Proxy models of legal need: can they contribute to equity of access to justice?

Prioritisation of cases and resources as a means of rationing the limited legal aid budget has recently become a feature of access to justice in the UK. This article explores the utility of devising proxymodels of ‘legal need’ as a means of enabling the rational and equitable planning of legal services in these circumstances. Different conceptual and methodological approaches are considered, highlighting preliminary development work in Scotland. The likelihood of developing ‘legal needs’ measures that promote equity of access to appropriate legal services is discussed in the light of problems with defining ‘legal need’ and the diversity of services available for the resolution of legal problems

Holy or unholy matrimony: does participation in a pre-college program influence the retention rate of African American males in college

Fifty percent of all students who enroll in college depart before earning their degree; this proportion is even higher among minorities during the first year of college (Tinto, 2006). Minorities have typically had fewer opportunities to gain a college education. Once enrolled in college, minorities have generally found it more difficult to succeed academically and graduate (Strayhorn, 2011). There is one group among the collective of minorities that are even further behind the rest, African American males. African American males are one of the most underrepresented populations of students on college campuses around the nation (Feagin, Vera, & Imani, 1996). Relatively few Black men enroll in four-year colleges and universities (Cuyject, 2006); in fact, of the approximate 15 million undergraduate students in the United States, less than 5% are Black men (NCES, 2009). In response to the trends and challenges faced by Black men, the federal government, as well as higher education institutions, have invested considerable resources in the development and implementation of programs and services that are designed to provide the necessary academic and social support researchers have found to be integral to the success of students in college (Astin, 1993; Swail, Redd & Perna, 2003 and Tinto, 1993). One of the federal government’s responses to this issue is the development of numerous pre-college programs. The aim of this study was to determine whether pre-college programs (i.e., Upward Bound, Talent Search & G.E.A.R. UP) are effective in realizing their goals for African American men, particularly as it relates to their college retention rates. Using the National Center for Education Statistics’ Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) guided by Tinto’s Student Attrition model, the researcher sought to determine: To what extent does participating in a pre-college program influence the first-year retention rates of African American males in college, controlling for differences in, background traits, academic preparedness and parental level of education? The findings from this study suggest that out of three federally funded pre-college programs Upward Bound, Talent Search and G.E.A.R. UP, only the Talent Search program has any impact on the retention rate of African American males in college

The role of fiction in screenwriting (as) research

In this article the authors discuss the role of fiction in screenwriting practice research. The screenplays included in the ‘Screenplays as Research Artefacts’ special issue of TEXT present a range of stories, worlds, characters, visual scenarios and dialogue exchanges that function as vessels for theories and ideas. These eleven screenplays all use creative practice approaches to research across a wide variety of discourses. All of the works embrace fiction as an important method to convey their respective critical concerns, which, the authors argue, evidences an emerging hallmark of screenwriting (as) research when compared with associated forms in the creative writing and screen production disciplines: fiction as a staple of its storytelling, creative practice and research methodology. The authors suggest that the use of fiction to perform research and present findings illuminates the ways that knowledge can be affective, not merely textual or verbal, something that is exemplified in the selected screenplays

Kin selection and the evolution of social information use in animal conflict

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Animals often use social information about conspecifics in making decisions about cooperation and conflict. While the importance of kin selection in the evolution of intraspecific cooperation and conflict is widely acknowledged, few studies have examined how relatedness influences the evolution of social information use. Here we specifically examine how relatedness affects the evolution of a stylised form of social information use known as eavesdropping. Eavesdropping involves individuals escalating conflicts with rivals observed to have lost their last encounter and avoiding fights with those seen to have won. We use a game theoretical model to examine how relatedness affects the evolution of eavesdropping, both when strategies are discrete and when they are continuous or mixed. We show that relatedness influences the evolution of eavesdropping, such that information use peaks at intermediate relatedness. Our study highlights the importance of considering kin selection when exploring the evolution of complex forms of information use.Dr. Baker was supported by a fellowship from the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, and by National Science Foundation (NSF) SES-0750480 and the European Science Foundation/European Collaborative Research (ESF/EUROCORES) program’s support for the The Evolution of Cooperation and Trading (TECT) project. Dr. Rankin thanks the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grants 31003A-125457 and PZ00P3-121800) and the University of Zu¨rich Forschungskredit, and Dr. Dall thanks the Natural Environment Research Council UK (NE/D014352/1) for funding. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Global oceanic emission of ammonia: constraints from seawater and atmospheric observations

Current global inventories of ammonia emissions identify the ocean as the largest natural source. This source depends on seawater pH, temperature, and the concentration of total seawater ammonia (NHx(sw)), which reflects a balance between remineralization of organic matter, uptake by plankton, and nitrification. Here we compare [NHx(sw)] from two global ocean biogeochemical models (BEC and COBALT) against extensive ocean observations. Simulated [NHx(sw)] are generally biased high. Improved simulation can be achieved in COBALT by increasing the plankton affinity for NHx within observed ranges. The resulting global ocean emissions is 2.5 TgN a−1, much lower than current literature values (7–23 TgN a−1), including the widely used Global Emissions InitiAtive (GEIA) inventory (8 TgN a−1). Such a weak ocean source implies that continental sources contribute more than half of atmospheric NHx over most of the ocean in the Northern Hemisphere. Ammonia emitted from oceanic sources is insufficient to neutralize sulfate aerosol acidity, consistent with observations. There is evidence over the Equatorial Pacific for a missing source of atmospheric ammonia that could be due to photolysis of marine organic nitrogen at the ocean surface or in the atmosphere. Accommodating this possible missing source yields a global ocean emission of ammonia in the range 2–5 TgN a−1, comparable in magnitude to other natural sources from open fires and soils

γ-Linolenic acid increases expression of key regulators of lipid metabolism in human skeletal muscle cells

Control of skeletal muscle fat metabolism is regulated acutely through Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor (PPAR) δ activation and its downstream intracellular targets. The purpose of this study was to determine whether fatty acids with high binding affinity for PPARδ can elevate the expression of genes related to fatty acid oxidation and indicators of mitochondrial biogenesis in cultured human skeletal myotubes. Myotubes were treated for 72 hours with one of four conditions: (i) Control (CON); (ii) Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA 250μM); (iii) γ-linolenic acid (γ-LA 250μM); (iv) PPARδ Agonist (GW501516 10nM). Incubation with γ-LA induced increases in the gene expression of CD36 (p= 0.005), HADHA (p= 0.022) and PDK4 (p=0.025) in comparison with CON, with no further differences observed between conditions. Furthermore, intensity of MitoTracker® Red immunostaining in myotubes increased following incubation with γ-LA (p≤ 0.001) and EPA (p= 0.005) however these trends were not mirrored in the expression of PGC-1α as might be expected. Overall, γ-LA elevates levels the transcription of key intracellular regulators of lipid metabolism and transport in human myotubes, which may be clinically beneficial in the control of metabolic diseases

Three-dimensional flow in Kupffer's Vesicle.

Whilst many vertebrates appear externally left-right symmetric, the arrangement of internal organs is asymmetric. In zebrafish, the breaking of left-right symmetry is organised by Kupffer's Vesicle (KV): an approximately spherical, fluid-filled structure that begins to form in the embryo 10 hours post fertilisation. A crucial component of zebrafish symmetry breaking is the establishment of a cilia-driven fluid flow within KV. However, it is still unclear (a) how dorsal, ventral and equatorial cilia contribute to the global vortical flow, and (b) if this flow breaks left-right symmetry through mechanical transduction or morphogen transport. Fully answering these questions requires knowledge of the three-dimensional flow patterns within KV, which have not been quantified in previous work. In this study, we calculate and analyse the three-dimensional flow in KV. We consider flow from both individual and groups of cilia, and (a) find anticlockwise flow can arise purely from excess of cilia on the dorsal roof over the ventral floor, showing how this vortical flow is stabilised by dorsal tilt of equatorial cilia, and (b) show that anterior clustering of dorsal cilia leads to around 40 % faster flow in the anterior over the posterior corner. We argue that these flow features are supportive of symmetry breaking through mechano-sensory cilia, and suggest a novel experiment to test this hypothesis. From our new understanding of the flow, we propose a further experiment to reverse the flow within KV to potentially induce situs inversus.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00285-016-0967-

Searching for candidate genes for male infertility

Aim: We describe an approach to search for candidate genes for male infertility using the two human genome databases: the public University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) and private Celera databases which list known and predicted gene sequences and provide related information such as gene function, tissue expression, known mutations and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Methods and Results: To demonstrate this in silico research, the following male infertility candidate genes were selected: (1) human BOULE, mutations of which may lead to germ cell arrest at the primary spermatocyte stage, (2) mutations of casein kinase 2 alpha genes which may cause globozoospermia, (3) DMR-N9 which is possibly involved in the spermatogenic defect of myotonic dystrophy and (4) several testes expressed genes at or near the breakpoints of a balanced translocation associated with hypospermatogenesis. We indicate how information derived from the human genome databases can be used to confirm these candidate genes may be pathogenic by studying RNA expression in tissue arrays using in situ hybridization and gene sequencing. Conclusion: The paper explains the new approach to discovering genetic causes of male infertility using information about the human genome

Is Housing a Health Insult?

In seeking to understand the relationship between housing and health, research attention is often focussed on separate components of people?s whole housing ?bundles?. We propose in this paper that such conceptual and methodological abstraction of elements of the housing and health relationship limits our ability to understand the scale of the accumulated effect of housing on health and thereby contributes to the under-recognition of adequate housing as a social policy tool and powerful health intervention. In this paper, we propose and describe an index to capture the means by which housing bundles influence health. We conceptualise the index as reflecting accumulated housing ?insults to health??an Index of Housing Insults (IHI). We apply the index to a sample of 1000 low-income households in Australia. The analysis shows a graded association between housing insults and health on all outcome measures. Further, after controlling for possible confounders, the IHI is shown to provide additional predictive power to the explanation of levels of mental health, general health and clinical depression beyond more traditional proxy measures. Overall, this paper reinforces the need to look not just at separate housing components but to embrace a broader understanding of the relationship between housing and health