Low-power transistorized circuit provides staircase waveform

A low input power transistorized circuit is used to generate a staircase waveform of high step uniformity. Other characteristics are low step droop, fast transition time, and no feedback

Cross-Border Issues in the Regulation of Charities: Experiences from the UK and Ireland

Drawing on the specific experiences of the three authors across the jurisdictions of England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, this article outlines the new legal-regulatory framework for charities in each jurisdiction, providing an overview of their respective treatments of external charities (i.e. non-domestic charities operating in a host jurisdcition) before assessing the operational challenges posted by these regimes for such cross-border charities. It shows that the treatment of external charities across the four jurisdictions in not the product of a fully coordinated and coherent joint approach by the four sets of legislators. The article concludeds by offering some preliminary recommendations intended to address the burdens caused by these overlapping regulatory systems

Polygenic risk scores in imaging genetics: Usefulness and applications

Genetic factors account for up to 80% of the liability for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have successfully identified several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and genes associated with increased risk for both disorders. Single SNP analyses alone do not address the overall genomic or polygenic architecture of psychiatric disorders as the amount of phenotypic variation explained by each GWAS-supported SNP is small whereas the number of SNPs/regions underlying risk for illness is thought to be very large. The polygenic risk score models the aggregate effect of alleles associated with disease status present in each individual and allows us to utilise the power of large GWAS to be applied robustly in small samples. Here we make the case that risk prediction, intervention and personalised medicine can only benefit with the inclusion of polygenic risk scores in imaging genetics research

Bulletin No.1: Drug Policy - Mapping structures and enhancing processes

We understand very little about how research informs policy and how to improve that process, especially in highly politicised areas such as illicit drugs. One aim of DPMP is to significantly increase production of the highest quality evidence, which takes complexities and dynamic interactions into account. For this evidence to impact on Australian policy, we need to better understand how policy is made; the kinds of research that are most valued; and how research is best inserted into policy processes. Lack of appreciation of how policies are made is a major barrier to providing good decision support resources and processes. While we do not subscribe to a naïve view that research should be the only, or even the most important, factor in policy making, we are keen to see research assume its proper role and, within that, to be maximally effective. Surprisingly, there has been relatively little examination of what ‘evidence-informed’ policy is, in drugs, public health, criminal justice or more broadly. There has also been very limited research to shine a light on the collective experience of policy making in an attempt to learn from that experience, so that we may pursue it more wisely in the future