Comparison of governance approaches for the control of antimicrobial resistance: Analysis of three European countries

Policy makers and governments are calling for coordination to address the crisis emerging from the ineffectiveness of current antibiotics and stagnated pipe-line of new ones – antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Wider contextual drivers and mechanisms are contributing to shifts in governance strategies in health care, but are national health system approaches aligned with strategies required to tackle antimicrobial resistance? This article provides an analysis of governance approaches within healthcare systems including: priority setting, performance monitoring and accountability for AMR prevention in three European countries: England, France and Germany. Advantages and unresolved issues from these different experiences are reported, concluding that mechanisms are needed to support partnerships between healthcare professionals and patients with democratized decision-making and accountability via collaboration. But along with this multi-stakeholder approach to governance, a balance between regulation and persuasion is needed

An anarchy of cultures: aesthetics and the changing school

It is the contention of this paper that schools are currently sandwiched between demands of the economy on one side and increasingly fundamentalist communities on the other; that schools need some degree of autonomy from each; that the greatest challenge of the century is how we can live together despite our differences; and that the only way of successfully meeting this challenge is for schools to put social justice at the heart of their activities, activities that are best informed by the cultivation of reasoned imagination – that is, by an aesthetic approach to the development of intellectual, social, cultural, economic and personal identities

The ethical challenge of Touraine's 'living together'

In Can We Live Together? Alain Touraine combines a consummate analysis of crucial social tensions in contemporary societies with a strong normative appeal for a new emancipatory 'Subject' capable of overcoming the twin threats of atomisation or authoritarianism. He calls for a move from 'politics to ethics' and then from ethics back to politics to enable the new Subject to make a reality out of the goals of democracy and solidarity. However, he has little to say about the nature of such an ethics. This article argues that this lacuna could usefully be filled by adopting a form of radical humanism found in the work of Erich Fromm. It defies convention in the social sciences by operating from an explicit view of the 'is' and the 'ought' of common human nature, specifying reason, love and productive work as the qualities to be realised if we are to move closer to human solidarity. Although there remain significant philosophical and political differences between the two positions, particularly on the role to be played by 'the nation', their juxtaposition opens new lines of inquiry in the field of cosmopolitan ethics

Research in universities, independent institutes and government departments : Eleven contributions to a discussion

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69026/2/10.1177_053901846700600421.pd

From Indymedia to Anonymous: rethinking action and identity in digital cultures

The period following the social mobilizations of 2011 has seen a renewed focus on the place of communication in collective action, linked to the increasing importance of digital communications. Framed in terms of personalized ‘connective action’ or the social morphology of networks, these analyses have criticized previously dominant models of ‘collective identity’, arguing that collective action needs to be understood as ‘digital networking’. These influential approaches have been significantly constructed as a response to models of communication and action evident in the rise of Independent Media Centres in the period following 1999. After considering the rise of the ‘digital networking’ paradigm linked to analyses of Indymedia, this article considers the emergence of the internet-based collaboration known as Anonymous, focusing on its origins on the 4chan manga site and its 2008 campaign against Scientology, and also considers the ‘I am the 99%’ microblog that emerged as part of the Occupy movement. The emergence of Anonymous highlights dimensions of digital culture such as the ephemeral, the importance of memes, an ethic of lulz, the mask and the grotesque. These forms of communication are discussed in the light of dominant attempts to shape digital space in terms of radical transparency, the knowable and the calculable. It is argued that these contrasting approaches may amount to opposing social models of an emerging information society, and that the analysis of contemporary conflicts and mobilizations needs to be alert to novel forms of communicative practice at work in digital cultures today

Pelizaeus-Merzbacher-Like disease presentation of MCT8 mutated male subjects.

Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease is an X-linked hypomyelinatiing leukodystrophy. We report mutations in the thyroid hormone transporter gene MCT8 in 11% of 53 families affected by hypomyelinating leukodystrophies of unknown aetiology. The 12 MCT8 mutated patients express initially a Pelizaeus-Merzbacher-Like disease phenotype with a latter unusual improvement of magnetic resonance imaging white matter signal despite absence of clinical progression. This observation underlines the interest of determining both free T3 and free T4 serum concentrations to screen for MCT8 mutations in young patients (<3 y) with a severe Pelizaeus-Merzbacher-Like disease presentation or older severe mentally retarded male patients with "hypomyelinated" regions

Combined genetic approaches yield a 48% diagnostic rate in a large cohort of French hearing-impaired patients

International audienceHearing loss is the most common sensory disorder and because of its high genetic heterogeneity, implementation of Massively Parallel Sequencing (MPS) in diagnostic laboratories is greatly improving the possibilities of offering optimal care to patients. We present the results of a two-year period of molecular diagnosis that included 207 French families referred for non-syndromic hearing loss. Our multi-step strategy involved (i) DFNB1 locus analysis, (ii) MPS of 74 genes, and (iii) additional approaches including Copy Number Variations, in silico analyses, minigene studies coupled when appropriate with complete gene sequencing, and a specific assay for STRC. This comprehensive screening yielded an overall diagnostic rate of 48%, equally distributed between DFNB1 (24%) and the other genes (24%). Pathogenic genotypes were identified in 19 different genes, with a high prevalence of GJB2, STRC, MYO15A, OTOF, TMC1, MYO7A and USH2A. Involvement of an Usher gene was reported in 16% of the genotyped cohort. Four de novo variants were identified. This study highlights the need to develop several molecular approaches for efficient molecular diagnosis of hearing loss, as this is crucial for genetic counselling, audiological rehabilitation and the detection of syndromic forms