Soft OR and practice : the contribution of the founders of Operation Research

This paper explores the work of some 43 founders of operations research. In particular, it considers the links between soft operations research (OR) and these founders. Several of the founders were direct influencers of the soft OR proponents, whereas others related to the context, process, and content of soft OR. Coupled with the deductive and inductive reasoning approaches of soft OR, it is argued that soft OR is a legitimate branch of OR. The paper also focuses on the embeddedness of the founders, and the soft OR proponents, in practice and argues that, for academics, engagement with practice has been and will continue to be an important driver for the health and development of operations research

Effective teaching and learning for pupils in low attaining groups

The research investigated the characteristics of pupils in low attainment sets, the factors that determine the composition of these sets and the approaches to effective teaching of pupils in low attainment groups used by schools. Central to the aims of the study was the identification of how schools and teachers maximise the benefits of attainment grouping and mitigate its disadvantages. It was conducted by the Universities of Sussex and Manchester, on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). While the main focus was on low attainment sets, consideration was also given to effective teaching approaches with pupils regarded as low attaining in other grouping arrangements and more generically within the broader school context. The study sought to answer four key research questions: 1. What are the population characteristics of pupils in low attainment sets? 2. What practices and processes do schools use to identify and organise low attainment groups? 3. How do schools and teachers motivate and inspire pupils in low attaining groups to learn? 4. Are different approaches used for pupils from specific social groups (minority ethnic/social class/ gender) who are over-represented in low attainment groups and/or ‘at risk’ of low educational outcomes

Konstruiranje hipermuškosti putem tijela u crnačkoj popularnoj kulturi: vizualna analiza naslovnica rap albuma

Teoretiziranje o konceptu muškosti, kao karakteristike koja se pridodaje određenim vizualnim proizvodima pristupačno je u prvom redu putem proučavanja medija, kulture i praksi označavanja. Te prakse konstruiraju imaginarij s raznim posljedicama koje se manifestiraju ponajviše u načinu gledanja na pojedinu kulturu, spol, rod i slično. Melly (1986) i Mort (1988) ponajviše su govorili o novom načinu vizualnog kodiranja. George Melly je pridonio kratkim pregledom određenog seta oglasa u kojima je vidio “novo korištenje spola“ unutar kojeg su se „muškarci koristili kao pasivni seksualni objekti'“ (Melly, 1986:41). S druge strane, u tradiciji kulturnih studija, Frank Mort (1988) tvrdi da su muška tijela koja se pojavljuju u oglasima za traperice Levis prezentirana modnim kodovima i kulturom stila. Sean Nixon (1997), navodeći u svom tekstu ta dva primjera i nastavljajući se na njih, istraživao je kulturnu značajnost stvaranja slika „novog muškarca“ koje su povezane s muškim tržištem kojemu su te slike namijenjene. Slike je stavio u vezu sa stvorenim (ili bolje rečeno konstruiranim) slikama muškosti i muške kulture. Nadalje, Nixon (1997) navodi knjigu The Sexuality of Men (Metcalf and Humphries, 1985), koja konceptualizira pojam muškosti govoreći da je karakteriziran slikama agresivnosti, kompetitivnosti, emocionalne neprilagođenosti i hladnoće koje su ovisne o pretjeranu naglašavanju penetrativnog seksa. Muškarci su, prema autorima, počeli kritički promišljati o muškosti, iskazivali su strah i anksioznost prema konstrukciji „muškosti“ iz tih reklama. Sukladno tome sva muška tijela izvan konstruirane „muškosti“ postaju ugrožena. Taj se koncept dalje razvijao u popularnoj kulturi, a konzumenti su ga, napadnuti takvim slikama, prihvaćali stvarajući želju prema takvu obliku muškosti, osjećajući anksioznost, strah i depresiju zbog toga što ne pripadaju toj slici ili zadovoljstvo spoznajom da oni jesu „pravi muškarci“. Koncept muškosti je postao moćan alat, no Nixon (1997), po uzoru na Jeffreya Weeksa, govori da je to još jedna izmišljena kategorija koja je produkt kulturnih značenja dodanim određenim atributima, kapacitetima, dispozicijama i formama ponašanja u određenim povijesnim trenucima (Nixon, 1997). Unatoč „izmišljenoj“ prirodi takva koncepta ne smijemo zanemariti moć tih kategorija nad nama. Potrebni su nam da se kao gledatelj, konzument, subjekt i objekt pozicioniramo u odnosu prema drugima, lociramo u svijetu, kako fizičkom tako i mentalnom

Using a genetically informative design to examine the relationship between breastfeeding and childhood conduct problems

A number of public health interventions aimed at increasing the uptake of breastfeeding are in place in the United States and other Western countries. While the physical health and nutritional benefits of breastfeeding for the mother and child are relatively well established, the evidence for psychological effects is less clear. This study aimed to examine whether there is an association between breastfeeding and later conduct problems in children. It also considered the extent to which any relationship is attributable to maternally-provided inherited characteristics that influence both likelihood of breastfeeding and child conduct problems. A prenatal cross-fostering design with a sample of 870 families with a child aged 4–11 years was used. Mothers were genetically related or unrelated to their child as a result of assisted reproductive technologies. The relationship between breastfeeding and conduct problems was assessed while controlling for theorised measured confounders by multivariate regression (e.g. maternal smoking, education, and antisocial behaviour), and for unmeasured inherited factors by testing associations separately for related and unrelated mother-child pairs. Breastfeeding was associated with lower levels of conduct disorder symptoms in offspring in middle childhood. Breastfeeding was associated with lower levels of conduct problems even after controlling for observed confounders in the genetically related group, but not in the genetically unrelated group. In contrast, maternal antisocial behaviour showed robust associations with child conduct problems after controlling for measured and inherited confounders. These findings highlight the importance of using genetically sensitive designs in order to test causal environmental influences

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival