FDI and the Availability of Dublin Office Space. ESRI Research Notes 2015/3/2

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an important component of industrial policy in Ireland. Having pursued this policy for many years, Ireland is one of the most FDI-intensive economies in the OECD. The factors underpinning Ireland’s success in attracting FDI have been well documented and include EU membership, native English-speaking, low corporate tax rate, young and skilled labour force and demonstration effects.2 A recent policy statement on FDI identifies the role of cities as becoming increasingly important in FDI flows and cites the attractiveness of Dublin as a key determinant in Ireland’s overall FDI performance (Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, 2014)

Precarious Lives

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence This ground breaking book presents the first evidence of forced labour among displaced migrants who seek refuge in the UK. Through a critical engagement with contemporary debates about precarity, unfreedom and socio-legal status, the book explores how asylum and forced labour are linked, and enmeshed in a broader picture of modern slavery produced through globalised working conditions. Drawing on original evidence generated in fieldwork with refugees and asylum seekers, this is important reading for students and academics in social policy, social geography, sociology, politics, refugee, labour and migration studies, and policy makers and practitioners working to support migrants and tackle forced labour

Precarious Lives

Presents the first evidence of forced labour among displaced migrants who seek refuge in the UK. Through a critical engagement with contemporary debates about precarity, unfreedom and socio-legal status, the book explores how asylum and forced labour are linked, and enmeshed in a broader picture of modern slavery produced through globalised working conditions

The Southwest Foreclosure Project

CURL worked with the Southwest Organizing Project (and their membership organizations), Neighborhood Housing Services (Chicago Lawn/Gage Park) and the Greater Southwest Development Corporation and examined the causes, effects, and potential solutions of home mortgage foreclosures in the Chicago Lawn and Gage Park neighborhoods. This project sought to identify where in these community areas foreclosures are most prevalent, and to determine what characteristics of these parts of the neighborhood (usually census tracts) make them more likely to experience high foreclosures.

Gage Park and Chicago Lawn Community and Census Tract Profiles

CURL worked with the Southwest Organizing Project (and their membership organizations), Neighborhood Housing Services (Chicago Lawn/Gage Park) and the Greater Southwest Development Corporation and examined the causes, effects, and potential solutions of home mortgage foreclosures in the Chicago Lawn and Gage Park neighborhoods. This project sought to identify where in these community areas foreclosures are most prevalent, and to determine what characteristics of these parts of the neighborhood (usually census tracts) make them more likely to experience high foreclosures.

Southwest Chicago Foreclosure Study

The Center for Urban Research and Learning at Loyola University Chicago was contacted by the Southwest Organization Project to conduct a research project in conjunction with them, their institutional member, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago Lawn and Gage Park, and the Greater Southwest Development Corporation. This project seeks to identify the principles causes of foreclosures in these neighborhoods; to identify areas within the communities with a higher concentration of foreclosure and relate this to demographic, socioeconomic characteristics and housing stock in those areas; and to identify approaches to dealing with foreclosure as an issues. This project seeks to identify where in these community areas foreclosures are most prevalent, and to determine what characteristics of these parts of the neighborhood (usually census tracts) make them more likely to experience high foreclosures. Furthermore, we want to examine the cause of mortgages going into foreclosure – namely whether specific types of loans more likely to result in foreclosures than others, whether specific actors (realtors, lenders, et. al.) connected to higher rates of foreclosure, and what types of borrowers are going into foreclosure. Finally, we seek to sample successful foreclosure prevention programs conducted by community-based organizations elsewhere to attempt to find some best practices that can be applied in Chicago Lawn and Gage Park

Precarious Lives : Refugees and Asylum Seekers’ Resistance within Unfree Labouring

This paper is concerned with the interplay between vulnerability, resistance and agency for forced migrants. Such concepts are yoked together as soon as the vulnerability inherent in the life-worlds of many migrants is seen to align not solely with victimhood, but also potentially to act as a springboard for agentic resistance, mobilisation and activism. As such, this paper is oriented towards a critical theoretical, and empirically insightful, engagement with the concept of resistance. Most particularly, we ponder the possibilities for resistance in situations of subjugated unfreedom within realms of forced labour. The backdrop for this paper is a broader research project that aims to gain an in-depth understanding of the experiences of severe labour exploitation and unfree labour among asylum seekers and refugees living in the UK (see http://precariouslives.org.uk/). The lives of many refugees and asylum seekers are widely recognised as characterised by poverty, social exclusion and destitution (Crawley 2001; Phillips 2006), yet there is little research documenting their experiences of exploitation and unfree labour and the reasons why they may be engaged in it. It was such a research gap that spurred our broader project, together with concern that government policy is potentially influential in propelling asylum seekers and refugees into severely exploitative working conditions including unfree elements (see fuller discussion in Lewis et al 2014a). This paper homes in on the particular issue of whether, and how, resistance may manifest for asylum seekers and refugees in landscapes of extreme labour precarity

CAR T Cells in Solid Tumors: Blueprints for Building Effective Therapies

Genetic redirection of T lymphocytes with chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) has soared from treating cancers preclinically to FDA approval for hematologic malignancies and commercial-grade production scale in under 30 years. To date, solid tumors are less susceptible to CAR therapies and instead have been treated more successfully with immune checkpoint blockade or tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy. Here, we discuss the current challenges in treating solid tumors with CAR T cells, and the obstacles within the host and tumor microenvironment hindering their efficacy. We present a novel three-pronged approach for enhancing the efficacy of CAR T cells whereby a single infusion product can synergize the power of an optimal CAR construct, a highly potent T cell subset, and rejuvenate the endogenous immune response to conquer therapeutically-resistant solid tumors

Placental endocrine insufficiency programs anxiety, deficits in cognition and atypical social behaviour in offspring

Abnormally elevated expression of the imprinted PHLDA2 gene has been reported in the placenta of human babies that are growth restricted in utero in several studies. We previously modelled this gene alteration in mice and found that just two-fold increased expression of Phlda2 resulted in placental endocrine insufficiency. In addition, elevated Phlda2 was found to drive fetal growth restriction (FGR) of transgenic offspring and impaired maternal care by their wild type mothers. Being born small and being exposed to suboptimal maternal care have both been associated with the increased risk of mental health disorders in human populations. In the current study we probed behavioural consequences of elevated Phlda2 for the offspring. We discovered increased anxiety-like behaviours, deficits in cognition and atypical social behaviours, with the greatest impact on male offspring. Subsequent analysis revealed alterations in the transcriptome of the adult offspring hippocampus, hypothalamus, and amygdala, regions consistent with these behavioural observations. The inclusion of a group of fully wild type controls raised in a normal maternal environment allowed us to attribute behavioural and molecular alterations to the adverse maternal environment induced by placental endocrine insufficiency rather than the specific gene change of elevated Phlda2. Our work demonstrates that a highly common alteration reported in human fetal growth restriction is associated with negative behavioural outcomes later in life. Importantly, we also establish the experimental paradigm that placental endocrine insufficiency can program atypical behaviour in offspring highlighting the under-appreciated role of placental endocrine insufficiency in driving disorders of later life behaviour

The effectiveness and cost effectiveness of a hospital avoidance program in a residential aged care facility: a prospective cohort study and modelled decision analysis

Background Residential aged care facility residents experience high rates of hospital admissions which are stressful, costly and often preventable. The EDDIE program is a hospital avoidance initiative designed to enable nursing and care staff to detect, refer and quickly respond to early signals of a deteriorating resident. The program was implemented in a 96-bed residential aged care facility in regional Australia. Methods A prospective pre-post cohort study design was used to collect data on costs of program delivery, hospital admission rates and length of stay for the 12months prior to, and following, the intervention. A Markov decision model was developed to synthesize study data with published literature in order to estimate the costeffectiveness of the program. Quality adjusted life years (QALYs) were adopted as the measure of effectiveness. Results The EDDIE program was associated with a 19% reduction in annual hospital admissions and a 31% reduction in the average length of stay. The cost-effectiveness analysis found the program to be both more effective and less costly than usual care, with 0.06 QALYs gained and $249,000 health system costs saved in a modelled cohort of 96 residents. A probabilistic sensitivity analysis estimated that there was an 86% probability that the program was cost-effective after taking the uncertainty of the model inputs into account. Conclusions This study provides promising evidence for the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a nurse led, early intervention program in preventing unnecessary hospital admissions within a residential aged care facility. Further research in multi-site randomised studies is needed to confirm the generalisability of these results