Understanding and protecting vulnerable financial consumers

This article considers how consumer protection law and policy should address the interests of particularly vulnerable financial consumers. Specifically, the article proposes a taxonomy of vulnerability which helps to identify (a) what makes consumers particularly vulnerable, and (b) how consumer protection law and consumer policy (broadly understood) can respond to these causes in a way that provides such consumers with appropriate protection. Changes to economic conditions, legal requirements on traders and our understanding of consumer behaviour make discussion of these issues particularly topical. There is little doubt that finding solutions is extremely difficult. Trade-offs are necessary and some enduring factors that contribute to vulnerability, in particular poverty, sometimes appear intractable. Nevertheless, it is submitted that by identifying clearly both why consumers are vulnerable and how the factors that lead to such vulnerability can be addressed, it is possible to construct an environment which respects consumer choice while ensuring that the most vulnerable are protected appropriately

A certain class of Laplace transforms with applications to reaction and reaction-diffusion equations

A class of Laplace transforms is examined to show that particular cases of this class are associated with production-destruction and reaction-diffusion problems in physics, study of differences of independently distributed random variables and the concept of Laplacianness in statistics, alpha-Laplace and Mittag-Leffler stochastic processes, the concepts of infinite divisibility and geometric infinite divisibility problems in probability theory and certain fractional integrals and fractional derivatives. A number of applications are pointed out with special reference to solutions of fractional reaction and reaction-diffusion equations and their generalizations.Comment: LaTeX, 12 pages, corrected typo

Pulse-shaped two-photon excitation of a fluorescent base analogue approaches single-molecule sensitivity

Fluorescent nucleobase analogues (FBAs) have many desirable features in comparison to extrinsic fluorescent labels, but they are yet to find application in ultrasensitive detection. Many of the disadvantages of FBAs arise from their short excitation wavelengths (often in the ultraviolet), making two-photon excitation a potentially attractive approach. Pentacyclic adenine (pA) is a recently developed FBA that has an exceptionally high two-photon brightness. We have studied the two-photon-excited fluorescence properties of pA and how they are affected by incorporation in DNA. We find that pA is more photostable under two-photon excitation than via resonant absorption. When incorporated in an oligonucleotide, pA has a high two-photon cross section and emission quantum yield, varying with sequence context, resulting in the highest reported brightness for such a probe. The use of a two-photon microscope with ultrafast excitation and pulse shaping has allowed the detection of pA-containing oligonucleotides in solution with a limit of detection of ∼5 molecules, demonstrating that practical single-molecule detection of FBAs is now within reach

HAG1 and SWI3A/B control of male germ line development in P. patens suggests conservation of epigenetic reproductive control across land plants

Bryophytes as models to study the male germ line: loss-of-function mutants of epigenetic regulators HAG1 and SWI3a/b demonstrate conserved function in sexual reproduction

Multi-user video streaming using unequal error protection network coding in wireless networks

In this paper, we investigate a multi-user video streaming system applying unequal error protection (UEP) network coding (NC) for simultaneous real-time exchange of scalable video streams among multiple users. We focus on a simple wireless scenario where users exchange encoded data packets over a common central network node (e.g., a base station or an access point) that aims to capture the fundamental system behaviour. Our goal is to present analytical tools that provide both the decoding probability analysis and the expected delay guarantees for different importance layers of scalable video streams. Using the proposed tools, we offer a simple framework for design and analysis of UEP NC based multi-user video streaming systems and provide examples of system design for video conferencing scenario in broadband wireless cellular networks

A Boost for the Emerging Field of RNA Nanotechnology: Report on the First International Conference on RNA Nanotechnology

This Nano Focus article highlights recent advances in RNA nanotechnology as presented at the First International Conference of RNA Nanotechnology and Therapeutics, which took place in Cleveland, OH, USA (October 23-25, 2010) (http;//www.eng.uc.edu/nanomedidne/RNA2010/), chaired by Peixuan Guo and co-chaired by David Rueda and Scott Tenenbaum. The conference was the first of its kind to bring together more than 30 invited speakers in the frontier of RNA nanotechnology from France, Sweden, South Korea, China, and throughout the United States to discuss RNA nanotechnology and Its applications. It provided a platform for researchers from academia, government, and the pharmaceutical industry to share existing knowledge, vision, technology, and challenges in the field and promoted collaborations among researchers interested in advancing this emerging scientific discipline. The meeting covered a range of topics, including biophysical and single-molecule approaches for characterization of RNA nanostructures; structure studies on RNA nanoparticles by chemical or biochemical approaches, computation, prediction, and modeling of RNA nanoparticle structures; methods for the assembly of RNA nanoparticles; chemistry for RNA synthesis, conjugation, and labeling; and application of RNA nanoparticles in therapeutics. A special invited talk on the well-established principles of DNA nanotechnology was arranged to provide models for RNA nanotechnology. An Administrator from National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute (NCI) Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer discussed the current nanocancer research directions and future funding opportunities at NCl. As indicated by the feedback received from the invited speakers and the meeting participants, this meeting was extremely successful, exciting, and informative, covering many groundbreaking findings, pioneering ideas, and novel discoveries

Consumer Law and Policy Relating to Change of Circumstances Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

An unprecedented number of consumer problems has been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, not least with regard to refunds of prepayments and the ability of consumers to keep up their monthly payments under loan and rental agreements. Based on a notion of societal force majeure sketched in this paper, we propose guiding principles in respect of the introduction of moratoria on recurring payments, the use of refunds or vouchers in respect of prepayments, and associated enforcement challenges. This analysis draws on experiences around the globe.Non peer reviewe

Global compactness for a class of quasi-linear elliptic problems

We prove a global compactness result for Palais-Smale sequences associated with a class of quasi-linear elliptic equations on exterior domains.Comment: 19 page