Corporate integration in the EU: Recent developments

Corporate integration was expected to play a central role in the process of industrial reorganisation which would follow the creation of the Single European Market. This article investigates the development of corporate integration in the EU and the likely impact of the Single European Market on the pattern of corporate integration

How primary care can contribute to good mental health in adults.

The need for support for good mental health is enormous. General support for good mental health is needed for 100% of the population, and at all stages of life, from early childhood to end of life. Focused support is needed for the 17.6% of adults who have a mental disorder at any time, including those who also have a mental health problem amongst the 30% who report having a long-term condition of some kind. All sectors of society and all parts of the NHS need to play their part. Primary care cannot do this on its own. This paper describes how primary care practitioners can help stimulate such a grand alliance for health, by operating at four different levels - as individual practitioners, as organisations, as geographic clusters of organisations and as policy-makers

The perception and management of risk in UK office property development

Risk is an ever-present aspect of business, and risk taking is necessary for profit and economic progress. Speculative property development is popularly perceived as a 'risky business' yet, like other entrepreneurs, developers have opportunities to manage the risks they face; techniques include phasing and joint ventures. The associated areas of investment portfolio risk, development risk analysis and construction risk management have all been addressed by research. This article presents new knowledge about how developers perceive risks and the means they subsequently adopt to manage them. The developers of office projects across the UK were sent questionnaires by post. Respondents were asked about their perceptions of risks at the first appraisal stage and currently and about the risk management techniques that they had adopted. In-depth interviews with a selection of respondents were then used to discuss and augment the findings. Developers were most concerned about market-based risks at both stages. Concern about production-orientated risks was lower and fell significantly between the two stages. A fixed price contract was the most common risk management technique. Risk management techniques were used more often outside London and the South East. Developer type affects both the perception and management of risk. While developers do manage risk, decisions are made on the basis of professional and business experience. These findings should help development companies manage risk in a more objective and analytical way

A novel method to allow noninvasive, longitudinal imaging of the murine immune system in vivo

In vivo imaging has revolutionized understanding of the spatiotemporal complexity that subserves the generation of successful effector and regulatory immune responses. Until now, invasive surgery has been required for microscopic access to lymph nodes (LNs), making repeated imaging of the same animal impractical and potentially affecting lymphocyte behavior. To allow longitudinal in vivo imaging, we conceived the novel approach of transplanting LNs into the mouse ear pinna. Transplanted LNs maintain the structural and cellular organization of conventional secondary lymphoid organs. They participate in lymphocyte recirculation and exhibit the capacity to receive and respond to local antigenic challenge. The same LN could be repeatedly imaged through time without the requirement for surgical exposure, and the dynamic behavior of the cells within the transplanted LN could be characterized. Crucially, the use of blood vessels as fiducial markers also allowed precise re-registration of the same regions for longitudinal imaging. Thus, we provide the first demonstration of a method for repeated, noninvasive, in vivo imaging of lymphocyte behavior

Comparison of 2.3 & 5 mega pixel (MP) resolution monitors when detecting mammography image blurring

Background - Image blurring in Full Field Digital Mammography (FFDM) is reported to be a problem within many UK breast screening units resulting in significant proportion of technical repeats/recalls. Our study investigates monitors of differing pixel resolution, and whether there is a difference in blurring detection between a 2.3 MP technical review monitor and a 5MP standard reporting monitor. Methods - Simulation software was created to induce different magnitudes of blur on 20 artifact free FFDM screening images. 120 blurred and non-blurred images were randomized and displayed on the 2.3 and 5MP monitors; they were reviewed by 28 trained observers. Monitors were calibrated to the DICOM Grayscale Standard Display Function. T-test was used to determine whether significant differences exist in blurring detection between the monitors. Results - The blurring detection rate on the 2.3MP monitor for 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1 mm blur was 46, 59, 66, 77and 78% respectively; and on the 5MP monitor 44, 70, 83 , 96 and 98%. All the non-motion images were identified correctly. A statistical difference (p <0.01) in the blurring detection rate between the two monitors was demonstrated. Conclusions - Given the results of this study and knowing that monitors as low as 1 MP are used in clinical practice, we speculate that technical recall/repeat rates because of blurring could be reduced if higher resolution monitors are used for technical review at the time of imaging. Further work is needed to determine monitor minimum specification for visual blurring detection

A 6 year study of mammographic compression force : practitioner variability within and between screening sites

Background The application of compression force in mammography is more heavily influenced by the practitioner rather than the client. This can affect client experience, radiation dose and image quality. This research investigates practitioner compression force variation over a 6 year screening cycle in three different screening units. Methods: Recorded data included: practitioner code, applied compression force(N), breast thickness(mm), BI-RADS® density category. Exclusion criteria included: previous breast surgery, previous/ongoing assessment, breast implants. 975 clients (2925) client visits, 11,700 mammogram images) met inclusion criteria across three sites. Data analysis assessed practitioner variation of compression force and breast thickness. Results: Practitioners across three breast screening sites behave differently in the application of compression force. Two of the three sites demonstrate variability within themselves, though they demonstrated no significant difference in mean, first and third quartile compression force and breast thickness values CC(p&gt;0.5), MLO(p&gt;0.1) between themselves. However, the third site (where mandate dictates a minimum compression force is applied) greater consistency was demonstrated; a significant difference in mean, first and third quartile compression force and breast thickness values(p&lt;0.001) was demonstrated between this site and the other two sites. Conclusion: Stabilisation of variations in compression force may have a positive impact on image quality, radiation dose reduction, re-attendance levels and potentially cancer detection. The large variation in compression forces could negatively impact on client experience between the units and within a unit. Further research is required to establish best practice guidelines for compression force within mammography. Keywords: Compression force, Breast compression, Compression variabilit

Self-consistent radiative corrections to false vacuum decay

With the Higgs mass now measured at the sub-percent level, the potential metastability of the electroweak vacuum of the Standard Model (SM) motivates renewed study of false vacuum decay in quantum field theory. In this note, we describe an approach to calculating quantum corrections to the decay rate of false vacua that is able to account fully and self-consistently for the underlying inhomogeneity of the solitonic tunneling configuration. We show that this method can be applied both to theories in which the instability arises already at the level of the classical potential and those in which the instability arises entirely through radiative effects, as is the case for the SM Higgs vacuum. We analyse two simple models in the thin-wall regime, and we show that the modifications of the one-loop corrections from accounting fully for the inhomogeneity can compete at the same level as the two-loop homogeneous corrections

Malaria impairs T cell clustering and immune priming despite normal signal 1 from dendritic cells

Interactions between antigen-presenting dendritic cells (DCs) and T cells are essential for the induction of an immune response. However, during malaria infection, DC function is compromised and immune responses against parasite and heterologous antigens are reduced. Here, we demonstrate that malaria infection or the parasite pigment hemozoin inhibits T cell and DC interactions both in vitro and in vivo, while signal 1 intensity remains unaltered. This altered cellular behaviour is associated with the suppression of DC costimulatory activity and functional T cell responses, potentially explaining why immunity is reduced during malaria infection

Effect of simplicity and attractiveness on route selection for different journey types

This study investigated the effects of six attributes, associated with simplicity or attractiveness, on route preference for three pedestrian journey types (everyday, leisure and tourist). Using stated choice preference experiments with computer generated scenes, participants were asked to choose one of a pair of routes showing either two levels of the same attribute (experiment 1) or different attributes (experiment 2). Contrary to predictions, vegetation was the most influential for both everyday and leisure journeys, and land use ranked much lower than expected in both cases. Turns ranked higher than decision points for everyday journeys as predicted, but the positions of both were lowered by initially unranked attributes. As anticipated, points of interest were most important for tourist trips, with the initially unranked attributes having less influence. This is the first time so many attributes have been compared directly, providing new information about the importance of the attributes for different journeys. © 2014 Springer International Publishing