Is there a case for greater legislative involvement in the judicial appointments process?

PhDThe dramatic increase in public law and human rights cases coming before the UK Supreme Court (and the Appellate Committee before it) means that the UK’s top court is more frequently determining essentially socio-political questions. In the light of this expanding judicial role, this thesis asks whether new mechanisms for increasing political accountability, such as a parliamentary confirmation procedure, are needed for appointment to the most senior judicial offices (including, but not limited to the UK Supreme Court). The research addresses the conceptual arguments for greater political accountability in the appointment process. It also considers the expanding ambit of judicial independence. Focusing on whether parliamentarians should have a role in the judicial appointments process; it asks what is meant by political accountability in the context of judicial appointments and considers what evidence there is that greater accountability is necessary. The research examines whether new methods of accountability could be introduced in the UK without impacting on judicial independence. It seeks to shed light on these questions by examining the recent move by the UK Parliament to introduce pre-appointment hearings for other senior posts and evaluates whether such processes are readily transferable and, if so, whether UK parliamentary committees are well placed to undertake this task

Site-site memory equation approach in study of density/pressure dependence of translational diffusion coefficient and rotational relaxation time of polar molecular solutions: acetonitrile in water, methanol in water, and methanol in acetonitrile

We present results of theoretical study and numerical calculation of the dynamics of molecular liquids based on combination of the memory equation formalism and the reference interaction site model - RISM. Memory equations for the site-site intermediate scattering functions are studied in the mode-coupling approximation for the first order memory kernels, while equilibrium properties such as site-site static structure factors are deduced from RISM. The results include the temperature-density(pressure) dependence of translational diffusion coefficients D and orientational relaxation times t for acetonitrile in water, methanol in water and methanol in acetonitrile, all in the limit of infinite dilution. Calculations are performed over the range of temperatures and densities employing the SPC/E model for water and optimized site-site potentials for acetonitrile and methanol. The theory is able to reproduce qualitatively all main features of temperature and density dependences of D and t observed in real and computer experiments. In particular, anomalous behavior, i.e. the increase in mobility with density, is observed for D and t of methanol in water, while acetonitrile in water and methanol in acetonitrile do not show deviations from the ordinary behavior. The variety exhibited by the different solute-solvent systems in the density dependence of the mobility is interpreted in terms of the two competing origins of friction, which interplay with each other as density increases: the collisional and dielectric frictions which, respectively, increase and decrease with increasing density.Comment: 13 pages, 8 eps-figures, 3 tables, RevTeX4-forma

Candles and care

A group of Scottish care leavers visited Denmark to undertake a comparative piece of research looking at the similarities and differences between care and leaving care provision in the respective countries. They interviewed Danish young people in two projects for care leavers and visited a range of other projects for young people in care. Whilst the lived experience of the two groups was broadly similar in relation to common themes of loss, stigma and levels of support in making the transition into young adulthood, the researchers found that the quality of relationships with staff/carers for the Danish young people was often better. The number of placement moves whilst in care was much lower for the Danes. The overall material and nurturing provision for Danish children and young people impressed the researchers

Data from an Observational Study

Introduction Effective management and development of new treatment strategies for response fluctuations in advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD) largely depends on clinical rating instruments such as the PD home diary. The Parkinson’s kinetigraph (PKG) measures movement accelerations and analyzes the spectral power of the low frequencies of the accelerometer data. New algorithms convert each hour of continuous PKG data into one of the three motor categories used in the PD home diary, namely motor Off state and On state with and without dyskinesia. Objective To compare quantitative motor state assessment in fluctuating PD patients using the PKG with motor state ratings from PD home diaries. Methods Observational cohort study on 24 in-patients with documented motor fluctuations who completed diaries by rating motor Off, On without dyskinesia, On with dyskinesia, and asleep for every hour for 5 consecutive days. Simultaneously collected PKG data (recorded between 6 am and 10 pm) were analyzed and calibrated to the patient’s individual thresholds for Off and dyskinetic state by novel algorithms classifying the continuous accelerometer data into these motor states for every hour between 6 am and 10 pm. Results From a total of 2,040 hours, 1,752 hours (87.4%) were available for analyses from calibrated PKG data (7.5% sleeping time and 5.1% unclassified motor state time were excluded from analyses). Distributions of total motor state hours per day measured by PKG showed moderate-to-strong correlation to those assessed by diaries for the different motor states (Pearson’s correlations coefficients: 0.404–0.658), but inter-rating method agreements on the single- hour-level were only low-to-moderate (Cohen’s κ: 0.215–0.324). Conclusion The PKG has been shown to capture motor fluctuations in patients with advanced PD. The limited correlation of hour-to-hour diary and PKG recordings should be addressed in further studies

The Plant PTM Viewer, a central resource for exploring plant protein modifications

Posttranslational modifications (PTMs) of proteins are central in any kind of cellular signaling. Modern mass spectrometry technologies enable comprehensive identification and quantification of various PTMs. Given the increased numbers and types of mapped protein modifications, a database is necessary that simultaneously integrates and compares site‐specific information for different PTMs, especially in plants for which the available PTM data are poorly catalogued. Here, we present the Plant PTM Viewer (http://www.psb.ugent.be/PlantPTMViewer), an integrative PTM resource that comprises approximately 370,000 PTM sites for 19 types of protein modifications in plant proteins from five different species. The Plant PTM Viewer provides the user with a protein sequence overview in which the experimentally evidenced PTMs are highlighted together with an estimate of the confidence by which the modified peptides and, if possible, the actual modification sites were identified and with functional protein domains or active site residues. The PTM sequence search tool can query PTM combinations in specific protein sequences, whereas the PTM BLAST tool searches for modified protein sequences to detect conserved PTMs in homologous sequences. Taken together, these tools help to assume the role and potential interplay of PTMs in specific proteins or within a broader systems biology context. The Plant PTM Viewer is an open repository that allows the submission of mass spectrometry‐based PTM data to remain at pace with future PTM plant studies

On Uncertainties in Cross-Correlation Lags and the Reality of Wavelength-Dependent Continuum Lags in Active Galactic Nuclei

We describe a model-independent method of assessing the uncertainties in cross-correlation lags determined from AGN light curves, and use this method to investigate the reality of lags between UV and optical continuum variations in well-studied AGNs. Our results confirm the existence of such lags in NGC 7469. We find that the continuum variations at 1825 A, 4845 A, and 6962 A follow those at 1315A by 0.22^{+0.12}_{-0.13} days, 1.25^{+0.48}_{-0.35} days, and 1.84^{+0.93}_{-0.94} days, respectively, based on the centroids of the cross-correlation functions; the error intervals quoted correspond to 68% confidence levels, and each of these lags is greater than zero at no less than 97% confidence. We do not find statistically significant interband continuum lags in NGC 5548, NGC 3783, or Fairall 9. Wavelength-dependent continuum lags may be marginally detected in the case of NGC 4151. However, on the basis of theoretical considerations, wavelength-dependent continuum lags in sources other than NGC 7469 are not expected to have been detectable in previous experiments. We also confirm the existence of a statistically significant lag between X-ray and UV continuum variations in the blazar PKS 2155-304.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in PAS

Quantum Holonomy in Three-dimensional General Covariant Field Theory and Link Invariant

We consider quantum holonomy of some three-dimensional general covariant non-Abelian field theory in Landau gauge and confirm a previous result partially proven. We show that quantum holonomy retains metric independence after explicit gauge fixing and hence possesses the topological property of a link invariant. We examine the generalized quantum holonomy defined on a multi-component link and discuss its relation to a polynomial for the link.Comment: RevTex, 12 pages. The metric independence of path integral measure is justified and the case of multi-component link is discussed in detail. To be published in Physical Review

Charity Retailing in the UK: A Managerial Capabilities Perspective

Nonprofit organizations are venturing into commercial activities due to the intense competition for the limited government funds and declining availability of donor funds for third sector organizations that address social problems. Charity retailing, a popular choice of commercial activity for nonprofit organization, has filled vacant premises in the high streets of the small towns and suburbs of large cities in the UK. Successful charity retail operation requires distinctive capabilities necessary to manage organizations’ resources in commercial environment. Using sixty in-depth elite interviews, we introduce the concept of managerial capabilities for charity retailing. Research propositions and management implications are discussed