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In order to value the costs and benefits associated with improved space heating we analysed the Housing, Heating and Health Study, a randomised community trial involving installation of energy efficient and healthy heaters (heat pump, wood pellet burner or flued gas heater) in homes with basic insulation and poor heating, occupied by households which included a child with asthma. We compared the initial purchase and installation cost of heaters with changes in the number of visits to health professionals, time off work/school, caregiving, and pharmaceutical use for household members and changes in total household energy use and carbon emissions following the intervention. We used two scenarios to analyse the results over the predicted 12-year life-span of the heaters. The targeted approach (Scenario A - assuming high rates of household asthma throughout the period of analysis) produced enough health-related benefits to offset the cost of the heaters, and when total energy use and carbon emission savings were included in the analysis the ratio of benefits to costs was 1.09:1. The untargeted approach (Scenario B - assuming typical New Zealand asthma rates throughout the period of analysis) had a ratio of total benefits to costs of 0.31:1. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.

Introduction: While many epidemiological studies have shown that low outdoor temperatures are associated with increased rates of hospitalisation and mortality (especially for respiratory or cardiovascular disease), very few studies have looked at the association between indoor temperatures and health. Such studies are clearly warranted, as people have greater exposure to the indoor environment than the outdoor environment. Objectives: To examine the relationship between various metrics of indoor temperature and lung function in children with asthma. Our specific research questions were: (1) In which room of the home is temperature most strongly associated with lung function? (2) Which exposure metric best describes the relationship between indoor temperature and lung function? (3) Over what lag/time period does indoor air temperature affect lung function most strongly? Methods: The Heating Housing and Health Study was a randomised controlled trial that investigated the effect of installing heaters in the homes of children with asthma. This study collected measurements of lung function (daily) and indoor temperature (hourly). Lung function and indoor temperature were measured for 309 children over 12 049 child-days. Statistical models were fitted to identify the best measures and metrics. Results: The strongest association with lung function was found for the severity of exposure to low bedroom temperatures averaged over the preceding periods of 0-7 to 0-12 days. A 1°C increase in temperature was associated with an average increase of 0.010, 0.008, 10.06, 12.06, in our four measures of lung function (peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) morning, PEFR evening, forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) morning and FEV1 evening). Conclusions: Indoor temperatures have a small, but significant, association with short-term variations in the lung function of children with asthma.

There is growing evidence that asthma symptoms can be aggravated or events triggered by exposure to indoor nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emitted from unflued gas heating. The impact of NO2 on the respiratory health of children with asthma was explored as a secondary analysis of a randomised community trial, involving 409 households during the winter period in 2006 (June to September). Geometric mean indoor NO2 levels were 11.4 μg·m-3, while outdoor NO2 levels were 7.4 μg·m-3. Higher indoor NO2 levels (per logged unit increase) were associated with greater daily reports of lower (mean ratio 14, 95% CI 1.12-1.16) and upper respiratory tract symptoms (mean ratio 1.03, 95% CI 1.00-1.05), more frequent cough and wheeze, and more frequent reliever use during the day, but had no effect on preventer use. Higher indoor NO2 levels (per logged unit increase) were associated with a decrease in morning (-17.25 mL, 95% CI -27.63- -6.68) and evening (-13.21, 95% CI -26.03- -0.38) forced expiratory volume in 1 s readings. Outdoor NO2 was not associated with respiratory tract symptoms, asthma symptoms, medication use or lung function measurements. These findings indicate that reducing NO2 exposure indoors is important in improving the respiratory health of children with asthma. Copyright©ERS 2011.

Sobre el desarrollo de competencias en docentes, asociadas a las Tecnolog��as de la Informaci��n y las Comunicaciones (TIC), se encuentra abundante literatura, las cuales lo abordan de manera indistinta (competencia digital, competencia en TIC y otras). Sin embargo, el desarrollo de dichas competencias rebasa el alcance de disciplinas espec��ficas, a��n del ��rea de las TIC, por lo que para enfrentar dicha situaci��n se requiere de estrategias que permitan, mediante la transversalizaci��n de los contenidos TIC desde todas las disciplinas y componentes del curr��culo, asegurar ���aquellos aspectos generales de cada profesi��n que no se logran formar desde una disciplina en particular, requiriendo el concurso de las restantes��� (MES, 2003, p.8). En el presente trabajo se expone una propuesta de estrategia, concebida como ���un sistema integrado de principios, premisas, recursos, componentes y escenarios que a trav��s de tres etapas (familiarizaci��n, apropiaci��n y sistematizaci��n) organiza, planifica, ejecuta y controla, las acciones conducentes al desarrollo de competencias TIC en la formaci��n inicial de docentes mediante la declaraci��n de los resultados y evidencias de aprendizajes a lograr por cada estudiante durante los cuatro a��os de la carrera, sobre la base de las dimensiones en que se descomponen los est��ndares de competencias TIC (tecnol��gica, ��tica y legal, comunicaci��n y colaboraci��n, gesti��n de la informaci��n y el conocimiento, investigativa, pedag��gica y gesti��n escolar)��� para asegurar la transversalizaci��n de los contenidos TIC en la formaci��n inicial del docente, la cual es resultado de un proyecto asociado al Programa Sectorial del MINED.

Standards for designing, improving, and maintaining the built environment have conceptual and practical value for health. Yet, their importance runs the risk of being subsumed in tangential discourses, including over their applicability for particular populations or in particular contexts. This paper applies an integrative systems perspective to several relevant scenarios, while broadly revisiting the health rationale for built environment standards. As with any intervention, standards can have negative unintended consequences, in some cases inducing adverse outcomes. Yet, forgoing standards is not an acceptable answer for sustainable urbanization. The systems perspective adopted here surveys some of the driving forces that underlie adverse outcomes, and suggests potential leverage points and criteria for action.

Objectives Mortality and worsening of organ function are desirable endpoints for clinical trials in systemic sclerosis (SSc). The aim of this study was to identify factors that allow enrichment of patients with these endpoints, in a population of patients from the European Scleroderma Trials and Research group database. Methods Inclusion criteria were diagnosis of diffuse SSc and follow-up over 12 +/- 3 months. Disease worsening/organ progression was fulfilled if any of the following events occurred: new renal crisis; decrease of lung or heart function; new echocardiography-suspected pulmonary hypertension or death. In total, 42 clinical parameters were chosen as predictors for the analysis by using (1) imputation of missing data on the basis of multivariate imputation and (2) least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression. Results Of 1451 patients meeting the inclusion criteria, 706 had complete data on outcome parameters and were included in the analysis. Of the 42 outcome predictors, eight remained in the final regression model. There was substantial evidence for a strong association between disease progression and age, active digital ulcer (DU), lung fibrosis, muscle weakness and elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) level. Active DU, CRP elevation, lung fibrosis and muscle weakness were also associated with a significantly shorter time to disease progression. A bootstrap validation step with 10 000 repetitions successfully validated the model. Conclusions The use of the predictive factors presented here could enable cohort enrichment with patients at risk for overall disease worsening in SSc clinical trials.

We present a class of diagrams in which to reason about causation. These diagrams are based on a formal semantics called ‘system semantics’, in which states of systems are related according to temporal succession. Arguing from straightforward examples, we provide the truth conditions for causal claims that one may make about these diagrams.

Over the past two decades, the digital revolution has brought along (a) ‘Big Data’, i.e. data which have rapidly become too big in volume, too diverse in nature and too rapidly changing to be handled in conventional databases and analysed using conventional tools, and (b) ‘data science’, “the study of the generalizable extraction of knowledge from data” (Dhar 2013), which develops and applies tools to manage and analyse (Big) Data. Data scientists are seen as new breed of managerial decision supporters, and insofar cross traditional management accounting territory. The aim of this study is to investigate the current and predict the future relationships between management accounting and the emerging data science discipline, based on a systematic analysis of the academic and practitioner literatures. While there is very little empirical evidence of an actual impact of data science on the management accounting profession, such impacts are predicted for the near future. Management accountants are expected to break with their traditions and collaborate with data scientists for mutual benefits. On the one hand, management accountants can be ‘data businesspeople’ or ‘horizontal data scientists’, who contribute essential business knowledge and data understanding to data science/Big Data projects. To succeed in such efforts, established and graduating management accountants face a need for up-skilling in technology, statistics, data mining, etc. and move into deeper analysis. Data scientists, on the other hand, can use their technical expertise to enrich established management accounting techniques and practices (e.g. the Balanced Scorecard, forecasting, etc.) with more advanced statistical or machine learning techniques.

Purpose – To expand beyond existing research on the integration of supply chain and new product development that has a limited focused on the need to pre-inform supply chain before product launch, the need for new product development to consider the impact of product design on supply chain operations and research has focused on ensuring product availability at the product launch. Design/methodology/approach – This research note suggests avenues forward and areas for practice and research to progress. Findings – The existing and limited focus on involving supply chain in new product development overlooks several central issues and opportunities that companies are beginning to explore and that can be supported by research. In particular the opportunity to focus on leveraging supply chain in new product development, for greater market impact and revenue growth. Practical implications – Addressing the path forward, beyond limited approaches requires greater alignment between new product development and supply chain, it requires a focus that goes beyond just ensuring product availability and it requires alignment much further upstream in the new product development process. Examples of early progress in companies are provided. Originality/value – In addition to summarizing existing research, new avenues for research and practice are offered that can tremendously improve alignment and the contribution of supply chain on new product development, for the good of the company as a whole. Specific research areas are suggest to enable research to support the realization of the path forward in this area.

Since the start of the new millennium, management accounting researchers have investigated how Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPS) or the implementation of such systems influences management accounting (practises) and/or firm performance. More recently, the empirical focus of such studies has shifted towards the SAP ERPS, the world-market leading enterprise system (Columbus, 2014). Despite this focus, none of these studies has ever described the management accounting functionalities of SAP ERP, let alone acknowledging that, over the past decade, SAP has substantially expanded its solution range for management accounting, in particular with the acquisition of BusinessObjects in 2007. Today, management accounting functionalities are dispersed across a wide range of SAP ‘solutions’ beyond the core SAP ERP, including cloud solutions, and even for SAP customers it is difficult to reconcile which software component contributes the various ‘solution for management accounting’. We argue that research on the impacts of such systems on management accounting practises and performance requires a detailed understanding of the management accounting functionality provided by such systems – across all modules and add-on components. Our archival and expert-interview based study aims to provide such insights by systematically analysing the current SAP software solutions range to locate management accounting tools and to map those tools with the broader body of knowledge of management accounting practises. Key findings of our study are that the SAP software range provides support for almost all common management accounting practises and that for some of these practises SAP users are provided with a range of tools providing similar functionality (e.g. SAP SEM, SAP Strategy Management, and SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management). Further to that, the SAP software range provides management accounting functionalities such as “Grenzplankostenrechnung” (GPK), which is a core element of the German tradition of “Controlling” (Becker and Messner 2005), and has so far only attracted limited attention in the international management accounting community. The SAP tools for management accounting are partly embedded in the standard SAP ERP package, but many of them come as complementary or supplementary extensions or as part of data warehouse based Business Intelligence components (incl. BusinessObjects components). Considering the large range of management accounting components and the many adoption options provided, we expect heterogeneity amongst SAP user organisations in terms of system support for management accounting. In stage two of the broader research project, we will conduct a field study to verify this prediction and investigate the implications for managerial decision making and performance management. We contribute to academic research by providing a systematic mapping of management accounting practises and the extensive SAP solutions range, thereby enabling researchers to conduct better informed empirical research in SAP environments. We also contribute to management accounting practise by deciphering marketing-driven SAP publications and mapping management accounting functionality with actual software components.

This paper utilises the resource - based view as a framework to examine the interactions between information technology (IT) governance, IT management and organisational information systems. Analysis of data collected from medium and large Australian organisations indicates that IT governance capabilities act to improve IT management capabilities which in turn improve the performance of organisational information system s, specifically future- oriented accounting information systems. We propose that these interactions represent the operation of an overarching organisational IT capability. Further analysis finds significant differences in the most effective combinations of IT governance and IT management mechanisms for organisations facing differing levels of environmental turbulence. This finding highlights the importance of utilising IT governance as a higher order organisational capability to reconfigure and align capabilities and resources in response to changing strategic requirements and environmental pressures.

This paper utilises the resource-based view as a framework to examine the interactions between information technology (IT) governance, IT management and organisational information systems. Analysis of data collected from medium and large Australian organisations indicates that IT governance capabilities act to improve IT management capabilities which in turn improve the performance of organisational information systems, specifically future-oriented accounting information systems. We propose that these interactions represent the operation of an overarching organisational IT capability. Further analysis finds significant differences in the most effective combinations of IT governance and IT management mechanisms for organisations facing differing levels of environmental turbulence. This finding highlights the importance of utilising IT governance as a higher order organisational capability to reconfigure and align capabilities and resources in response to changing strategic requirements and environmental pressures.

Expression of VCAM-1 was compared with that of E-selectin in cytokine-induced lesions and in delayed-type hypersensitivity reactions to tuberculin purified protein derivative (PPD) in pig skin. Lumenally expressed Ags were quantified by measuring localization in skin of i.v. injected (111)In-mAb 10.2C7 (anti-vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (anti-VCAM-1), (125)I-mAb 1.2B6 (anti-E-selectin), and (99m)Tc-MOPC21 (control IgG1). Anti-VCAM-1 mAb uptake was greater following intradermal (i.d.) injection of TNF-alpha than following injection of IL-1, while the two cytokines induced similar uptake of anti-E-selectin. In immunologically naive pigs there was no detectable increase in anti-VCAM-1 after i.d. injection of PPD, although anti-E-selectin uptake was increased at 3 and 6 h. In contrast, i.d. injection of PPD in sensitized pigs led to increased uptake of both anti-VCAM-1 and anti-E-selectin at 6, 8, 24, and 48 h, each of which was significantly greater than the uptake of control IgG1 into the same lesions (each p < 0.01). Anti-TNF-alpha mAb abolished the increased uptake of anti-VCAM-1 3 and 8 h following i.d. injection of PPD in sensitized pigs and significantly inhibited uptake at 24 h (p = 0.0025), but did not significantly reduce uptake of anti-E-selectin. We conclude that in this delayed-type hypersensitivity model 1) E-selectin expression by endothelial cells follows sequential Ag nonspecific and immune-specific phases, 2) increased VCAM-1 expression by endothelial cells is only seen in sensitized animals, and 3) expression of VCAM-1 appears to be relatively more dependent on TNF-alpha than E-selectin. Differential expression of E-selectin and VCAM-1 may influence the leukocytic infiltrate during the course of nonspecific and immune-specific inflammatory reactions.

In a retrospective review (1970-1983), survival following block dissection of the groin was compared in two groups with clinical stage II melanoma. Twenty patients under one surgeon had ilioinguinal (high) block dissection, and 22 patients under another surgeon had inguinal (low) block dissection. The high block 5-year survival was 40 percent, and the low block 5-year survival was 35 percent. There was no statistical difference between groups on life-table or log-rank test analysis. It is concluded that the extent of groin dissection has no effect on survival of stage II melanoma.

Reducing the exposure of children and young people to the marketing of unhealthy foods is a core strategy for reducing the high overweight and obesity prevalence in this population. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has recently reviewed its self-regulatory codes and proposed a revised single code on advertising to children. This article evaluates the proposed code against eight criteria for an effective code, which were included in a submission to the ASA review process from over 70 New Zealand health professors. The evaluation found that the proposed code largely represents no change or uncertain change from the existing codes, and cannot be expected to provide substantial protection for children and young people from the marketing of unhealthy foods. Government regulations will be needed to achieve this important outcome.

This paper describes interactive software systems for making agricultural crop acreage estimates using LANDSAT MSS data developed jointly by the Center for Advanced Computation of the University of Illinois and the Statistical Reporting Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. These acreage estimation procedures have been incorporated into, and use features previously developed in, EDITOR. EDITOR is an interactive file management and image processing system developed by the Center for Advanced Computation in collaboration with USGS/DI, NASA/AMES, and USDA/SRS. The crop acreage estimation software is implemented as part of the EDITOR system on TENEX, a modified DEC SYSTEM-10. The only hardware necessary to access this acreage estimation subsystem or the whole EDITOR system consists of a KSR (keyboard send-receive) terminal with acoustic coupler and a telephone link to a TENEX system on the ARPA network. An x-y coordinate digitizer and, optionally a terminal graphics plotter, are also needed for digitizing ground-truth samples and interactive registration capabilities.

The approach of the Statistical Reporting Service (SRS) for using LANDSAT remote sensor data is to use it as an auxiliary variable with existing operational ground surveys. SRS objectives have been to investigate the use of LANDSAT data to improve crop-acreage estimates at several levels for which acreage statistics are needed; such as counties, groups of counties such as Crop Reporting Districts (CRD1s), and entire states. To determine the feasibility of these objectives, the Illinois crop-acreage experiment was established in 1975. The experiment employs LANDSAT data for the state of Illinois and data from SRS's June Enumerative Survey (JES) for Illinois. The JES data was collected and edited by the Illinois Cooperative Crop Reporting Service. In addition the JES data was supplemented by monthly-updates conducted throughout the growing season and by low-altitude color-infrared photography for 202 of the 300 JES segments in Illinois. This paper describes: 1. The statistical methodology for the auxiliary use of LANDSAT data to estimate crop acreages, 2. The procedure for designing the pixel classifier which is required by this methodology, and 3. Results obtained by applying this methodology for three LANDSAT frames in western Illinois. Software systems have been developed jointly by SRS and the Center for Advanced Computation of the University of Illinois which implement the estimation methodology. The use of LANDSAT data as an auxiliary variable developed from a realization that using LANDSAT data as a survey variable produces biased estimates. The two major types of bias in using LANDSAT data as a survey variable are: 1. Mensuration biases due to the large pixel size of the LANDSAT data (57m x 79m), and 2. Classifier-related procedural biases due to different discrimination functions (linear or quadratic), training sets, prior probabilities, and classification categories used in the design of the classifier.

Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) is an autosomal, dominantly inherited disease that predisposes to colorectal cancer and is characterized by the presence of hundreds to thousands of adenomas covering the colon and rectum. Mapping of the FAP locus to 5q21-q22 by linkage studies in families ultimately allowed the identification of the APC (Adenomatous Polyposis Coli) gene itself. The APC gene comprises 15 exons with a 9 kilobase RNA transcript and a 312 kilodalton final protein product. This discovery transformed the diagnosis of FAP and offered direct identification of defective gene carriers by mutation screening. Currently used techniques have been successful in detecting mutations in 15 to 67 percent of patients. To date, at least 136 different mutations have been described in 301 unrelated FAP patients, most of which (98%) are translation terminating mutations leading to a truncated final protein product. Promising applications or development of novel procedures, like the protein truncation test (PTT), are under way for the remaining FAP patients. With the exception of the description of a critical boundary in exon 9 for the presence or absence of CHRPE, there are no clear genotype-phenotype relationships, but mutations located in the 5' half of exon 15 seem to lead to a more severe phenotype. Very little is know about the APC protein product function. The APC protein could be involved in cell-to-cell signalling and/or cell adhesion functions. The APC gene is a tumour suppressor gene involved in early stages of sporadic colorectal carcinogenesis. Further understanding of the APC gene function may define a rational approach for early detection, prevention strategies, assessment of prognosis and treatment of colorectal cancer. In this regard, animal models of FAP, like the MIN (Multiple Intestinal Neoplasia) mouse or the APC 1638 mouse, are promising and powerful tools.

Hereditary cylindromatosis is a rare autosomal dominant disease characterised by the development of multiple benign neoplasms of the skin. We recently localised the gene responsible for this disease (cyld1) to chromosome 16q12-q13 and provided evidence that it is a tumour suppressor gene (Biggs et al., 1995). We have now examined polymorphic markers on every chromosome, some of which are close to known tumour suppressor genes, in 25 tumours from 4 individuals with familial cylindromatosis. No loss of heterozygosity (LOH) was detected other than at loci on chromosome 16q. This observation suggests that the cyld1 gene may be the only tumour suppressor gene implicated in the development of cylindromas. We have also demonstrated LOH using markers on chromosome 16q in 8/14 (57%) sporadic cylindromas, indicating that the cyld1 gene is likely to be involved in the genesis of both familial and sporadic cylindromas.

Hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal carcinoma is a major cancer susceptibility syndrome known to be caused by inheritance of mutations in at least four genes such as hMSH2, hMLH1, hPMS1, and hPMS2 which encode components of a DNA mismatch repair system. The hMLH1 genomic locus on chromosome 3p has been cloned and shown to cover approximately 58 kilobases of genomic DNA and contain 19 exons. The sequence of all of the intron-exon junctions has been determined and used to develop methods for analyzing each hMLH1 exon for mutations. Using these methods to analyze a 3p-linked hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal carcinoma kindred, we have demonstrated that cancer susceptibility in this family is due to the inheritance of a frame shift mutation in the hMLH1 gene.

Many susceptibility factors contribute to an individual's risk of developing colorectal cancer. Family history of colorectal cancer (particularly with early age of onset), maleness and increasing age are all factors associated with increasing risk. About three quarters of colorectal cancers are thought to be due to somatic mutations, and both high- and low-penetrance predisposing genes contribute to the remaining quarter of cases. Many of the highly penetrant dominant genes are known, but others remain to be identified. Describing the contribution of individual genes is likely to be very complex, as some modify the impact of other genes and other environmental factors rather than incurring a direct, easily attributable effect. The two dominant predisposing syndromes are familial adenomatous polyposis and Lynch syndrome, the first due to a mutant tumour-suppressor gene APC, and the second due to mutations in a number of genes responsible for mismatch repair in DNA at cell division. Establishing genetic susceptibility for colorectal cancer will soon be possible, and could save lives by allowing targetting of screening and the encouragement of preventive behaviours. However, there will always be a risk of making healthy people "sick" through the identification of predisposing genes, and there are many potential ways by which a gene carrier may be stigmatized by society, insurance companies and employers.

New Zealand must commit to substantial decreases in its greenhouse gas emissions, to avoid the worst impacts of climate change on human health, both here and internationally. We have the fourth highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world. Based on the need to limit warming to 2 degrees C by 2100, our cumulative emissions, and our capability to mitigate, New Zealand should at least halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 (i.e. a target of at least 40% less than 1990 levels). This target has a strong scientific basis, and if anything may be too lenient; reducing the risk of catastrophic climate change may require deeper cuts. Short-term economic costs of mitigation have been widely overstated in public debate. They must also be balanced by the far greater costs caused by inertia and the substantial health and social benefits that can be achieved by a low emissions society. Large emissions reductions are achievable if we mobilise New Zealand society and let technology follow the signal of a responsible target.