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To preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services, company engagement is crucial. However, available data on manager views and perceptions regarding nature conservation in particular is rare. The presented survey data gives insights into current levels and forms of business commitments for nature conservation. The data contributes to understanding business attitudes towards voluntary conservation action and includes information about factors that influence their engagement. Moreover, the data informs about manager perceptions towards the concept of nature conservation credits and, as such, allows for an evaluation of a certified biodiversity and ecosystem services market. Importantly, the dataset contains essential company characteristics to put responses into greater context. The scope of the survey is limited to German companies from secondary and tertiary sectors. Companies were sampled through proportional stratified random sampling based on size and location. The data was collected through a self-administered online-survey, conducted in 2019. The database comprises responses of 747 companies that logged into the online system. The survey data were in part analysed through structural equation modelling for an investigation of factors that drive voluntary conservation commitments [1]. Related to this analysis, a subset of 618 companies is available that provided sufficiently completed questionnaires. Both datasets, i.e. the raw data as well as the first subset used for analysis, are hosted in the public repository Open Research Data of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany. The repository also stores all coding information as well as the questionnaire: https://www.doi.org/10.4228/ZALF.DK.149. The dataset can be used, for example, by researchers from the field of environmental business management and strategy.

Conservation is often operationalized as a minimization of human intervention in nature. However, many social-ecological systems depend on human interventions to maintain characteristics of biological diversity. Therefore, reduced use or full abandonment of such systems can diminish rather than enhance biological diversity and its related cultural diversity (biocultural diversity). We link the definition of “underuse” with the extinction rate used in the planetary boundaries framework to support a more objective use of the term. We execute a structured cross-continental review of underuse in social-ecological systems of regions that contain more affluent countries to frame a global research agenda on underuse. Our working approach delineates causes, consequences, and strategies concerning underuse. Based on this comparative review, we identify causes of underuse that are similar in different continents, including globalization, and demographic or structural change in Europe, Japan and Oceania. Conservation paradigms emphasizing wilderness ideals in policies are characteristic of underuse in North America, whereas post-socialist transformation processes characterize underuse in Eastern Europe. Land abandonment and de-intensification of use are a common result, particularly in marginal and protected areas. Consequences of the loss of biocultural diversity include the loss of ecosystem services, traditional knowledge, or landscape amenities. We identified a pervasive gap in transcontinental comparative research that stymies the development of effective strategies to reduce underuse of biological diversity and thereby maintain related cultural diversity. We advocate for a global research agenda on governance approaches that address the challenges of underuse. Within this agenda, we emphasize the need for an international cross-case synthesis and a trans-continental mapping of state and civil society-based interventions and co-management approaches to re-establish humans as parts of ecological systems. Such comparative work on best practice cases in a real-world context should enhance adaptive management of biocultural diversity and prevent extinction caused by underuse. Thus, this innovative connection between underuse and the planetary boundary extinction rate, along with our new global research agenda on underuse, should initiate much needed support for policy makers and natural resource managers who must decide on appropriate types and levels of human intervention to implement, both inside and outside of protected areas.

Theca cell-selective Pten mutation (tPtenMT) in mice resulted in increases in PDK1 and Akt phosphorylation, indicating an over-activation of PI3K signaling in the ovaries. These mice displayed elevated androgen levels, ovary enlargement, antral follicle accumulation, early fertility loss and increased expression of Lhcgr and genes that are crucial to androgenesis. These abnormalities were partially reversed by treatments of PI3K or Akt inhibitor. LH actions in Pten deficient theca cells were potentiated. The phosphorylation of Foxo1 was increased, while the binding of Foxo1 to forkhead response elements in the Lhcgr promoter was reduced in tPtenMT theca cells, implying a mechanism by which PI3K/Akt-induced upregulation of Lhcgr in theca cells might be mediated by reducing the inhibitory effect of Foxo1 on the Lhcgr promoter. The phenotype of tPtenMT females is reminiscent of human PCOS and suggests that dysregulated PI3K cascade in theca cells may be involved in certain types of PCOS pathogenesis.

Understanding the relationships between disease suppressive microbial populations and plant pathogens is essential to develop procedures for effective and consistent disease control. Currently, DNA array technology is the most suitable technique to simultaneously detect multiple microorganisms. Although this technology has been successfully applied for diagnostic purposes, its utility to assess different microbial populations, as a basis for further study of population dynamics and their potential interactions, has not yet been investigated. In this study, a DNA macroarray with multiple levels of phylogenetic specificity was developed to measure population densities of a specific disease suppressive microorganism, Trichoderma hamatum isolate 382, and the plant pathogen Rhizoctonia solani. Amongst others, the DNA array contained genus-, species- and isolate-specific detector oligonucleotides and was optimized for sensitive detection and reliable quantification of the target organisms in potting mix samples. Furthermore, this DNA array was used to quantify disease severity as well as incidence of severe disease based on pathogen population densities in the growing medium. Taking into account the unlimited expanding possibilities of DNA arrays to include detector oligonucleotides for other and more microorganisms, this technique has the potential for studying the population dynamics and ecology of several target populations in a single assay.

Composts can induce systemic resistance in plants to disease. Unfortunately, the degree of resistance induced seems highly variable and the basis for this effect is not understood. In this work, only 1 of 79 potting mixes prepared with different batches of mature, stabilized composts produced from several different types of solid wastes suppressed the severity of bacterial leaf spot of radish caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. armoraciae compared with disease on plants produced in a nonamended sphagnum peat mix. An additional batch of compost-amended mix that had been inoculated with Trichoderma hamatum 382 (T382), which is known to induce systemic resistance in plants, also suppressed the disease. A total of 11 out of 538 rhizobacterial strains isolated from roots of radish seedlings grown in these two compostamended mixes that suppressed bacterial leaf spot were able to significantly suppress the severity of this disease when used as inoculum in the compost-amended mixes. The most effective strains were identified as Bacillus sp. based on partial sequencing of 16S rDNA. These strains were significantly less effective in reducing the severity of this disease than T382. A combined inoculum consisting of T382 and the most effective rhizobacterial Bacillus strain was less effective than T382 alone. A drench applied to the potting mix with the systemic acquired resistance-inducing chemical acibenzolar-S-methyl was significantly more effective than T382 in several, but not all tests. We conclude that systemic suppression of foliar diseases induced by compost amendments is a rare phenomenon. Furthermore, inoculation of compost-amended potting mixes with biocontrol agents such as T382 that induce systemic resistance in plants can significantly increase the frequency of systemic disease control obtained with natural compost amendments.

The lifeblood of a business is developing and commercializing new products with minimum cost and time and maximum quality. Implementation of a quality management system is often used to achieve these goals, and the ISO 9001 standard for a business quality system is rapidly becoming the model of choice. The existence of an ISO-compliant system is a key to meeting the forthcoming regulatory requirements in the European Union and the US Food and Drug Administrations's proposed good management practices. DuPont has demonstrated leadership in the achievement of ISO registration. I describe the path to these successful registrations along with key lessons from the experience. Elements of success are management commitment, adequate resources, education, communication, total organizational involvement, and auditing of system performance. For the system to flourish and provide benefits to the users, sufficient time must be allocated for the organization to change.

Nurses today are providing care, education, and case management to an increasingly diverse patient population that is challenged with a triad of cultural, linguistic, and health literacy barriers. For these patients, culture and language set the context for the acquisition and application of health literacy skills. Yet the nursing literature offers minimal help in integrating cultural and linguistic considerations into nursing efforts to address patient health literacy. Nurses are in an ideal position to facilitate the interconnections between patient culture, language, and health literacy in order to improve health outcomes for culturally diverse patients. In this article the authors begin by describing key terms that serve as background for the ensuing discussion explaining how culture and language need to be considered in any interaction designed to address health literacy for culturally diverse patients. The authors then discuss the interrelationships between health literacy, culture, and language. Next relevant cultural constructs are introduced as additional background. This is followed by a description of how literacy skills are affected by culture and language, a note about culturally diverse, native-born patients, and a presentation of case examples illustrating how culture and language barriers are seen in patients' healthcare experiences. The authors conclude by offering recommendations for promoting health literacy in the presence of cultural and language barriers and noting the need for nursing interventions that fully integrate health literacy, culture, and language.

In response to the growing incidence and prevalence of diabetes, quality and disparity of care concerns, and the increasing diversity of the US and Connecticut's populations, the Connecticut Health Foundation funded Qualidigm to implement the Equity and Quality (EQual) Health-Care Project. Now in its second full year, the EQualHealth-CareProject is helping eight primary-care practices in Connecticut improve the equity and quality of diabetes care through technology, education, and quality improvement.

Case studies involving the measurement of every plausibly causal variable and every important outcome variable and covering the widest possible range of cases in terms of these variables are the highest priority for psychotherapy research. Such case studies looked at together will give us the best initial understanding of what variables are probably causal and what treatments yield the best results for particular kinds of patients, therapists, and settings. The accumulation of such case studies will show us where we would benefit by doing comparative controlled experiments of distinct therapies or by employing optimum-seeking designs for a particular therapy. Collaboration by the practitioner community will be needed to do this. The truly difficult and necessary work of applied psychotherapy research still lies ahead of us, hardly touched.

In the analysis of the impact of clinical interventions, the received wisdom has been that posttreatment scores, with pretreatment scores equated by random assignment or statistically partialed out, should be used to evaluate treatment outcomes. However, posttreatment scores are not generally more reliable than, nor equivalent to, change scores, even with pretreatment scores partialed out of both. Moreover, there are data-analytic methods that indicate how individual patients change, in terms of response curves over time, rather than indicate only how much groups change on the average. These methods take researchers back to the individual data that they ought to use for choosing the specific models of change to be used. To maximize relevance for clinical practice, the results of treatment research should always be reported at this most disaggregated or individual change level, as well as, when appropriate, at more aggregated statistical levels.

The lifeblood of a business is developing and commercializing new products with minimum cost and time and maximum quality. Implementation of a quality management system is often used to achieve these goals, and the ISO 9001 standard for a business quality system is rapidly becoming the model of choice. The existence of an ISO-compliant system is a key to meeting the forthcoming regulatory requirements in the European Union and the US Food and Drug Administrations's proposed good management practices. DuPont has demonstrated leadership in the achievement of ISO registration. I describe the path to these successful registrations along with key lessons from the experience. Elements of success are management commitment, adequate resources, education, communication, total organizational involvement, and auditing of system performance. For the system to flourish and provide benefits to the users, sufficient time must be allocated for the organization to change.