Reform of the Mental Health Act 1983: The Relevance of Capacity to Make Decisions

In this article, Professor Gunn discusses autonomy, consent and compulsion in mental health treatment, and reflects on the lines of reasoning which underpin the recent changes to the Mental Health Act 1983

A study of canine and equine skeletal muscle

(1) This study compares Greyhounds and Thoroughbreds - breeds selected for high speed running - with other breeds of their species by gross dissection, histometric and histochemical and biochemical methods, to Identify adaptations which would favour their superior athletic capacity. Skeletal muscle has been the primary tissue of interest because of its power-generating nature.(2) Carcass dissection was carried out on 44 Greyhounds from blrthweight to 37 kg, 31 other dogs from blrthweight to 47 kg, 30 Thoroughbreds from 0*69 kg to 509 kg and 33 other horses from 2*2 to 547 kg liveweight.(2a) Measurements on the humerus, radius and ulna, femur and tibia and fibula Indicated that their combined lengths were not different in Greyhounds and other dogs, but tended to be longer in adult Thoroughbreds than in adult other horses.(2b) Within limb variations in bone lengths were not apparent between breeds. However the eplpodial segment in dogs and the propodial segment in horses grows faster.(2c) There is no difference in fresh bone density between the itypes of dog and horse, but dog bones tend to be more dense than horse bones.(2d) The proportions of muscle, bone and fat relative to liveweight were compared between athletes and others in adults and during growth. In adults the most functionally significant difference is that muscle occupies a greater proportion of liveweight in athletes. Adult Greyhounds have less fat than other dogs while bone weight forms a remarkably similar proportion of liveweight in all adult dogs and horses. In athletes there is a greater growth rate of muscle which explains the difference in adult proportions. Growth changes in muscle distribution explain the greater propulsive capacity of the Greyhound spinal column and femoral region and of the Thoroughbred hindlimb. It is also compatible with the potentially higher stride frequency of the Greyhound hindlimb.(2e) Athletes tend to have heavier hearts than non-athletes at adult llveweights, despite the lower growth rate of the heart in athletes.(3) In all 33 Greyhounds from birth to 37 kg, 26 other dogs from birth to 47 kg, 34 Thoroughbreds from 11 kg to 598 kg and 34 other horses from 2*3 to 560 kg liveweight were used for histometric and biochemical assay, of samples of their m. semitendinosus, m. diaphragms and m. pectoralis transversus. Mean fibre areas were established in samples of all three muscles, and in m. semitendinosus only the transverse sectional area and total number of fibres in it were also estimated. Histochemical profiles of Individual fibres were estimated using myosin adenosine triphosphate (myosin ATPase), succinate dehydrogenase (SDHase), and glycogen phosphorylase (GPase) reactions; capillaries were also demonstrated using a modification of the myosin ATPase reaction.(3a) Athletes have more larger fibres in m. semitendinosus than non-athletes. The mean fibre area of m. dlaphragma is also larger in Greyhounds and Thoroughbreds than in their fellows but the mean fibre area of m. pectoralis transversus is similar in the two types of animal within each species. Although the mean fibre area of corresponding muscles is significantly larger in horses than in dogs the difference is not related to their liveweight difference.(3b) The major histochemical difference between fibres is their myosin ATPase activity, which differentiates them according to whether they have a high or low activity. In adult dog muscle, all fibres have a high SDHase activity and myosin ATPase low-reacting fibres have a low activity of GPase. In adult horse muscle all fibres have a high activity of GPase. In m. dlaphragma and m. pectoralis transversus all fibres also have a high SDHase activity so that only the myosin ATPase reaction differentiates fibres in these muscles, however fibres with a low activity of SDHase are present in samples of m. semitendinosus.(3c) The myosin ATPase reaction differentiates fibres at the earliest stage of growth observed. The GPase and SDHase activities gradually develop from an amorphous staining pattern in the young to the appropriate adult type. The proportional area of myosin ATPase low-reacting fibres in the three muscles studied is related to liveweight from birth to near adulthood. Thereafter the relationship is less obvious in "athletes" than "non-athletes.(3d) There is a greater proportional area of myosin ATPase high-reacting fibres in the limb muscles of both Greyhounds and Thoroughbreds and in m. diaphragma of Greyhounds. In adults this feature does not appear to be due to training as are alterations in aerobic and anaerobic capacity. This dissimilarity (in the proportions of muscles occupied by myosin ATPase high-reacting fibres) suggests that there may be differences in the nervous systems of athletes and non-athletes.(3e) It is concluded that the proportions of fibre types in muscles are related to the function of muscles and its parts. Although the proportions of fibre types in different muscles and parts of muscles and in different types of animals resemble those of adults at the earliest stages investigated, histochemical evidence has been obtained which suggests transformation of the physiological properties of fibres as a normal occurrence but to differing extents during growth of normal athletes and non-athletes.(3f) Capillary density is remarkably similar between muscles of all groups of animals at all except very early stages of growth.(4) The biochemical estimation of SDHase activity does not show a within species difference is the adult but indicates an increase in activity in both species during growth. It has also been found that there is a greater aerobic activity in m. diaphragma than in the other two muscles and a greater activity in the deep medial than in the superficial lateral region of m. semitendinosus.(5) M. longissimus is proportionally lighter in Greyhounds taken out of training than in others. Such specimens have a greater myosin ATPase high-reacting fibre area in their m. diaphragma and lesser capillary density in their m. pectoralis transversus than trained Greyhounds.(6) The crosses of Thoroughbreds with other horses, show anatomical properties more like Thoroughbreds than non-athletic horses.(7) The results are discussed in relation to stride length and frequency. It is suggested that in adult athletes enhanced stride length is favoured by longer limbs in horses, and a greater acceleration capacity in both species. A higher natural frequency of the Greyhound hindlimb, and a greater intrinsic speed of sarcomere contraction in the athletes of both species favour enhanced stride frequency. The combination of these endowments aids a greater maximum speed of running in both Greyhounds and Thoroughbreds when compared with their fellows

Multiculturalism and the democratic turn: a classical liberal critique

PhDThe increasing prominence of multiculturalism and moral diversity over the past few decades has coincided with a theoretical expansion of the democratic project. In particular, so-called „deliberative‟ and „strong‟ theories of democracy have been offered and expanded as solutions to the various moral and political problems that have arisen. However, while democrats disagree in the literature about what form a strongly participative democracy should take, there has been little circumspection about the wisdom of expanding democratic mechanisms. This thesis attempts to fill this lacuna by examining the merits of the various democratic theories on offer. By analysing the dilemmas posed by diversity and multiculturalism, it shows that the efficacy of deliberative democracy rests upon its epistemic virtues. If a stronger democracy is to overcome the problems of pluralism, it needs to greatly improve the flow of information around society. The principal argument offered is that, in practice, strong theories of democracy would not be able to deliver the epistemic outcomes necessary to provide a desirable alternative to modern liberal democracy. Multiculturalists and strong democrats do offer compelling reasons to reject modern liberalism, but the various democratic positions they advance rest upon prima facie controversial assumptions about the good society. By presuming both the means and the end of social life, deliberative democracy would likely close down rather than increase the flow of information between social actors, to the detriment of those already marginalised by the liberal democratic system. As such, it is contended on pragmatic grounds that we would do better to return to a classical, „Austrian‟ form of liberalism to find a theory of multicultural accommodation. Since we cannot know in advance how we should live our lives, our best response to pluralism would be to renounce the political management of society in order to strengthen those social mechanisms which help us learn about and adapt to one another

Fibroblasts in head neck squamous cell carcinoma associated with perineural invasion have high level nuclear Yes-Associated Protein (YAP) expression

Paul A. Reynolds, PhD, is supported by the Melville Trust for the Care and cure of Cancer.We retrospectively studied the expression of Yes-associated protein (YAP) using immunohistochemical staining in 10 cases of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma with associated perineural invasion. We find that fibroblasts in areas associated with perineural invasion show higher levels of nuclear YAP compared to fibroblasts in the stroma of normal mucosa, with a median cell count of 35.4 per high-power field in the former and 3.9 in the latter. No differences were observed between the expression of YAP phosphorylated at Ser127 in the tumoral stroma compared to that in the normal mucosa, with a median cell count expression of 4.9 in the former versus 5.0 in the latter. Therefore, a strong and increased nuclear YAP expression in fibroblasts associated with perineural invasion in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma suggests that YAP-mediated transcription programs in these fibroblasts may contribute to perineural invasion.PostprintPublisher PDFPeer reviewe

Speech act theory and Gricean pragmatics: A review

This paper entitled “Speech Act Theory and Gricean Pragmatics: A Review” appreciates the language of action words since pragmatic strategies are applied in order to bring out features of speeches. Pragmatic strategies such as entailment, presupposition, implicatures, context of situation, speech acts among others were used in this paper. The paper is also anchored on the pragmatic theory which is a speech act theory. This theory deals with utterances and how they are used to express actions. The examples used in this study were utterances used by some scholars in their research work and some extemporaneous examples given by the authors of this paper. These utterances served as our data in this paper. The study concludes that speech act captures an action performed by someone through his words. Also the central aspect of the Speech Act Theory is that an utterance is part of an action within the framework of social institution and conventions. J. L. Austin proposed three levels of speech acts: locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act which were dissected in this paper

Segmented waveguides in thin silicon-on-insulator

We have developed new silicon-on-insulator waveguide designs for simultaneously achieving both low-loss optical confinement and electrical contacts, and we present a design methodology based on calculating the Bloch modes of such segmented waveguides. With this formalism, waveguides are designed in a single thin layer of silicon-on-insulator to achieve both optical confinement and minimal insertion loss. Waveguides were also fabricated and tested, and the measured data were found to closely agree with theoretical predictions, demonstrating input insertion loss and propagation loss better than 0.1 dB and -16 dB/cm, respectively

Some thoughts on the proposed Mental Health Act

Our thoughts on the proposed Mental Health Act are a product of us working together for a considerable period of time and feeling that we have something to offer jointly by bringing together our legal and psychiatric perspectives.The main thrust of our thoughts is that we have a fundamental problem with the reform of mental health law as proposed. We are beginning to question whether there is any need for a mental health act at all. In any case, legislation which interferes with the freedoms of others should, we believe, be predicated on the libertarian model as espoused by John Stuart Mill

The structure and petrology of the Cnoc nan Cuilean Intrusion, Loch Loyal Syenite Complex, NW Scotland

In NW Scotland, several alkaline intrusive complexes of Silurian age intrude the Caledonian orogenic front. The most northerly is the Loch Loyal Syenite Complex, which is divided into three separate intrusions (Ben Loyal, Beinn Stumanadh and Cnoc nan Cuilean). Mapping of the Cnoc nan Cuilean intrusion shows two main zones: a Mixed Syenite Zone (MZ) and a Massive Leucosyenite Zone (LZ), with a gradational contact. The MZ forms a lopolith, with multiple syenitic lithologies, including early basic melasyenites and later felsic leucosyenites. Leucosyenite melts mixed and mingled with melasyenites, resulting in extreme heterogeneity within the MZ. Continued felsic magmatism resulted in formation of the relatively homogeneous LZ, invading western parts of the MZ and now forming the topographically highest terrane. The identification of pegmatites, microgranitic veins and unusual biotite-magnetite veins demonstrates the intrusion's complex petrogenesis. Cross-sections have been used to create a novel 3D GoCad™ model contributing to our understanding of the intrusion. The Loch Loyal Syenite Complex is known to have relatively high concentrations of rare earth elements (REEs), and thus the area has potential economic and strategic value. At Cnoc nan Cuilean, abundant REE-bearing allanite is present within melasyenites of the MZ. Extensive hydrothermal alteration of melasyenites here formed steeply dipping biotite-magnetite veins, most enriched in allanite and other REE-bearing accessories. This study has thus identified the area of greatest importance for further study of REE enrichment processes in the Cnoc nan Cuilean intrusion