Mobile Access to the Law in Africa: Developing an eGrey Book for the Seychelles

A novel access to legislation project in the African island nation of Seychelles focused on producing a multi-format unofficial electronic collection of the most commonly cited laws, which can be used online or offline.  People in Seychelles did not previously have ready access to current versions of their most important laws (including the Constitution and the civil and criminal codes), even in hard copy.  The ‘eGrey Book’ project, launched in April 2014 through the website of SeyLII, has so far been a remarkable success.  The history of the project exemplifies the possibility of lateral approaches to access to legislation challenges, the importance of close cooperation with LII colleagues and international technical experts, and the invaluable contribution that a targeted one-off funding injection can make.  It also reflects the  significant time commitment required to create the raw materials for a resource of this kind. Now that the hard work has been done, the eGrey Book requires relatively little effort to maintain and update.   It has already become the default reference point for local practitioners.  With time, it may offer a model for replication in other African jurisdictions facing similar challenges

Immunisation and the Law: Slippery Slope to a Healthy Society

The immunisation of children against communicable diseases is a crucial public health intervention. Yet the understandable prioritisation of parental autonomy within New Zealand immunisation policy has contributed to consistently unsatisfactory coverage rates, in both absolute and comparative terms. If our immunisation law could be strengthened to eliminate ‘passive’ non-immunisation without fatally undermining parental choice, the goals of ‘population immunity’ might be achievable. Of the three reform options explored by this paper, two are rejected as unworkable. The first, a universal mandatory immunisation requirement, might be justifiable in principle but would encounter prohibitive public opposition. The second, an ‘informed choice’ requirement limited to beneficiaries, is unprincipled and potentially ineffective. The recommended option is more moderate and equitable. Creating a presumption in favour of immunisation at the point of school-entry would shift the legal focus from ‘informed consent’ to United States-style ‘informed refusal’. The degree of effort required to invoke a statutory exemption to immunisation would depend upon the extent to which policy-makers were satisfied that only parents implacably and legitimately opposed to immunisation were invoking it. Barring a dramatic increase in the size of the anti-immunisation lobby, it is suggested that an informed refusal requirement could successfully eliminate passive non-immunisation, thereby potentially achieving population immunity while substantially preserving parental autonomy

Thinking and Learning: Teaching English Language Learners

In response to a continually changing demographic in U.S. schools, this paper looks at the current needs of English Language Learners from an instructional standpoint. The author seeks to provide insight and understanding into the metacognition of English Language Learners as well as a cultural awareness for working with these diverse learners. The overall goal of the paper is to demonstrate various ways educators can use this knowledge of English Language Learners to meet the needs of their students and help them reach their academic potential

Discourse and the Logic of Education Reform: A Cultivated Narrative of Crisis in Media Reporting in Kansas

Discourse analysis (DA) explores the relationships between discursive practices and wider social and cultural structures, relations, and processes. In this paper I explore, through a qualitative DA of education reporting in the Topeka Capital Journal (January 2014- January 2016), state press releases, and gubernatorial state speeches, how notions of fiscal crisis, both material and narratively cultivated, function to underscore the logic of neoliberalism. While considering potential context specific properties of local reporting and the cultural, geographical, and historical context of the region, I connect my findings with the larger, scholarly body of work pertaining to these issues. Connecting media language and policy discourse across local and global dimensions adds to a growing theoretical and qualitative understanding of the facets of education restructuring and reform within the framework of the global movement and adds material resources in the form of analysis as tools for educational practitioners and grassroots organizations working to craft alternatives to the neoliberal doctrine

A Time to Dance

There is, as is declared in Ecclesiastes, a time for everything and in particular "a time to dance", "a time to rejoice", and "a time where every person should eat and drink and enjoy the good of their labours".  The three authors here join celebrating the service of their colleague, mentor and friend by tendering some comparative comments on the law of Seychelles.&nbsp

Immunisation and the law : slippery slope to a healthy society

The immunisation of children against communicable diseases is a crucial public health intervention with both individual and collective outcomes. Current New Zealand immunisation policy prioritises parental autonomy, but has not succeeded in actively targeting all of the factors that prevent parents from ever making informed immunisation decisions. Consequently, our coverage rates are unsatisfactory both in absolute (by reference to the goal of 'population immunity') and relative terms. In order to have a realistic chance of meeting the Ministry of Health's optimistic coverage targets, it is necessary to consider whether New Zealand's comparatively weak immunisation law could be strengthened to eliminate the phenomenon of 'passive' non-immunisation without fatally undermining the decision-making capacity of parents. If this is not possible, then either the goal of population immunity or the prioritisation of individual choice must be abandoned. Of the three options for law reform explored by this paper, two are thought to be unworkable because they would, or should, be perceived as failing to achieve the delicate balance between individual freedom and public good. These are, first, a universal mandatory immunisation requirement, which may be justifiable in principle but would almost certainly encounter prohibitive public opposition; and, secondly, a targeted law that would require beneficiaries to make active decisions about immunisation, and (it is submitted) represents an unwarranted misuse of the vulnerability of those dependent upon taxpayer support. The reform option recommended is more moderate and more equitable. Creating a legal presumption in favour of immunisation, at the point of entry into primary school, would shift New Zealand from its current paradigm of 'informed consent' - whereby parents must actively opt in to immunisation - to a United States-style model that required parents who wished to opt out of immunisation to undergo a 'informed refusal' process. The stringency of this process would depend upon the degree to which policy-makers were satisfied that only those parents whose deeply held convictions prevented them from being open to persuasion were attempting to invoke it. Unless the size of the anti-immunisation lobby significantly increases, it is suggested that an informed refusal requirement could successfully tackle the problem of passive non-immunisation, thereby discharging the State's responsibility to further the interest of all New Zealanders in achieving and maintaining population immunity levels

Dynamic Boolean modelling reveals the influence of energy supply on bacterial efflux pump expression

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health issue. One key factor contributing to AMR is the ability of bacteria to export drugs through efflux pumps, which relies on the ATP-dependent expression and interaction of several controlling genes. Recent studies have shown that significant cell-to-cell ATP variability exists within clonal bacterial populations, but the contribution of intrinsic cell-to-cell ATP heterogeneity is generally overlooked in understanding efflux pumps. Here, we consider how ATP variability influences gene regulatory networks controlling expression of efflux pump genes in two bacterial species. We develop and apply a generalizable Boolean modelling framework, developed to incorporate the dependence of gene expression dynamics on available cellular energy supply. Theoretical results show that differences in energy availability can cause pronounced downstream heterogeneity in efflux gene expression. Cells with higher energy availability have a superior response to stressors. Furthermore, in the absence of stress, model bacteria develop heterogeneous pulses of efflux pump gene expression which contribute to a sustained sub-population of cells with increased efflux expression activity, potentially conferring a continuous pool of intrinsically resistant bacteria. This modelling approach thus reveals an important source of heterogeneity in cell responses to antimicrobials and sheds light on potentially targetable aspects of efflux pump-related antimicrobial resistance.publishedVersio

Genome sequence of a gammaherpesvirus from a common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)

A herpesvirus genome was sequenced directly from a biopsy specimen of a rectal lesion from a female common bottlenose dolphin. This genome sequence comprises a unique region (161,235 bp) flanked by multiple copies of a terminal repeat (4,431 bp) and contains 72 putative genes. The virus was named common bottlenose dolphin gammaherpesvirus 1

Discourse and the logic of education reform: crisis narratives in Kansas

Master of ScienceCurriculum and InstructionThomas VontzDiscourse analysis (DA) explores the relationships between discursive practices and wider social and cultural structures, relations, and processes. In this paper I explore, through a qualitative DA of education reporting in the Topeka Capital Journal (January 2014- January 2016), state press releases, and gubernatorial state speeches, how notions of fiscal crisis, both material and narratively cultivated, function to underscore the logic of neoliberalism. While considering potential context specific properties of local reporting and the cultural, geographical, and historical context of the region, I connect my findings with the larger, scholarly body of work pertaining to these issues. Connecting media language and policy discourse across local and global dimensions adds to a growing theoretical and qualitative understanding of the facets of education restructuring and reform within the framework of the global movement and adds material resources in the form of analysis as tools for educational practitioners and grassroots organizations working to craft alternatives to the neoliberal doctrine