Credibility and Agency Termination under Parliamentarism

We investigate the life span and risk of termination of 723 arm’s length agencies in the United Kingdom between 1985 and 2008, an under investigated question in parliamentary systems. We hypothesize that termination risk depends on three groups of factors: (1) factors relating to the rationales for initial delegation of responsibility to the arm’s length agency; (2) factors relating to the political and economic position of the government; and (3) factors relating to the institutional form of the agency. We find that agencies intended to generate credible commitments in regulation are less likely than others to be terminated in any given year. Agencies operating under right-wing governments and under heavily indebted governments are more likely to be terminated, although left-wing governments are more sensitive to the effects of debt. Agencies structured as executive non-departmental public bodies and non-ministerial departments are also longer lived than others. Contrary to expectations about arm’s length agencies in parliamentary systems with single-party government, partisan change does not affect the risk of termination

Re-inventing New Zealand: Institutions Output and Patents 1870-1939

New estimates of commodity output and patenting are used to explore New Zealand’s transition from extensive to intensive growth. By investigating the cointegrating and causal relationships among the output of 25 industries we show that a small number of common trends shaped the contours of her economic development. In turn the leading industries were driven by knowledge growth as reflected in patents statistics. New Zealand's distinctive institutions and human capital fostered the knowledge which transformed the farming landscape, promoted wider land ownership, and created a production system which integrated farm and factory to promote intensive growth.Growth; Institutions; Patents; Common trends; Commodity output, New Zealand Research and Development

Prenatal Personhood and Life's Intrinsic Value: Reappraising Dworkin on Abortion

What is at the heart of conflict over abortion? In his celebrated contribution to the topic, Ronald Dworkin argued that disputants in the abortion debate are in fact deeply mistaken about the true terms of their disagreement. Rather than turning on the perennial question of whether or not the fetus is a person, Dworkin claimed that abortion argument is, at bottom, an argument about the intrinsic value of all human life and how it is best respected. More than twenty years after Dworkin put forward his novel thesis, this article reassesses his key claims about the nub of abortion argument, partly in light of subsequent developments in the public abortion conflict. Against Dworkin’s revisionist account of the abortion problem, I set out to show that his arguments did not successfully displace the primacy of the personhood question in moral and legal constitutional reasoning about abortion. Nor do they convincingly establish that prenatal personhood is not what contestants in the abortion debate are really arguing about

Is Sex-Selective Abortion against the Law?

The article addresses the legal status of ‘sex-selective’ abortion in British law. It argues, firstly, that abortions for which knowledge of fetal sex is a ‘but-for’ cause can be lawful under the terms of the Abortion Act 1967, so long as one of the physical or mental health grounds in section 1 of the Act is attested to in good faith by two medical professionals. The failure of governmental and health bodies to correctly state the law pertaining to sex-selective abortion in recent years owes in part to the failure to distinguish the legal grounds for abortion from the factual explanations for abortion, a distinction which, I argue, is essential for understanding the structure of Britain’s abortion law. The article also considers the claim that abortions carried out partly for reasons of fetal sex are unlawful, or, if not, ought to be legally prohibited, because of reasonable doubts about patient consent. It points out some key ways in which this consent-based objection is difficult to square with our general abortion permissions

A profile of enzalutamide for the treatment of advanced castration resistant prostate cancer.

Recent advances in understanding the mechanisms underlying the development and progression of castration resistant prostate cancer from androgen-sensitive prostate cancer have provided new avenues exploring efficacious therapies in a disease which is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among men in the western world. In the evolution of second generation anti-androgens, enzalutamide, a novel androgen-receptor signaling inhibitor, has emerged targeting multiple steps within the androgenic stimulation pathway. This review discusses what is currently known of the mechanisms surrounding castration resistant prostate cancer development and the current human clinical trials to determine whether enzalutamide presents a new hope for men with advanced prostate cancer. The issues of therapy resistance, withdrawal effects and cross-resistance are briefly touched upon

Investigating the Value of DJ Performance for Contemporary Music Education and Sensorimotor Synchronisation (SMS) Abilities

Two studies were conducted to establish a more complete picture of the skills that might be accessed through learning to DJ and the potential value of those skills for music education. The first employed open-ended methods to explore perspectives on the value of DJing for music education. The second employed experimental methods to compare the ability of DJs to synchronise movement to auditory metronomes. Twenty-one participants (seven professionally trained musicians, seven informally trained DJs, seven non-musicians) took part in both studies. Qualitative data suggested that all participant groups felt DJs learn valuable musical skills such as rhythm perception, instrumental skills, knowledge of musical structure, performance skills, and a majority agreed that DJing had equal relevance with other musical forms e.g. classical music. Quantitative data showed that informally trained DJs produced more regular timing intervals under baseline and distracting conditions than the other experimental groups. The implications of the findings for the inclusion of DJing into formal music curricula are discussed

When do health and well-being interventions work?:managerial commitment and context

Health and well-being interventions are increasingly assessed as complex processes rather than randomized controlled trials. In this study the health and wellbeing interventions refer to voluntary actions and are not in response to any regulatory requirement. This paper looks specifically at managerial commitment to these interventions and at the organisational context in which they occur. Ex-ante study predictions as to the effects of commitment in three organisations were made and then followed up. This commitment was positively associated with employee perceptions of health promotion campaigns. But broader impacts, such as commitment to the organisation and a sense of autonomy, were not evident. The explanation lies in wider features of the organisation of work: permanent constraints such as job design and shift systems ran against the aims of the health interventions. Relating well-intentioned interventions to such features of organisational life remains a challenge for many organisations

System Engineering for J-2X Development: The Simpler, the Better

The Ares I and Ares V Vehicles will utilize the J-2X rocket engine developed for NASA by the Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne Company (PWR) as the upper stage engine (USE). The J-2X is an improved higher power version of the original J-2 engine used for Apollo. System Engineering (SE) facilitates direct and open discussions of issues and problems. This simple idea is often overlooked in large, complex engineering development programs. Definition and distribution of requirements from the engine level to the component level is controlled by Allocation Reports which breaks down numerical design objectives (weight, reliability, etc.) into quanta goals for each component area. Linked databases of design and verification requirements help eliminate redundancy and potential mistakes inherent in separated systems. Another tool, the Architecture Design Description (ADD), is used to control J-2X system architecture and effectively communicate configuration changes to those involved in the design process. But the proof of an effective process is in successful program accomplishment. SE is the methodology being used to meet the challenge of completing J-2X engine certification 2 years ahead of any engine program ever developed at PWR. This paper describes the simple, better SE tools and techniques used to achieve this success

The relationship between musical preferences and Type D personality

Emotion regulation is one of the main reasons that people listen to music, and personality traits have been shown to exert significant influence in shaping musical preferences. Type D personality is a psychological risk factor for adverse health outcomes. However, no music studies have yet examined the effect of Type D personality on musical preferences, which may provide some preliminary insight into clinical applications. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship between Type D personality and musical preferences. An online survey investigating musical preferences (Revised version of the Short Test of Musical Preferences [STOMP-R]) and Type D personality was administered. In total, 196 participants completed the survey, of which half were from an Eastern culture and half from a Western culture. Forty per cent of the participants were categorised as having Type D personality, and no significant association of gender or nationality with Type D classification was observed. However, the links between Type D personality and the Punk genre (p = .047), and between non-Type D personality and the Jazz genre (p = .008) were indicated. Moreover, differences were observed in the factor structure of STOMP-R. The exploratory results facilitate the understanding of links between personality traits and music listening and provide new insight into musical preference dimensions