An overture for well-tempered regulators: four variations on a LETR theme

This paper is a development of the Association of Law Teachers� annual Lord Upjohn lecture, delivered on 29 January 2015 at City Law School, London, by the principal investigators of the Legal Education and Training Review�s (LETR) research team. In it, each of the authors takes a different theme arising from the LETR Report, and explores its implications and application, focusing on research and innovation; access and flexibility; deprofessionalisation, and, finally, reflecting on the way the Report addressed themes of common training, oversupply and access to justice. As our title indicates, the paper comprises both individual performances and performance as a consort, and we hope that in this way, we enact one of our key themes: the social nature of legal education and its regulation

Studies of Tiros and Nimbus radiometric observations Final report

Data analyses of Tiros and Nimbus radiometric observation

Investigation of mesoscale cloud features viewed by LANDSAT

The author has identified the following significant results. Some 50 LANDSAT images displaying mesoscale cloud features were analyzed. This analysis was based on the Rayleigh-Kuettner model describing the formation of that type of mesoscale cloud feature. This model lends itself to computation of the average wind speed in northerly flow from the dimensions of the cloud band configurations measured from a LANDSAT image. In nearly every case, necessary conditions of a curved wind profile and orientation of the cloud streets within 20 degrees of the direction of the mean wind in the convective layer were met. Verification of the results by direct observation was hampered, however, by the incompatibility of the resolution of conventional rawinsonde observations with the scale of the banded cloud patterns measured from LANDSAT data. Comparison seems to be somewhat better in northerly flows than in southerly flows, with the largest discrepancies in wind speed being within 8m/sec, or a factor of two

Legal education & training review: a five-year retro/prospective

The Legal Education and Training Review final report on the regulation of legal services education and training was published in June 2013. Five years later, members of the research team reflect, in this article, on subsequent developments in the relationship between regulator and regulated. They explore the links between outcomes focused regulation (OFR) and the hierarchies within the regulatory space and between the OFR-driven focus on competence and its impacts on assessment for qualification and continuing competence thereafter. Finally, they extend the concept of shared space to include the relationship between regulators who commission research and researchers who carry it out. The paper concludes that the project has attracted international interest and informed other projects. Although there is already clear impact in England and Wales, the full significance of the report in the canon of seminal reports into legal education will emerge over the next decade

Uptake of HIV testing among 15–19-year-old adolescents in Zambia

Adolescent HIV testing rates remain low with many unaware of their status. We explored factors associated with HIV testing uptake among adolescents aged 15–19 years using data from the Zambian Demographic Health Survey 2013–2014. The sample consisted of 7030 adolescents of which 42% reported ever testing for HIV. We found that as the age of a respondent increased so did their odds of testing (aOR = 1.26; 1.21–1.32); females had higher odds of testing than males (aOR = 1.719; 1.53–1.92); those with secondary or higher education (aOR = 3.64; 2.23–5.96) and those with primary education (aOR=1.97; 1.21–3.19) had higher odds of testing than those with no education; those who were formerly married or living with a partner (aOR =  4.99; 2.32–10.75) and those who were currently married or living with a partner (aOR = 4.76; 3.65–6.21) had higher odds of testing than those who were never married or lived with a partner; as the age at first sexual intercourse increased so did the odds of testing (aOR = 1.07; 1.06–1.08); and as HIV knowledge increased so did the odds of testing (aOR = 1.13; 1.06–1.19). The data points to population level social determinants that may be targeted to increase testing among adolescents

The Importance of DNA Repair in Tumor Suppression

The transition from a normal to cancerous cell requires a number of highly specific mutations that affect cell cycle regulation, apoptosis, differentiation, and many other cell functions. One hallmark of cancerous genomes is genomic instability, with mutation rates far greater than those of normal cells. In microsatellite instability (MIN tumors), these are often caused by damage to mismatch repair genes, allowing further mutation of the genome and tumor progression. These mutation rates may lie near the error catastrophe found in the quasispecies model of adaptive RNA genomes, suggesting that further increasing mutation rates will destroy cancerous genomes. However, recent results have demonstrated that DNA genomes exhibit an error threshold at mutation rates far lower than their conservative counterparts. Furthermore, while the maximum viable mutation rate in conservative systems increases indefinitely with increasing master sequence fitness, the semiconservative threshold plateaus at a relatively low value. This implies a paradox, wherein inaccessible mutation rates are found in viable tumor cells. In this paper, we address this paradox, demonstrating an isomorphism between the conservatively replicating (RNA) quasispecies model and the semiconservative (DNA) model with post-methylation DNA repair mechanisms impaired. Thus, as DNA repair becomes inactivated, the maximum viable mutation rate increases smoothly to that of a conservatively replicating system on a transformed landscape, with an upper bound that is dependent on replication rates. We postulate that inactivation of post-methylation repair mechanisms are fundamental to the progression of a tumor cell and hence these mechanisms act as a method for prevention and destruction of cancerous genomes.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures; Approximation replaced with exact calculation; Minor error corrected; Minor changes to model syste