Editorial: Adapting Anglo-American Corporate Governance Concepts in non-Anglo American Environments

Introduction to Volume 3 of Corporate Governance and Sustainability Review journa

The international momentum against corruption: UNGASS, Summit for Democracy and COSP9

Presentation given to the Australian National University's Transnational Research Institute on Corruption (TRIC) and the University of Adelaide's Stretton Institut

Residential Aged Care Policy in Australia - Are We Learning from Evidence?

© 2015 Institute of Public Administration Australia. The residential aged care industry in Australia will expand rapidly over the next 10 years leading to substantial increases in government expenditure. Recent and future reforms are likely leading to changes in the structure of the industry with a potential impact on quality of care. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate broader public debate, based on the available evidence, about the preferred structure of this important industry. It examines the literature on the impact structure has on the quality of services and compares this with a fresh analysis of current trends. The paper argues that future policy should be evidence based and explicit about the structure of the industry that will emerge from current policy reforms

Honourable Intentions? Analysing the interests of private equity in the aged care sector

The Australian aged care industry was once dominated by non-profit organisations but recently ownership has changed significantly with the entry of for profit and in particular private equity investment vehicles. This paper provides an overview of the main players and the effects of private equity on the Australian aged care sector. The analysis is framed within the literature which examines the relationship between ownership type and the quality of community services. It also presents a series of case studies which suggest that a change of ownership from non-profit to private equity may have significant consequences for the quality of service provision

The challenges of political corruption in Australia, the proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission bill (2020) and the application of the APUNCAC

Political corruption affects each nation-state differently, but the outcomes are nominally the same: a deficit of public trust, weakened government institutions and undermined political systems. This article analyzes issues of political corruption in Australia by framing them within a Na-tional Integrity Ecosystem (NIE) and addressing them against the proposed Commonwealth In-tegrity Commission (CIC) 2020 bill. It explores the prevalent ‘grey’ areas of Australian political corruption where they interact with the private sector - political donations, the revolving door, and lobbying. This article argues for their inclusion within the mandated scope of the proposed CIC. There is a need for strong legislation, both domestic and international, to fight corruption. This article then discusses the application of the provisions of the draft Anticorruption Protocol to the UN Convention Against Corruption (APUNCAC) that may apply with respect to these ‘grey’ issues, and how an International Anti-Corruption Court may provide another institutional model for Australia to follow. Finally, this article links these proposals to the 2021 UN General Assem-bly Special Session (UNGASS) on Corruption and the 9th Conference of States Parties on UNCAC (COSP9), events that illustrate multilateral momentum and progress on anti-corruption. As a country that has historically supported the UN multilateral framework and its institutions, this article recommends a proactive approach for Australia so that the passing of a strong domestic anticorruption initiative will contribute to the adoption, and eventual ratification, of APUNCAC

Antiinflammatory Therapy with Canakinumab for Atherosclerotic Disease

Background: Experimental and clinical data suggest that reducing inflammation without affecting lipid levels may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Yet, the inflammatory hypothesis of atherothrombosis has remained unproved. Methods: We conducted a randomized, double-blind trial of canakinumab, a therapeutic monoclonal antibody targeting interleukin-1β, involving 10,061 patients with previous myocardial infarction and a high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level of 2 mg or more per liter. The trial compared three doses of canakinumab (50 mg, 150 mg, and 300 mg, administered subcutaneously every 3 months) with placebo. The primary efficacy end point was nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or cardiovascular death. RESULTS: At 48 months, the median reduction from baseline in the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level was 26 percentage points greater in the group that received the 50-mg dose of canakinumab, 37 percentage points greater in the 150-mg group, and 41 percentage points greater in the 300-mg group than in the placebo group. Canakinumab did not reduce lipid levels from baseline. At a median follow-up of 3.7 years, the incidence rate for the primary end point was 4.50 events per 100 person-years in the placebo group, 4.11 events per 100 person-years in the 50-mg group, 3.86 events per 100 person-years in the 150-mg group, and 3.90 events per 100 person-years in the 300-mg group. The hazard ratios as compared with placebo were as follows: in the 50-mg group, 0.93 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.80 to 1.07; P = 0.30); in the 150-mg group, 0.85 (95% CI, 0.74 to 0.98; P = 0.021); and in the 300-mg group, 0.86 (95% CI, 0.75 to 0.99; P = 0.031). The 150-mg dose, but not the other doses, met the prespecified multiplicity-adjusted threshold for statistical significance for the primary end point and the secondary end point that additionally included hospitalization for unstable angina that led to urgent revascularization (hazard ratio vs. placebo, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.73 to 0.95; P = 0.005). Canakinumab was associated with a higher incidence of fatal infection than was placebo. There was no significant difference in all-cause mortality (hazard ratio for all canakinumab doses vs. placebo, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.83 to 1.06; P = 0.31). Conclusions: Antiinflammatory therapy targeting the interleukin-1β innate immunity pathway with canakinumab at a dose of 150 mg every 3 months led to a significantly lower rate of recurrent cardiovascular events than placebo, independent of lipid-level lowering. (Funded by Novartis; CANTOS ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01327846.

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

Measurement of the B0^0 and B+^+ meson lifetimes with fully reconstructed hadronic final states

The B0 and B+ meson lifetimes have been measured in e+e- annihilation data collected in 1999 and 2000 with the BABAR detector at center-of-mass energies near the Upsilon(4S) resonance. Events are selected in which one B meson is fully reconstructed in a hadronic final state while the second B meson is reconstructed inclusively. A combined fit to the B0 and the B+ decay time difference distributions yields tau_{B0} = 1.546 +/- 0.032 (stat) +/- 0.022(syst) ps, tau_{B+} = 1.673 +/- 0.032 (stat) +/- 0.023 (syst) ps and tau_{B+} / tau_{B0} = 1.082 +/- 0.026 (stat) +/- 0.012 (syst

Corruption, corporate governance, and building institutions in the Asia-Pacific

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This chapter looks at how good corporate governance and building robust, strong institutions can help address issues of corruption in the Asia-Pacific. Firstly, this chapter looks at the definitions of corruption, its unpredictability, and different forms of petty and grand corruption after the Rose-Ackerman (2008) model. Corruption's long-lasting effects on poverty are also mentioned. This chapter suggests that corporate governance institutions and their good practice may alleviate the effects of corruption. Corporate governance reforms are described and suggestions are made on how their good practice may strengthen government institutions and promote business investment in countries with weak markets. Finally, this chapter states that institutional-building is an important part of combating corruption, preventing politicization in the organs of government, and promoting socioeconomic well-being in the region