Would Brexit be the final straw for financial services in the UK?

Nearly 2.2m people work in financial services in Britain, which is a global centre of excellence in the industry. What impact would leaving the EU have on the sector? Robert van Geffen looks at whether UK banks would continue to be able to ‘passport’ services across the EU and, if not, how they might get around the problem. Even assuming they were able to do that, he writes, the UK would no longer be able to influence EU financial regulation. Furthermore, it is unlikely to cut back on regulation as a result of Brexit

LSE continental breakfast 1: what can we expect from Brexit negotiations?

In the first of LSE’s Continental Breakfasts – held under Chatham House rules, so participants can speak as freely as they wish – a roundtable discussed the immediate challenges facing the UK as it triggers Article 50. Robert van Geffen distills some of the key points

Dynamic sitting

Many wheelchair-users with reduced postural stability adopt a static body posture and have problems with the performance of functional movement tasks. Prolonged static sitting with a flexed spinal posture and posterior tilted pelvis unconditionally leads to all kinds of physical discomfort including the development of pressure ulcers and low back injury. Most of these problems occur from sustained mechanical tissue loading. Dynamic seating interventions are therefore needed to alleviate the load bearing tissue periodically. We developed an experimental simulator chair en evaluated several seating interventions that are designed to enhance functional movement and to prevent physical discomfort due to prolonged static sitting. Theoretical and experimental evaluations were performed in ablebodied subjects and in subjects with a spinal cord injury (SCI). The following research questions have been answered.\ud \ud How can sitting be controlled?\ud \ud Based on a parallelogram design that aligns the chair pivots with the anatomical axes for body segments rotation, we developed a technique that adjusts all three body segments (trunk, pelvis, thighs) separately. Together with simultaneous measurement of body segments orientation, so-called body segments decoupling seemed applicable to control sitting posture when individuals lack the strength to do this themselves.\ud \ud What interventions are effective to regulate body load associated with physical discomfort (i.e. pressure ulcers and low back pain)?\ud \ud A combination of seat inclination, saggital decoupled pelvis rotation and a dynamic tuberal support appeared beneficial to regulate the load bearing tissue of the ischial buttock region and lower back simultaneously.\ud \ud What interventions benefit the performance of functional movement in impaired sitting?\ud \ud It has been suggested in literature that seating interventions which adjust pelvis angle in sagittal direction might influence spinal posture and the performance of functional movement. We investigated this in ten male SCI-individuals and found that decoupled pelvis alignment affects balance control in impaired sitting and that anterior tilted pelvis postures potentially benefit the functional performance in daily wheelchair-use

Analysis of healthy sitting behavior: Interface pressure distribution and subcutaneous tissue oxygenation

Pressure ulcers are a large problem in individuals who use a wheelchair for their mobility and have limited trunk stability and motor function. Because no relation between interface pressure and pressure ulcer development has been established and no clinical threshold for pressure ulcer development can be given, looking at the sitting behavior of nondisabled individuals is important. Nondisabled individuals do not develop pressure ulcers because they continuously shift posture. We analyzed the sitting behavior of 25 nondisabled male subjects by using a combination of interface pressure measurement and subcutaneous tissue oxygenation measurement by means of the Oxygen to See. These subjects shifted posture on average 7.8 +/- 5.2 times an hour. These posture shifts were merely a combination of posture shifts in the frontal and sagittal plane. Subcutaneous oxygen saturation increased on average 2.2% with each posture adjustment, indicating a positive effect of posture shifts on tissue viability. The results of this study can be used as a reference for seating interventions aimed at preventing pressure ulcers. Changing the sitting load at least every 8 minutes is recommended for wheelchair users