An issue-based approach to organisational legitimacy: the case of Namdeb

In this investigative study an issue-based approach is employed to examine the effects of a continuous flux of everyday, dynamic and often interconnected or interrelated political, economic, social, environmental and legislative issues involving mostly external stakeholders. The case study method was used and the issues influencing the legitimacy of Namdeb, a public private joint venture (PPJV) between the Government of Namibia and De Beers, international diamond miner and retailer was investigated. The findings show that a number of interconnected and constant issues collectively influence organisational legitimacy on a daily and continuous basis. Furthermore, most of these issues are moral issues. Moreover, political issues were specifically identified as a major source of adverse impact on organisational legitimacy. On both the theoretical and practical levels, the need for a tool to help with the identification, classification and management of the issues affecting organisational legitimacy was also recognised. To assist with this, a two- dimensional alternative to Suchman's (1995) typology of organisational legitimacy which is considered the reference in the field of legitimacy theory, was developed by taking into consideration issue and legitimacy types. The study was conducted for two main reasons. Firstly, no existing study concentrating on the various collective and everyday issues affecting organisational legitimacy has thus far been embarked upon. Secondly, no empirical evidence based on the direct input, or more precisely points of view of external stakeholders, has been identified in the current literature and yet organisational legitimacy is said to be dependent on some degree of shared agreement among societal constituencies or stakeholders that an organisation is aligned with accepted notions of purpose, endeavor and outcomes

The quantum state vector in phase space and Gabor's windowed Fourier transform

Representations of quantum state vectors by complex phase space amplitudes, complementing the description of the density operator by the Wigner function, have been defined by applying the Weyl-Wigner transform to dyadic operators, linear in the state vector and anti-linear in a fixed `window state vector'. Here aspects of this construction are explored, with emphasis on the connection with Gabor's `windowed Fourier transform'. The amplitudes that arise for simple quantum states from various choices of window are presented as illustrations. Generalized Bargmann representations of the state vector appear as special cases, associated with Gaussian windows. For every choice of window, amplitudes lie in a corresponding linear subspace of square-integrable functions on phase space. A generalized Born interpretation of amplitudes is described, with both the Wigner function and a generalized Husimi function appearing as quantities linear in an amplitude and anti-linear in its complex conjugate. Schr\"odinger's time-dependent and time-independent equations are represented on phase space amplitudes, and their solutions described in simple cases.Comment: 36 pages, 6 figures. Revised in light of referees' comments, and further references adde

Apparent prevalence of dourine in the Khomas region of Namibia

A 15-year record of the results of horse sera from the Khomas region of Namibia tested by the complement fixation test for dourine at the Central Veterinary Laboratory in Windhoek before clearing the respective animals for export and competitive sport were subjected to statistical analysis. The range of percentage positive, taken as the apparent prevalence of dourine for the region, during the period of study, was 0-29.09%; the average regional level of apparent prevalence was 8.33%. These figures were thought to be lower than the real situation due to some bias in the sampling criteria. For more accurate results, the more reliable enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay techniques are recommended for use in sero-surveys for dourine in Khomas and other regions of Namibia to provide a basis for development of effective control strategies against the disease.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi. Adobe Acrobat v.9 was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format.mn201

Congenital myasthenic syndrome caused by a frameshift insertion mutation in

Objective: Description of a new variant of the glutamine-fructose-6-phosphate transaminase 1 (GFPT1) gene causing congenital myasthenic syndrome (CMS) in 3 children from 2 unrelated families. Methods: Muscle biopsies, EMG, and whole-exome sequencing were performed. Results: All 3 patients presented with congenital hypotonia, muscle weakness, respiratory insufficiency, head lag, areflexia, and gastrointestinal dysfunction. Genetic analysis identified a homozygous frameshift insertion in the GFPT1 gene (NM_001244710.1: c.686dupC; p.Arg230Ter) that was shared by all 3 patients. In one of the patients, inheritance of the variant was through uniparental disomy (UPD) with maternal origin. Repetitive nerve stimulation and single-fiber EMG was consistent with the clinical diagnosis of CMS with a postjunctional defect. Ultrastructural evaluation of the muscle biopsy from one of the patients showed extremely attenuated postsynaptic folds at neuromuscular junctions and extensive autophagic vacuolar pathology. Conclusions: These results expand on the spectrum of known loss-of-function GFPT1 mutations in CMS12 and in one family demonstrate a novel mode of inheritance due to UPD

The chemokine RANTES is secreted by human melanoma cells and is associated with enhanced tumour formation in nude mice

Modulation of tumour cell growth by tumour-infiltrating leucocytes is of high importance for the biological behaviour of malignant neoplasms. In melanoma, tumour-associated macrophages (TAM) and tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) are of particular interest as inhibitors or enhancers of cell growth. Recruitment of leucocytes from the peripheral blood into the tumour site is mediated predominantly by chemotaxins, particularly by the group of chemokines