Balancing London? A preliminary investigation of the “Core Cities” and “Northern Way” spatial policy initiatives using multi-city corporate and commercial law firms

This paper reports a preliminary investigation into the economic efficacy of two spatial frameworks – English Core Cities and the Northern Way – recently promoted by national policy makers. We ask whether they are consistent with contemporary economic process in the UK space economy through analyses of commercial multi-city law firms. The latter are treated as an ‘indicator sector’ to define the contemporary UK space economy as practised by law firms. Within this new space of flows, the location strategies of the law firms do confirm the salience of the Northern Way (as trans-Pennine corridor) and Core Cities as part of a larger UK metropolitan space of flows. Conflating the two spatial frameworks leads us to identify hints of a rebalancing of London within a metropolitan UK space. A Manchester polycentric mega-city region is found to be the likely candidate for this role. This finding in no way impinges on London’s dominant global role and we conclude that perhaps mutuality between London and provincial cities is beginning to replace past negative dependency relations

The Munali Ni sulfide deposit, southern Zambia: a multi-stage, mafic-ultramafic, magmatic sulfide-magnetite-apatite-carbonate megabreccia

The Munali Intrusive Complex (MIC) is a flattened tube-shaped, mafic-ultramafic intrusion located close to the southern Congo Craton margin in the Zambezi belt of southern Zambia. It is made up of a Central Gabbro Unit (CGU) core, surrounded by a Marginal Ultramafic-mafic Breccia Unit (MUBU), which contains magmatic Ni sulfide mineralisation. The MIC was emplaced into a sequence of metamorphosed Neoproterozoic rift sediments and is entirely hosted within a unit of marble. Munali has many of the characteristics of craton-margin, conduit-style, dyke-sill complex-hosted magmatic sulfide deposits. Three-dimensional modelling of the MUBU on the southern side of the MIC, where the Munali Nickel Mine is located, reveals a laterally discontinuous body located at the boundary between footwall CGU and hangingwall metasediments. Mapping of underground faces demonstrates the MUBU to have intruded after the CGU and be a highly complex, multi stage megabreccia made up of atypical ultramafic rocks (olivinites, olivine-magnetite rocks, and phoscorites), poikilitic gabbro and olivine basalt/dolerite dykes, brecciated on a millimetre to metre scale by magmatic sulfide. The breccia matrix is largely made up of a sulfide assemblage of pyrrhotite-pentlandite-chalcopyrite-pyrite with varying amounts of magnetite, apatite and carbonate. The sulfides become more massive towards the footwall contact. Late stage, high temperature sulfide-carbonate-magnetite veins cut the rest of the MUBU. The strong carbonate signature is likely due, in part, to contamination from the surrounding marbles, but may also be linked to a carbonatite melt related to the phoscorites. Ductile deformation and shear fabrics are displayed by talc-carbonate altered ultramafic clasts that may represent gas streaming textures by CO2-rich fluids. High precision U-Pb geochronology on zircons give ages of 862.39 ± 0.84 Ma for the poikilitic gabbro and 857.9 ± 1.9 Ma for the ultramafics, highlighting the multi-stage emplacement but placing both mafic and later ultramafic magma emplacement within the Neoproterozoic rifting of the Zambezi Ocean, most likely as sills or sheet-like bodies. Sulfide mineralisation is associated with brecciation of the ultramafics and so is constrained to a maximum age of 858 Ma. The Ni- and Fe-rich nature of the sulfides reflect either early stage sulfide saturation by contamination, or the presence of a fractionated sulfide body with Cu-rich sulfide elsewhere in the system. Munali is an example of a complex conduit-style Ni sulfide deposit affected by multiple stages and sources of magmatism during rifting at a craton margin, subsequent deformation; and where mafic and carbonatitic melts have interacted along deep seated crustal fault systems to produce a mineralogically unusual deposit

Slamming the door on trade policy discretion? : the WTO Appellate Body’s ruling on market distortions and production costs in EU-Biodiesel (Argentina)

This paper presents a legal-economic analysis of the Appellate Body’s decision that the WTO’s Anti-Dumping Agreement (ADA) precludes countries from taking into account government-created price distortions of major inputs when calculating anti-dumping duties, made in EU-Biodiesel (Argentina). In this case, the EU made adjustments to the price of biodiesel’s principal input – soybeans – in determining the cost of production of biodiesel in Argentina. The adjustment was made based on the uncontested finding that the price of soybeans in Argentina was distorted by the existence of an export tax scheme that resulted in artificially low soybean prices. The Appellate Body found that the EU was not permitted to take tax policy-induced price distortions into account in calculating dumping margins. We analyze the economic rationale for Argentina’s export tax system, distortions in biodiesel markets in Argentina and the EU, and the remaining trade policy options for addressing distorted international prices. We also assess whether existing subsidies disciplines would be more effective in addressing this problem and conclude that they would not

A comprehensive evaluation of potential lung function associated genes in the SpiroMeta general population sample.

Rationale: Lung function measures are heritable traits that predict population morbidity and mortality and are essential for the diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Variations in many genes have been reported to affect these traits, but attempts at replication have provided conflicting results. Recently, we undertook a meta-analysis of Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) results for lung function measures in 20,288 individuals from the general population (the SpiroMeta consortium). Objectives: To comprehensively analyse previously reported genetic associations with lung function measures, and to investigate whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in these genomic regions are associated with lung function in a large population sample. Methods: We analysed association for SNPs tagging 130 genes and 48 intergenic regions (+/−10 kb), after conducting a systematic review of the literature in the PubMed database for genetic association studies reporting lung function associations. Results: The analysis included 16,936 genotyped and imputed SNPs. No loci showed overall significant association for FEV1 or FEV1/FVC traits using a carefully defined significance threshold of 1.3×10−5. The most significant loci associated with FEV1 include SNPs tagging MACROD2 (P = 6.81×10−5), CNTN5 (P = 4.37×10−4), and TRPV4 (P = 1.58×10−3). Among ever-smokers, SERPINA1 showed the most significant association with FEV1 (P = 8.41×10−5), followed by PDE4D (P = 1.22×10−4). The strongest association with FEV1/FVC ratio was observed with ABCC1 (P = 4.38×10−4), and ESR1 (P = 5.42×10−4) among ever-smokers. Conclusions: Polymorphisms spanning previously associated lung function genes did not show strong evidence for association with lung function measures in the SpiroMeta consortium population. Common SERPINA1 polymorphisms may affect FEV1 among smokers in the general population

Sixteen new lung function signals identified through 1000 Genomes Project reference panel imputation

Lung function measures are used in the diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In 38,199 European ancestry individuals, we studied genome-wide association of forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC) and FEV1/FVC with 1000 Genomes Project (Phase 1) imputed genotypes and followed up top associations in 54,550 Europeans. We identify 14 novel loci (P<5x10-8) in or near ENSA, RNU5F-1, KCNS3, AK097794, ASTN2, LHX3, CCDC91, TBX3, TRIP11, RIN3, TEKT5, LTBP4, MN1, AP1S2, and two novel signals at known loci NPNT and GPR126, providing a basis for new understanding of the genetic determinants of these traits and pulmonary diseases in which they are altered