The 'new' rhetoric of new labour in comparative perspective: a three-country discourse analysis

Over the last two decades, social democratic-labour parties (SDLPs) have been confronted by various challenges which have had a dramatic impact upon their ideological orientation. Not least of which, these include emerging challenger parties, as well as the Neo-Liberal discourse of the New Right. In this paper, we compare the ideological positioning of three parties in Sweden, Germany, and particularly in Great Britain. We conclude that the ideological profile of 'New Labour' now largely mirrors those of other SDLPs. The results are based upon a content analysis of the 1994 (Germany and Sweden) and 1997 (Great Britain) election rhetorics in party manifestos and television debates. The analysis centres on the extent to which the three SDLPs refer to the discourses of Socialism, the Welfare State, Neo-Liberalism, and Ecologism

The two-loop five-particle amplitude in N=8\mathcal{N}=8 supergravity

We compute for the first time the two-loop five-particle amplitude in $\mathcal{N}=8$ supergravity. Starting from the known integrand, we perform an integration-by-parts reduction and express the answer in terms of uniform weight master integrals. The latter are known to evaluate to non-planar pentagon functions, described by a 31-letter symbol alphabet. We express the final result for the amplitude in terms of uniform weight four symbols, multiplied by a small set of rational factors. The amplitude satisfies the expected factorization properties when one external graviton becomes soft, and when two external gravitons become collinear. We verify that the soft divergences of the amplitude exponentiate, and extract the finite remainder function. The latter depends on fewer rational factors, and is independent of one of the symbol letters. By analyzing identities involving rational factors and symbols we find a remarkably compact representation in terms of a single seed function, summed over all permutations of external particles. Finally, we work out the multi-Regge limit, and present explicitly the leading logarithmic terms in the limit. The full symbol of the IR-subtracted hard function is provided as an ancillary file.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure, 8 ancillary file

Polls and the political process: the use of opinion polls by political parties and mass media organizations in European post‐communist societies (1990–95)

Opinion polling occupies a significant role within the political process of most liberal-capitalist societies, where it is used by governments, parties and the mass media alike. This paper examines the extent to which polls are used for the same purposes in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and in particular, for bringing political elites and citizens together. It argues that these political elites are more concerned with using opinion polls for gaining competitive advantage over their rivals and for reaffirming their political power, than for devolving political power to citizens and improving the general processes of democratization

Scale-out of massively parallel patient-specific cell cultures with a modified transportable conditioned cell culture chamber

Barrier Isolators, which separate the cell culture processing atmosphere from the bioburden of personnel, are the best means to reduce contamination risks. These isolators are currently being used for cGMP-compliant clinical trials1, 2. Scaling cell production processes presents non-obvious restrictions to most people. Compared to open processing, modular Cytocentric isolators can be replicated to scale proportionately with each stage in cell processing until all steps are accommodated maximally. This allows a process to efficiently and quickly scale with operations from pre-clinical through clinical studies3. However, for processing of massively parallel patient-specific cell cultures, incubation capacity in a barrier isolator, unlike in the open room, can be a bottleneck. Inexpensive and infinitely elastic incubation capacity can be provided by existing external incubators if cultures can be safely transported to and from the isolator for processing. We tested a modified transportable conditioned cell culture chamber (TC4) designed to enclose cell cultures inside the exterior incubator and fit through the airlocks of the barrier isolator to safely deliver cells to the interior for processing. We have previously published on good cell growth using this processing system to expand K562 cells, a hematopoietic stem cell-like cell line that has been used as a surrogate for CAR-T cell processing. In this study, we addressed sterility concerns by running mock production runs with a highly permissive color-changing bacterial broth. We ran three production runs, moving mock cultures between the barrier isolator and the external incubator with the TC4 transport chamber. We took samples of the final mock cell product, sealed them into sterile vials, and incubated them long-term, monitoring for bacterial growth. We also performed environmental monitoring of the barrier isolator processing chamber with an air sampler and contact plates. Positive control samples were all yellow and turbid. Negative samples and all test materials were negative for microbial growth. We concluded that this transport chamber could help safely alleviate the bottleneck in cell production presented by the unique needs of massively-parallel patient specific cell incubation. References: Mei, S.H., et al., Isolation and large-scale expansion of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells with serum-free media under GMP-compliance. mortality, 2014. 40: p. 1. Marathe, C.S., et al., Islet cell transplantation in Australia: screening, remote transplantation, and incretin hormone secretion in insulin independent patients. Horm Metab Res, 2015. 47(1): p. 16-23. Yufit, T., P. Carson, and V. Falanga, Topical Delivery of Cultured Stem Cells to Human Non-Healing Wounds: GMP Facility Development in an Academic Setting and FDA Requirements for an IND and Human Testing. Current drug delivery, 2014. 11(5): p. 572-581

Reducing variability in conditions for cell handling improves MSC yields

Efficient cell expansion in vitro is essential to commercialization of human MSC as a cellular therapy. The cost of goods sold (COGS) is dramatically affected by how long it takes to expand the cells in vitro and the cell yield determines the number of doses generated for profit. Therefore, maximizing MSC growth in culture is critical for the success of MSC-based cellular therapies. Studies by others have shown that temperature differences in cell production can adversely affect cell yields. Here we study the effects of variability in temperature and CO2, like changes seen during routine cell handling in a room air BSC, on human MSC yield. We cultured human bone marrow mesenchymal stromal/stem cells for 8 biweekly subpassages (P4-P12) with conventional room air CO2 incubator conditions (37 degrees C/ 5% CO2). The culture was divided into separate cultures for routine cell handling in two different conditions (1) room air BSC conditions (RT/ 0.1% CO2) (variable) or (2) the same conditions as incubation (constant). At each passage, cells were plated in 96-well plates which were assayed over time for cell growth kinetics. Consistently, MSC incubated and handled in constant conditions recovered more quickly after subpassage and were more likely to continue to divide, improving final cell yields. We conclude that constant conditions for cell handling are critical for maximum MSC cell yield