Beyond shareholder primacy? Reflections on the trajectory of UK corporate governance.

Core institutions of UK corporate governance, in particular the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers, the Combined Code on Corporate Governance and the law on directors’ duties, are strongly orientated towards the norm of shareholder primacy. Beyond the core, however, stakeholder interests are better represented, in particular at the intersection of insolvency and employment law. This reflects the influence of European Community laws on information and consultation of employees. In addition, there are signs that some institutional shareholders are redirecting their investment strategies, under government encouragement, away from a focus on short-term returns, in such a way as to favour stakeholder-inclusive practices by firms. On this basis we suggest that the UK system is currently in a state of flux and that the debate over shareholder primacy has not been concluded

The Emerging Scholarly Brain

It is now a commonplace observation that human society is becoming a coherent super-organism, and that the information infrastructure forms its emerging brain. Perhaps, as the underlying technologies are likely to become billions of times more powerful than those we have today, we could say that we are now building the lizard brain for the future organism.Comment: to appear in Future Professional Communication in Astronomy-II (FPCA-II) editors A. Heck and A. Accomazz

Unimodality Problems in Ehrhart Theory

Ehrhart theory is the study of sequences recording the number of integer points in non-negative integral dilates of rational polytopes. For a given lattice polytope, this sequence is encoded in a finite vector called the Ehrhart $h^*$-vector. Ehrhart $h^*$-vectors have connections to many areas of mathematics, including commutative algebra and enumerative combinatorics. In this survey we discuss what is known about unimodality for Ehrhart $h^*$-vectors and highlight open questions and problems.Comment: Published in Recent Trends in Combinatorics, Beveridge, A., et al. (eds), Springer, 2016, pp 687-711, doi 10.1007/978-3-319-24298-9_27. This version updated October 2017 to correct an error in the original versio

National study of adverse reactions after vaccination with bacille Calmette-Guerin

Few large prospective studies of adverse reactions after bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination are available. In a prospective national study of such adverse reactions among 918 subjects (aged 1 day to 54 years) over a 14-month period, 45 vaccinees (5%) reported 53 adverse reactions (23 injection-site abscesses, 14 severe local reactions, 10 cases of lymphadenitis, and 6 other reactions). Only 1% of vaccinees required medical attention. Reactions, particularly lymphadenitis, were significantly less common in infants <6 months old (but not in subjects aged 6 months) vaccinated by trained (vs. untrained) providers (relative risk [RR], 0.24; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.090.68). Injection-site abscesses (RR, 2.96; 95% CI, 1.117.90) and severe local reactions (RR, 4.93; 95% CI, 1.1121.90) were significantly more common in older vaccinees. Local reactions were more frequently reported by adult females than by adult males (RR, 7.18; 95% CI, 1.5932.45). Adverse reactions were not significantly associated with any currently available vaccine batch, previous receipt of BCG vaccine, or concomitant administration of other vaccines.F. M. Turnbull, P. B. McIntyre, H. M. Achat, H. Wang, R. Stapledon, M. Gold, and M. A. Burges