Critical considerations in the development of systems thinking and practice

This paper is concerned with the development of ‘Systems Thinking.’ In particular, it considers and critiques ‘traditional Systems Thinking’ within the framework of Critical Systems Thinking. Before embarking on such a venture it is necessary to derive a base context from which to develop argument and analysis. Therefore the outline of this paper is as follows: A contextual setting for Systems Thinking, Theoretical Considerations, Soft Systems Thinking and Methodology, and A Critical Systems Thinking (CST) approach. The account of the development of Systems Thinking is followed by a synopsis of a theoretical framework for Systems Thinking which will allow us to gain an understanding of contemporary views. The paper then goes on to review SSM and CST in order to provide a platform for a critique of traditional forms of Systems Thinking. The final section briefly discusses the applicability of CST to the ‘real-world’ context by outlining some current studies being undertaken by the author.     

Sister chromatid exchanges in lymphocytes of normal and alcoholic subjects.

The effects of alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking and age on sister chromatid exchange (SCE) frequency in human lymphocytes were assessed by means of multiple linear regression. An increase in SCE rates was associated with alcohol consumption (p = 0.0001), smoking (p = 0.0231), and, to a small extent (p = 0.057), age. These three confounding factors explain 48% of the inter-personal variation in SCE rates among subjects studied.     

脉冲等离子体气相合成氮化硼的研究

以Ｂ２Ｏ３粉扩ＮＨ３为原料，用脉冲等离子体反应器合成ＢＮ，所得产品经Ｘ射线衍射，红外光谱分析表明，产品中除含六方氮化硼外，还含有少量立方氮化硼，生产工艺简单。     

Transgenesis in fish

Gene transfer into fish embryo is being performed in several species (trout, salmon, carps, tilapia, medaka, goldfish, zebrafish, loach, catfish, etc.). In most cases, pronuclei are not visible and microinjection must be done into the cytoplasm of early embryos. Several million copies of the gene are generally injected. In medaka, transgenesis was attempted by injection of the foreign gene into the nucleus of oocyte. Several reports indicate that the injected DNA was rapidly replicated in the early phase of embryo development, regardless of the origin and the sequence of the foreign DNA. The survival of the injected embryos was reasonably good and a large number reached maturity. The proportion of transgenic animals ranged from 1 to 50% or more, according to species and to experimentators. The reasons for this discrepancy have not been elucidated. In all species, the transgenic animals were mosaic. The copy number of the foreign DNA was different in the various tissues of an animal and a proportion lower than 50% of F1 offsprings received the gene from their parents. This suggests that the foreign DNA was integrated into the fish genome at the two cells stage or later. An examination of the integrated DNA in different cell types of an animal revealed that integration occurred mainly during early development. The transgene was found essentially unrearranged in the fish genome of the founders and offsprings. The transgenes were therefore stably transmitted to progeny in a Mendelian fashion. Southern blot analysis revealed the presence of possible junction fragments and also of minor bands which may result from a rearrangement of the injected DNA. In all species, the integrated DNA appeared mainly as random end-to-end concatemers. In adult trout blood cells, a small proportion of the foreign DNA was maintained in the form of non-integrated concatemers, as judged by the existence of end fragments. The transgenes were generally only poorly expressed. The majority of the injected gene constructs contained essentially mammalian or higher vertebrates sequences. The comparison of the expression efficiency of these constructs in transfected fish and mammalian cells indicates that some of the mammalian DNA sequences are most efficiently understood by the fish cell machinery. Chloramphenicol acetyl transferase gene under the control of promoters from Rous sarcoma virus, and human cytomegalovirus, was expressed in several tissues of transgenic fish. Chicken delta-crystallin gene was expressed in several tissues of transgenic fish.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Chromosomal localization of a unique gene by non-autoradiographic in situ hybridization

During the past few years, several methods have been developed for the detection of specific nucleic acid sequences by in situ hybridization using non-radioactive labels such as fluorochromes, cytochemically detectable enzymes and electron-dense markers. These methods are preferable to autoradiography in terms of speed of performance and topological resolution. Their limited sensitivity, however, has so far restricted their use to the detection of repeated sequences. Here we report single gene detection with a procedure using 2-acetylaminofluorene (AAF)-modified probes, immunoperoxidase cytochemistry and reflection-contrast microscopy. We confirmed the autoradiographic data on the localization of the human thyroglobulin (Tg) gene to the distal end of the long arm of chromosome 8. A mixture of cosmid cHT2-derived subclones of the 3' part of the Tg gene, 22.3 kilobase pairs (kbp) in total, was used as a hybridization probe. This procedure can be used to map other unique sequences, if genomic clones are available from which clones with an appropriate amount of inserts can be isolated.     

Karyotypes of seven species of bats from Thailand (Chiroptera,Mammalia)

Summary Karyotypes ofMyotis siligorensis, Myotis mystacinus, Pipistrellus pulveratus, Tylonycteris robustula, Miniopterus schreibersi fuliginosus, Hipposideros fulvus andAselliscus stoliczkanus from Thailand are investigated.Acknowledgment. The authors are very grateful to Dr N. Ratanawarabhan, Mrs S. Sittilert, P. Noonpakdee and S. Kuanchalern of Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technological Research for their valuable advice and assistance during our field survey in Thailand.