Short Leash Research Articles

Factors regarding the dog owner's household situation, antisocial behaviours, animal views and animal treatment in a population of dogs confiscated after biting humans and/ or other animals.

To examine the dog ownership factors characteristic to a population of dogs confiscated after a human and/ or animal-directed biting incident, we compared bite risk assessment reports of 159 confiscated dogs in the time frame 2008, 2009, 2010 (tf1) and of 215 confiscated dogs in the time frame 2020, 2021, 2022 (until mid-May; tf2). The reports were compiled by the same institute in a standardized format. We studied frequencies and chi-square pairwise comparisons (P<0.05) for 30 identified ownership factors. Overall (tf1 and tf2), 1,308 ownership factors were mentioned in the reports and reports mentioning ≥5 factors were twice as frequent in tf2 (38%) than tf1 (16%). Our data suggest that nine factors may in particular serve as a warning signal for biting incidents, as these factors were most frequently (≥15%) prevalent in the total of reported cases: having a multiple dog household, a dog reportedly roaming a neighbourhood without an owner, a dog's care tasks being transferred, a short leash and muzzle obligation served to the owner for a dog, an isolated and/ or confined keeping of a dog, a dog owner's (suspected) substance abuse, a dog owner's (suspected) animal abuse, a dog owner aggressing at confiscation of the dog and a dog owner being reported on for antisocial behaviours such as intimidation. Particularly, a dog owner's aggressive or antisocial behaviours and previous obligations to muzzle and short leash a dog (in our dataset often inappropriately adhered to by owners), may indicate that a proportion of owners of confiscated dogs, may not always be willing and/ or capable to guarantee societal safety. The results show that identification of dog ownership factors, might be useful for establishing biting incident policies and further studies should be done on preventive measures and controls.

Legal Instrument Choice in the European Union

AbstractRegulations and directives are the central legal instruments used by the EU. In some instances, the Commission is not legally required to choose a specific legal instrument, but can make this decision autonomously. However, we know surprisingly little about the factors that influence this decision. Based on an original dataset of all directives and regulations proposed by the European Commission in ordinary legislative procedures between 2009 and 2018, we find that the choice of a legal instrument is strongly determined by prior policy decisions and varies systematically across policy areas depending on the extent to which they have traditionally been addressed under the co‐decision procedure. In addition, we find that the Commission's use of regulations increases under conditions of increased euroscepticism, indicating that instead of granting dissenting member states more room to manoeuvre, the Commission prefers to keep them on a short leash.

The Evolving Role of the United States Sentencing Commission

This essay explores the way in which the United States Sentencing Commission’s policymaking role has changed over time. The agency has gone through three different phases in terms of its role (either actual or perceived) in federal sentencing. First was the role envisioned for the Commission at its inception, which was an expert agency that would be politically insulated. This role essentially saw the Commission as an independent policymaker. While this vision of the Commission never materialized, it is important to understand this conception of the Commission to appreciate why it was set up the way it was. The second and dominant phase, which lasted roughly two decades, from 1986 until 2007, is where the Commission played a weak supporting role to the political actors who oversaw its work, with Congress largely controlling its output. This was a period characterized by politically battering by Congress. Given the political climate of the time, that meant increases in sentences but little else from the Commission. The third phase is from 2007 until today. The Commission’s role now is as a respected supplier of data and it is given more deference in its judgments. In a sense, this role combines the first two. The Commission is recognized for its expertise, but that expertise is only valuable insofar as the information it generates has political value. In a time where there is bipartisan support for rolling back some of the excesses in sentencing, that information has value where it did not before. But the Commission is still on a relatively short leash in terms of how much it can accomplish. If we want to make the most of this current role, I think there are some things we can do to improve it, and this essay offers some suggestions.

Short leash or long leash? Parenting style, initial strategic clarity, and the development of venture learning proficiency

Corporate venture development suggests that internal corporate ventures (ICVs) must become proficient learners if they are to cope successfully with the uncertainty inherent to their operations. Accordingly, the parent corporations in which ICVs operate are challenged to identify and enact appropriate parenting styles that foster their ICVs' learning proficiency. The current research of 145 ICVs in 72 corporations builds on parenting theory to theorize that ICVs demonstrate the greatest learning proficiency when corporate parents give them a “leash length”—indicated via observed levels of top management support and operational decision-making autonomy—depending on the degree of strategic clarity under which the ICV was founded.

Hong Kong in the world: continuities and changes

Purpose To fill the gap in the existing literature on the 20th anniversary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), the purpose of this paper is to critically reflect upon the continuities and changes of the city’s relations with the world. Design/methodology/approach The paper has adopted a generic approach to shed light on the factors behind the evolution of the international status of Hong Kong from a by-product of geopolitics to a global city in its own right, to understand how the city has been perceived by traditional western partners after 1997 and to investigate how China has made use Hong Kong’s international status. Findings It has shown that Beijing’s strategy toward Hong Kong has been marred by the inherent tensions between “becoming Chinese” and “remaining global.” The official discourse of functionalism, according to which economic and professional ties are both the most acceptable and therefore the least resisted pathways available for the development of Hong Kong’s external relations, has the opposite effect of expanding Beijing’s control over the city. Originality/value In contrast to the HKSAR Government’s belief that Hong Kong will certainly benefit from the emergence of China, the city has found itself on a shorter leash than ever. It has therefore pinpointed the pitfalls of the logic of functionalism which has dominated the existing literature as much as the policy-making process.

Cross-Cultural Alliance-Making and Local Resistance in the Moluccas during the Revolt of Prince Nuku, c. 1780�1810 (PhD Dissertation, Universiteit Leiden, 2007)

Fine and rare spices were the primary reason for the Europeans to establish trading posts in Asia. The Dutch took control of the Moluccas at the beginning of the seventeenth century following the establishment of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1602. The use of force and diplomacy to force out their trading rivalsthe Spaniards, Portuguese and their allieswas planned and designed from the outset. How the VOCs power structures were set up in the Spice Islands of eastern Indonesia differed from place to place. In Banda, the regions power structure and organisation of trade and politics was destroyed with the extermination and forced evacuation of the Bandanese population. In Ambon, the VOC established direct rule over an indigenous population that took sixty years to assure. In Ternate, the most important state in the Moluccas at that time, the VOC employed indirect rule; it ruled through the sultans, whom they kept on a short leash by controlling successions and putting their favourites on the throne.

Parenting Style and the Development of Internal Corporate Venture Learning Proficiency

Internal corporate ventures (ICVs) must become proficient learners if they are to successfully cope with the uncertainty inherent to their operations. The current research explores the role of an ICV’s initial strategic clarity in the development and demonstration of ICV learning proficiency as well as the effects of corporate parenting style on this relationship. Based on data collected from 145 ICVs in 72 corporations, the current research theorizes and finds that initial strategic clarity promotes learning proficiency over the course of venture operations. This relationship is most positive when the levels of top management support and operations autonomy granted to the ICV are low. Moreover, results suggest that both “short leash” and “long leash” parenting styles can be useful in fostering ICV learning proficiency, with the appropriateness of these styles as facilitators of learning proficiency depending on the ICV’s initial strategic clarity level. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Crystal Structures of the Global Regulator DasR from Streptomyces coelicolor: Implications for the Allosteric Regulation of GntR/HutC Repressors.

Small molecule effectors regulate gene transcription in bacteria by altering the DNA-binding affinities of specific repressor proteins. Although the GntR proteins represent a large family of bacterial repressors, only little is known about the allosteric mechanism that enables their function. DasR from Streptomyces coelicolor belongs to the GntR/HutC subfamily and specifically recognises operators termed DasR-responsive elements (dre-sites). Its DNA-binding properties are modulated by phosphorylated sugars. Here, we present several crystal structures of DasR, namely of dimeric full-length DasR in the absence of any effector and of only the effector-binding domain (EBD) of DasR without effector or in complex with glucosamine-6-phosphate (GlcN-6-P) and N-acetylglucosamine-6-phosphate (GlcNAc-6-P). Together with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and a comparison with other GntR/HutC family members these data allowed for a structural characterisation of the different functional states of DasR. Allostery in DasR and possibly in many other GntR/HutC family members is best described by a conformational selection model. In ligand-free DasR, an increased flexibility in the EBDs enables the attached DNA-binding domains (DBD) to sample a variety of different orientations and among these also a DNA-binding competent conformation. Effector binding to the EBDs of DasR significantly reorganises the atomic structure of the latter. However, rather than locking the orientation of the DBDs, the effector-induced formation of β-strand β* in the DBD-EBD-linker segment merely appears to take the DBDs ‘on a shorter leash’ thereby impeding the ‘downwards’ positioning of the DBDs that is necessary for a concerted binding of two DBDs of DasR to operator DNA.

Preference assessments and structured potential adopter-dog interactions increase adoptions

Previous research showed that lying down next to potential adopters and not ignoring their play initiations during interactions outside of the kennel correlate with increased likelihood of adoption in shelter dogs. In the present study, we experimentally assessed whether increasing these behaviors during interactions with potential adopters influenced adoption outcomes. In Experiment 1, we validated a brief play preference assessment in order to find individual preferences for toys in shelter dogs. We found that play with specific toys in the preference assessment predicted play in more naturalistic settings (χ2=10.50, P<0.001, n=20). We then used a modification of this assessment as part of the experimental intervention. In Experiment 2, we randomly assigned dogs to the experimental structured-interaction (Group SI) and control (Group C) groups and evaluated 160 interactions between these dogs and potential adopters. The experimental intervention consisted of conducting a play preference assessment prior to the interaction and structuring the interaction once a potential adopter expressed interest in the dog. The structured interaction involved Phase 1—in which the visitor was encouraged to allow the dog to eliminate, Phase 2—in which the experimenter encouraged play with the dog's preferred toy, and Phase 3—in which the experimenter encouraged the dog to lie down next to a potential adopter by restraining the dog with a short leash and luring into a down position with treats. A mixed-effects logistic regression model revealed that group membership, but not morphology of the dog, was predictive of adoption outcome (χ2=3.95, P<0.047). Dogs in Group SI engaged in less undesirable behavior and were 2.49 times more likely to be adopted than dogs in Group C (23.3% adopted in Group C and 39.2% adopted in Group SI). A questionnaire revealed that potential adopters did not find the structured interaction intrusive. This validated intervention could be used in animal shelters to increase adoption rates in dogs.

Keeping Pakistan as a Balancer While Courting Indian Friendship

Andrew Small's analysis of recent developments in Sino-Pakistan relations in his book The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia's New Geopolitics is insightful and persuasive. Small's central thesis, as I understand it, is that around 2013 China significantly shifted its policy for managing its vital relationship with Pakistan. Motivated both by the metastasis of Islamic extremism across the region and by deepening understanding of the impact that a possible India-Pakistan nuclear war would have on that spreading extremist cancer, China set aside its earlier policy of noninterference in Pakistan's affairs. It began urging Pakistan's leaders to rein in extremist groups, not only those mucking around in China's Xinjiang region (which Beijing had long warned Islamabad against), but even within Pakistan and Afghanistan. Beijing recognized the diminishing utility of secret side deals worked out with extremist groups in years past. Such deals simply did not work as well with the generation of extremist leaders-a conclusion attested to by the more frequent attacks in Xinjiang and on Chinese interests in Pakistan. Beijing also signaled to Islamabad that its support for Pakistan in a future confrontation with India would be conditioned by Pakistan's role in provoking that confrontation. This shorter leash was an attempt to dissuade elements in the fragmenting Pakistani state from again condoning terrorist attacks on India that threatened to trigger Indian retaliation and thence an India-Pakistan war that could further destabilize the entire region.This approach expanded diplomatic common ground with the United States in countering the spread of Islamic extremism and the disintegration of the Pakistani state. Derivatively, Beijing attempted to mediate a search for political accommodation in Afghanistan and adopted a more relaxed view toward the U.S. military presence there. Lord, make them [the Americans] leave, but not yet, became the Chinese mantra, Small suggests.Scholars will need to test Small's thesis of a major shiftin China's Pakistan policy through further primary research. But at a minimum, the book's clear, thoughtful, and empirically substantiated argument has advanced our knowledge of an important issue. Small posits two primary factors driving the shiftin China's Pakistan policy: (1) greater fragmentation of the Pakistani state and use of Pakistani territory as a base for Islamist operations, and (2) a rethinking of the implications of a possible India-Pakistan nuclear war.Regarding the first factor, the growing frequency of violent protests in both Xinjiang and major Chinese cities outside Xinjiang, combined with extremist attacks on Chinese citizens in Pakistan (e.g., construction crews refurbishing the Karakorum Highway, academics conducting research, or women operating massage parlors) indicated to Beijing that China's traditional reliance on Pakistan's military and political elites to minimize such incidents was simply no longer effective. The generation of extreme Islamist leaders is more ideological and less pragmatic than the older generation, with whom a deal might stick. The collapse of states such as Syria, Iraq, and Libya, together with the looming U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the prospect of renewed civil war there, caused China to give much greater emphasis to internal security concerns arising out of its deeply rooted Uighur problem. In short, these concerns increasingly influenced China's management of its all-weather relationship with Pakistan. The spread of terrorist movements in the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia also threatened to undermine the ambitious transport-building programs of the new Silk Road designed to draw those lands into China's economic sphere and foster stability through faster economic growth.Regarding the nuclear factor, Small persuasively argues that, starting with the Kargil confrontation of 1999, Beijing recalculated the region-wide destabilizing effects of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. …

Author’s Response: Beyond India-Centricity—China and Pakistan Look West

The year since my book The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia's New Geopolitics was published has been an unusually dramatic one in the Sino-Pakistani relationship. The launch of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Xi Jinping's landmark visit to Pakistan, and China's increasingly public role in the Afghan peace process all imply-as Daniel Markey notes in his essay-a partnership that has finally stepped out of the shadows. Yet despite its heightened profile, there is still much that remains opaque, from the details of the vast array of infrastructure deals to the contours of Chinese policymakers' thinking about strategy in the country's western periphery. This comes through in the reviewers' strikingly divergent assessments of the state of the relationship, its geopolitical context, and its likely trajectory. The disagreements are partly a reflection of the fact that we are each putting our limited pieces of the puzzle together in ways that imply quite different overall pictures.Nonetheless, I would posit that a few clear trends are emerging, all of which have accelerated over the last year. First, there has been a consolidation of the shifttraced over the course of the book from a relationship that was essentially India-centric to one in which Pakistan now plays a weightier role in China's pursuit of a series of westward-facing policy goals. Second, after a decade in which Pakistan was in danger of being leftbehind, the country is finally proving to be a beneficiary of the new, China-driven geopolitical and geoeconomic context in which it finds itself. Third, this dynamic now encompasses opportunities and pressures that are likely to see the relationship both deepen and normalize, moving from a mythically elevated status-higher than the highest mountain-to somewhere closer to earth.This puts me in a somewhat more optimistic position than the reviewers, who place greater emphasis on the emerging tensions in the relationship and the risks inherent in this phase of Chinese engagement with the wider region. Those lines of analysis are also laid out in the book itself, which provides ample grounds for skepticism about the two sides' economic projects and discusses many of the private disputes and frustrations that the Chinese side, in particular, has expressed. But I would contend that events in the last eighteen months have tended to reinforce the case set out in the epilogue: a convergence of different factors that include Xi's assumption of power, the election of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) government, shifts in the structure of the Chinese economy, and the drawdown of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan has put the relationship on a very different course from the one we saw during the era of Hu Jintao, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and Asif Ali Zardari. Although components of CPEC and other associated initiatives may well fail, there are good grounds for thinking that they will at least fail better.The central question to address is related to the book's subtitle: what is the geopolitical context in which the relationship is now playing out? This is the issue on which the reviewers are perhaps most at odds. If the partnership is considered over a period of several decades, Andrew Scobell is clearly right to state that for China Pakistan has declined in overall geopolitical significance in contrast with the days when it was a conduit to the Islamic world and a facilitator on the global stage. As China has developed diplomatic ties with all but a small subset of states around the world, Islamabad's brokering role has evidently faded. Equally, the normalization of China's relationship with India and the subsequent expansion in economic relations between the two Asian giants have long threatened to place Pakistan in an even more modest role-a legacy friendship rather than one with real utility. John Garver goes much further, suggesting that as a result of fears that India will align with Japan, the United States, and Australia, Beijing has since 2013 adopted a new management of Pakistan, placing it on a shorter leash and urging the Pakistani army to rein in extremist groups. …

Self-Defense and Imminence

This paper argues that there is a significant moral difference between force applied against (imminent) attackers on the one hand and force applied against “threatening” people who are not (imminent) attackers on the other. Given that there is such a difference, one should not blur the lines by using the term “self-defense” (understood as including other-defense) for both uses of force. Rather, only the former is appropriately called self-defense, while for the latter, following German legal terminology, the term “justifying defensive emergency” will be used here. The two justifications are not governed by the same criteria and thus lead to different results.The paper will proceed by providing first, in section (1), a brief sketch of the contours of the self-defense justification, putting particular emphasis on the necessity criterion. On the account presented here, the necessity criterion of the self-defense justification is particularly harsh on the aggressor (and thus not to be interpreted as literally requiring the employment of “the mildest means”) and its applicability is only triggered by an (imminent) attack, not by other kinds of threats. Section (2) will then further explain the differences between self-defense and justifying defensive emergency. A particularly important difference is that people who are subjected to justified self-defense cannot permissibly defend themselves, while people who are subjected to (extremely harmful or even lethal) justified defensive emergency measures can. Thus, in this latter case we have a “moral equality” (of sorts) of the involved parties: they can permissibly use force against each other. Section (3) will list and defend some conditions that a successful argument against the imminence requirement of the self-defense justification has to satisfy. In the light of these conditions, sections (4) to (7) will discuss a number of objections that have been adduced against the imminence requirement as well as proposals that have been made in support of alternative accounts. It will be argued that all these objections and proposals fail. Section (8) will provide a number of thought experiments in support of the claim that the harsh necessity criterion of the self-defense justification is only triggered by imminence while force against non-imminent threats can be justified with the help of the justifying emergency exemption, as well as for the claim that the justifying emergency exemption puts the person using preventive force against non-imminent threats on a shorter leash and makes him liable to counter-measures. Section (9) will explain the rationale for tying the applicability of the harsh necessity criterion of the self-defense justification to imminent attacks. Section (10) will discuss some special cases and show why they do not undermine the normative validity of this tie.

Class and Representation in Latin America

Mexico’s 2012 presidential election was fought between two affluent career politicians and a millionaire businesswoman. The 2013 race in Chile pitted an economist against a physician. And the top candidates in last year’s presidential election in Brazil were both millionaire economists. The pattern is clear: Latin American democracies – like democracies all over the world – are disproportionately run by the rich. Although working-class jobs (informal workers, manual labor, and service industry jobs) make up the vast majority of the labor force in every Latin American country, only a tiny percentage of Latin American lawmakers come from those kinds of jobs. Like most places, Latin America is run by white-collar governments. Many journalists, pundits, and political observers take this aspect of the governing environment for granted in Latin America and elsewhere. (In 2013, commentators in Chile buzzed about having two female frontrunners in the presidential race. But they failed to note that both came from affluent backgrounds.) Perhaps they are so accustomed to welloff politicians that they simply see them as a natural feature of the political landscape. Or perhaps they believe that it does not matter whether politicians are drawn from one class or another. In the 1970s, scholars of comparative politics reached exactly that conclusion. After a handful of studies (which, in hindsight, probably had serious methodological problems) found that policymakers from different classes behave about the same in office, the eminent political scientist Robert Putnam concluded that “the assumption of a correlation between attitude and social origin lies behind most studies of the social backgrounds of elites, . . . most of the available evidence tends to disconfirm this assumption” (R. Putnam, unpublished manuscript: 93). A decade later, a sweeping review of the evidence available in the mid-1980s concluded that the existing data were “scattered and inconclusive” and “certainly [did] not add up to a finding that the social . . . [or] economic . . . biases of legislative recruitment result in a . . . policy bias of legislative institutions” (Matthews 1985: 25). In the mid-1990s, another review of the research reached the same conclusion: scholars had “not clearly established that the social background of politicians has a significant influence on their attitudes, values and behavior” (Norris and Lovenduski 1995: 12). Ever since, the idea that a legislator’s class does not matter has been the de facto conventional wisdom in the scholarly community. This conventional wisdom has helped fuel indifference about the overwhelmingly unequal social class makeup of the world’s political institutions. But new evidence suggests that the scholarly consensus may be wrong (Carnes 2013, and his contribution to this Swiss Political Science Review 21(2): 229–236 doi:10.1111/spsr.12162

Membrane Fusion: HAP2 Protein on a Short Leash

Localized membrane fusion in the Tetrahymena conjugation junction generates pores that provide transient cytoplasmic continuity between the two partner cells. Without male gamete-specific fusion protein HAP2/GSC1, pores fail to form, fertilization is blocked, and pair stability is compromised.

Radio Girl by Carol Brendler (review)

Reviewed by: Radio Girl by Carol Brendler Elizabeth Bush Brendler, Carol. Radio Girl. Holiday House, 2013. 202p ISBN 978-0-8234-2861-8 $16.95 R Gr. 6-9 Cece Maloney’s father, a sound effects man for the radio, always told her he’d get her a job at the station as soon as she’s old enough, but now that she’s fourteen and has a work permit, Pop has backed off his promise. Mom’s no help; in fact, she’s positively overprotective when it comes to most of Cece’s activities. Cece is nothing if not determined, however, and she fast talks her way into a Saturday job fulfilling promotional giveaways in the CBS mailroom, works her way into a script and news typing position, and even snags a couple of one-off gigs recording background whistles and screams. Utterly starstruck, she dreams of a romance with Orson Welles and hopes for an audition for a soap opera. Her own life offers plenty of of melodrama, though, between Pop’s affair with a radio actress, Mom’s true motivations for keeping her daughter on a short leash, the real story behind Aunt Nory’s apparent fling with an attractive parish priest, and the possibility of a romance of her own with Frank, an aspiring reporter at CBS. Cece’s amorous imaginings are at once comical and realistically cringeworthy (“Our scripts would brush against each other with the crinkly sound of budding romance, and his eyes would peer into the depths of my soul, and his voice would broadcast itself into my heart”), and the web of fibs and deceits with which she covers her secret employment are all the more entertaining for their inevitable doom. Readers in the know will put Orson Welles and the 1938 time setting together to anticipate the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast, but no prior knowledge is needed to enjoy simply sprinting along with headstrong Cece and her boundless ambition. Copyright © 2013 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

On a Short Leash? Sub-National Party Positions between Regional Context and National Party Unity

Do sub-national parties reproduce the programmatic orientation of the party as a whole? Or are they able to adjust their programmatic orientation to their sub-national electorate? I seek to answer these questions based on the policy positions of German sub-national parties and survey data on voters' positions. Referring to these very similar parties – which all have to commit themselves to certain policy positions in the run-up to state elections – allows for a controlled analysis of sub-national parties' autonomy. The analyses reveal that the regional context does play a role; voters' preferences and the unemployment rate appear to influence the dynamics of party positions. However, the results also show that regional branches of the same party change their positions in a similar way and also seek not to distance themselves too far from the national party line. This indicates that German sub-national parties appear first and foremost to be regional party branches of national parties.

Management of cranial cruciate ligament rupture in small dogs: A questionnaire study

To survey the current management of cranial cruciate ligament rupture in small dogs (<15 kg) by veterinarians. A questionnaire was distributed to veterinarians attending the British Veterinary Orthopaedic Association Spring meeting and British Small Animal Veterinary Association Annual Congress which took place in April 2010. Respondents were surveyed on their management of small dogs with cranial cruciate ligament rupture. Immediate surgical management was chosen by 15.5% of the respondents. Following that, 77.6% of respondents suggested that case management would depend on severity of lameness (81%), age (72.6%), bodyweight (70.4%), degree of instability (64.8%), and duration of lameness (64.0%). Conservative management included non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (91.1%), short leash walks (91.1%), weight loss (89.0%), hydrotherapy (53.6%), physiotherapy (41.9%), and cage rest (24.2%). Where surgical management was chosen, 71.4% would perform the procedure rather than refer it to another practice. Surgical techniques included extra-capsular stabilisation (63.4%), corrective osteotomies (32.9%), and intra-articular stabilisation (6.8%). The demographic characteristics of the responding veterinarians had no effect on their initial management of the case. General practice veterinarians were less likely to perform a corrective osteotomy than to refer the case, but were no less likely to perform an extracapsular technique. Conservative management is still widely used for treatment of cranial cruciate ligament rupture in dogs weighing less than 15 kg; this is in agreement with previous publications on the management of this condition in small dogs.

Fluorogenic Protein Labeling through Photoinduced Electron Transfer-Based BL-Tag Technology

Keeping quenchers on a short leash: Shortening of the linker chain length combined with modification of the quencher moiety was found to improve fluorogenic probes useful for protein labeling by the mutant β-lactamase-tag (BL-tag) technology. The most effective probe, CC3 DNB, displays fluorescence quenching by photoinduced electron transfer (PET) and results in fluorescent protein labeling with fast kinetics.

Annexin keeps tau on a short leash

![Figure][1] Tau (green) and annexin A2 (red) cohabit at the growing tip of a neural cell (arrow). Gauthier-Kemper et al. identify tau's membrane tether and show how the protein breaks free in a form of dementia. Some cases of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) have

My experience in Haiti: a brief report

My experience in Haiti: a brief report