Gross Negligence Manslaughter by Omission:the emergence of a Good Samaritan law?

There has been much academic debate concerning criminal liability for omissions and the extent to which such liability should be extended. The focus here concerns a recent, unreported, conviction for gross negligence manslaughter which raises the question of how far the courts and the Crown Prosecution Service are willing to blur existing boundaries of omissions liability and the established principles of causation. By scrutinising the current legal duties to act required for such liability to arise in the context of R v Bowditch, it will be demonstrated that we are moving incrementally towards a Good Samaritan law but with an absence of fair warning to guide citizens. Further, it is apparent from this conviction that the restricted principles of causation that apply to actions are not as restrictive when applied to omissions. It is clearly timely for the Law Commission to act to determine appropriate boundaries so that omissions liability complies with the rule of law. </jats:p

Messages from the Oracle: Assessing the Impact of Major In-Town Shopping Centres

Planning policy aimed at preserving the viability of UK town centres halted the wave of out-of-town shopping centres – Schiller’s “third wave” of decentralisation. In consequence,  a number of major in-town shopping malls were developed in the UK. The first of these was the Oracle Centre in Reading. This paper examines the impact of the Oracle on retail activity in the town centre using land use data and the results of a retailer survey. The Oracle acted as a catalyst for change, accelerating trends already observed in the centre, shifting the prime pitch, weakening peripheral areas and increasing turnover rates. The added attraction of the town centre offset many of the trade diversion impacts. However, some adverse effects may have been masked by strong consumer spending and a vibrant local economy.In-town Shopping, Out-of-town Shopping, Retail, Shopping Malls, Retail Activity

A Novel Codon-optimized SIV Gag-pol Immunogen for Genebased Vaccination

Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) is a robust pathogen used in non-human primates to model HIV vaccines. SIV encodes a number of potential vaccine targets. By far the largest and most conserved protein target in SIV is its gag-pol protein that bears many epitopes to drive multivalent immune T cell responses. While gag-pol is an attractive antigen, it is only translated after a frame shift between gag and pol with the effect that gag and pol are expressed at an approximate 10/1 ratio. The codon bias of native lentiviral genes are also mismatched with the abundance of tRNAs in mammalian cells resulting in poor expression of unmodified SIV genes. To provide a better SIV gag-pol immunogen for gene-based vaccination, we codon-optimized the full gag-pol sequence from SIVmac239. To increase pol expression, we artificially moved the pol sequence in frame to gag to bypass the need for a translational frame shift for its expression. Finally, we inserted four self-cleaving picornavirus sequences into gag p24, protease, reverse transcriptase, and into integrase to fragment the proteins for potentially better immune presentation. We demonstrate that these immunogens are well expressed in vitro and drive similar antibody and T cell responses with or without cleavage sequences

A Novel Codon-optimized SIV Gag-pol Immunogen for Genebased Vaccination

Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) is a robust pathogen used in non-human primates to model HIV vaccines. SIV encodes a number of potential vaccine targets. By far the largest and most conserved protein target in SIV is its gag-pol protein that bears many epitopes to drive multivalent immune T cell responses. While gag-pol is an attractive antigen, it is only translated after a frame shift between gag and pol with the effect that gag and pol are expressed at an approximate 10/1 ratio. The codon bias of native lentiviral genes are also mismatched with the abundance of tRNAs in mammalian cells resulting in poor expression of unmodified SIV genes. To provide a better SIV gag-pol immunogen for gene-based vaccination, we codon-optimized the full gag-pol sequence from SIVmac239. To increase pol expression, we artificially moved the pol sequence in frame to gag to bypass the need for a translational frame shift for its expression. Finally, we inserted four self-cleaving picornavirus sequences into gag p24, protease, reverse transcriptase, and into integrase to fragment the proteins for potentially better immune presentation. We demonstrate that these immunogens are well expressed in vitro and drive similar antibody and T cell responses with or without cleavage sequences