Diversion of offenders with mental disorders: Mental health courts

At present, if people with mental disorders appear before the criminal courts in Ireland, unless they are unfit for trial or not guilty by reason of insanity, the system governing their case will be the general one which applies to all criminal cases. In recent decades, a number of other common law jurisdictions have begun to set up mental health courts as a means of diverting some people with mental disorders from the criminal justice system and into more appropriate treatment. This article begins with a review of the background to mental health courts, focusing on the concept of diversion from the criminal justice system and the role of Therapeutic Jurisprudence theory as an inspiration for the establishment of mental health courts. The main features of mental health courts are identified and the features of those in existence in the United States are contrasted with those in Canada and England and Wales. Some of the main arguments against the use of these courts will be discussed, including the contentions that defendants participation may not be truly voluntary and that their due process rights are not adequately protected. The question of whether a mental health court should be established in Ireland is considered

National culture and the gender diversity of corporate boards

Controlling for board size and the presence of a female chairperson, this study investigates the association between the gender diversity of corporate boards and the six Hofstede cultural dimensions. Results indicate that the percentage of women on boards is negatively related to Power Distance and positively related to Individualism and Long-term Orientation. The percentage of women on boards tends to be higher in cultures that tolerate inequalities in the distribution of power. There is also evidence that the percentage of women on boards is influenced by the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members and the long-term horizon of decision making

Generation and investigation of resistance mechanisms to AZD5363 in breast cancer

The PI3K/AKT pathway is a key regulator of proliferation, growth and survival in mammalian cells and aberrations in the components of this pathway are often implicated in malignancy. In particular, mutations in this pathway are frequently responsible for the development of breast, prostate, and ovarian cancers. The high frequency of deregulation in this pathway means it represents a good therapeutic target, and there are now several AKT inhibitors in Phase II clinical trials for breast cancer, including the ATP-competitive AKT inhibitor AZD5363. Despite the initial success of many molecularly targeted drugs, acquired resistance is an emerging issue, and resistance mechanisms to AKT inhibitors are still relatively unknown. Research into resistance to CCT129254 (a precursor of AZD5363) in the A2780 ovarian cancer cell line has been previously undertaken (Akan, Jakubowski, Garrett; unpublished), revealing a reduction in 4EBP1 and increased phosphorylation of p70S6K. The aim of this project was therefore to develop breast cancer cell line models of acquired resistance to AZD5363, and investigate how these resistance mechanisms compare in the two different disease types. Breast cancer cell lines with mutations causing upregulation in the PI3K/AKT pathway were selected for analysis and characterised for their response to AZD5363. Resistant clones were generated through limiting dilution and chronic exposure to twice the GI50 of AZD5363. Characterisation of parental cell lines T47D, MCF-7, and ZR-75-1 showed IC50 values of 0.92, 1.34, and 0.05 µM respectively for AZD5363. Sub-clones B9 and D2 were generated from ZR-75-1, with 7.3 and 5.8-fold resistance to AZD5363, respectively. However, there was no significant cross-resistance to other AKT inhibitors GDC0068 and MK2206, and Western blotting revealed no significant changes in PI3K/AKT signalling. Taken together, this suggests that the resistance mechanism is not proximal to AKT, and another pathway may be responsible for the resistant phenotype. Additionally, a new and innovative cell-based ELISA was developed to investigate cellular signalling of GSK3? and S6RP as an alternative to Western blotting. In conclusion, characterisation of AKT inhibitor-sensitive breast cancer cell lines has led to generation of resistant cell line models for AZD5363. However, these novel findings showing a lack of AKT inhibitor cross-resistance and no significant changes in PI3K/AKT signalling in these models suggests the resistance mechanism is not proximal to AKT. Therefore, the novel resistance mechanisms observed in these breast cancer cell line models are not the same as that observed in the ovarian carcinoma model. Further investigation will be required to determine the pathway responsible for acquired resistance to AZD5363 in breast cancer cells

Global Properties of Neutral Hydrogen in Compact Groups

Compact groups of galaxies provide a unique environment to study the evolution of galaxies amid frequent gravitational encounters. These nearby groups have conditions similar to those in the earlier universe when galaxies were assembled and give us the opportunity to witness hierarchical formation in progress. To understand how the compact group environment affects galaxy evolution, we examine the gas and dust in these groups. We present new single-dish GBT neutral hydrogen (HI) observations of 30 compact groups and define a new way to quantify the group HI content as the HI-to-stellar mass ratio of the group as a whole. We compare the HI content with mid-IR indicators of star formation and optical [g-r] color to search for correlations between group gas content and star formation activity of individual group members. Quiescent galaxies tend to live in HI-poor groups, and galaxies with active star formation are more commonly found in HI-rich groups. Intriguingly, we also find "rogue" galaxies whose star formation does not correlate with group HI content. In particular, we identify three galaxies (NGC 2968 in RSCG 34, KUG 1131+202A in RSCG 42, and NGC 4613 in RSCG 64) whose mid-IR activity is discrepant with the HI. We speculate that this mismatch between mid-IR activity and HI content is a consequence of strong interactions in this environment that can strip HI from galaxies and abruptly affect star-formation. Ultimately, characterizing how and on what timescales the gas is processed in compact groups will help us understand the interstellar medium in complex, dense environments similar to the earlier Universe.Comment: Accepted to A

Kinematics of the Palomar 5 stellar stream from RR Lyrae stars

Thin stellar streams, formed from the tidal disruption of globular clusters, are important gravitational tools, sensitive to both global and small-scale properties of dark matter. The Palomar 5 stellar stream (Pal 5) is an exemplar stream within the Milky Way: Its $\sim 20^\circ$ tidal tails connect back to the progenitor cluster, and the stream has been used to study the shape, total mass, and substructure fraction of the dark matter distribution of the Galaxy. However, most details of the phase-space distribution of the stream are not fully explained, and dynamical models that use the stream for other inferences are therefore incomplete. Here we aim to measure distance and kinematic properties along the Pal 5 stream in order to motivate improved models of the system. We use a large catalog of RR Lyrae-type stars (RRLs) with astrometric data from the Gaia mission to probabilistically identify RRLs in the Pal 5 stream. RRLs are useful because they are intrinsically-luminous standard candles and their distances can be inferred with small relative precision ($\sim3\%$). By building a probabilistic model of the Pal 5 cluster and stream in proper motion and distance, we find 27 RRLs consistent with being members of the cluster (10) and stream (17). Using these RRLs, we detect gradients in distance and proper motion along the stream, and provide an updated measurement of the distance to the Pal 5 cluster using the RRLs, $d = 20.6 \pm 0.2~\textrm{kpc}$. We provide a catalog of Pal 5 RRLs with inferred membership probabilities for future modeling work.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures. Published in A