Fundamental rights and legal wrongs: the two sides of the same EU coin

This article argues that the relationship of EU fundamental rights to the rest of EU law can only be understood if the former are seen as an integral part of a general vision of what EU law is about. This vision conceives EU law as concerned to secure the government of a European political economy. In turn, it has come to shape the interpretation and incidence of EU fundamental rights with the latter conceived as a central tool for incorporating the individual into and asserting her place within the government of the European political economy. A paradox has therefore emerged. EU fundamental rights have become ever more pervasive in EU law and it is couched more frequently in their terms, but these same fundamental rights seem ineffectual to deal with the suffering caused by events such as the crisis

mTOR inhibition and levels of the DNA repair protein MGMT in T98G glioblastoma cells

Background: Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most common and most aggressive type of primary adult brain tumour, responds poorly to conventional treatment. Temozolomide (TMZ) chemotherapy remains the most commonly used treatment, despite a large proportion of tumours displaying TMZ resistance. 60% of GBM tumours have unmethylated MGMT promoter regions, resulting in an overexpression of the DNA repair protein O6 -methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT), which is responsible for tumour resistance to TMZ chemotherapy. Tumours also often exhibit hyperactive PI3-kinase/mTOR signalling, which enables them to resynthesise proteins quickly. Since MGMT is a suicide protein that is degraded upon binding to and repairing TMZ-induced O6-methylguanine adducts, it has been hypothesized that inhibition of translation via the mTOR signalling pathway could generate a tumour-specific reduction in MGMT protein and increase TMZ sensitivity. Methods: MGMT was monitored at the post-transcriptional, translational and protein levels, to determine what effect mTOR inhibition was having on MGMT protein expression in vitro. Results: We show that inhibiting mTOR signalling is indeed associated with acute inhibition of protein synthesis. Western blots show that despite this, relative to loading control proteins, steady state levels of MGMT protein increased and MGMT mRNA was retained in heavy polysomes. Whilst TMZ treatment resulted in maintained MGMT protein levels, concomitant treatment of T98G cells with TMZ and KU0063794 resulted in increased MGMT protein levels without changes in total mRNA levels. Conclusions: These in vitro data suggest that, counterintuitively, mTOR inhibition may not be a useful adjunct to TMZ therapy and that more investigation is needed before applying mTOR inhibitors in a clinical setting

Final Report

The report presents the findings of research commissioned by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (‘the Commission’) to mark the 10th anniversary of its establishment. The research commenced on 10 July 2008 and will conclude with the submission of a final report to the Commission by 30 April 2009. The research was undertaken by researchers working within the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, and reviewed the 75 cases referred by the Commission to the High Court of Justiciary sitting as a court of appeal (‘the appeal court’) in the period 1 April 1999 to 31 March 2008. The research aimed to learn more about the references made by the Commission, how its statements of reasons in such cases have been received by the legal profession and the manner in which its grounds of reference have been determined by the court

Pattern and Process: A score for Movement-Based Teaching

How can we use a performative pedagogy to disrupt monologic forms of teaching and champion a dialogical practice designed to stimulate, rather than instruct? How might we reconnect the sentient body (of both student and ‘lecturer’) to the teaching space? And how can we facilitate a visceral relationship to atmosphere, aura and physicality such that students may be present, immersed and trusting of the environment created for them? Through a series of instructions presented in the form of a score, Chalmers & May will outline their approach to teaching as a performative offering. Engaging with the choreographic as an organisational practice, this movement-led resource is intended to direct the ‘lecturer’ within the aural, visual, physical space, and to help students inhabit their most receptive states. Through a sequence of haptic interventions, students are encouraged to focus on the practice of listening as bodily awareness - to sense the emergent without relying on parroting words or memorising visual aids and to find a physicality for the subject matter – to ‘invent’ its materiality so that it might be handled. Chalmers & May treat the performance lecture as a constellating medium: a mode of enquiry aimed at keeping a given subject matter in flux – through disturbances of movement, hiccups of speech, deviations of theme etc. – and an invitation to dwell in the spaces between. It involves a live process of cutting, handling, arranging and rearranging – in such a way as to emphasise how we are arriving and why it is that another departure is presenting itself – and aims to disrupt the default mode of visual engagement in favour of the ‘metamorphic’ image. By exploring the dynamics of pattern and process, this pedagogic approach supports the ongoing relationship between the what-was and the what-is-about-to-be; it prompts a correspondence between subjects, participants, materials and the spaces they inhabit, and employs a multi-channel mode of delivery – sonic, visual, physical – each contingent on the other for its context

Outcomes of elective induction of labour compared with expectant management: population based study

Objective To determine neonatal outcomes (perinatal mortality and special care unit admission) and maternal outcomes (mode of delivery, delivery complications) of elective induction of labour compared with expectant management

Consumer representation in financial services: report into consumer representation in the payments sector

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Towards an organisation-wide process-oriented organisation of care: A literature review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many hospitals have taken actions to make care delivery for specific patient groups more process-oriented, but struggle with the question how to deal with process orientation at hospital level. The aim of this study is to report and discuss the experiences of hospitals with implementing process-oriented organisation designs in order to derive lessons for future transitions and research.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A literature review of English language articles on organisation-wide process-oriented redesigns, published between January 1998 and May 2009, was performed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 329 abstracts identified, 10 articles were included in the study. These articles described process-oriented redesigns of five hospitals. Four hospitals tried to become process-oriented by the implementation of coordination measures, and one by organisational restructuring. The adoption of the coordination mechanism approach was particularly constrained by the functional structure of hospitals. Other factors that hampered the redesigns in general were the limited applicability of and unfamiliarity with process improvement techniques.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Due to the limitations of the evidence, it is not known which approach, implementation of coordination measures or organisational restructuring (with additional coordination measures), produces the best results in which situation. Therefore, more research is needed. For this research, the use of qualitative methods in addition to quantitative measures is recommended to contribute to a better understanding of preconditions and contingencies for an effective application of approaches to become process-oriented. Hospitals are advised to take the factors for failure described into account and to take suitable actions to counteract these obstacles on their way to become process-oriented organisations.</p

Ultimately other services finish at 5pm : Research into the supported housing sector’s impact on homelessness prevention, health and wellbeing

Our findings evidence the substantial impact which the sector is having on reducing homelessness, and improving health and wellbeing for people experiencing multiple disadvantage. Without supported housing, there would be significantly higher levels of homelessness and far fewer people would be receiving the support they need to sustain their accommodation. However, it is also clear that the return on investment of public monies in this sector could be increase