Judge not lest ye be judged: the trials of a model litigant

Under the "Legal Practice Guidelines on Values, Ethics and Conduct", the Australian Taxation Office ("ATO" as a Commonwealth agency is required to operate as a "Model Litigant", and to act "with complete propriety, fairly and in accordance with the highest professional standards" in litigation in which the ATO is involved. The Guidelines play an important role in promoting support for the rule of law and respect for the Australian Taxation Office and the tax system as a whole – key elements in promoting voluntary compliance with the self-assessment tax system. Appropriately, the Guidelines set "an extremely high bar to jump over", and the ATO has not always succeeded in satisfying these requirements. Two recent decisions of the Full Federal Court provide stark illustrations of ATO failures to comply with the Guideline requirements. In FC of T v Indooroopilly Childcare Services (Qld) Pty Ltd, the Court was extremely critical of the ATO's failure to follow a series of single judge Federal Court decisions, while in LVR (WA) v Administrative Appeals Tribunal, a differently constituted Court was critical of the failure by counsel for the ATO to advise the judge at first instance that the AAT’s reasons for its decision were almost wholly copied verbatim and without attribution from the Commissioner's submissions to the AAT. While no doubt lapses such as these do not reflect well on the ATO, they offer rich opportunities for analysis of multi-dimensional legal, policy and related issues. How tax teachers "frame" the analysis of such issues may influence the perception and values which students take with them into the real world. Accordingly, as intellectual gatekeepers and moral exemplars, legal academics owe a duty to their students and their profession to approach the analysis of these issues in a critical but balanced way

Genetic and functional characterisation of the autosomal dominant form of Hyper IgE Syndrome

Background: Autosomal dominant Hyper IgE Syndrome (AD-HIES) is a rare primary immunodeficiency characterized by high serum IgE levels, eosinophilia, and skin and lung infections. Additional features of AD-HIES include characteristic facial appearance, scoliosis, retained primary teeth, and joint hyperextensibility. Recently, AD-HIES has been associated with heterozygous dominant negative mutations in the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) which plays a key role in the signal transduction of a broad range of cytokines, and is crucial for IL-6-mediated regulation of Th17 cells. Objective: We aimed to characterize patients with the clinical diagnosis of ADHIES, to identify STAT3 mutations, and to assess the frequency and functional consequences of these mutations. Furthermore, we studied STAT3-dependent signalling pathways in patients with an AD-HIES phenotype but no STAT3 mutation. Methods: We sequenced STAT3 in 153 patients with a strong clinical suspicion of AD-HIES and further components of the IL-6 signalling pathway in patients found to be STAT3 wild type. The impact of the mutations on immune cell function was assessed by measurement of cytokine release by immune cells, T cell phenotyping and STAT1 phosphorylation assays. Results: About 60% of the AD-HIES patients revealed mutations in STAT3. All mutations found were heterozygous, clustered mainly in the DNA-binding or the SH2 domain and exerted dominant-negative effects. Functional analysis of mutations affecting different domains of STAT3 revealed that some mutations might have a less severe impact on functionality of STAT3, About 40% of our cohort of patients presenting with AD-HIES phenotype harboured wild type STAT3 and may carry mutations in other genes of either the same or closely related signalling pathways. Nevertheless, we ruled out mutations affecting the IL-6 pathway iIn five Sardinian patients with wild type STAT3. Impact of findings: The results lead to a better characterization of heterozygous STAT3 mutations and of the pathogenesis of AD-HIES

Ciência, tecnologia e sociedade: visões sobre transformações da pesquisa agrícola no Brasil

The present work aims at reflecting upon the future of agricultural research in Brazil, having as a background numerous changes that are taking place in the organization of such sector. It is based on a qualitative methodological strategy, the data survey being carried out by means of semistructured interviews. The interviewees were people linked to the agricultural sector in the State of Santa Catarina, namely, researchers, extension activity personnel, directors of research companies and rural extension, representatives of producers associations, former state secretaries of agriculture, government advisors, amongst others. From the analysis of the interview contents, the main issues raised are related to the role of the State, the participation of the producers in the definition of research goals and policies, the interests of private initiative, and the uprising of the figure of a "new researcher". Such issues reveal new demands from the society, urging the conception of new research models, which, on the one side, are tuned with those demands, and on the other side, promote a more critical integration of the agricultural research and the logic of the economy globalization.agricultural research, qualitative research, research management,