Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto by Kevin M. Gannon

Kevin Gannon\u27s Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto (“Radical Hope”) is a call for all of us who teach in higher education to realize the full extent of our opportunity to improve the lives of others. He argues that by inspiring our students to develop their practice of learning, we not only help them to succeed in school, but throughout their lives

Indeterminacy and Balance: A Path to a Wholesome Corporate Law

This article argues that corporate legal scholarship needs to focus primarily upon the indeterminacy of essentialist theories about the corporation. This will result in greater pluralism, since no essentialist legal theory would become heavily privileged over any other. When such a balance is created between theories, a robust debate can occur where no ideas are raised to the status of being “undiscussable preferences” and no essentialist theory is off the table before the debate begins. This would lead to fewer consensuses but more complexity than presently exists within corporate legal discourse, helping to immunize the law from the sort of oversimplifications that might offer ease of comprehension at the risk of positive error

The Place of Corporate Lawmaking in American Society

This article provides a history of the legal debates over the corporate charters in the American context starting with a famous dispute, originating in a series of contesting law review articles in the 1970s. A brief literature review will recount the academic arguments that have provided the intellectual support for sustaining Delaware’s primacy over corporate law-making in the face of constant attack. By understanding the debates that have sustained Delaware’s ability to lead the American competition for incorporation, this article provides insight into what is regarded as the most important legal instrument for maintaining status quo for actual social relationships within the American corporation: the “market for incorporation”. However, the article will draw attention to the growing skepticism over Delaware’s ability to generate optimal corporate law. This skepticism is most clearly evident in the federal government’s growing willingness to design and to pursue corporate law policies in the face of corporate governance scandal, notwithstanding the fact that corporate law in the United States is “state law”. The consequences of these developments are at present subject to scrutiny and discussion. In sum, this article provides an example of how shifts in law-making networks outside of the firm holds the potential to shift the embeddedness of behavior of social relationships inside the firm

Review Article: Bainbridge’s The New Corporate Governance (in Context)

If corporate boards are becoming more than “rubber stamps”, then Stephen Bainbridge and his new book are in the middle of a coup d\u27état in corporate governance. On the other hand, if this shift is not occurring and boards remain “rubber stamps”, then director primacy is no more than managerialism with a twist. Moreover, if director primacy represents the emergence of a new order for American corporate governance, then the merits of maintaining Delaware’s status quo director primacy must be carefully assessed, because the stakes are changing - maybe for the better and maybe for the worse.This article traces what has been argued in the literature to date. Part II will briefly refresh the reader’s memory by presenting one narrative of how the American corporate governance debate emerged. Part III will provide a concise chapter-by-chapter roadmap for Bainbridge’s arguments in The New Corporate Governance. Part VI will take a closer look at what Bainbridge tacitly suggests is the genius of Delaware’s corporate law by mapping the debates which have raged over managerialism, state competition, and Delaware: America’s regulatory laboratory for de facto “national” corporate law. This will provide a snapshot of the context from which The New Corporate Governance has emerged. Part V will conclude the review article by offering some reflections on what place the book holds within today’s American corporate governance debate

Berle’s Conception of Shareholder Primacy: A Forgotten Perspective for Reconsideration During the Rise of Finance

Adolf A. Berle is celebrated as the grandfather of modern shareholder primacy, but this glosses over his opposition to how Henry Manne used his argument. If Berle were alive today, he would certainly reject this praise. This is not always appreciated in commentaries of his shareholder primacy argument. For this reason, this article offers a nuanced understanding of Berle’s argument, providing a clear observation point for examining the shift from his shareholder primacy argument to the one of today. From this point of observation, the reader can see distinctions within, and potentials for, the shareholder primacy argument and thus the variety of ways that investor empowerment can develop during the current “rise of finance.

Review Article: Bainbridge’s The New Corporate Governance (in Context)

If corporate boards are becoming more than “rubber stamps”, then Stephen Bainbridge and his new book are in the middle of a coup d\u27état in corporate governance. On the other hand, if this shift is not occurring and boards remain “rubber stamps”, then director primacy is no more than managerialism with a twist. Moreover, if director primacy represents the emergence of a new order for American corporate governance, then the merits of maintaining Delaware’s status quo director primacy must be carefully assessed, because the stakes are changing - maybe for the better and maybe for the worse.This article traces what has been argued in the literature to date. Part II will briefly refresh the reader’s memory by presenting one narrative of how the American corporate governance debate emerged. Part III will provide a concise chapter-by-chapter roadmap for Bainbridge’s arguments in The New Corporate Governance. Part VI will take a closer look at what Bainbridge tacitly suggests is the genius of Delaware’s corporate law by mapping the debates which have raged over managerialism, state competition, and Delaware: America’s regulatory laboratory for de facto “national” corporate law. This will provide a snapshot of the context from which The New Corporate Governance has emerged. Part V will conclude the review article by offering some reflections on what place the book holds within today’s American corporate governance debate

An Introduction to Gas Accretion onto Galaxies

Evidence for gas accretion onto galaxies can be found throughout the universe. In this chapter, I summarize the direct and indirect signatures of this process and discuss the primary sources. The evidence for gas accretion includes the star formation rates and metallicities of galaxies, the evolution of the cold gas content of the universe with time, numerous indirect indicators for individual galaxies, and a few direct detections of inflow. The primary sources of gas accretion are the intergalactic medium, satellite gas and feedback material. There is support for each of these sources from observations and simulations, but the methods with which the fuel ultimately settles in to form stars remain murky.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, Invited review to appear in Gas Accretion onto Galaxies, Astrophysics and Space Science Library, eds. A. J. Fox & R. Dav\'e, to be published by Springe

Carmustine and methotrexate in combination after whole brain radiation therapy in breast cancer patients presenting with brain metastases: a retrospective study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Since 1999, patients presenting with brain metastases (BM) from breast cancer (BC) are treated in our institution with a carmustine (BCNU) - methotrexate (MTX) combination. We report here our clinical experience regarding this combination.</p> <p>Patients and Methods</p> <p>Patients were treated by a combination of BCNU 100 mg/m² on day 1 and MTX 600 mg/m² on day 1 and 15 of a 28 day cycle. Treatment was continued until progression or unacceptable toxicity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>50 patients were treated between 1999 and 2007. 94% of the patients presented with concomitant extra-cerebral disease. Median number of previous metastatic setting chemotherapy regimens was 2 (0-5). Median number of cycles was 3 (1-20). There were 11 objective responses (23% [95%CI 12-37]) among 48 evaluable patients. Median progression-free survival and overall survival (OS) were 4.2 (95%CI: 2.8-5.3) and 6.9 (4.2-10.7) months respectively, with a one-year OS rate of 32% (20-46). Median Relative Dose Intensity for BCNU and MTX were 0.98 (0.31-1.1) and 0.96 (0.57-1.66) respectively. There were 2 presumed treatment-related deaths. One patient developed febrile neutropenia. Performance status, BS-BM score and presence of liver metastases were associated with OS in univariate analysis.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This combination appears to be effective and well tolerated in good performance status BC patients presenting with BM.</p

Mycobacterium tuberculosis lineage 4 comprises globally distributed and geographically restricted sublineages

Generalist and specialist species differ in the breadth of their ecological niches. Little is known about the niche width of obligate human pathogens. Here we analyzed a global collection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis lineage 4 clinical isolates, the most geographically widespread cause of human tuberculosis. We show that lineage 4 comprises globally distributed and geographically restricted sublineages, suggesting a distinction between generalists and specialists. Population genomic analyses showed that, whereas the majority of human T cell epitopes were conserved in all sublineages, the proportion of variable epitopes was higher in generalists. Our data further support a European origin for the most common generalist sublineage. Hence, the global success of lineage 4 reflects distinct strategies adopted by different sublineages and the influence of human migration.We thank S. Lecher, S. Li and J. Zallet for technical support. Calculations were performed at the sciCORE scientific computing core facility at the University of Basel. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grants 310030_166687 (S.G.) and 320030_153442 (M.E.) and Swiss HIV Cohort Study grant 740 to L.F.), the European Research Council (309540-EVODRTB to S.G.), TB-PAN-NET (FP7-223681 to S.N.), PathoNgenTrace projects (FP7-278864-2 to S.N.), SystemsX.ch (S.G.), the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF; S.N.), the Novartis Foundation (S.G.), the Natural Science Foundation of China (91631301 to Q.G.), and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (5U01-AI069924-05) of the US National Institutes of Health (M.E.)

The Relationship of Within-Host Multiplication and Virulence in a Plant-Virus System

Background. Virulence does not represent any obvious advantage to parasites. Most models of virulence evolution assume that virulence is an unavoidable consequence of within-host multiplication of parasites, resulting in trade-offs between within-host multiplication and between-host transmission fitness components. Experimental support for the central assumption of this hypothesis, i.e., for a positive correlation between within-host multiplication rates and virulence, is limited for plant-parasite systems. Methodology/Principal Findings. We have addressed this issue in the system Arabidopsis thaliana-Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV). Virus multiplication and the effect of infection on plant growth and on viable seed production were quantified for 21 Arabidopsis wild genotypes infected by 3 CMV isolates. The effect of infection on plant growth and seed production depended of plant architecture and length of postembryonic life cycle, two genetically-determined traits, as well as on the time of infection in the plant's life cycle. A relationship between virus multiplication and virulence was not a general feature of this host-parasite system. This could be explained by tolerance mechanisms determined by the host genotype and operating differently on two components of plant fitness, biomass production and resource allocation to seeds. However, a positive relationship between virus multiplication and virulence was detected for some accessions with short life cycle and high seed weight to biomass ratio, which show lower levels of tolerance to infection. Conclusions/Significance. These results show that genotype-specific tolerance mechanisms may lead to the absence of a clear relationship between parasite multiplication and virulence. Furthermore, a positive correlation between parasite multiplication and virulence may occur only in some genotypes and/or environmental conditions for a given host-parasite system. Thus, our results challenge the general validity of the trade-off hypothesis for virulence evolution, and stress the need of considering the effect of both the host and parasite genotypes in analyses of host-parasite interactions. © 2007 Pagán et al.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain.Peer Reviewe