Extending the Reach of the Chinese Labor Law: How Does the Supreme People\u27s Court\u27s 2006 Interpretation Transform Labor Dispute Resolution

Chinese workers are taking advantage of the dispute resolution tools that legal reform has provided in the past decade, including mediation, arbitration, and litigation. Despite a history of resolving disputes through informal mediation, more and more workers are relying on the new pathways of arbitration and civil suits in local courts. The 1993 Regulations on the Resolution of Enterprise Labor Disputes and the 1994 Labor Law facilitated workers’ access to formal legal forums. Then, in 2006, a Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) interpretation made a number of important changes to the application of the Labor Law and workers’ access to dispute resolution. The SPC interpretation of the Labor Law expands access to labor dispute resolution by providing a clear standard for determining when labor disputes arise, requiring courts to accept appeals of arbitral decisions involving specific claims, allowing the suspension of the arbitration application period, and permitting certain claims to bypass mandatory arbitration. This Comment argues that the SPC interpretation successfully responds to criticisms of dispute resolution under the Labor Law and will help to ensure that law continues to operate as a tool for China’s workers and government. The SPC is likely to continue filling gaps in the law and respond with needed changes in the absence of clear legislative rules. Only the future will tell whether the potential impact of the 2006 interpretation becomes a reality

Water chemistry and soil radon survey at the Poas volcano (Costa Rica)

Radon-in-soil monitoring at the Poas volcano (Costa Rica) has been performed together with water chemistry from the hot crater lake since 1981 and 1983 respectively. The results are discussed as a function of the eruptive evolution of the volcano over a 13 years period (1981-1994). It is shown that no definitely clear precursory radon signals have been recorded. On the contrary, ionic species concentrations are likely to be considered good precursors, together with the temperature variations of the crater lake water

The gait and balance of patients with diabetes can be improved: a randomised controlled trial

Aims/hypothesis: Gait characteristics and balance are altered in diabetic patients. Little is known about possible treatment strategies. This study evaluates the effect of a specific training programme on gait and balance of diabetic patients. Methods: This was a randomised controlled trial (n = 71) with an intervention (n = 35) and control group (n = 36). The intervention consisted of physiotherapeutic group training including gait and balance exercises with function-orientated strengthening (twice weekly over 12weeks). Controls received no treatment. Individuals were allocated to the groups in a central office. Gait, balance, fear of falls, muscle strength and joint mobility were measured at baseline, after intervention and at 6-month follow-up. Results: The trial is closed to recruitment and follow-up. After training, the intervention group increased habitual walking speed by 0.149m/s (p < 0.001) compared with the control group. Patients in the intervention group also significantly improved their balance (time to walk over a beam, balance index recorded on Biodex balance system), their performance-oriented mobility, their degree of concern about falling, their hip and ankle plantar flexor strength, and their hip flexion mobility compared with the control group. After 6months, all these variables remained significant except for the Biodex sway index and ankle plantar flexor strength. Two patients developed pain in their Achilles tendon: the progression for two related exercises was slowed down. Conclusions/interpretation: Specific training can improve gait speed, balance, muscle strength and joint mobility in diabetic patients. Further studies are needed to explore the influence of these improvements on the number of reported falls, patients' physical activity levels and quality of life. Trial registration:: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00637546 Funding:: This work was supported by the Swiss National Foundation (SNF): PBSKP-123446/

Nutritional Asymmetries Are Related to Division of Labor in a Queenless Ant

Eusocial species exhibit pronounced division of labor, most notably between reproductive and non-reproductive castes, but also within non-reproductive castes via morphological specialization and temporal polyethism. For species with distinct worker and queen castes, age-related differences in behavior among workers (e.g. within-nest tasks versus foraging) appear to result from physiological changes such as decreased lipid content. However, we know little about how labor is divided among individuals in species that lack a distinct queen caste. In this study, we investigated how fat storage varied among individuals in a species of ant (Dinoponera australis) that lacks a distinct queen caste and in which all individuals are morphologically similar and capable of reproduction (totipotent at birth). We distinguish between two hypotheses, 1) all individuals are physiologically similar, consistent with the possibility that any non-reproductive may eventually become reproductive, and 2) non-reproductive individuals vary in stored fat, similar to highly eusocial species, where depletion is associated with foraging and non-reproductives have lower lipid stores than reproducing individuals. Our data support the latter hypothesis. Location in the nest, the probability of foraging, and foraging effort, were all associated with decreased fat storage

Knowledge Graphs for the Life Sciences: Recent Developments, Challenges and Opportunities

The term life sciences refers to the disciplines that study living organisms and life processes, and include chemistry, biology, medicine, and a range of other related disciplines. Research efforts in life sciences are heavily data-driven, as they produce and consume vast amounts of scientific data, much of which is intrinsically relational and graphstructured. The volume of data and the complexity of scientific concepts and relations referred to therein promote the application of advanced knowledgedriven technologies for managing and interpreting data, with the ultimate aim to advance scientific discovery. In this survey and position paper, we discuss recent developments and advances in the use of graph-based technologies in life sciences and set out a vision for how these technologies will impact these fields into the future. We focus on three broad topics: the construction and management of Knowledge Graphs (KGs), the use of KGs and associated technologies in the discovery of new knowledge, and the use of KGs in artificial intelligence applications to support explanations (explainable AI). We select a few exemplary use cases for each topic, discuss the challenges and open research questions within these topics, and conclude with a perspective and outlook that summarizes the overarching challenges and their potential solutions as a guide for future research

French national cohort of first use of dalbavancin: a high proportion of off-label use

Dalbavancin is a glycopeptide antibiotic with a long half-life, recently marketed in Europe for skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI), but real-life use is not well-known. We aimed to describe all first prescriptions in France over an 18-month period. We performed a retrospective study on all adult patients who received at least one dose of dalbavancin from July 1, 2017 to September 31, 2018. Data were collected thanks to a standard questionnaire. Failure was defined as: persistent or reappearance of signs of infection; and/or switch to suppressive antibiotic treatment; and/or death from infection. We included 75 patients from 29 French hospitals. Main indications were bone and joint infections (BJIs) (64.0%), endocarditis (25.3%), and SSTIs (17.3%). Main bacteria involved were: Staphylococcus aureus (51.4%), including methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) (19.4%); and coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) (44.4%). Median MICs for staphylococci to vancomycin and dalbavancin ranged from 0.875 mg/L to 2.0 mg/L, and 0.040 mg/L to 0.064 mg/L, respectively. Dalbavancin was used after a mean of 2.3 ± 1.2 lines of antimicrobial treatment. Main treatment regimens for dalbavancin were a weekly 2-dose regimen (1500mg each) in 38 (53.2%) cases, and a single-dose regimen (1500mg) in 13 (18.3%) cases. Overall, at the patients\u27 last visit, clinical cure was observed in 54/72 patients, while failure was found in 14/72 patients. First uses of dalbavancin in France were mostly off-label. Most of them were due to BJIs, and often as rescue therapy for severe infections. Even in off-label situations, dalbavancin seems safe and effective

Using the past to constrain the future: how the palaeorecord can improve estimates of global warming

Climate sensitivity is defined as the change in global mean equilibrium temperature after a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration and provides a simple measure of global warming. An early estimate of climate sensitivity, 1.5-4.5{\deg}C, has changed little subsequently, including the latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The persistence of such large uncertainties in this simple measure casts doubt on our understanding of the mechanisms of climate change and our ability to predict the response of the climate system to future perturbations. This has motivated continued attempts to constrain the range with climate data, alone or in conjunction with models. The majority of studies use data from the instrumental period (post-1850) but recent work has made use of information about the large climate changes experienced in the geological past. In this review, we first outline approaches that estimate climate sensitivity using instrumental climate observations and then summarise attempts to use the record of climate change on geological timescales. We examine the limitations of these studies and suggest ways in which the power of the palaeoclimate record could be better used to reduce uncertainties in our predictions of climate sensitivity.Comment: The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Progress in Physical Geography, 31(5), 2007 by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. \c{opyright} 2007 Edwards, Crucifix and Harriso

Results of the ontology alignment evaluation initiative 2023

The Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative (OAEI) aims at comparing ontology matching systems on precisely defined test cases. These test cases can be based on ontologies of different levels of complexity and use different evaluation modalities. The OAEI 2023 campaign offered 15 tracks and was attended by 16 participants. This paper is an overall presentation of that campaign