On a supposed Phyllocarid from the Older Palaeozoic of Tasmania

Carapace (right valve), obovate, with a ventral-prolonga. tion (probably somewhat distorted by pressure); with a rounded anterior and prolonged posterior extremity. Dorsal edge gently convex towards the ilnterior, more Strongly so in the posterior region. Ventral border concave near the abdominal arch, becoming convex and distally obscurely extended in the middle region, and meeting the concave margin anteriorly. Surface of carapace wrinkled with three or more undulatory folds, crossing obliquely from the upper anterior towards the lower posterior margin. Surface marked with coarse areolation. Dorsal margin crenulate to undulose, a character probably caused by the compression of the chitinous and inflated carapace

On some remarkable Annelid remains from Arthur River, N.W. Tasmania

Some little while ago the Government Geologist of Tasmania, Mr. P. B. Nye, M.Sc., B.M.E., forwarded to me at the National Museum, Melbourne, for determination, a specimen of slaty shale with fossil impressions. The rock must have originally been of the nature of a fine, slimy, or plastic mud, for the impressions are very well preserved. Subclass Polychaeta . Fam. TASMANADIIDAE, nov. Genus Tasmanadia, nov. Horizon.-Probably Cambrian. Locality.-Kirkup's Quarry, Arthur River, Tasmania. Holotype in Geological Survey Museum, Hobart

The argument of the broken pane: Suffragette consumerism and newspapers

Within the cut-throat world of newspaper advertising the newspapers of Britain's Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) Votes for Women and the Suffragette managed to achieve a balance that has often proved to be an impossible challenge for social movement press—namely the maintenance of a highly political stance whilst simultaneously exploiting the market system with advertising and merchandising. When the militant papers advocated window smashing of West End stores in 1912–1913, the companies who were the target still took advertisements. Why? What was the relationship between news values, militant violence and advertising income? ‘Do-it-yourself’ journalism operated within a context of ethical consumerism and promotionally orientated militancy. This resulted in newspaper connections between politics, commerce and a distinct market profile, evident in the customisation of advertising, retailer dialogue with militants and longer-term loyalty—symptomatic of a wider trend towards newspaper commercialism during this period

Time preferences and risk aversion: tests on domain differences

The design and evaluation of environmental policy requires the incorporation of time and risk elements as many environmental outcomes extend over long time periods and involve a large degree of uncertainty. Understanding how individuals discount and evaluate risks with respect to environmental outcomes is a prime component in designing effective environmental policy to address issues of environmental sustainability, such as climate change. Our objective in this study is to investigate whether subjects' time preferences and risk aversion across the monetary domain and the environmental domain differ. Crucially, our experimental design is incentivized: in the monetary domain, time preferences and risk aversion are elicited with real monetary payoffs, whereas in the environmental domain, we elicit time preferences and risk aversion using real (bee-friendly) plants. We find that subjects' time preferences are not significantly different across the monetary and environmental domains. In contrast, subjects' risk aversion is significantly different across the two domains. More specifically, subjects (men and women) exhibit a higher degree of risk aversion in the environmental domain relative to the monetary domain. Finally, we corroborate earlier results, which document that women are more risk averse than men in the monetary domain. We show this finding to, also, hold in the environmental domain

The improving sequence effect on monetary sequences

Experimental studies reveal a preference for improving income sequences, challenging the axioms of the discounted utility model, such as the present value maximization principle. Through an experiment, we test the existence of this anomaly on short and long-term income sequences, by confirming previous experimental evidence. Although the participants are aware of the present value maximization, they select improving sequences of income mainly to cover their future spending needs, to feel motivation at work, and to receive a signal of success and status. In order to include this sequence effect in a mathematical valuation model, we propose an alternative model to value sequences which outperforms the traditional discounting model by fitting the present value with the preferences of the participants

Tumour micro-environment elicits innate resistance to RAF inhibitors through HGF secretion.

Drug resistance presents a challenge to the treatment of cancer patients. Many studies have focused on cell-autonomous mechanisms of drug resistance. By contrast, we proposed that the tumour micro-environment confers innate resistance to therapy. Here we developed a co-culture system to systematically assay the ability of 23 stromal cell types to influence the innate resistance of 45 cancer cell lines to 35 anticancer drugs. We found that stroma-mediated resistance is common, particularly to targeted agents. We characterized further the stroma-mediated resistance of BRAF-mutant melanoma to RAF inhibitors because most patients with this type of cancer show some degree of innate resistance. Proteomic analysis showed that stromal cell secretion of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) resulted in activation of the HGF receptor MET, reactivation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase (PI(3)K)-AKT signalling pathways, and immediate resistance to RAF inhibition. Immunohistochemistry experiments confirmed stromal cell expression of HGF in patients with BRAF-mutant melanoma and showed a significant correlation between HGF expression by stromal cells and innate resistance to RAF inhibitor treatment. Dual inhibition of RAF and either HGF or MET resulted in reversal of drug resistance, suggesting RAF plus HGF or MET inhibitory combination therapy as a potential therapeutic strategy for BRAF-mutant melanoma. A similar resistance mechanism was uncovered in a subset of BRAF-mutant colorectal and glioblastoma cell lines. More generally, this study indicates that the systematic dissection of interactions between tumours and their micro-environment can uncover important mechanisms underlying drug resistance

Does experience with high inflation affect intertemporal decision making? Sensitivity to inflation rates in Argentine and British delay discounting choices

Delay discounting captures the way in which people devalue rewards which are not immediately available as a function of their delay until receipt. Normatively, decision makers should be sensitive to inflation rates when evaluating delayed rewards because the value of a delayed outcome is eroded by inflation. We hypothesised that participants from countries with direct experience of high inflation would be particularly sensitive to inflation rates when making intertemporal choices; i.e. they may be more likely to take into consideration the effect of inflation on future rewards. This study compares intertemporal choices of participants from countries with dramatically different histories of inflation: Argentina and Britain. Participants completed a delay discounting task under two inflation rate conditions (2% and 20%, between subjects). We found that people discounted future rewards more steeply under the 20% inflation rate condition than under the 2% condition. Participants from Argentina, the country with much higher current and historical inflation rates, discounted future rewards more steeply in both inflation rate conditions than participants from the UK. However, Argentines were not more sensitive to inflation rates than British people