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The following 11 papers were presented at a symposium on leadership and educational policy studies (LEPS): "Food, Filth, Factory, and Flowers: A Critical Analysis of Ohio's Employability Skills Project" (Nina Dorsch); "Defining and Restructuring Work: Implications for Adult Education" (Georges B. Germain); "The Erosion of Subsistence and Motherwork" (Mechthild Hart); "Struggling for Democratic Educational Practices: The Adult Learning Skills Program and the Campaign To Stop the Focus on Quality Policy" (John Holst); "Work, Adult Education, and Sites of Resistance" (Winston Lawrence); "Who Should Pay To Learn? A Critical Assessment of the World Bank's Neoliberal Education Policies" (Derek Mulenga); "On Trial: The Legal Basis and Role of Education in the New European Union" (Mark Murphy); "Organizational Learning and Control: A Critical Examination of HRD [Human Resource Development] and the Politics of Workplace Discipline" (Fred Schied); "Traditional versus 'New' Education: The Problem Defined" (Richard Louis Sorrentino); "Corporatizing Work, Education, and Democracy within Postmodern Praxis" (Sherman Stanage); "Rural People, Rural Communities, and Sustainability: Rethinking the Role of Adult Education" (Jeff Zacharakis-Jutz). (KC)

A survey of families of people who have donated organs in Ireland found that most saw the donation as a way to ease the pain of bereavement, with a fifth holding a donor card themselves after the experience. Most families, 81%, said they were approach with tact over the donation, though one in ten families had wanted more time and information. The survey was based on responses from 59 families and Ireland has the largest department for renal transplants in the British Isles.

ABSTRACTOur laboratory has developed a rapid, sensitive, and specific molecular approach for detection in clinical specimens, within 48 h of receipt, of both Mycobacterium tuberculosiscomplex (MTBC) DNA and mutations within the 81-bp core region of the rpoBgene that are associated with rifampin (RIF) resistance. This approach, which combines an initial real-time PCR with internal inhibition assessment and a pyrosequencing assay, was validated for direct use with clinical specimens. To assess the suitability of real-time PCR for use with respiratory, nonrespiratory, acid-fast bacillus (AFB)-positive and AFB-negative specimens, we evaluated specimens received in our laboratory between 11 October 2007 and 30 June 2009. With culture used as the “gold standard,” the sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values were determined for 1,316 specimens to be as follows: for respiratory specimens, 94.7%, 99.9%, 99.6%, and 98.6%, respectively; for nonrespiratory specimens, 88.5%, 100.0%, 100.0%, and 96.9%, respectively; for AFB-positive specimens, 99.6%, 100.0%, 100.0%, and 97.7%, respectively; and for AFB-negative specimens, 75.4%, 99.9%, 98.0%, and 98.4%, respectively. PCR inhibition was determined to be minimal in this assay, occurring in 0.2% of tests. The rpoBgene pyrosequencing assay was evaluated in a similar prospective study, in which 148 clinical specimens positive for MTBC DNA by real-time PCR were tested. The final results revealed that the results of direct testing of clinical specimens by the pyrosequencing assay were 98.6% concordant with the results of conventional testing for susceptibility to RIF in liquid culture and that our assay displayed adequate sensitivity for 96.6% of the clinical specimens tested. Used together, these assays provide reliable results that aid with the initial management of patients with suspected tuberculosis prior to the availability of the results for cultured material, and they also provide the ability to predict RIF resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis-positive specimens in as little as 48 h from the time of clinical specimen receipt.