The Internet in Everyday Life,edited by Barry Wellman and Caroline Haythornthwaite,with foreword by Howard Rheingold and preface by Manuel Castells. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. xxxviii + 586 pp. $29.95 paper. ISBN 0-631-23508-6

To understand the ultimate status of Internet studies, it is necessary to observe from both a holistic and a particularistic perspective. This article examines one small area of research, the Internet in China, to use that case study as a lens with which to discern the development of Internet studies. By comparing this micro view of the parameters, agendas, and research foci of Chinese Internet research to the larger body of Internet research, it draws insights into the present and future of Internet studies more generally.     

Variants within the COMP and THBS2 genes are not associated with Achilles tendinopathy in a case-control study of South African and Australian populations

Abstract

Cartilage oligomeric matrix protein is a structural protein of the extracellular matrix, while thrombospondin-2 is a matricellular protein involved in cell–matrix interactions. Recent studies have shown that genetic variation is a significant risk factor for Achilles tendinopathy, and the genes encoding cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) and thrombospondin-2 (THBS2) were identified as good candidate genes for association with Achilles tendinopathy. This study aimed to test the association of sequence variants within these candidate genes with the risk of Achilles tendinopathy in participants from South Africa (SA) and Australia (AUS). Three-hundred and forty (133 SA; 207 AUS) control participants with no history of Achilles tendinopathy and 178 (94 SA; 84 AUS) participants clinically diagnosed with Achilles tendinopathy were genotyped for five single nucleotide polymorphisms within the COMP and THBS2 genes in this case-control study. There was no difference in genotype distributions between control and tendinopathy groups for either the THBS2 variants rs9505888, rs6422747 and rs9283850, or the COMP variants rs730079 and rs28494505 in the SA and AUS populations. As the selection of COMP and THBS2 as candidate genes was hypothesis driven, based on biological function, the possibility that other variants within these genes are associated with Achilles tendinopathy cannot be excluded.     

A curious courage: the origins of gay rights campaigning in the National Union of Students

In 1973 the national conference of the National Union of Students (NUS) voted to campaign for gay rights, making NUS the first national organisation in the UK to make such a public commitment. Using archive material, this article outlines how NUS came to this decision, and the initial challenges it faced in taking up this work. It explains that NUS was influenced by early liberation politics, but faced difficulties when this clashed with the belief of some on the Left in the primacy of the class struggle. Nevertheless, some important progress was made in these early years, even if some of the wider societal change was still elusive.     

Measuring higher education quality

Conclusion The panelists indicated that considerable progress is being made by such organizations as ACT and NCHEMS in identifying the domains of quality to be measured and particularly in devising unidimensional indicators of student progress. Few were able to cite comparable advancements in the development of multivariate techniques to assess the relation of student growth to other variables. Notable progress in achieving consensus on appropriate standards for measuring quality institutions or curricular programs within comparable institutions remains as a future task.Panelists were: William Toombs, Pennsylvania State University; Patrick Terenzini, State University of New York at Albany; Lois Torrence, University of Connecticut. Joan Stark, University of Michigan, was moderator.