Exploration on Responsibilities of Township Government in the New Rural Cooperative Medical System: Against the Background of Building Social Secruty System in Urban and Rural Areas

At present, a new rural cooperative medical system (NRCMS) is a basic system in China to guarantee medical and health conditions in rural areas, which is the achievement of continuous attempts made by government at all levels to improve medical and health services in rural areas. Against the background of constructing social security system in urban and rural areas, township governments as performers of the system should shoulder important responsibilities of guaranteeing sustainable development of NRCMS. Against background of building social security in urban and rural areas, through introduction of NRCMS, this paper fixed the role of township governments as interpersonal communicators, information senders and decision makers in implementing NRCMS, further analyzed responsibilities should be taken by township governments from four aspects, explored unperformed responsibilities by township governments in implementing NRCMS, revealed reasons for unperformed responsibilities by township governments, and strengthened responsibilities should be taken by township governments before, during and after implementing NRCMS

Positioning and Operating Mechanism of Service-Oriented Township Government Construction: The Perspective of Transformation of Government Functions

With the development of economic globalization and the constant progress of China’s reform and opening up, traditional government administrative system cannot meet the needs of our current economic and social development, so the construction of service-oriented government is not only an irresistible trend of building China’s harmonious society, but also an inevitable direction of China’s long-term development. Township government, as grass-root government, has become the foothold of China’s service-oriented government construction, and decides the success or failure of China’s service-oriented government construction.In this paper, with the background of the Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee, the positioning of township government is carried out from four dimensions by the analysis on the status, problems and reasons of service-oriented town government, and then the operating mechanism of service-oriented government from the perspective of transformation of government functions is built, in order to achieve the service-oriented township government

The Patentability of Human Embryonic Stem Cells: Is the Inconsistent Application of the European Union Biotechnology Directive\u27s Moral Exclusion Clause Undermining Investor Confidence in Europe, Providing a Competitive Advantage to the United States?

The original justification for Directive 98/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 1998 on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions (the Directive) was to promote the growth of the European life science sector by harmonizing and clarifying European biotechnology patent laws. As early as 1985, the European Commission had identified the fragmentation of European patent laws as a potential problem. The Directive thus aimed to address obstacles to the unity of the internal market, which would arise if national Member States adopted divergent and uncoordinated policies and legislation in a field of economic activity that had been earmarked as poised for spectacular growth. The Commission further identified the lack of guidance within the European Patent Convention 1973 (EPC) on how its provisions were to be applied to biotechnological inventions meant that researchers were unsure if their work could be legally protected within Europe. The Commissions concerns were lent greater political urgency by three significant events that combined to establish the dominance of the United States (U.S.) biotechnology industry. First, biology researchers in the U.S. were increasingly developing new techniques that had substantial commercial application. Second, the U.S. Congress created the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to promote greater uniformity in the application of patent law and to reduce the possibility of forum shopping by parties seeking favorable courts. Thirdly, the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Diamond, Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks v Chakrabarty, took an important step towards patent liberalization by stating that living matter was not excluded as a ‘product of nature’ and that patents shall be available for ‘anything under the sun made by man’. It was not long after the Chakrabarty decision that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) began issuing patents on gene fragments, transgenic bacteria, and cell lines expressing DNA sequences producing therapeutically useful proteins. A trend had been for European companies to move their biotechnology research from the European Union (EU) to the U.S. because they regarded the commercial and legal climate there as more encouraging. The Commission concluded that European biotechnology patent laws should be clarified and harmonized in order to provide the incentives and legal certainty required for the biotechnology industry to flourish. Given the nature of the objectives pursued, one might have expected that the drafting of the Directive would be a relatively straightforward administrative exercise in harmonizing the legal criteria of novelty, inventive step, and industrial application in the context of biotechnological inventions. Indeed, the first draft of the Directive framed the problem solely in these terms with the legal standards proposed largely reflecting the more permissive approach of the USPTO. The project soon ran into difficulties. The Directive differs in a key way from the approach of the U.S., as it establishes a prominent role for ‘morality’ as an evaluative criterion within European patent law. This unique stance emerged during extensive discussions between the Parliament, the Commission, and the Council, and was a political concession to the view expressed by the Parliament that the patenting of biological materials, in particular those of human origin, raises important ethical and social concerns. Attempts to address these anxieties resulted, inter alia, in the inclusion of a ‘morality clause’ in article 6 of the Directive. article 6(1) provides that inventions shall be considered unpatentable where their commercial exploitation would be contrary to ordre public or morality. article 6(2), intended to clarify how the general morality exclusion in article 6(1) should be applied, contains a list of specific examples of biotechnology inventions that are excluded from patentability on moral grounds. Ironically, it has been article 6(2) that has been the source of great uncertainties in the years since the Directive was enacted. In particular, questions regarding how article 6(2)(c), which excludes ‘uses of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes’ from patentability, should be applied in relation to patent applications for inventions concerning human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have given rise to long-running legal, ethical, and policy debates. The debate revolves around the fact that article 6(2)(c) is silent with regard to hESCs. This is because the first ever isolation of hESCs from an embryo was reported four months after the adoption of the Directive. Although the Directive was ‘addressed’ only to EU Member States, the European Patent Office (EPO), which is independent of the EU, voluntarily incorporated the Directive’s rules within the EPC. Thus moral exclusions are now a fixture of European patent law. Most patents in Europe are granted via the EPO; however, European patents must still be enforced in individual Member States who may interpret the Directive differently. Whereas the EPO has not granted any patents on hESC claims, an overview of EU Member States interpretation of article 6(2)(c) reveals a patchwork of permissive and restrictive regulatory policies towards the patentability of hESCs. In contrast to Europe, U.S. patent law contains no statutory basis for the USPTO or a court to deny patent protection to morally controversial biotech subject matter. The U.S. has adopted probably the most liberal patenting policies on stem cell research, with the USPTO granting in excess of forty-one patents that claim hESCs in their title and front pages. The purpose of this paper is to consider whether the inconsistent application of the EU Biotechnology Directive’s moral exclusion clause could undermine investor confidence in Europe, providing a competitive advantage to the U.S. Understanding the science is essential for engaging in knowledgeable debate about the ethical issues surrounding hESCs. Part II provides an analysis of the biology that underpins the human embryo setting out the crucial distinction between totipotent and pluripotent hESCs. In Part III our attention turns to pre Directive jurisprudence under article 53(a) EPC, where the EPO showed a willingness to interpret the moral exclusion clause in a narrow manner that afforded patent protection to controversial biotechnology inventions. It was against the EPC framework and the jurisprudence emerging from the EPO that the Commission conceived the need for European biotechnology patent laws to be clarified and harmonized. Part IV charts the troublesome enactment and transposition of the Biotechnology Directive that exposed inherent European conflicts regarding patent protection for biotechnological inventions concerning ‘living matter’ of human origin. In Part V our focus turns to the subsequent emergence of hESC technology, providing an analysis of the post Directive EPO decision in Edinburgh Patent which set a precedent for the recent decision in Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) where the EPO moved away from its pre Directive narrow approach embracing a broad interpretation of the moral exclusion clause setting out a restrictive policy on the patentability of hESCs. Part VI analyses the patentability of hESCs at the national level, comparing the relatively permissive United Kingdom (UK) and Swedish regulatory approaches to the more restrictive German regime, a comparison that raises interesting questions as to the legal certainty of biotechnology inventions claiming hESCs within Europe. In Part VII our attention turns to the patentability of hESCs in the U.S. This section of the paper begins with an analysis of the Constitutional basis of U.S. patent law prior to setting out the link between ‘utility’ and ‘morality’ in U.S. patent law. Part VII then considers the liberation of U.S. patent law, the application of the Thirteenth Amendment to biotechnological inventions, along with the rejection of the doctrine of moral utility before finally examining the recent full frontal attack on biotechnology patents in the U.S. and the reinstatement of federal funding for hESC research

Multi-scale characterisation of the 3D microstructure of a thermally-shocked bulk metallic glass matrix composite

Bulk metallic glass matrix composites (BMGMCs) are a new class of metal alloys which have significantly increased ductility and impact toughness, resulting from the ductile crystalline phases distributed uniformly within the amorphous matrix. However, the 3D structures and their morphologies of such composite at nano and micrometre scale have never been reported before. We have used high density electric currents to thermally shock a Zr-Ti based BMGMC to different temperatures, and used X-ray microtomography, FIB-SEM nanotomography and neutron diffraction to reveal the morphologies, compositions, volume fractions and thermal stabilities of the nano and microstructures. Understanding of these is essential for optimizing the design of BMGMCs and developing viable manufacturing methods

Antifungal and mucoadhesive properties of an orally administered chitosan-coated amphotericin B 1 nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC)

Surface - modified nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) is a promising formulation to prolong the retention time of the therapeutic agent at the site of absorption. Chitosan-coated AmpB-loaded NLC (ChiAmpB NLC) were developed showing particle size of 394.4 ± 6.4 nm, encapsulation efficiency of 86.0 ± 0.3 % and a drug loading of 11.0 ± 0.1 %. ChiAmpB NLC showed biphasic release behaviour with no significant change in its physical properties upon exposure to conditions simulating the gastrointestinal tract. Compared to pure AmpB, ChiAmpB NLC observed not only a comparable antifungal behaviour but showed superior safety profiles, with two times lesser toxicity to the red blood cells and ten times safer to the HT-29 cell line. It was also successfully observed a translation of the in vitro mucoadhesion result to the ex vivo animal study in which ChiAmpB NLC results in higher percentage of retention in the small intestine compared to uncoated formulation. Together, the data strongly offered the possibility of having a non-toxic yet effective oral treatment for systemic fungal infections

Mucoadhesive chitosan-coated nanostructured lipid carriers for oral delivery of amphotericin B

This study describes the properties of an amphotericin B-containing mucoadhesive nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC), with the intent to maximize uptake within the gastrointestinal tract. We have reported previously that lipid nanoparticles can significantly improve the oral bioavailability of amphotericin B (AmpB). On the other hand, the aggregation state of AmpB within the NLC has been ascribed to some of the side effects resulting from IV administration. In the undissolved state, AmpB (UAmpB) exhibited the safer monomeric conformation in contrast to AmpB in the dissolved state (DAmpB), which was aggregated. Chitosan-coated NLC (ChiAmpB NLC) presented a slightly slower AmpB release profile as compared to the uncoated formulation, achieving 26.1 % release in 5 hours. Furthermore, the ChiAmpB NLC formulation appeared to prevent the expulsion of AmpB upon exposure to simulated gastrointestinal pH media, whereby up to 63.9 % of AmpB was retained in the NLC compared to 56.1 % in the uncoated formulation. The ChiAmpB NLC demonstrated mucoadhesive properties in pH 5.8 and 6.8. Thus, the ChiAmpB NLC formulation is well-primed for pharmacokinetic studies to investigate whether delayed gastrointestinal transit may be exploited to improve the systemic bioavailability of AmpB, whilst simultaneously addressing the side-effect concerns of AmpB

Understanding women managers’ competence acquisition

This study investigates the process of competence acquisition of women managers in Malaysia. Even though women form a huge pool of talent at the workplace, they are underrepresented at the upper management levels. Therefore, it is critical to understand how women in management acquire competence at work since the lack of understanding of acquisition process hinders women managers’ competency development. The research employed qualitative multiple-case studies using grounded theory approach against the backdrop of feminist principles. Data were gathered using semi-structured in-depth interviews by incorporating critical incidents and behavioural events techniques, followed by written exercises at the end of the interviews. Fifteen women managers from three work sectors namely, the public sector, private sector and government-linked companies were interviewed. Subsequently the data were analysed using grounded theory approach to identify the broad themes. A key finding is that women managers acquire competence using various informal learning strategies and the process of competence acquisition is affected by individual differences, local social context, organisational culture, work-life balance, coping strategies as well as leadership and management styles. The differences and variations in the individual understanding of competence were also discovered. Competence is understood as the dynamic and contextually-bounded holistic capabilities comprising versatile knowledge, management of extraordinaire skills and positive behavioural traits which enable a person to deliver effective performance. Theoretically, the research contributes towards the development of two models of competence acquisition. Practically, the research highlights the competence content of successful women managers that further provides insight into how competence is acquired at the workplace. These are imperative to improve the performance of a woman manager. Methodologically, the research illustrates the effective combination of grounded theory and feminist underlying principles within the context of multiple-case studies of women managers from different work sectors. Recommendations for future research are identified namely, to conduct comparative studies of women managers’ competence acquisition process of different nations and investigate the contextual factors’ influences on competence acquisition using quantitative approach