Life in the oceanic realms

The marine environment includes the nutrient-rich coastal waters, relatively nutrient-poor open oceanic waters, coral reef atolls, metal-rich hydrothermal vent fluids with temperatures of 200–350°C, cold-seeps, estuaries, mangrove swamps, intertidal beaches and rocky shores. Oceans are home to some of themost diverse and unique life forms. This article is an attempt to introduce some of the fundamentals of biologicaloceanography andmarine biologyto describe life in the sea.     

Medical journals and effective dissemination of health research

Clinical medical journals have not been effective in meeting the information needs of practitioners and bridging the gap between clinical research and practice. The slow adoption of results of clinical research is at least partly due to the failure of clinical journals to disseminate information in a way that would motivate practitioners to change practice. Although implementation is primarily a local process, medical journals are in a unique position to advance implementation by modifying their focus and adjusting their contents. Strategies that may be useful include publication of pre‐appraised evidence summaries and ‘clinical bottom‐lines’ and giving importance to systematic reviews and large evaluative research articles as they represent higher levels of evidence and have greater potential to change practice. Clinical journals should encourage researchers to consider how and by whom the findings will be used and provide information on implications for implementation such as possible strategies that may work, cost‐effectiveness, side‐effects and potential barriers to implementation. Medical journal publishers should explore ways to cooperate so that findings of landmark clinical trials could be shared thus reducing the ‘scatter’ of medical information. Electronic media offers numerous advantages such as quick accessibility and linking of information, and medical journals should capitalize on such innovations. There is a paradigm shift in health care practice as evidence is consciously and explicitly incorporated into individual patient care. Medical journals need to change to reflect this change in practice and provide practitioners with valid and relevant information.     

Modulation of an activity response with associative and nonassociative fear in the rat: A lighting differential influences the form of defensive behavior evoked after fear conditioning

Rats confronted with the onset of a light gradient display a transient increase in locomotion called theactivity response (AR) and a dark preference (Godsil & Fanselow, 2004). These experiments demonstrate that the magnitude of the AR can be blunted with Pavlovian fear-conditioning procedures via associative and nonassociative fear. Although manifested in decreased locomotion, the blunted AR effect was not due to increased freezing or immobility behaviors. Instead, rats displayed reduced rearing and an increase in a class of behaviors calledstationary activity. These results suggest that the lighting differential supplied by the cue influences the topography of defensive behavior and reduces the expression of freezing. This procedure provides a means by which to examine learned and unlearned defensive responses to the same stimulus.     

Examining the antecedents of e-loyalty intention in an online reservation environment

Online reservation has increased significantly in recent years. Understanding how customers behave towards this technology is considered to be important to interested parties, such as travel agencies and tourism marketing managers, in order to enable them to improve their marketing strategies, which would, in turn, allow them to retain their customers. This paper presents findings about the antecedents of e-loyalty intention towards online reservation among 288 respondents in the United Arab Emirates. The research examines the role of e-service quality, hedonic and utilitarian values, satisfaction, and subjective norms in motivating loyalty intention towards online reservation. The results show that e-service quality has a significant influence on hedonic and utilitarian values, which, in turn, affect customer satisfaction. Moreover, satisfaction and subjective norms positively affect e-loyalty intention towards online reservation.