Declaration on Religious Freedom: Three Developmental Aspects

This article considers key aspects of the Vatican II declaration on religious freedom Dignitatis Humanae and John Courtney Murray’s role in its formulation. This will be done with concern for the broader theological context as exemplified in Thomas Aquinas. After a brief outline of the difficulties Murray faced and their resolution, the discussion moves in four stages: a summary of the key ideas in the document on the relationship between truth and freedom from which the following three ideas receive a focus; the person (dignity and conscience); rights and their evolving context; historical consciousness and its role as a mode and locus of theological reflection. Here, a suggestion is offered about the interrelationship of speculative and practical reason in doctrinal development

Using Real-World Data to Guide Ustekinumab Dosing Strategies for Psoriasis: A Prospective Pharmacokinetic-Pharmacodynamic Study.

Variation in response to biologic therapy for inflammatory diseases, such as psoriasis, is partly driven by variation in drug exposure. Real-world psoriasis data were used to develop a pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) model for the first-line therapeutic antibody ustekinumab. The impact of differing dosing strategies on response was explored. Data were collected from a UK prospective multicenter observational cohort (491 patients on ustekinumab monotherapy, drug levels, and anti-drug antibody measurements on 797 serum samples, 1,590 measurements of Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI)). Ustekinumab PKs were described with a linear one-compartment model. A maximum effect (Emax ) model inhibited progression of psoriatic skin lesions in the turnover PD mechanism describing PASI evolution while on treatment. A mixture model on half-maximal effective concentration identified a potential nonresponder group, with simulations suggesting that, in future, the model could be incorporated into a Bayesian therapeutic drug monitoring "dashboard" to individualize dosing and improve treatment outcomes

The textuality of learning contexts

A significant aspect of learning contexts is the way in which semiotic artefacts mediate learning within them. The Literacies for Learning in Further Education (LfLFE) project is researching the role of texts and associated communicative practices in constructing and mediating teaching and learning, in shaping communities, in constructing and sustaining relationships, and in helping students to achieve their goals. A particular aim of the project is to identify ways in which people can bring literacy practices from one context into another to act as resources for learning in the new context. In this paper we explain what we mean by ‘literacy practices’, demonstrate the textuality of learning contexts through examples from contrasting curriculum areas, and show how learning can be enhanced by mobilising literacy practices from one context to another

Supporting strategy : a survey of UK OR/MS practitioners

This paper reports the results of an on-line survey conducted with practitioner members of the UK Operational Research (OR) Society. The purpose of the survey was to explore the current practice of supporting strategy in terms of activities supported and tools used. The results of the survey are compared to those of previous surveys to explore developments in, inter-alia, the use of management/strategy tools and „soft‟ Operational Research / Management Science (OR/MS) tools. The survey results demonstrate that OR practitioners actively support strategy within their organisations. Whilst a wide variety of tools, drawn from the OR/MS and management / strategy fields are used to support strategy within organisations, the findings suggest that soft OR/MS tools are not regularly used. The findings also demonstrate that tools are combined to support strategy from both within and across the OR/MS and management / strategy fields. The paper ends by identifying a number of areas for further research

A study to examine the operation and function of a virtual UK environmental specimen bank (UK-ESB). Final report

Executive Summary: 1. Environmental specimen banking is recognised internationally as an integral part of long-term environmental research and monitoring. Analysis of preserved environmental samples is often needed to detect and quantify patterns and rate of environmental change, and the emergence and progression of environmental hazards and risks. 2. National Environmental Specimen Banks have been established in several countries; they vary in scope and breadth. There are a few specialised environmental specimen holdings in the UK but no national-scale catalogue of holdings, despite an estimated annual spend of £16 million to store specimens. This lack of information results in under-exploitation of archived specimens and is a lost opportunity to facilitate world-class science and identify emerging pressures and threats on the environment. 3. An earlier project had identified key stakeholder organisations either engaged in archiving nationally important environmental specimens or who wished to utilise such specimens. These stakeholders had agreed there was a need for a national metadata catalogue of environmental specimens (subsequently termed a virtual UK-ESB). The objective of the current project was to further develop a virtual UK-ESB. Specifically, the aim was to work with stakeholders to establish the correct metadata entry fields, the search capabilities, the functionality and the nature of the hosting website of a virtual UK-ESB. 4. More than 80 stakeholder organisations that had previously expressed an interest in a UK-ESB were approached to provide feedback either electronically or by attending a stakeholder workshop. Thirty eight organisations responded. All remained interested in the UK-ESB concept and seventeen answered the survey questions. 5. Mock-ups of data entry screens, search screens and ideas around the functionality of a UK-ESB were developed by the CEH project team. These were mailed to stakeholders for feedback. Initial feedback was incorporated into the mock-ups which were then presented for discussion at a workshop comprising 15 attendees from across the specimen archiving community, CEH and the UK-EOF. 6. Workshop participants reviewed and agreed the format of 23 mandatory or optional data-entry fields for a virtual UK-ESB that, in the absence of standard for material samples and archives, were aligned with ISO19115 (geospatial metadata standard) and DublinCore (metadata standard). These fields were sub-divided into the following headings: Sample description, Categorisation, keywords and links, Storage Information and Contact information. Workshop participants also made a number of recommendations as to the format of the data entry screens and inclusion of extra fields. 7. Workshop participants reviewed options for search capabilities and made recommendations as to simple and advanced searching methods and their formats. It was also recommended that search facilities of the ESBs of other countries be examined to determine what is used, ease of use, and how they match the recommendations from the workshop. 8. Workshop participants reviewed options for functionality and agreed a detailed list of prioritised requirements. 9. Workshop participants agreed that a virtual UK-ESB should be hosted through a dedicated website that would also provide wider information, such as recently updated or added specimen holdings, most downloaded information, links to other groups, standard operating procedures, etc. 10. The next step for the development of a virtual UK-ESB is to implement the design and development ideas captured in the current report and build a test version of a virtual UK-ESB. This would be tested and refined, and could then be launched on a specifically designed website. This would need to be accompanied by a communication strategy. There is potential to link and co-brand a virtual UK-ESB with the UK-Environmental Observation Framework (UK-EOF)

Clinical outcomes and response to treatment of patients receiving topical treatments for pyoderma gangrenosum: a prospective cohort study

Background: pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) is an uncommon dermatosis with a limited evidence base for treatment. Objective: to estimate the effectiveness of topical therapies in the treatment of PG. Methods: prospective cohort study of UK secondary care patients with a clinical diagnosis of PG suitable for topical treatment (recruited July 2009 to June 2012). Participants received topical therapy following normal clinical practice (mainly Class I-III topical corticosteroids, tacrolimus 0.03% or 0.1%). Primary outcome: speed of healing at 6 weeks. Secondary outcomes: proportion healed by 6 months; time to healing; global assessment; inflammation; pain; quality-of-life; treatment failure and recurrence. Results: Sixty-six patients (22 to 85 years) were enrolled. Clobetasol propionate 0.05% was the most commonly prescribed therapy. Overall, 28/66 (43.8%) of ulcers healed by 6 months. Median time-to-healing was 145 days (95% CI: 96 days, ∞). Initial ulcer size was a significant predictor of time-to-healing (hazard ratio 0.94 (0.88;80 1.00); p = 0.043). Four patients (15%) had a recurrence. Limitations: No randomised comparator Conclusion: Topical therapy is potentially an effective first-line treatment for PG that avoids possible side effects associated with systemic therapy. It remains unclear whether more severe disease will respond adequately to topical therapy alone

The great U.K. depression: a puzzle and possible resolution

Between 1913 and 1929, real GDP per person in the UK fell 1 percent, while this same measure of economic activity rose about 25 percent in the rest of the world. Why was Britain so depressed in a decade of strong economic activity around the world? This paper argues that the standard explanations of contractionary monetary shocks and an overvalued nominal exchange rate are not the prime suspects for killing the British economy. Rather, we argue that large, negative sectoral shocks, coupled with generous unemployment benefits and housing subsidies, are the primary causes of this long and deep depression.Depressions ; Unemployment

Secularisation and the "rise" of atheism

As the writings of Charles Taylor have shown secularism and secularisation can mean different things to different people. We need to distinguish social aspects, such as institutional separation of Church and state from cultural aspects, such as shifting attitudes to religious belief per se. At this level we can identify an increasingly aggressive and vocal atheism claiming an intellectual high ground. In this regard the paper considers traditional Catholic teaching on faith and reason and the natural knowledge of God, and more recent teaching repudiating Christendom and exploring other possibilities concerning the relationship between Church and politics. Churches need to be able to properly distinguish which aspects of secularisation they can support and which they must oppose rather than adopt a blanket judgment on the whole phenomenon