Integrating children's perspectives in policy-making to combat poverty and social exclusion experienced by single-parent families: a transnational comparative approach

This is the final report of a research project that addressed social exclusion and poverty as it relates to single parent families and their children in particular. The rising numbers of single parent families and children throughout the EU and the increased likelihood that these families will live in poverty and experience many different forms of social exclusion in their daily lives brings in sharp focus the need to address the issue as an urgent one in our efforts to eradicate poverty and social exclusion. The focus on the children of single parent families seeks to rectify a long-standing problem in our knowledge and understanding of single parent families and the social problems they face, namely, the fact that little, if anything, is known about how these children experience and understand their lives as members of these families. The research set out to contribute to policy development and the transnational exchange of best practice by adding a much-neglected dimension on single parent families. The project used a cross-national comparative qualitative research design and methods (Mangen 1999) which involved all partners in the design of each research phase including the analysis; partners were England, Cyprus and Greece

Turning it inside out: The organization of human septin heterooligomers.

Septin family proteins are quite similar to each other both within and between eukaryotic species. Typically, multiple discrete septins co-assemble into linear heterooligomers (usually hexameric or octameric rods) with a variety of cellular functions. We know little about how incorporation of different septins confers different properties to such complexes. This issue is especially acute in human cells where 13 separate septin gene products (often produced in multiple forms arising from alternative start codons and differential splicing) are expressed in a tissue-specific manner. Based on sequence alignments and phylogenetic criteria, human septins fall into four distinct groups predictive of their interactions, that is, members of the same group appear to occupy the same position within oligomeric septin protomers, which are "palindromic" (have twofold rotational symmetry about a central homodimeric pair). Many such protomers are capable of end-to-end polymerization, generating filaments. Over a decade ago, a study using X-ray crystallography and single-particle electron microscopy deduced the arrangement within recombinant heterohexamers comprising representatives of three human septin groups-SEPT2, SEPT6, and SEPT7. This model greatly influenced subsequent studies of human and other septin complexes, including how incorporating a septin from a fourth group forms heterooctamers, as first observed in budding yeast. Two recent studies, including one in this issue of Cytoskeleton, provide clear evidence that, in fact, the organization of subunits within human septin heterohexamers and heterooctamers is inverted relative to the original model. These findings are discussed here in a broader context, including possible causes for the initial confusion

A Genetic View of Sex Expression in the Flowering Plants

It seems a conservative statement to say that studies of the past twenty years among animal forms have tended increasingly to link the phenomena of sex inheritance with the behavior of chromosomes. To this result, cytology and genetics have contributed perhaps almost equally. The number of forms in which one sex is known to have a morphologically different chromosome complex from the other sex are many. That, with respect to the chromosomes, the female of certain forms produces gametes of a single kind, whereas the male produces two kinds, and that in turn an egg fertilized by one kind of sperm gives rise to a female and with the other kind to a male, cytological studies leave no doubt. In other forms it is the female that produces two kinds of gametes and the male one kind. The fact that in some animals sex dimorphism is associated with unequal numbers of chromosomes while in others, though the numbers are the same, the sex chromosomes differ morphologically in the two sexes, makes it seem not unlikely that functional dimorphism may exist even where no morphological differences in the chromosomes are seen

Structure of HIV-1 Capsid Assemblies by Cryo-electron Microscopy and Iterative Helical Real-space Reconstruction

Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), combined with image processing, is an increasingly powerful tool for structure determination of macromolecular protein complexes and assemblies. In fact, single particle electron microscopy1 and two-dimensional (2D) electron crystallography2 have become relatively routine methodologies and a large number of structures have been solved using these methods. At the same time, image processing and three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of helical objects has rapidly developed, especially, the iterative helical real-space reconstruction (IHRSR) method3, which uses single particle analysis tools in conjunction with helical symmetry. Many biological entities function in filamentous or helical forms, including actin filaments4, microtubules5, amyloid fibers6, tobacco mosaic viruses7, and bacteria flagella8, and, because a 3D density map of a helical entity can be attained from a single projection image, compared to the many images required for 3D reconstruction of a non-helical object, with the IHRSR method, structural analysis of such flexible and disordered helical assemblies is now attainable

Preventing Buffer Overflows with Binary Rewriting

Buffer overflows are the single largest cause of security attacks in recent times. Attacks based on this vulnerability have been the subject of extensive research and a significant number of defenses have been proposed for dealing with attacks of this nature. However, despite this extensive research, buffer overflows continue to be exploited due to the fact that many defenses proposed in prior research provide only partial coverage and attackers have adopted to exploit problems that are not well defended. The fact that many legacy binaries are still deployed in production environments also contributes to the success of buffer overflow attacks since most, if not all, buffer overflow defenses are source level defenses which require an application to be re-compiled. For many legacy applications, this may not be possible since the source code may no longer be available. In this thesis, we present an implementation of a defense mechanism for defending against various attack forms due to buffer overflows using binary rewriting. We study various attacks that happen in the real world and present techniques that can be employed within a binary rewriter to protect a binary from these attacks. Binary rewriting is a nascent field and little research has been done regarding the applications of binary rewriting. In particular, there is great potential for applications of binary rewriting in software security. With a binary rewriter, a vulnerable application can be immediately secured without the need for access to it's source code which allows legacy binaries to be secured. Also, numerous attacks on application software assume that application binaries are laid out in certain ways or have certain characteristics. Our defense scheme implemented using binary rewriting technology can prevent many of these attacks. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our scheme in preventing many different attack forms based on buffer overflows on both synthetic benchmarks and real-world attacks

A Genetic View of Sex Expression in the Flowering Plants

It seems a conservative statement to say that studies of the past twenty years among animal forms have tended increasingly to link the phenomena of sex inheritance with the behavior of chromosomes. To this result, cytology and genetics have contributed perhaps almost equally. The number of forms in which one sex is known to have a morphologically different chromosome complex from the other sex are many. That, with respect to the chromosomes, the female of certain forms produces gametes of a single kind, whereas the male produces two kinds, and that in turn an egg fertilized by one kind of sperm gives rise to a female and with the other kind to a male, cytological studies leave no doubt. In other forms it is the female that produces two kinds of gametes and the male one kind. The fact that in some animals sex dimorphism is associated with unequal numbers of chromosomes while in others, though the numbers are the same, the sex chromosomes differ morphologically in the two sexes, makes it seem not unlikely that functional dimorphism may exist even where no morphological differences in the chromosomes are seen

Pay Transparency

Pay discrimination, like many forms of discrimination, is a particularly stubborn problem. In many instances, just as with other forms of discrimination, it is unrealistic to allocate all the blame and burden on a single actor, whether it be an employer or employee. Thus, the traditional civil rights regime in which an individual actor is held liable for the discrimination does a poor job of dealing with this problem. I propose an intervention-pay transparency-that would help prevent, root out, and correct the discrimination in the first place, instead of relying on after the fact blame and liability. Pay transparency-the ability for employees to find out what other employees in their workplace make-is rare outside of public employment, and cultural norms against talking about one\u27s income may make the concept anxiety-producing to some readers. Yet, unlike many other approaches to reducing seemingly blameless discrimination, such as targeting unconscious discrimination, or potentially counterproductive debiasing efforts, incentivizing pay transparency can fit very comfortably within our legal framework. By turning pay transparency into an affirmative defense to pay discrimination claims, this preventive measure can be woven neatly into our current approach to civil rights enforcement and notions of individual responsibility

Variation and grammaticalisation in Bantu complex verbal constructions: The dynamics of information growth in Swahili, Rangi and siSwati

Many Bantu languages have a system of complex verbal constructions, where several verbal forms combine to describe a single event. Typically, these consist of an auxiliary and a main verb, and often tense-aspect marking and subject agreement is found on both forms. In this paper we develop a parsing-based, Dynamic Syntax analysis of complex verbal constructions in three Bantu languages – Swahili, Rangi and siSwati – and show how concepts of structural underspecification, accumulation of information and contextual update can be harnessed to explain the use of several verbal forms for the building of one semantic structure. At the heart of the analysis is the idea that structure established early in the parse can be ‘re-built’ from subsequent lexical input as long as incrementality and information growth are respected. This correctly predicts the accumulation of tense-aspect information and the fact that multiple subject markers have to be interpreted identically, while maintaining a uniform pronominal analysis of Bantu subject markers. From a comparative perspective, we show that complex verbal constructions result from processes of grammaticalisation, and, especially with reference to the extensive auxiliary system of siSwati, we sketch different processes of lexical change underlying the stages of the grammaticalisation process

Waiver of Tort and Suit in Assumpsit

This subject has already been developed exhaustively and with great accuracy. Yet it is a subject in which there has always been great confusion of thought, and the decisions are in hopeless conflict. This is due to the fact that the substantive principles of the common law were developed as mere incidents to forms of action and procedure. The common law system of procedure afforded no remedy in many cases where common notions of justice acknowledged the existence of a right. The system, therefore, had to change, as it ever must continue to change. Before the modes and forms of procedure had crystalized into a system, these changes were easy. The king\u27s courts could make new law by authority of the king. But the kings grew weak and the system of procedure grew stiff. Changes in it grew hard, and many acknowledged rights were without a remedy. New remedies must be invented for these rights, or old remedies must be expanded to include them. The latter alternative was easier because it involved less appearance of innovation. The greatest single step in applying it was the Statute of Westminister II, when Edward I and his law-givers authorized the granting of writs in consimili casu