We induced experimental listeriosis in goats by two sequential oral inoculations of Listeria monocytogenes serovar 1/2a at 8 months' interval. Immunoblot analysis with the goat sera demonstrated listeriolysin O (LLO) as the principal protein antigen of L. monocytogenes. Pre-existing antibodies to LLO were, depending on their initial level, associated with either mild clinical symptoms of short duration or the total absence of clinical symptoms. Similarly, the presence and development of such antibodies corresponded with the disappearance pattern of L. monocytogenes from the gastrointestinal tract. These findings suggest that an association exists between antibodies to LLO and acquired resistance to Listeria infections.
Agricultural water pollution in Finland is mainly caused by nutrient losses from fields. Nutrient losses can be mitigated, e.g., by changing management practices and by plant rotation. Adoption of the necessary measures may be voluntary, but economic incentives can also be used. Nutrient losses can be regulated, e.g., by incentives to decrease the use of fertilizers. Economic incentives include a change in product prices, an input tax or an input quota. So far an input tax has been applied in Finnish agriculture. The effectiveness and feasibility of these policy measures on the farm can be assessed by calculating the change in farm profit and nutrient losses. The input quota was found to be the least-cost measure at the farm level when the marginal abatement costs of measures were compared on a grain farm growing barley. Alternative policy measures caused bigger losses in profit on the farm and the reduction in nitrogen leakage was smaller.
Management teams have been introduced as a means of solving conflicts and providing highly required co-ordination between professional groups, sub-units and their individual leaders in large, complex organizations such as hospitals. This study examines the motivational patterns of the three members of management teams of four clinical departments at a large university hospital. A strong professionalism was the dominant motivational orientation of all nurse managers (nursing directors of the clinics) and to a great extent also of the physician managers (head physicians of the clinics). The business managers' dominant motivational pattern was hierarchy in two out of the four teams, and professionalism in two teams. The respective comparison groups had rather similar motivational patterns in common with their leaders: ordinary physicians and nurses had a professional and administrative staff hierarchic orientation. The comparison group of mid-level managers from private firms was also hierarchically oriented, although task orientation was also often high in their motivational pattern. The results are consistent with the educational background and differences in the tasks of the groups studied. The role of different professional cultures in determining and designing efficiently functioning management teams is an important task for further research.
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