Competition policy review

This is the first comprehensive review of Australia’s competition laws and policy in over 20 years. The National Competition Policy Review (The Hilmer Review) of 1993 underpinned the development of the National Competition Policy – a co-operative initiative of the Commonwealth and State and Territory governments that the Productivity Commission found contributed to a surge in productivity, directly reduced some prices and stimulated business innovation. The subsequent Review of the Competition Provisions of the Trade Practices Act (The Dawson Review) of 2003 examined the operation of the competition laws and resulted in some strengthening of the provisions. There has been considerable change in the Australian economy since the Hilmer Report of the early 1990s and the boost in productivity that underpinned the growth in living standards over the past two decades is waning. The Competition Policy Review will examine the broader competition framework to ensure that it continues to play a role as a significant driver of productivity improvements and to ensure that the current laws are operating as intended and are effective for all businesses, big and small.   MESSAGE FROM THE PANEL This is our Final Report reviewing Australia’s competition policy, laws and institutions. The Panel undertook a stocktake of the competition policy framework across the Australian economy. Although reforms introduced following the Hilmer Review led to significant improvements in economic growth and wellbeing, the Panel believes that renewed policy effort is required to support growth and wellbeing now and into the future. To this end, we have reviewed Australia’s competition policy, laws and institutions to assess their fitness for purpose. Taken together, our recommendations comprise an agenda of reinvigorated microeconomic reform that will require sustained effort from all jurisdictions. We believe this commitment is necessary if Australia is to boost productivity, secure fiscal sustainability and position our economy to meet the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing world. Given the forces for change already bearing on the Australian economy, delaying policy action will make reform more difficult and more sharply felt. An early response will make the reform effort more manageable over time, allowing Australians to enjoy higher living standards sooner rather than later. The recommendations and views expressed in this Final Report draw upon the expertise and experience of each member of the Panel. Importantly, we have also had the benefit of hearing from a wide cross-section of the Australian community and from participants in all sectors of the economy

A Novel and Fast Approach for Population Structure Inference Using Kernel-PCA and Optimization (PSIKO)

Population structure is a confounding factor in Genome Wide Association Studies, increasing the rate of false positive associations. In order to correct for it, several model-based algorithms such as ADMIXTURE and STRUCTURE have been proposed. These tend to suffer from the fact that they have a considerable computational burden, limiting their applicability when used with large datasets, such as those produced by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) techniques. To address this, non-model based approaches such as SNMF and EIGENSTRAT have been proposed, which scale better with larger data. Here we present a novel non-model based approach, PSIKO, which is based on a unique combination of linear kernel-PCA and least-squares optimization and allows for the inference of admixture coefficients, principal components, and number of founder populations of a dataset. PSIKO has been compared against existing leading methods on a variety of simulation scenarios, as well as on real biological data. We found that in addition to producing results of the same quality as other tested methods, PSIKO scales extremely well with dataset size, being considerably (up to 30 times) faster for longer sequences than even state of the art methods such as SNMF. PSIKO and accompanying manual are freely available at https://www.uea.ac.uk/computing/psiko

Understanding health research ethics in Nepal

Unlike other countries in South Asia, in Nepal research in the health sector has a relatively recent history. Most health research activities in the country are sponsored by international collaborative assemblages of aid agencies and universities. Data from Nepal Health Research Council shows that, officially, 1,212 health research activities have been carried out between 1991 and 2014. These range from addressing immediate health problems at the country level through operational research, to evaluations and programmatic interventions that are aimed at generating evidence, to more systematic research activities that inform global scientific and policy debates. Established in 1991, the Ethical Review Board of the Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC) is the central body that has the formal regulating authority of all the health research activities in country, granted through an act of parliament. Based on research conducted between 2010 and 2013, and a workshop on research ethics that the authors conducted in July 2012 in Nepal as a part of the on‐going research, this article highlights the emerging regulatory and ethical fields in this low‐income country that has witnessed these increased health research activities. Issues arising reflect this particular political economy of research (what constitutes health research, where resources come from, who defines the research agenda, culture of contract research, costs of review, developing Nepal's research capacity, through to the politics of publication of data/findings) and includes questions to emerging regulatory and ethical frameworks

The forensic saviour : petitions and power in Greco-Roman Egypt

Trabalho de projecto de mestrado em Medicina (Neurologia), apresentado à Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de CoimbraMovement disorders affect gait, which is one of the most disabling manifestations. Analyzing the brain circuits dependent on the basal ganglia (caudate, putamen, globus pallidus, subthalamic nucleus and substantia nigra), also responsible for organizing movement, we were closer to understand the neurophysiological basis of its operation, taking in account, particularly, the pattern of change of neurotransmitters in each pathology. We considered the Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases as study models, which are characterized by cognitive, behavioral and motor symptoms, as a result of the underlying changes. They were considered in analogy, relating their pathophysiological mechanisms to the circuits of the basal ganglia, which allowed classifying their role in normal gait performance or disease. The evaluation of these diseases goes through different scales and experimental models, which are also intended to objectify and quantify changes in gait, as festination and freezing. This helps in implementing the pharmacological treatment, which appears still insufficient. In addition, there are techniques of physiotherapy and rehabilitation medicine. Therefore, making an updated review of the mechanisms underlying changes in gait in movement disorders, clarifying the role of different neurological structures involved in both the disease and in its absence, was the aim of this workAs doenças do movimento afectam a marcha, sendo uma das manifestações mais incapacitantes. Analisando os circuitos cerebrais dependentes dos gânglios da base (caudado, putamen, globo pálido, substância negra e núcleo subtalâmico), também responsáveis pela organização da locomoção, ficámos mais perto de conhecer as bases neurofisiológicas do seu funcionamento, tendo em conta, nomeadamente, o padrão de alteração de neurotransmissores próprio de cada patologia. Consideraram-se a Doença de Parkinson e a Doença de Huntington como modelos de estudo, sendo caracterizadas por sintomatologia cognitiva, comportamental e motora, fruto das alterações subjacentes. Foram abordadas numa perspectiva de analogia, relacionando os seus mecanismos fisiopatológicos com os circuitos dos gânglios da base, o que permitiu classificar o seu papel no desempenho da marcha normal ou na doença. A avaliação destas doenças passa por diferentes escalas e modelos experimentais, que visam também quantificar e objectivar alterações da marcha como a festinação e o freezing. Este facto auxilia na implementação do tratamento farmacológico, o qual se apresenta ainda insuficiente. Como complemento existem técnicas de fisioterapia e medicina de reabilitação. Foi, por isso, objectivo deste trabalho fazer uma revisão actualizada dos mecanismos subjacentes às alterações da marcha nas doenças do movimento, clarificando o papel das diferentes estruturas neurológicas envolvidas tanto na doença como na ausência del

Accountability and Generating Evidence for Global Health: Misoprostol in Nepal

Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) is a major cause of maternal morbidity and mortality in Nepal. Compounded by the remote terrain, endemic poverty, and a lack of access to health facilities, the use of misoprostol has advantages over the standard use of oxytocin for PPH management. Drawing on our qualitative study of a pilot intervention managed by the Nepal Family Health Programme, we map the institutional relationships involved in the design, implementation, and practices for bringing misoprostol into national policy. In the intense and competitive global and national policy arena, sustained lobbying and getting the ‘right people’ on board were as powerful drivers as the quality of the intervention itself. The case study takes us to the heart of the debate around the politics of generation of evidence for interventions in global health programmes, and ultimately the question of accountability for health policy and practice.Open Society Foundations, Vozes Desiguais/Unequal Voices, Future Health Systems consortium, the Impact Initiative and Health Systems Globa