scholarly journals Establishing a Twin Register: An Invaluable Resource for (Behavior) Genetic, Epidemiological, Biomarker, and ‘Omics’ Studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronika V. Odintsova ◽  
Gonneke Willemsen ◽  
Conor V. Dolan ◽  
Jouke-Jan Hottenga ◽  
Nicholas G. Martin ◽  
...  

Twin registers are wonderful research resources for research applications in medical and behavioral genetics, epidemiology, psychology, molecular genetics, and other areas of research. New registers continue to be launched all over the world as researchers from different disciplines recognize the potential to boost and widen their research agenda. In this article, we discuss multiple aspects that need to be taken into account when initiating a register, from its preliminary sketch to its actual development. This encompasses aspects related to the strategic planning and key elements of research designs, promotion and management of a twin register, including recruitment and retaining of twins and family members of twins, phenotyping, database organization, and collaborations between registers. We also present information on questions unique to twin registers and twin-biobanks, such as the assessment of zygosity by SNP arrays, the design of (biomarker) studies involving related participants, and the analyses of clustered data. Altogether, we provide a number of basic guidelines and recommendations for reflection when planning a twin register.

1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 1126-1142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey W. Gilger

This paper is an introduction to behavioral genetics for researchers and practioners in language development and disorders. The specific aims are to illustrate some essential concepts and to show how behavioral genetic research can be applied to the language sciences. Past genetic research on language-related traits has tended to focus on simple etiology (i.e., the heritability or familiality of language skills). The current state of the art, however, suggests that great promise lies in addressing more complex questions through behavioral genetic paradigms. In terms of future goals it is suggested that: (a) more behavioral genetic work of all types should be done—including replications and expansions of preliminary studies already in print; (b) work should focus on fine-grained, theory-based phenotypes with research designs that can address complex questions in language development; and (c) work in this area should utilize a variety of samples and methods (e.g., twin and family samples, heritability and segregation analyses, linkage and association tests, etc.).


Author(s):  
Abdulla Almazrouei ◽  
◽  
Azlina Md Yassin ◽  

Strategic management have gained popularity in the public institutions to foster good delivery service to the public. The strategic planning enables organizations to establish a strategic match between the internal competency, resources and external environment. Majority of the successful organizations across the world use strategic management and planning as a tool that enables to optimize the operations and achieve maximum productivity with the resources. This paper reviewed on strategic management for organisations in Abu Dhabi especially for Abu Dhabi Police (ADP) force. It presents three strategic management theories which can be adopted by an organisation. This would help the organisation such as police department to reduce the increasing crime rate and mortality rate in UAE.


Author(s):  
A.V. Korchemnaya

Competitiveness of Russia economy under modern conditions demands systemacy of public administration. As a result of creation of national strategic planning system a number of govern-ment programs aimed at the economy development of the Russian Federation and perspective en-trance of the country to the world market is carried out. One of the main tasks of the economy de-velopment is creation of favorable investment climate in the country, investment activity, attraction of investments into the economy of the country’s regions.


Author(s):  
Yves Doz ◽  
Keeley Wilson

In less than three decades, Nokia emerged from Finland to lead the mobile phone revolution. It grew to have one of the most recognizable and valuable brands in the world and then fell into decline, leading to the sale of its mobile phone business to Microsoft. This book explores and analyzes that journey and distills observations and lessons for anyone keen to understand what drove Nokia’s amazing success and sudden downfall. It is tempting to lay the blame for Nokia’s demise at the doors of Apple, Google, and Samsung, but this would be to ignore one very important fact: Nokia had begun to collapse from within well before any of these companies entered the mobile communications market, and this makes Nokia’s story all the more interesting. Observing from the position of privileged outsiders (with access to Nokia’s senior managers over the last twenty years and a more recent, concerted research agenda), this book describes and analyzes the various stages in Nokia’s journey. This is an inside story: one of leaders making strategic and organizational decisions, of their behavior and interactions, and of how they succeeded and failed to inspire and engage their employees. Perhaps most intriguingly, it is a story that opens the proverbial “black box” of why and how things actually happen at the top of organizations. Why did things fall apart? To what extent were avoidable mistakes made? Did the world around Nokia change too fast for it to adapt? Did Nokia’s success contain the seeds of its failure?


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-44
Author(s):  
Emilia KORKEA-AHO ◽  
Martin SCHEININ

In the coronavirus pandemic that has swept the world, the Finnish Government, like many of its peers, has issued policy measures to combat the virus. Many of these measures have been implemented in law, including measures taken under the Emergency Powers Act, or by ministries and regional and local authorities exercising their legal powers. However, some governmental policy measures have been implemented using non-binding guidelines and recommendations. Using border travel recommendations as a case study, this article critically evaluates governmental soft law-making. The debacle over the use of soft law to fight the pandemic in Finland revealed fundamental misunderstandings about the processes and circumstances under which instruments conceived as soft law can be issued, as well as a lack of attention to their effects from a fundamental rights perspective.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (04) ◽  
pp. 739-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna M. Agathangelou

International relations (IR) feminists have significantly impacted the way we analyze the world and power. However, as Cynthia Enloe points out, “there are now signs—worrisome signs—that feminist analysts of international politics might be forgetting what they have shared” and are “making bricks to construct new intellectual barriers. That is not progress” (2015, 436). I agree. The project/process that has led to the separation/specialization of feminist security studies (FSS) and feminist global political economy (FGPE) does not constitute progress but instead ends up embodying forms of violence that erase the materialist bases of our intellectual labor's divisions (Agathangelou 1997), the historical and social constitution of our formations as intellectuals and subjects. This amnesiac approach evades our personal lives and colludes with those forces that allow for the violence that comes with abstraction. These “worrisome signs” should be explained if we are to move FSS and FGPE beyond a “merger” (Allison 2015) that speaks only to some issues and some humans in the global theater.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110034
Author(s):  
Bruce Macfarlane

The popular image of activism in the university involves students and academics campaigning for social justice and resisting the neo-liberalisation of the university. Yet activism has been subtly corporatised through the migration of corporate social responsibility from the private sector into the university, a trend that may be illustrated by reference to the growing influence of research ‘grand challenges’ (GCs). Attracting both government and philanthro-capitalist funding, GCs adopt a socio-political stance based on justice globalism and represent a responsibilisation of academic research interests. Compliance with the rhetoric of GCs and the virtues of inter-disciplinarity have become an article of faith for academics compelled to meet the expectations of research-intensive universities in chasing the prestige and resources associated with large grant capture. The responsibilisation of the efforts of researchers, via GCs, erodes academic ownership of the research agenda and weakens the purpose of the university as an independent think tank: the essence of the Humboldtian ideal. The conceit of corporate activism is that in seeking to solve the world’s problems, the university will inevitably create new ones. Instead, as Flexner argued, it is only by preserving the independence and positive ‘irresponsibility’ of researchers that universities can best serve the world.


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