Yes / Background In the United Kingdom, nurses and pharmacists who have undertaken additional post-registration training can prescribe medicines for any medical condition within their competence (non-medical prescribers, NMPs), but little is known about patients' experiences and perceptions of this service. Objective to obtain feedback from primary care patients on the impact of prescribing by nurse independent prescribers (NIPs) and pharmacist independent prescribers (PIPs) on experiences of the consultation, the patient–professional relationship, access to medicines, quality of care, choice, knowledge, patient-reported adherence and control of their condition. Design Two cross-sectional postal surveys. Setting and participants Patients prescribed for by either NIPs or PIPs in six general practices from different regions in England. Results 30% of patients responded (294/975; 149/525 NIPs; 145/450 PIPs). Most said they were very satisfied with their last visit (94%; 87%), they were told as much as they wanted to know about their medicines (88%; 80%), and felt the independent prescriber really understood their point of view (87%; 75%). They had a good relationship with (89%; 79%) and confidence in (84%; 77%) their NMP. When comparing NMP and doctor prescribing services, most patients reported no difference in their experience of care provided, including access to it, control of condition, support for adherence, quality and safety of care. Discussion and conclusions Patients had positive perceptions and experience from their NMP visit. NMPs were well received, and patients' responses indicated the establishment of rapport. They did not express a strong preference for care provided by either their non-medical or medical prescriber. / Policy Research Programme in the Department of Health

A \textit{broadcast} on a connected graph $G$ with vertex set $V(G)$ is a function $f:V(G)\rightarrow \{0, 1, ..., \text{diam}(G)\}$ such that $f(v)\leq e(v)$, where $e(v)$ denotes the eccentricity of $v$. A vertex $v$ is said to be \textit{broadcasting} if $f(v)>0$. The \textit{cost} of $f$ is $\sigma(f)=\sum_{v\in V(G)}f(v)$, or the sum of the strengths of the broadcasts on the set of broadcasting vertices $V_f^+=\{v\in V(G)\,:\,f(v)>0\}$. A vertex $u$ \textit{hears} $f$ from $v\in V_f^+$ if $d_G(u, v)\leq f(v)$. The broadcast $f$ is \textit{hearing independent} if no broadcasting vertex hears another. If, in addition, any vertex $u$ that hears $f$ from multiple broadcasting vertices satisfies $f(v)\leq d_G(u, v)$ for all $v\in V_f^+$, the broadcast is said to be \textit{boundary independent.} The minimum cost of a maximal boundary independent broadcast on $G$, called the \textit{lower bn-independence number}, is denoted $i_{bn}(G)$. The \textit{lower h-independence number} $i_h(G)$ is defined analogously for hearing independent broadcasts. We prove that $i_{bn}(G)\leq i_h(G)$ for all graphs $G$, and show that $i_h(G)/i_{bn}(G)$ is bounded, finding classes of graphs for which the two parameters are equal. For both parameters, we show that the lower bn-independence number (h-independence number) of an arbitrary connected graph $G$ equals the minimum lower bn-independence number (h-independence number) among those of its spanning trees. We further study the maximum cost of boundary independent broadcasts, denoted $\alpha_{bn}(G)$. We show $\alpha_{bn}(G)$ can be bounded in terms of the independence number $\alpha(G)$, and prove that the maximum bn-independent broadcast problem is NP-hard by a reduction from the independent set problem to an instance of the maximum bn-independent broadcast problem. With particular interest in caterpillars, we investigate bounds on $\alpha_{bn}(T)$ when $T$ is a tree in terms of its order and the number of vertices of degree at least 3, known as the \textit{branch vertices} of $T$. We conclude by describing a polynomial-time algorithm to determine $\alpha_{bn}(T)$ for a given tree $T$. / Graduate

No description available.

ABSTRACT APOBEC3G (Apo3G) is a host cell restriction factor of viruses that produce a singlestranded (ss) DNA replication intermediate (Sheehy et al., 2002; Suspene et al., 2004). Apo3G is studied primarily for its ability to restrict propagation of the retrovirus, HIV. In cell culture, Apo3G can only inhibit HIV if it lacks its virion infectivity factor (Vif). The host-pathogen interface between Apo3G and HIV has become a new target of study for the development of novel HIV therapeutics (Prochnow et al., 2009; Sheehy et al., 2003). Apo3G induces mutagenesis of the HIV proviral DNA (Mangeat et al., 2003; Zhang et al., 2003). Apo3G has the ability to induce transition mutations, i.e. cytosine to thymine, through deamination of cytosine to form uracil. Deamination activity induces numerous mutations that causes gene inactivation of the HIV provirus thus restricting the HIV lifecycle. Apo3G attenuates HIV virion infectivity in the absence of the virion infectivity factor (Vif) by inducing genome mutations through deamination of cytosine to uracil in HIV minus strand DNA. Independent from deaminase activity, Apo3G may also interfere with HIV reverse transcription by preventing full length cDNA from forming (Iwatani et al., 2007), nucleocapsid (NC) mediated strand annealing (Guo et al., 2007; Guo et al., 2009; Li et al., 2007), and RNaseH activity of the reverse transcriptase (Li et al., 2007). Whether Apo3G is able to restrict HIV by a deamination-independent mode remains controversial. In particular, the existence of the deamination independent mode was challenged since the Apo3G deamination null mutant E259Q was shown to have limited or no ability to inhibit HIV-1 replication (Schumacher et al., 2008). This research assesses the ability of Apo3G to inhibit reverse transcription of HIV genomic RNA. It is hypothesised that based on the ability of Apo3G to bind and oligomerize on single stranded nucleic acids (Chelico et al., 2008), and its high affinity for RNA (Chelico et al., 2010), that Apo3G can inhibit RT mediated primer extension as well as nucleocapsid mediated strand annealing. Additionally, it is hypothesized that Apo3G cannot inhibit RT RNAseH activity, as Apo3G has been shown to have a low affinity for DNA/RNA hybrids (Iwatani et al., 2006). We will test these hypotheses by using in vitro assays that mimic in vivo reverse transcription events. Here we have shown that Apo3G is able to decrease the efficiency with which HIV-1 reverse transcriptase synthesizes DNA from an RNA primer annealed to an RNA template. Apo3G had a minimal affect on primer initiation and primarily inhibits primer elongation. Using iii the monomeric mutant, F126A/W127A, we show that the deamination independent mode of inhibiting reverse transcriptase is impaired without oligomerization on template RNA. We also provide evidence that the Apo3G mutant E259Q should not be considered a deamination null proxy for native Apo3G since it exhibits decrease in RNA binding affinity compared to the native form. We did not find that Apo3G inhibited HIV NC-mediated strand annealing activity or RNaseH activity of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase. The data suggest a two-tiered mechanism for inhibition of reverse transcriptase-mediated DNA synthesis that is dependent upon 1) the ability of Apo3G to oligomerize on RNA substrates and 2) bind RNA with high affinity. Ascribing a mechanism to the deamination independent mode of HIV-1 restriction by Apo3G suggests that the enzyme may use this mechanism in vivo to delay completion of proviral DNA synthesis which, may negatively impact the HIV-1 lifecycle.

Corporate Governance is an important topic that has been given a great deal of attention the last decade and the attention has increased even more with the financial crisis of 2007-2009. The severe financial and economic crisis has worsened the relationship between shareholders and corporations, including banks, as well as between the executive management and the board of directors. There is a need to rebuild the trust between these actors and Corporate Governance is considered to be a helpful tool in order to achieve this. A mean that is used within Corporate Governance to protect shareholders in the financial market is the use of independent directors as a monitoring device for the executive management. Independent directors are considered to play an important role on boards and are preventing inside directors from abusing their power in hazardous ways. The efficiency of independent directors has however shown to differ between industries. The banking industry in particular stands out in comparison to non-financial firms. It is vital that independent directors are provided with the right expertise that is needed to fundamentally understand the complex industry of banks, and there is a risk that these directors lack this kind of knowledge which makes their presence inefficient. The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether there have been any changes in the number of independent board members in four Swedish banks within the time period of 2001-2010. The banks that are included in this study are Handelsbanken, Nordea, SEB and Swedbank. Variables that are covered in the study are, except for number of independent board members in respect to the bank and major shareholders, the number of executives on the boards, the gender distribution, average age and average tenure of the independent board members. The result shows that there has been an increase in the number of independent board members within the investigated time period. The banks are complying with guidelines concerning board independence that are included in various recommendations provided by both the European Commission as well as the Swedish Corporate Governance Board.

none

¡@¡@Crushing the whole world in 2008, Global financial crisis caused a loss to Taiwan DRAM industry up to hundred billion dollar, which forced government and entrepreneur confront the problem of shortage of R&D. In order to improve the competitiveness of DRAM industry, Ministry of Economic Affairs set up TIMC. However, the corporation ended at the end of 2009 due to rejected by the Legislative Department. The problem still needs to be solved, so we will focus on how to improve this problem and use financial data of several main DRAM companies to analyze them by five categories, like production and investment capacity, asset use efficiency, earning capacity, financial flexibility and innovative capacity, etc. From analysis results we get the following problems: 1. Huge capital expenditure but competitiveness still weaken. 2. Single product portfolio couldn¡¦t help improve business cycle so that make insufficient capacity utilization. 3. Deteriorating financial situation and insufficient fund. 4. Lack of innovation ability, domestic industry has to rely on foreign technique authorization. In general, scattered resources, lack of autonomous technology and narrow product range are the key problems. We think integration sources and focused investment can avoid wasting funds. Besides, product diversification can offset the risk of gross margin decline and reduce business cycle fluctuations on gross margin. And developing autonomous technology can reduce using current OEM business model. Furthermore, this essay will propose a three-step scheme to DRAM industry for reference.

This study examines whether board independence is an effective corporate governance mechanism in reducing earnings management in China, a country with significantly different institutional and legal characteristics from the Anglo-Saxon countries. I investigate: (i) whether voluntary adoption of board independence prior to the China Regulatory Securities Commission (CSRC) regulation on board independence is associated with lower earnings management; and (ii) the extent to which the CSRC regulation is effective in achieving the aim of inhibiting earnings management. I employ two stage least squares techniques to control for potential simultaneity problems between earnings management and board independence and documents that failing to control for such problems will lead to biased and inconsistent estimates. Using three different measures of earnings management, I show that firms that voluntarily move towards board independence (i) have lower levels of discretionary accruals; (ii) employ less severe income smoothing strategies; and (iii) are less likely to manage return on equity to meet regulatory thresholds. In contrast, firms adopting board independence following the CSRC regulation in 2002 do not experience any changes in the levels of earnings management before and after the regulation. These results suggest that regulation alone is not a sufficient solution to motivate effective independent boards.

For many years, independent record companies have been facing the conflict between authentic and commercial. Insisting on their own principles and following them in the real world is the hardest part for most independent productions. Therefore, this research studies an independent record company in Taiwan using a system dynamics approach, to get a deeper understanding of how an independent record company operates, to find out how the business is affected by its own beliefs, and to simulate the policies with the system dynamics model. According to the research the following conclusions were reached: 1. The decisions and the knowledge of the founder are key to maintaining the business model of the independent record company. 2. Main income of the indicated companies mostly comes from being a contractor of concerts and other related cultural activities. It shows the evolution of a new business pattern. 3. Simulation of lower quality products leads the customer base to dwindle and lose faith in the label. 4. The income of the company is based on the structure of the independent production, so if the company wants to fix its financial problems, it should re-arrange the whole revenue and expenditure model, or it will result in side effects, even leading company into debt.

No description available.