The disease of corruption: views on how to fight corruption to advance 21st century global health goals

Corruption has been described as a disease. When corruption infiltrates global health, it can be particularly devastating, threatening hard gained improvements in human and economic development, international security, and population health. Yet, the multifaceted and complex nature of global health corruption makes it extremely difficult to tackle, despite its enormous costs, which have been estimated in the billions of dollars. In this forum article, we asked anti-corruption experts to identify key priority areas that urgently need global attention in order to advance the fight against global health corruption. The views shared by this multidisciplinary group of contributors reveal several fundamental challenges and allow us to explore potential solutions to address the unique risks posed by health-related corruption. Collectively, these perspectives also provide a roadmap that can be used in support of global health anti-corruption efforts in the post-2015 development agenda

In search of sustainable CAP: : Assessing the environmental impacts of agricultural policy

Paper presented at the European Environment Conference, September 1998, Leeds, UK.Agricultural policy can have a major influence on the environmental impacts of agriculture. As farming is a major land use in European Union (EU) these impacts can be significant and widespread. A scoring technique has been developed by the University of Hertfordshire to assess the significance of these impacts in relation to sustainability. This technique is presented in the context of a framework to assess the impacts of agricultural policy. Effect-damage functions, indicators and targets are used and the spatial scale is taken into account to produce a policy performance profile. This is accompanied by an indicator of the quality and confidence of the assessment. The method is able to determine where trade-offs exist between different environmental objectives (e.g. nitrate leaching vs. ammonia emissions) and takes into account local and regional environmental sensitivities. The method has potential to be a valuable tool in the development of a greener Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It may also have potential to support the targeting of agri-environment programmes which can be of both environmental and economic benefit.Non peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Online abuse of feminists as an emerging form of violence against women and girls

Abuse directed at visible and audible women demonstrates that cyberspace, once heralded as a new, democratic, public sphere, suffers similar gender inequalities as the offline world. This paper reports findings from a national UK study about experiences of online abuse amongst women who debate feminist politics. It argues that online abuse is most usefully conceived as a form of abuse or violence against women and girls, rather than as a form of communication. It examines the experiences of those receiving online abuse, thereby making a valuable contribution to existing research which tends to focus on analysis of the communications themselves

Characterization of spontaneous, juvenile-type granulosa cell tumours from SWR mice

Granulosa cell tumours (GCTs) are a subtype of ovarian cancer derived from the granulosa cells (GC) surrounding the oocytes. The SWR mouse is a well defined model for juvenile-type GCTs in terms of endocrinology, genetics and malignancy. GCTs appear spontaneously in SWR-derived female mice at puberty, characterized by rapid, benign growth followed by a malignant transition after 6-10 months in approximately half of the tumour-bearing population. Our aim is to characterize the protein expression profile of early GCTs, normal ovaries and the human COV434 JGCT cell line to determine if protein expression differences can help identify the mechanism of tumourigenesis. This was accomplished using immunoblotting to define the protein expression profile of mouse primary GCTs, normal, whole ovaries and human COV434 cell lysates. Protein lysates from the early GCTs were positive for expression of Cyp19a, Fshr, Egfr, Esr2, Foxl2 and Sox9 proteins, with significant downregulation of Esr2 and significant upregulation of Egfr in GCTs relative to both normal ovaries. A further evaluation of Sox9 was done by immunohistochemistry, which confirmed a proportion of cell specifically express Sox9, although the cellular identity is not conclusively that of GCT cells. Protein lysates from the COV434 cell line compared to the mouse GCTs were also positive for expression of Cyp19a, Fshr, Egfr, Esr2 and Foxl2 proteins, with significant upregulation of Cyp19a, significant downregulation of Egfr and Esr2, and no Sox9 protein expression. A further evaluation of Sox9 was done by immunohistochemistry and confirmed its expression in GCTs. The protein profile of GCTs, as compared to normal ovaries and a human representative cell line will provide a basis for future studies of juvenile-type GCT genetics, biology and therapy

Investigation into the functions of sumoylation in yeast

PhD ThesisSmall ubiquitin modifier (SUMO) is a ubiquitin-like modification that regulates many fundamental processes in eukaryotes such as DNA damage and repair, cell cycle, stress responses and gene expression. Sumoylation is essential for viability in the model organisms Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, and is embryonic lethal in mice. Conversely, sumoylation is dispensable for growth in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. High throughput proteomic approaches have detected many sumoylated substrates in a large number of cellular processes, however, the biological function of sumoylation in many of these processes, as well as the essential processes in S. cerevisiae and mammals, have not been elucidated. To gain insight into the biological functions of sumoylation in eukaryotes, we aimed to take advantage of the viability of sumoylation mutants and large scale deletion collections available in S. pombe to study the process via a high throughput genetic screening. Although the sumoylation mutants studied were found unsuitable for genetic screening, characterisation of the cell cycle defects observed in the mutants revealed that cells lacking sumoylation exhibited abnormal expression of cell cycle dependant genes. The gene transcripts affected by lack of sumoylation are normally regulated by a conserved family of forkhead transcription factors, and this study indicates that sumoylation acts specifically to repress forkhead dependant gene expression. A conserved forkhead transcription factor homolog in human cells has been previously identified as a sumoylated substrate, but the effect of sumoylation on the activity of the transcription factor was unclear. Our data therefore suggests that sumoylation may be a conserved negative regulator of cell cycle regulated gene transcription in eukaryotes. To further increase our understanding of sumoylation, a high throughput screening approach was used in S. cerevisiae. The SUMO encoding gene, SMT3, is essential in S. cerevisiae, hence a hypomorphic smt3 allele was screened against a genomic library of mutants. Excitingly, through this approach, we identified that perturbation of highly conserved cytoskeleton proteins, involved in filamentous actin (F actin) dynamics and tubulin, suppressed the slow growth defect associated with misregulated sumoylation. This novel observation suggests that a major role of sumoylation in eukaryotes is in cytoskeleton regulation. Aberrant sumoylation is implicated in many disease states, such as cancer, pathogenic infection, and neurodegenerative disease. Furthermore, forkhead transcription factors have been implicated in human cancers, and F actin dynamics are often misregulated in cancer and viral and bacterial infection. Thus, understanding the mechanism of sumoylation underpinning these processes have potential impacts for human health.Newcastle Biomedical Research Centr

Environmental management for arable agriculture : An Eco-rating system for pesticide use

The University of Hertfordshire, funded by MAFF and in collaboration with ADAS and IACR-Rothamsted, is currently developing a computer-based decision support system to encourage and enhance best practice within arable agriculture such that environmental protection can be given a high priority without jeopardising profitability. A significant part of this system is focused towards the use and management of pesticides to ensure that protecting the crop does not conflict with protecting the environment. The software system aims to assess the farmer’s use of pesticides. Using a multi-criteria approach, field techniques, pesticide choice and management practices such as storage, waste management and machinery calibration are all assessed. Although the system concentrates on field applications for crop protection, it also examines non-crop pesticides such as biocides and rodenticides. The eco-rating is derived by comparing actual practices with rules and heuristics describing best practice. Simple ranking and scoring techniques are used to derive an indicator of environmental performance with respect to the farmers use of pesticides.Peer reviewe

Rotational 3D Printing of Sensor Devices using Reactive Ink Chemistries

This paper charts progress in three key areas of a project supported by both UK government and UK industry to manufacture novel sensor devices using rotary 3D printing technology and innovative ink chemistries; (1) the development of an STL file slicing algorithm that returns constant Z height 2D contour data at a resolution that matches the given print head setup, allowing digital images to be generated of the correct size without the need for scaling; (2) the development of image transformation algorithms which allow images to be printed at higher resolutions using tilted print heads and; (3) the formulation of multi part reaction inks which combine and react on the substrate to form solid material layers with a finite thickness. A Direct Light Projection (DLP) technique demonstrated the robustness of the slice data by constructing fine detailed three dimensional test pieces which were comparable to identical parts built in an identical way from slice data obtained using commercial software. Material systems currently under investigation include plaster, stiff polyamides and epoxy polymers and conductive metallic’s. Early experimental results show conductivities of silver approaching 1.42x105 Siemens/m.Mechanical Engineerin

Quantitative evidence synthesis methods for the assessment of the effectiveness of treatment sequences for clinical and economic decision-making: a review and taxonomy of simplifying assumptions

Sequential use of alternative treatments for chronic conditions represents a complex intervention pathway; previous treatment and patient characteristics affect both the choice and effectiveness of subsequent treatments. This paper critically explores the methods for quantitative evidence synthesis of the effectiveness of sequential treatment options within a health technology assessment (HTA) or similar process. It covers methods for developing summary estimates of clinical effectiveness or the clinical inputs for the cost-effectiveness assessment and can encompass any disease condition. A comprehensive review of current approaches is presented, which considers meta-analytic methods for assessing the clinical effectiveness of treatment sequences and decision-analytic modelling approaches used to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment sequences. Estimating the effectiveness of a sequence of treatments is not straightforward or trivial and is severely hampered by the limitations of the evidence base. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of sequences were often absent or very limited. In the absence of sufficient RCTs of whole sequences, there is no single best way to evaluate treatment sequences; however, some approaches could be re-used or adapted, sharing ideas across different disease conditions. Each has advantages and disadvantages, and is influenced by the evidence available, extent of treatment sequences (number of treatment lines or permutations), and complexity of the decision problem. Due to the scarcity of data, modelling studies applied simplifying assumptions to data on discrete treatments. A taxonomy for all possible assumptions was developed, providing a unique resource to aid the critique of existing decision-analytic models

Boxed interim evaluation report March 2018

BoxED is an outreach and widening participation initiative designed, developed and delivered by members of the Faculty of Health and Applied Sciences at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol. The scheme aims to provide inspirational and engaging workshops to secondary school pupils in the local area, particularly targeting widening participation and attainment in order to encourage a wide range of young people into higher education. The following report documents the key findings of an evaluation undertaken in conjunction with the Centre for Research in Biosciences (CRIB) and the Science Communication Unit (SCU), UWE assessing the levels of satisfaction with the service and the breadth of science capital in school children aged 11-16 years in the Bristol area. The evaluation examined BoxED activities between October 2017 and March 2018. Post-activity questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were employed to gauge opinions from a total of 376 school pupils and 2 school teachers. This evaluation forms part of a wider series of BoxED evaluation activities including additional questionnaires, observations and teachers interviews which are currently ongoing