Distance Researching via the Internet: A Researcher\u27s Perspective

In 1995, an advisory panel asked a group of grad.uate students in Britain whether it was viable to undertake doctoral research in the field of American Studies given that the majority of the material they would require was likely to be housed three thousand miles away. By its very nature a doctoral dissertation relies heavily on primary source material, exactly the type of material that would appear to be out of the reach of the long distance researcher. How could they hope to carry out the amount of research needed to fulfill the requirements of a Ph.D., with the twin problems of ever increasing travel costs and of limited funding? The slightly indignant students assured the members of the panel that, despite the difficulties, they could manage and that the tasks they had undertaken were most certainly worthwhile

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act: unresolved issues of regulatory culture and mindset

The Dodd-Frank Act constitutes the most significant reform of financial regulation in the United States since the 1930s. Some of its provisions are bold, particularly in the areas of consumer protection and derivative trading. However, the political challenges for law reformers and regulators in the wake of the global financial crisis are far from over. The Act is inchoate. The full scope and nature of the new financial regulatory system will take several years to evolve as the mandated studies and rule making are completed and implemented. We argue that the extent to which the reforms achieve their stated objectives will depend most critically on three factors: (i) the competency, integrity and forcefulness of the federal regulators, (ii) their ability and willingness to supervise the finance industry on an integrated basis, and (iii) a fundamental change in the regulatory culture and mindset

Model development including interactions with multiple imputed data

Abstract Background Multiple imputation is a reliable tool to deal with missing data and is becoming increasingly popular in biostatistics. However, building a model with interactions that are not specified a priori, in the presence of missing data, presents a challenge. On the one hand, the interactions are needed to impute the data, while on the other hand, the data is needed to identify the interactions. The objective of this study was to present a way in which this challenge can be addressed. Methods This paper investigates two strategies in which model development with interactions is achieved using a single data set generated from the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. Imputation using both the fully conditional specification approach and the multivariate normal approach is carried out and results are compared. The strategies are illustrated with data from a study of ambient pollution and childhood asthma in Durban, South Africa. Results The different approaches to model building and imputation yielded similar results despite the data being mainly categorical. Both strategies investigated for building the model using the multivariate normal imputed data resulted in the identical set of variables and interactions being identified; while models built using data imputed by fully conditional specification were marginally different for the two strategies. It was found that, for both imputation approaches, model building with backward elimination applied to the initial EM data set was easier to implement, and produced good results, compared to those from a complete case analysis. Conclusions Developing a predictive model including interactions with data that suffers from missingness is easily done by identifying significant interactions and then applying backward elimination to a single data set imputed from the EM algorithm. It is hoped that this idea can be further developed and, by addressing this practical dilemma, there will be increased adoption of multiple imputation in medical research when data suffers from missingness.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110125/1/12874_2014_Article_1145.pd

"Women's rights, the European Court and Supranational Constitutionalism"

This analysis examines supranational constitutionalism in the European Union. In particular, the study focuses on the role of the European Court of Justice in the creation of women’s rights. I examine the interaction between the Court and member state governments in legal integration, and also the integral role that women’s advocates – both individual activists and groups – have played in the development of EU social provisions. The findings suggest that this litigation dynamic can have the effect of fueling the integration process by creating new rights that may empower social actors and EU organizations, with the ultimate effect of diminishing member state government control over the scope and direction of EU law. This study focuses specifically on gender equality law, yet provides a general framework for examining the case law in subsequent legal domains, with the purpose of providing a more nuanced understanding of supranational governance and constitutionalism

Pistachios as a recovery food following downhill running exercise in recreational team-sport individuals

We aimed to investigate the impact of pistachio nut consumption on muscle soreness and function following exercise-induced muscle damage. Using a randomised cross-over design, male team-sport players (n = 18) performed a 40-minute downhill treadmill run to induce muscle damage, which was conducted after 2-wks of consuming either control (CON, water), a standard dose of daily pistachios (STD, 42.5 g/d) or a higher dose of daily pistachios (HIGH, 85 g/d). Lower limb muscle soreness (visual analogue scale), muscle function (maximal voluntary isokinetic torque and vertical jump), and blood markers of muscle damage/inflammation (creatine kinase, C-reactive protein, myoglobin, superoxide dismutase) were measured pre (baseline) and post (24, 48, and 72 h) exercise. No trial order effects were observed for any outcome measurement across trials. Mean quadriceps soreness (non-dominant leg) during exercise recovery was reduced (p < 0.05) in HIGH vs. CON (mean difference (95%CI): 13(1-25) mm). Change in soreness in the dominant quadriceps was not different between HIGH vs. CON (p = 0.06; mean difference (95%CI): 13(-1 to 26 mm)). No main effects of time or trial were observed for mean soreness of hamstrings, or on isokinetic torque of knee extensors or knee flexors, during recovery. Serum creatine kinase concentration peaked at 24 h post-damage (mean(SEM): 763(158)µg/L) from baseline (300(87)µg/L), but had returned to baseline by 72 h post (398(80)µg/L) exercise in all trials, with no trial or trial × time interaction evident. These data suggest that high dose pistachio nut ingestion may provide some alleviation of muscle soreness, but no effect on muscle function, following modest muscle damag

Recommendations for defining preventable HIV-related mortality for public health monitoring in the era of Getting to Zero: an expert consensus

Getting to Zero is a commonly cited strategic aim to reduce mortality due to both HIV and avoidable deaths among people with HIV. However, no clear definitions are attached to these aims with regard to what constitutes HIV-related or preventable mortality, and their ambition is limited. This Position Paper presents consensus recommendations to define preventable HIV-related mortality for a pragmatic approach to public health monitoring by use of national HIV surveillance data. These recommendations were informed by a comprehensive literature review and agreed by 42 international experts, including clinicians, public health professionals, researchers, commissioners, and community representatives. By applying the recommendations to 2019 national HIV surveillance data from the UK, we show that 30% of deaths among people with HIV were HIV-related or possibly HIV-related, and at least 63% of these deaths were preventable or potentially preventable. The application of these recommendations by health authorities will ensure consistent monitoring of HIV elimination targets and allow for the identification of inequalities and areas for intervention

SIRT2 Ablation Has No Effect on Tubulin Acetylation in Brain, Cholesterol Biosynthesis or the Progression of Huntington's Disease Phenotypes In Vivo

Huntington's disease (HD) is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder for which there are no disease-modifying treatments. The molecular pathogenesis of HD is complex and many mechanisms and cellular processes have been proposed as potential sites of therapeutic intervention. However, prior to embarking on drug development initiatives, it is essential that therapeutic targets can be validated in mammalian models of HD. Previous studies in invertebrate and cell culture HD models have suggested that inhibition of SIRT2 could have beneficial consequences on disease progression. SIRT2 is a NAD[superscript +]-dependent deacetylase that has been proposed to deacetylate α-tubulin, histone H4 K16 and to regulate cholesterol biogenesis – a pathway which is dysregulated in HD patients and HD mouse models. We have utilized mice in which SIRT2 has been reduced or ablated to further explore the function of SIRT2 and to assess whether SIRT2 loss has a beneficial impact on disease progression in the R6/2 mouse model of HD. Surprisingly we found that reduction or loss of SIRT2 had no effect on the acetylation of α-tubulin or H4K16 or on cholesterol biosynthesis in the brains of wild type mice. Equally, genetic reduction or ablation of SIRT2 had no effect on HD progression as assessed by a battery of physiological and behavioural tests. Furthermore, we observed no change in aggregate load or levels of soluble mutant huntingtin transprotein. Intriguingly, neither the constitutive genetic loss nor acute pharmacological inhibition of SIRT2 affected the expression of cholesterol biosynthesis enzymes in the context of HD. Therefore, we conclude that SIRT2 inhibition does not modify disease progression in the R6/2 mouse model of HD and SIRT2 inhibition should not be prioritised as a therapeutic option for HD.American Parkinson Disease Association, Inc. (Fellowship)Johnson & Johnson. Pharmaceutical Research & Development (Fellowship

Genetic identification of a common collagen disease in Puerto Ricans via identity-by-descent mapping in a health system

Achieving confidence in the causality of a disease locus is a complex task that often requires supporting data from both statistical genetics and clinical genomics. Here we describe a combined approach to identify and characterize a genetic disorder that leverages distantly related patients in a health system and population-scale mapping. We utilize genomic data to uncover components of distant pedigrees, in the absence of recorded pedigree information, in the multi-ethnic BioMe biobank in New York City. By linking to medical records, we discover a locus associated with both elevated genetic relatedness and extreme short stature. We link the gene, COL27A1, with a little-known genetic disease, previously thought to be rare and recessive. We demonstrate that disease manifests in both heterozygotes and homozygotes, indicating a common collagen disorder impacting up to 2% of individuals of Puerto Rican ancestry, leading to a better understanding of the continuum of complex and Mendelian disease

Financial crisis and North-South gap within the main media groups in the EU

La crisis y los ajustes económicos en los grandes grupos de medios comunicación de la Unión Europea han incrementado la brecha Norte-Sur en cuanto a solidez financiera, competitividad y capitalización, a favor de los modelos centroeuropeo y anglosajón. Los resultados financieros de los 93 mayores grupos y empresas del sector en la UE evidencian no sólo los efectos perniciosos de la financiarización y la coyuntura económica, sino también el incremento de las divergencias regionales en la UE-28. Los países mediterráneos, con los peores resultados, son los más expuestos a estos peligros y muestran los escasos avances en la convergencia del sector mediático europeo en cuanto a gestión económica y solidez para cumplir sus cometidos sociales. La crisis ha reforzado la posición de los grupos mediáticos del Norte frente a un debilitado Sur, que ya partía de una mayor dependencia por su mayor exposición a intereses partidistas. La difusión diaria de prensa en la UE bajó de 115,33 millones de ejemplares distribuidos en 2008 a 82,54 millones en 2012, un 27,73% menos. El 64,5% de los grandes medios cotizados en la UE-28 se concentra en cinco países. El 52,7% de los medios cuenta con participaciones significativas de instituciones financierasThe financial crisis and the economic adjustments within the most important media groups of the European Union (EU) have enlarged the North-South gap regarding financial strength, competitiveness and capitalisation, favouring Center European and UK patterns. The financial results of the 93 biggest media groups and enterprises in the EU provide evidence of not only the pernicious effects of financialization, but also the increase of regional divergences within the EU-28. The Mediterranean countries, which have got the worst results in all of the indicators analysed, are the most exposed to those dangers and confirm the poor advances of the media sector regarding convergence of management and economic solidity, at the expense of their capability to fulfil their social aims. The crisis has strengthened the position of the media groups in the North in front of the weakened South, that already had a greater dependence by its greater exposure to partisan interests. The daily circulation of press in the EU fell from 115.33 million copies distributed in 2008 to 82.54 in 2012, 27.73% less. 64.5% of the major media listed in the EU-28 is concentrated in five countries. 52.7% of the media has significant holdings in financial institutionsS