Culture change needed

Malta remains a traditional country in several aspects and avant-garde in others. It is especially traditional in terms of family responsibilities and gender equality. Compared to EU28, Malta has the third lowest number of working women (58%), because women’s first role is the family. The older the woman, the less likely she is to work. In fact, Malta ranks first in terms of the employment gender gap in the higher age groups (25-55 and 55-64) with gaps of 25% and 38% respectively. Over the past years more women have entered the labour market, yet the employment gender gap at 26% (2016 data) remains the widest in the EU. In the lower age group (15-24) there are more women working and some sharing of responsibilities may be happening in the home environment, nonetheless the biggest burden of family responsibilities is assumed by women. This is evident because Eurostat data shows that women are more likely to be employed on a part-time basis, not be self-employed, be on reduced hours, have fixed term contracts, be taking care of children, the elderly or disabled relatives or do other unpaid care work, do more housework and opt for parental leave. In fact, if one looks at the full-time equivalent employment rate, the employment gender gap increases to 31%, and ranks Malta in the first place when compared to the other 27 EU Member States.peer-reviewe

Evaluation of status of commercial fish stocks in European marine subareas using mean trophic levels of fish landings and spawning stock biomass

Most of the fish stocks in the world, including European fish stocks, are threatened by overfishing and/or degraded environmental conditions. Although the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the main policy instrument managing fish stocks in Europe, there is continued concern as to whether commercial fish stocks will achieve Good Environmental Status (GEnS) in 2020 in accordance with the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). In this context, the evaluation of the status of fish stocks in the subareas of FAO fishing area 27 was carried out using mean trophic levels (MTL) in fish landings and spawning stock biomass (SSB). Comparisons were made before and after 2008 to establish whether the trend is positive or negative. The main data sources for landings and SSB were the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) advisory reports. MTLs in landing and SSB were determined for each subarea and the subareas were categorized into four groups, according to MTLs after 2008. The first group (subareas I + II, V) had higher MTL in landings and higher MTL in SSB after 2008. Therefore, fisheries in these subareas appear sustainable. The second group was subareas VIII + IX, for which the fish stocks have higher MTL in landings but low MTL in SSB, indicating that SSB was being overfished. The third was subarea (VI), where fish stocks have lower MTL in landings than those in SSB after 2008, which may indicate that fish stocks are recovering. Fish stocks in the fourth group (subareas III, IV and VII) had low MIL in landings and the MTL in SSB was lower than that of landings before 2008. This may be due to heavy fishing. In addition, we estimated the harvest rate (HR) of the fish stocks before and after 2008. The results showed that most of the fish stocks have lower HR after 2008, indicating that the status has improved, perhaps due to improvements in the implementation of CFP. However, some fish stocks showed high HR even after 2008, so that new management options are still needed. Other factors such as eutrophication, seafloor disturbances, marine pollution, invasive species etc., influence SSB ecosystem health options and should also be incorporated in the management criteria. Most of these environmental pressures are of high priority in the MSFD, and therefore the findings of this study will be useful for both CFP and MSFD. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate in Marine and Coastal Management (MACOMA); EC 7FP [308392]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Medical countermeasures for national security: a new government role in the pharmaceuticalization of society

How do governments contribute to the pharmaceuticalization of society? Whilst the pivotal role of industry is extensively documented, this article shows that governments too are accelerating, intensifying and opening up new trajectories of pharmaceuticalization in society. Governments are becoming more deeply invested in pharmaceuticals because their national security strategies now aspire to defend populations against health-based threats like bioterrorism and pandemics. To counter those threats, governments are acquiring and stockpiling a panoply of ‘medical countermeasures’ such as antivirals, next-generation vaccines, antibiotics and anti-toxins. More than that, governments are actively incentivizing the development of many new medical countermeasures – principally by marshaling the state's unique powers to introduce exceptional measures in the name of protecting national security. At least five extraordinary policy interventions have been introduced by governments with the aim of stimulating the commercial development of novel medical countermeasures: (1) allocating earmarked public funds, (2) granting comprehensive legal protections to pharmaceutical companies against injury compensation claims, (3) introducing bespoke pathways for regulatory approval, (4) instantiating extraordinary emergency use procedures allowing for the use of unapproved medicines, and (5) designing innovative logistical distribution systems for mass drug administration outside of clinical settings. Those combined efforts, the article argues, are spawning a new, government-led and quite exceptional medical countermeasure regime operating beyond the conventional boundaries of pharmaceutical development and regulation. In the first comprehensive analysis of the pharmaceuticalization dynamics at play in national security policy, this article unearths the detailed array of policy interventions through which governments too are becoming more deeply imbricated in the pharmaceuticalization of society

Medical countermeasures for national security: a new government role in the pharmaceuticalization of society

How do governments contribute to the pharmaceuticalization of society? Whilst the pivotal role of industry is extensively documented, this article shows that governments too are accelerating, intensifying and opening up new trajectories of pharmaceuticalization in society. Governments are becoming more deeply invested in pharmaceuticals because their national security strategies now aspire to defend populations against health-based threats like bioterrorism and pandemics. To counter those threats, governments are acquiring and stockpiling a panoply of ‘medical countermeasures’ such as antivirals, next-generation vaccines, antibiotics and anti-toxins. More than that, governments are actively incentivizing the development of many new medical countermeasures – principally by marshaling the state's unique powers to introduce exceptional measures in the name of protecting national security. At least five extraordinary policy interventions have been introduced by governments with the aim of stimulating the commercial development of novel medical countermeasures: (1) allocating earmarked public funds, (2) granting comprehensive legal protections to pharmaceutical companies against injury compensation claims, (3) introducing bespoke pathways for regulatory approval, (4) instantiating extraordinary emergency use procedures allowing for the use of unapproved medicines, and (5) designing innovative logistical distribution systems for mass drug administration outside of clinical settings. Those combined efforts, the article argues, are spawning a new, government-led and quite exceptional medical countermeasure regime operating beyond the conventional boundaries of pharmaceutical development and regulation. In the first comprehensive analysis of the pharmaceuticalization dynamics at play in national security policy, this article unearths the detailed array of policy interventions through which governments too are becoming more deeply imbricated in the pharmaceuticalization of society

Bisulfite Sequencing Reveals That Aspergillus flavus Holds a Hollow in DNA Methylation

Aspergillus flavus first gained scientific attention for its production of aflatoxin. The underlying regulation of aflatoxin biosynthesis has been serving as a theoretical model for biosynthesis of other microbial secondary metabolites. Nevertheless, for several decades, the DNA methylation status, one of the important epigenomic modifications involved in gene regulation, in A. flavus remains to be controversial. Here, we applied bisulfite sequencing in conjunction with a biological replicate strategy to investigate the DNA methylation profiling of A. flavus genome. Both the bisulfite sequencing data and the methylome comparisons with other fungi confirm that the DNA methylation level of this fungus is negligible. Further investigation into the DNA methyltransferase of Aspergillus uncovers its close relationship with RID-like enzymes as well as its divergence with the methyltransferase of species with validated DNA methylation. The lack of repeat contents of the A. flavus' genome and the high RIP-index of the small amount of remanent repeat potentially support our speculation that DNA methylation may be absent in A. flavus or that it may possess de novo DNA methylation which occurs very transiently during the obscure sexual stage of this fungal species. This work contributes to our understanding on the DNA methylation status of A. flavus, as well as reinforces our views on the DNA methylation in fungal species. In addition, our strategy of applying bisulfite sequencing to DNA methylation detection in species with low DNA methylation may serve as a reference for later scientific investigations in other hypomethylated species

Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to a pair of tau leptons in pp collisions

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Measurement of prompt J/ψ pair production in pp collisions at √s = 7 Tev

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Measurement of top quark–antiquark pair production in association with a W or Z boson in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV

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