiple informants' reports (e.g., parents, teachers, practitioners, children, and laboratory observers). These assessments often yield inconsistent conclusions about important questions in developmental psychopathology research, depending on the informant (e.g., psychiatric diagnoses and risk factors of disorder). Researchers have theorized why informant discrepancies exist and advanced methodological models of informant discrepancies. However, over 50 years of empirical data has uncovered little knowledge about these discrepancies beyond that they exist, complicate interpretations of research findings and assessment outcomes in practice, and correlate with some characteristics of the informants providing reports (e.g., demographics and mood levels). Further, recent studies often yield take-home messages about the importance of taking a multi-informant approach to clinical and developmental assessments. Researchers draw these conclusions from their work, despite multi-informant approaches to assessment long being a part of best practices in clinical and developmental assessments. Consequently, developmental psychopathology researchers and practitioners are in dire need of a focused set of research priorities with the key goal of rapidly advancing knowledge about informant discrepancies. In this paper, I discuss these research priorities, review work indicating the feasibility of conducting research addressing these priorities, and specify what researchers and practitioners would gain from studies advancing knowledge about informant discrepancies in developmental psychopathology research.

“(Not) forever talk”: restaurant employees managing occupational stigma consciousness

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 384-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Michiko Shigihara
Keyword(s):  
Food Service ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Stigma Consciousness ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Future Selves ◽  
Restaurant Employees ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Depth Interviews

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine restaurant employees’ engagement in identity work to manage occupational stigma consciousness.Design/methodology/approachResearch methods included ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews.FindingsWidespread societal stigma attached to food service work disturbed participants’ sense of coherence. Therefore, they undertook harmonizing their present and envisioned selves with “forever talk,” a form of identity work whereby people discursively construct desired, favorable and positive identities and self-concepts by discussing what they view themselves engaged and not engaged in forever. Participants employed three forever talk strategies: conceptualizing work durations, framing legitimate careers and managing feelings about employment. Consequently, their talk simultaneously resisted and reproduced restaurant work stigmatization. Findings elucidated occupational stigma consciousness, ambivalence about jobs considered “bad,” “dirty” and “not real,” discursive tools for negotiating laudable identities, and costs of equivocal work appraisals.Originality/valueThis study provides a valuable conceptual and theoretical contribution by developing a more comprehensive understanding of occupational stigma consciousness. Moreover, an identity work framework helps explain how and why people shape identities congruent with and supportive of self-concepts. Forever talk operates as a temporal “protect and preserve” reconciliation tool whereby people are able to construct positive self-concepts while holding marginalized, stereotyped and stigmatized jobs. This paper offers a unique empirical case of the ways in which people talk about possible future selves when their employment runs counter to professions normatively evaluated as esteemed and lifelong. Notably, research findings are germane for analyzing any identities (work and non-work related) that pose incoherence between extant and desired selves.

scholarly journals Digital epidemiology and global health security; an interdisciplinary conversation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Eckmanns ◽  
Henning Füller ◽  
Stephen L. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Disease Surveillance ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Infectious Disease Surveillance ◽  
Digital Epidemiology ◽  
Perception Of Health

Contemporary infectious disease surveillance systems aim to employ the speed and scope of big data in an attempt to provide global health security. Both shifts - the perception of health problems through the framework of global health security and the corresponding technological approaches – imply epistemological changes, methodological ambivalences as well as manifold societal effects. Bringing current findings from social sciences and public health praxis into a dialogue, this conversation style contribution points out several broader implications of changing disease surveillance. The conversation covers epidemiological issues such as the shift from expert knowledge to algorithmic knowledge, the securitization of global health, and the construction of new kinds of threats. Those developments are detailed and discussed in their impacts for health provision in a broader sense.

scholarly journals Priority Research themes in the fight Against the COVID-19 with particular reference to Cameroon

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-217
Author(s):  
Vincent PK Titanji
Keyword(s):  
Research Priorities ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Short List ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Treatment And Prevention ◽  
Research Themes ◽  
Deadly Disease ◽  
The Developed Countries

The ongoing SARS CoV-2 pandemic also known as COVID-19 is a highly infectious and deadly disease that has disrupted socio- economic activities  and killed over 500 000 people worldwide during the past six months since it first erupted in Wuhan China in December 2019.While intensive efforts  are under way in the developed countries to find a vaccine and cure for the disease, Cameroon and other African countries should not fold their hands and wait , but join the search for new remedies including from cures from traditional herbs while rigorously applying barrier and social  distancing measures that have proven effective in in curbing the spread of the disease. Herein we enumerate a short list of research priorities that are feasible in our milieu and that could improve on diagnostics, treatment and prevention of the disease in the short and medium terms. Key Words: SARS CoV-2, COVID-19, research, diagnostics, medicinal plants, traditional medicine, pandemic, Cameroon.

scholarly journals Agronomic Advancement in Tillage, Crop Rotation, Soil Health, and Genetic Gain in Durum Wheat Cultivation: A 17-Year Canadian Story

Agronomy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Li ◽  
Yining Niu ◽  
Yuefeng Ruan ◽  
Ron DePauw ◽  
Asheesh Singh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Durum Wheat ◽  
Crop Rotation ◽  
Genetic Gain ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Soil Health ◽  
Research Priorities ◽  
Wheat Cultivation ◽  
The World ◽  
Research Findings

The global demands for various grains, including durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. subsp. durum (Desf.) Husn.), are expected to increase substantially in the coming years, due to the ever-growing human population’s needs for food, feed, and fuel. Thus, providing consistent or increased durum grain to the world market is one of the priorities for policy-makers, researchers, and farmers. What are the major achievements in agronomic advancement for durum wheat cultivation in recent decades? How might the current cropping systems be improved to increase crop yield and quality and improve resource use efficiencies while minimizing input costs and decreasing negative impact on the environment? Canada is one of the major durum wheat producers in the world, as Canada contributes about 50% to global trade of durum grain. Canada’s research achievements in durum wheat might serve as a guide for advancing the cultivation of the crop in other regions/countries on the planet. This review summarizes the major Canadian research findings in the aspects of durum wheat agronomics during the period 2001 to 2017 years. It highlights the main advancements in seeding and tillage, crop rotation and diversification, and use of pulse-induced microbiomes to improve soil health and feedback mechanisms. The genetic gain and breeding for resistance against abiotic and biotic stresses are discussed. Finally, we identified the main constraints and suggested some near-term research priorities. The research findings highlighted in this review will be of use for other areas on the planet to increase durum wheat productivity, improve soil fertility and health, and enhance long-term sustainability.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document